HUNGARY 2012 TRIP

Introduction:

From June 29 to July 15, 2012, we had a wonderful vacation in Europe. We visited the cities of Salzburg and Vienna, in Austria, Budapest in Hungary and Prague, Dubi and Teplice in the Czech Republic. We also spent two great days birdwatching in eastern Hungary. The only issue we had, and we coped well enough with it, was that the weather was a good deal warmer than usual for most of our trip. For the birding part of the account, see the latter part of this report.

Flight:

We began looking a few months ahead of our trip date, using various internet travel sites and became aware that prices had taken a good jump since our last visit to Europe two years ago; largely, we were told, due to fuel charges. We finally bought tickets using a combination of my frequent flyer miles from my credit card and Expedia: I got my ticket free, and we bought three from Expedia, having to be on the phone with them while also having Expedia up on my computer screen. We had seen some very small fluctuations in price and knew there were less seats these days, which led us to buy on April 13 when we saw Lufthansa becoming the cheapest option. The purchase price for the three tickets was $3,382.20, which they listed as $1437 for the tickets and $1945 for taxes and fees.

We flew flight 423 from Boston to Frankfurt on 6/29/12 from 4:35 pm to 5:30 am. Next was flight 1392 from Frankfurt to Prague on 6/30/12 from 8:00 am to 9:05 am. The return was on flight 1397 from Prague to Frankfurt on 7/15/12 from 1:55 pm to 3:05 pm and then flight 420 from Frankfurt to Boston from 6:15 pm to 8:35 pm.

Car Rental and Insurance:

We worked with AutoEurope who gave us a great deal in England; they work with the rental companies and offer you the best deal they can get from these companies. Given our need to drive through various countries we couldn't consider all the options, but we still believe we got a good deal. They had us go with Budget in a very nicely running diesel Volkswagon Passat wagon. The charge for renting from June 30, 10am to July 15, 12noon was $777, which we paid before taking our trip. We had to pay a 20Euro charge at Budget in the Prague airport due to our driving in various countries, but we were advised of this ahead of time. Budget appeared to have their act together in the airport as we recalled was the case the last time we rented from them in Prague in 2004.

For insurance we went with TravelGuard. We had read about them in one of Rick Steve's travel books. They gave a full coverage insurance for the time period at $147. You may need to show their official certificate if the rental agency asks and, if the rental agency insists you use their insurance, TravelGuard will refund you. For our trip, Budget did not ask to see anything, but had us sign that we understood that Budget was not insuring us.

Driving:

We have a Michelin Map of the Czech Republic which also includes the neighboring countries we visited and allowed us to see the major highways. I then printed out, using online maps such as en.mappy.com, some of the detailed road maps we would need. It turned out a couple of times I could have printed a few more pages. In general, as to be expected in west and central Europe, people are willing to lend a hand in giving additional directions and this we needed on two occasions. While driving was fairly safe, I must admit the persons who drive the larger black cars with dark windows in general drive like absolute morons. Not surprising, you will see plenty of these cars in parking lots near government buildings and much less frequently at other sites.

Photos:

I've included a few photos: Griffon Vulture at Der Untersberg, Austria; Butterfly in the Hortobagy, Hungary; Roller in the Hortobagy; White Stork with young in nest, Bukk Hills, Hungary; Hare in the Hortobagy.

Day by Day:

We arrived in the Czech Republic at the Prague airport in the morning of June 30, proceeded to get our luggage and our rented car. We then headed out to Salzburg Austria, via Munich. We encountered a good deal of traffic around Munich due to road construction, adding about an hour to what should have been a five hour trip from Prague to Salzburg.

We arrived to our hotel in Salzburg, the Altstadthotel Amadeus (http://www.hotelamadeus.at) with a few hours of daylight left, given the very long days. The hotel rate included breakfast. The breakfasts were very good and the room was fine. The location of the hotel was also very good, with shops nearby where we could get food, like fruit, to carry with us. We parked at a public pay parking place nearby the hotel. We had arrived on the hottest day of the year and also while a very well attended street music fest was going on. Michael, at the front desk was very good in pointing out things to do and places to go that were not on our small list of things we wanted to do. He recommended an excellent place to get food: An Augustin Abbey, outside of the typical tourist area. On our way to the Abbey we passed through the lovely Mirabel Gardens.

On Sunday, the 1st of July, we went to the Salzburg Castle, the Cathedral and Mozart's birth house before lunch, having gotten a Salzburg Card. After lunch we went to two places Michael had suggested: the tram to the top of Der Untersberg tram, which you get to by a local bus, and the Hellbraun Palace with it's Trick Fountains. The tram was great, going up to some high mountain tops at 7 meters per second. There are small glaciers up here. We saw several alpine choughs and had a wonderful flyby of a griffon vulture. The Palace was also very nice, with it's fountains, vast gardens and nice playground for the kids. It also stayed open quite late so we saw more this day than we had anticipated.

On Monday, the 2nd of July, we went around the corner from the hotel to the home where Mozart spent a number of years living. We then headed out to the saltmine at Berchtesdagen. I had been here before and wanted my family to experience the mine tour, which is great. We then headed to Vienna and got to our hotel room. We took the tram and went over by the city hall. There was a film of a ballet being shown in front of the city hall and there was also a movie festival going on during our stay. The hotel was the Best Western hotel Pension Arenberg. We had a fine large room for three nights, which included a very good breakfast. The room had air conditioning, which was very useful as it was still very hot and even in the evening it did not cool much. We were charged 28 Euros per day for parking in the garage.

Tuesday, 3rd July, we headed out to the big city. We walked to Stephansdom, paid to walk around inside and enjoyed this tremendous cathedral. Walked past the Plague Column and over to Parliament for a tour. The tour was very good, in large part due to the enthusiasm and knowledge of the guide. Next, we went to the Burg Theater for a tour; a giant stage area. Final stop for the day was at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, or art museum. We managed to see the main attractions in this excellent large museum, but in the end had to leave as it was closing at 6pm. Phew, quite a day!

The 4th of July found us starting off purchasing a ticket at the Imperial Palace that would give us entrance to the palace museums, an off site furniture museum and the Schonbrunn palace. We toured the Palace museums: cutlery, apartments and Sisi tour. We had seen the trilogy of movies made about Sisi before coming on our trip and were very happy with this museum. We next went to the Butterfly House. Very nice place and some wonderful butterflies; the kids loved it. I didn't stay inside as long as my wife and kids: the heat was still strong outside and inside it was hot and humid. Each of the girls got a butterfly to land on their hand. After cooling down with some ice cream we began heading towards Belvedere, using a tram and doing a decent amount of walking. En route we stopped at a Billa grocery store and got sandwiches which we ate in front of Karlskirche. Finally getting to Belvedere we chose to not go in the contemporary art museum but rather to just walk the grounds.

On the morning of the 5th of July, a Thursday, we took the metro to Schonbrunn Palace and had the palace tour and spent some time on the garden grounds; a phenomenal place. It was hot and people were sticking to the shaded areas. We returned to our hotel, got the car and headed to the Zentralfriedhof, the central cemetery of Vienna, which is quite a ways from the center of town. We managed to locate this non-tourist place and were delighted to stand among the graves of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Strauss and a statue devoted to Mozart. We next headed off to Budapest. Shortly after entering Hungary and buying our highway ticket at the vignette, as I was switching over to the slow lane after passing a large truck, the person behind me apparently felt I was not moving over fast enough. In his Mercedez Benz, while still behind me, he swerved over to the asphalt to the right of the slow lane, went in front of us, slammed on his brakes, with smoke coming from his tires, and then stepped on the gas again. He did this again a few seconds later. All I can say is that I was fortunate not to rear-end this moron and acted quickly. I really hoped this was just a random, probably inebriated idiot and not something I was going to encounter again. My hopes came true.

We got to Budapest in a couple of hours and managed to not take the bridge we wanted to take in crossing the Danube; though it's not clear what difference it would have made. We spent over an hour in the rush hour crawling traffic before finally getting to the Marriot. This was the only hotel which we did not deal directly with. Though we asked if they could accommodate two adults and two children in a room, we booked through CheapTickets, with no breakfast included. Parking, under the hotel, was about 28 Euros per day. The room first assigned to us did not have a direct view of the chain bridge, and they moved us to another room after we asked if we could. They rolled in a small bed for our daughters and we were set. We took advantage of the little store open 24 hours a day right across the street.

On Friday, the 6th of July, we headed over to Parliament to get the 10am tour. We were first told we had to wait in a line in the blazing sun to get tickets. Everyone couple of minutes the person(s) at the head of the line got to go to the Parliament building to a ticket office and buy a ticket and then return. They could have put the line in the shade under nearby trees, but they insisted the line be in a shadeless area. Getting our tickets we learned the next tour was at 12 noon. We took a walk over to St. Stephen's Basilica and toured the inside and then got something to eat. We did the Parliament tour and it was not at all like the one in Vienna. It consisted of looking at some statues under the main rotunda while the guide told who the statues were of and then a look inside one of the meeting rooms. At one point a diplomat walked by and we were told to stand still and be quiet while he and his entourage passed by. The way the tour was run was very odd and one sensed the old system still maintained a sort of presence amongst the bureaucrats of Budapest. We then headed over to the Palace via tram and some walking, getting some ice cream on the way to try to stay cool. We visited the Hungarian National Gallery and then walked, stopping to fill up on water, over to the Fisherman\rquote s Bastion and Matyas Church. The church is not cheap to enter and a considerable amount of construction obscured a good deal of the interior. We made our way back to the hotel and then dinner. We took a 9pm river cruise: it is very difficult to beat the view of Buda and Pest at night from a boat!

The morning of the 7th of July, a Saturday, found us putting the luggage in the car in the underground parking and heading out to have breakfast at Cafe Gerbraud nearby our hotel. We headed up with the metro to the Museum of Fine Arts and enjoyed the exhibits. With the days still very hot we got some ice cream and spent some time by the Millenium Monument. Next we headed to the Franz Liszt Museum. With three piano players in our family and a fondness for his music, this was a small museum but a big treat. We then tried to get back to the hotel with the metro but found out that they closed the metro line since their was going to be a gathering of homosexuals on Andrassy Boulevard. We wound up taking a round about way back to the hotel, using two street trams. We paid for our parking and headed out to try and get to Nomad Hotel in Noszvaj, in the Bukk Hills region of Hungary. We had to backtrack a little once on the way to finding the hotel. Barbara was a generous host. We relaxed at a large dinner with a couple from England and afterwards the girls had a swim in the pool.

The 8th of July, Sunday, was a day for bird watching in the Bukk Hills: see below for details on the day. We birded early, had a great buffet breakfast and then headed out again. We finished the day by driving to Tiszafured, in the Hortobagy region of Hungary: the western portion of the great plains. Our hotel for the next two nights was the Hableany Hotel. Our rate included a buffet breakfast, and we paid a little extra for having an air conditioned unit. The unit was very large and very nice. We had a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant.

On Monday, the 9th of July, we spent the day birdwatching after the buffet breakfast: see below for details on the day. The hotel was kind enough to provide an early breakfast for us! There was a lady working at the hotel last night and all day today who I could communicate with in German, but she was not there on Tuesday which made communications a little more challenging. We again had a nice dinner at the hotel.

On Tuesday, the 10th of July, we had breakfast and took a little walk along the river across from the hotel. We then set out to drive to Prague. While in some light stop and go traffic on the loop highway around Budapest we were just to the left and behind a large cargo truck which nearly impacted the truck in front of him. Otherwise the trip was fairly uneventful. We passed through Bratislava and wound up at our hotel in Prague, the Novomestsky Hotel. We had stayed here before, along with my father and sister, and they remembered us and, while I didn't ask, they seemed to give us a good rate. It appeared we even had the same room from 2004: # 308. They have an arrangement with a couple of car garages nearby and I went off to park our car in one. We actually got the same room we had eight years earlier. Settled in, we went to talk along the river, near the opera house, to take in the fantastic views before getting a good sleep.

The 11th of July, a Wednesday, we breakfasted and then went over to the Bethlehem Chapel where a brother of my father works. I had seen him eight years earlier but never really spoke with him. We had a very nice meeting and also a nice tour of the interesting Chapel. We then headed over near the Town Hall of Old Town, to meet a friend from Leipzig and also to see the clock strike at noon. Our friend and her daughter were delayed in arriving but we all go to see the clock at noon. Having been to Prague in 1991 and in 2004, we were not going to race around and try to see all we could in a short time. Instead we slowly walked, getting a bite to eat en route, over and up to the Prague Castle. Together with our friend and her daughter we all toured the Castle: St Vitus's Cathedral, the Royal Palace, St George's Basilica and Golden Lane. After finishing our friend had to depart and we said our fairwells. We went over to the Sternberg Palace. It was nice, but the upper floor was closed. Slowly we made our way back to the hotel, went out to eat and relaxed.

The 12th of July, Thursday, we met my cousin and he led us, in his car, to his house. We had a nice brunch and great time together. His home is near Karlstein Castle and he led us to the parking lot and we said goodbye. We got a tour of the Castle, which was great not only because the place is fascinating, but also because of the enthusiasm and excellent command of the English language of the tour guide. After the tour we made our way back around Prague and up to Teplice. We showed up at the Pension Kamenky, which we had reserved for three nights. We had been in touch with the manager and all seemed set. Upon arrival he told us that he was full. I was quite upset and so was he, which I didn\rquote t understand until later. We managed to get a room a couple buildings over at Hotel Termal. As we were getting settled in the manager of Pension Kamenky stopped by and said that there was some confusion and we could tell he felt a little bad. I used the web page that I had been using to communicate with him just before we left, stating that we look forward to our stay and are leaving. It seems the web page e-mail goes to an agency and they mistranslated my message to mean we wanted to cancel! He showed us the e-mail from the agent and it was clear that there was a mistake. In any case, our new room was fine and each day we had a great breakfast, as part of our room, a couple buildings over at the Pension Pinochio. That first night my cousin, who lives in Teplice and my aunt, who lives in Dubi, came by and visited briefly. My cousin dropped my aunt to her home, came back and we went out to a very good dinner at the Svejk Restaurant and a great time together. The street that our hotel was on is very near the old center and quite peaceful.

On Friday, the 13th of July, we had a very nice breakfast, my cousin stopped by and he led us to my aunt\rquote s home. We stayed most of the day at her home. We took a walk over to a ceramic shop, bought some fantastic hand made ceramics, and by the post office. We had a great time visiting with my aunt, her husband, two cousins, and a spouse of one of the cousins. My aunt even had the daughter of a friend over to help keep our kids occupied. Got back to the hotel and relaxed.

Our last full day in Europe, Saturday the 14th of July. My two cousins came by and we headed out to Krupka Castle, nearby Dubi. We then took a look at a couple of nearby monuments to defeats of Napolean. Headed back to my aunt's home and then to a nearby animal zoo. Back to my aunt's home, met the son of one of my cousins and spent some more time with one another. Finally said our goodbyes and headed back to Teplice. We had some excellent ice cream from Pension Pinochio and took a walk around Teplice. Spent the night packing.

Birding:

We had done some birding in Europe: a little in Germany and in Italy, more in the UK, and more in the Czech Republic and Spain, totaling 189 species seen in Europe. With our visit to Budapest and our knowing that some exciting birding was possible just east of this city, we couldn't pass up a visit, if only a brief two days.

I tried to get in touch with one or two birding guides via the web who did not respond. Next I tried Gerard Gorman: I was familiar with his terrific book on birding in eastern Europe. He helped us with getting guides and with suggestions as to what lodgings to use.

In addition to Gerard's book we enjoyed reading some reports of trips others have made: A birding trip report to Hungary - April 26th to 8th May 2010 by Geoff Dicker at surfbirds.com; Eastern Hungary, June 3-10 2006, Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays, reported by Rob Macklin; Eastern Hungary, September 16-23 2006, Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays trip, reported by Russell Leavett; Birding trip Hungary (+Eastern Austria) 4-16 May 2005, John van der Woude; Hungary Austria report & list, May 5-16, 2005, by Jan Vermeulen, from birdtours.co.uk; Hungary September 2003, Anytime Tours, Woods, Woodpeckers and ... ... Wheelchairs!

On our first day, the 8th of July, the English couple and ourselves met with our guide at the Nomad Hotel: Roy Adams, of Hungarian Bird Tours. We had a great time with Roy, who is originally from the UK and is very knowledgeable about the birds of Hungary and where to find them. We first birded, from 7am to 9am, a short distance up from the hotel in the Bukk Hills. We had some nice birds, and some fantastic butterflies kept the girls occupied. We had breakfast, packed up our bags and put them in the car. We then headed to a number of different types of areas: pristine hornbeam forest, agriculture lands, a vineyard, a small lake with muddy shores, parks and residential areas. Our lunch was taken at a petrol station with an area indoors to eat, and to escape the heat! Late in the day we said our goodbyes and we made our way to Tiszafured. All in all, it was a great day, with a total of 52 birds seen that day and 6 heard: more than we had anticipated. Though we enjoyed all the birds, our three favorites were: bee-eater, Syrian woodpecker and hawfinch. Thank you Roy and to the English couple!

On our second day, the 9th of July, we woke at Hotel Hableany and had an early breakfast. We went down the road a few kilometers and at 7am met our guide for the day: Zsolt Vegvari. It was another hot day, but it was productive and enjoyed very much. We started off near water bodies: lakes, lagoons, marshes. Good numbers of birds were seen and we then set off to look for some raptors, saker in particular. The raptors had fledged but it seemed our best bet was to look at the nest boxes of the sakers which have been placed on some electric line towers coming in from the Ukraine. We did see some raptors but now the saker or any eagles; plenty of kestrels. We had lunch, again at a gas station, and headed more into the Hortobagy itself, still looking for raptors but still no luck. We did see a lot of birds, and Zsolt has a tremendous ear and many were heard. We saw 49 species and 18 were heard. The day ended with a wind and rain storm near sunset, accompanied by our first cool air in Europe!

In our driving we also saw some other birds in Germany and the Czech Republic as well as Austria: for the latter see above about Der Untersberg. As a couple final comments, we did see something shadowy flying in front of the palace in Budapest at night, which may have been a nightjar, and we also saw an un-id'd black headed gull in Salzburg.

HUNGARY: 79 species seen, 13 new (in blue), 1 new for Europe (great egret). I include the quail as seen as he was heard very near by several times. B is for Bukk hills, H for Hortobagy, R for roadside and Bp for Budapest. We though we saw bee-eater and hoopoe while driving but were unable to slow down or stop.

Species seen:

mute swan	H
greylag goose	H
teal	B
mallard	B,H,Bp
ferruginous duck	H
quail	B,H
pheasant	H
great crested grebe	H
pygmy cormorant	H
cormorant	B,H,Bp
night heron	H
great egret	H
grey heron	B,H
purple heron	H
white stork	B,H
black stork	H
marsh harrier	B,H
buzzard	B,H,Bp
honey buzzard	B
kestrel	H
red-footed falcon	H
hobby	H
coot	B,H,Bp
little ringed plover	B
lapwing	B,H
curlew	H
wood sandpiper	B
common sandpiper	B
ruff	B
black-headed gull	B,H
yellow-legged gull	B,H
caspian gull	H
common tern	B,H
whiskered tern	H
rock dove	B
wood pigeon	H
collared dove	B,H,R
turtle dove	B,H
swift	B,Bp
bee-eater	B
roller	H
great spotted woodpecker	B,H(h)
syrian woodpecker	B
lesser spotted woodpecker	B,H(h)
crested lark	B,R
skylark	H
sand martin	H
swallow	B,H,R
house martin	H
tawny pipit	H
yellow wagtail	B,H(h)
white wagtail	B,R
black redstart	B,H
blackbird	B,H,Bp
blackcap	B,H(h)
chiffchaff	B,Bp
wren	B
collared flycatcher	B
long-tailed tit	B
marsh tit	B
coal tit	B
blue tit	B,H(h)
nuthatch	B
short-toed treecreeper	B
lesser gray shrike	H
red-backed shrike	B,H
magpie	B,H,Bp
rook	H
hooded crow	B,H,Bp
raven	B
starling	H
golden oriole	B,H
house sparrow	B,H,Bp
tree sparrow	B
goldfinch	B,H
greenfinch	B,H(h)
hawfinch	B
yellowhammer	B
corn bunting	H

Species heard only:

moorhen	B,H
marsh sandpiper	H
greenshank	H
middle spotted woodpecker	B
nightingale	B
song thrush (others saw)	B
whitethroat	H
moustached warbler	H
reed warbler	H
great reed warbler	H
penduline tit	H
treecreeper	B
jay	B
chaffinch	H
linnet	H

Germany both new for Germany

kestrel
swift

Czech Republic no new ones

white stork
wood pigeon
great spotted woodpecker
great tit
nuthatch
jay
magpie
starling
yellowhammer

Austria all new for Austria, 1 lifer

griffon vulture
kestrel
swift
robin
blackbird
chiffchaff
blue tit
nuthatch
magpie
alpine chough
hooded crow
house sparrow
chaffinch