Wednesday 4 September Direct flights from Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton and Birmingham direct to the Hung

The highlight of our trip is a 3 day charter train hauled by ex-British Rail Class 56 locomotives. Built in the early 1980s a few of these locomotives royal caribean cruise line have recently been shipped over to Hungary for use by private rail operator Floyd.
Budapest is home to two World Heritage sites, one combining the castle district and the sight of both banks of the Danube, while the other one is Andrássy avenue that leads from the center of the Pest side to Heroe's square where the huge Millenium Monument is to be found. Other highlights include a vintage tram tour, a trip on an original old metro unit, a visit to the steam hauled "Children's Railway" and trip on a narrow gauge forestry line.
Wednesday 4 September Direct flights from Gatwick, Heathrow, royal caribean cruise line Luton and Birmingham direct to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. We will have a special coach transfer to our hotel The Golden Park Hotel a good 4 star hotel with character situated across the street from Budapest-Keleti station. royal caribean cruise line The touristic center of the city and the Danube are only a few metro stops away.
Thursday 5 September (B) This morning we take a three hour long sightseeing tour of Hungary's capital by coach. Budapest is home to two World Heritage sites, one combining the castle district and the sight of both banks of the Danube, while the other one is Andrássy avenue that leads from the center of the Pest side to Heroe's square where the huge Millenium royal caribean cruise line Monument royal caribean cruise line is to be found. During our sight-seeing tour we will also visit the Parliament building and Saint Steven's Basilica, as well as one of the largest synagogues in Europe and the Vajdahunyad castle, which was originally constructed from cardboard in 1896. A fine view of the city will be provided from the fortress of Citadella above the famous spa in Hotel Gellért and we will also pass by the central food market hall and the National Museum. After the sight-seeing tour, we will visit the depot of the Millenium Underground line built in 1896, the first electric subway in continental Europe. We will traverse royal caribean cruise line some of the above ground track that is not available for regular passengers and we will return to the city center on preserved Car Nr. 1, used by Emperor Franz Josef of the Austrian Habsburg house, on his visit to the city when he was reigning as King of Hungary. The afternoon will be free to discover the city at your leisure.
Friday 6 September (B) Today we make a cultural day trip to the Danube Bend, a horseshoe curve shaped gap of the Danube north of Budapest. royal caribean cruise line We begin with a coach trip to Szentendre, a pearl along the Danube. Several Serbian Orthodox churches remain in the town which also has a medieval royal caribean cruise line center with narrow alleys. Szentendre is also known as a home to artists and hosts several museums. Late morning we continue our coach trip with a short hop to the castle of Visegrád, a former summer residence for the Hungarian kings.The partially restored castle is situated on top of a hill overlooking the Danube Bend and offers marvellous views of the river and the surrounding hills. Following our visit to the castle, we will make a lunch stop at one of the fine restaurants along the Danube royal caribean cruise line where you will be able to have lunch.We then use a ferry and cross on the northern side of the Danube and drive just a few minutes to Kismaros, terminal of one of the many forestry narrow-gauge lines in Hungary. A diesel hauled charter train will take us uphill to Királyrét, an area visited by hikers and people going for a picnic at the foot of Hungary's second highest hill range, the Börzsöny. We return to Kismaros with our train and transfer there to a scheduled main line train back to Budapest. Those on the 5 day enthusiast tour join this evening.
Saturday 7 September (B) We join our special charter royal caribean cruise line train today hauled by an ex-BR Class 56 diesel locomotive. Carriages will be of the former Austrian Railways (ÖBB) Schlieren type, supplemented by a restaurant car offering a full meals service. Our day will start at Budapest Keleti station and, initially using the main line to Hegyeshalom, will travel through Ferencváros over the Danube to Kelenföld where we join the line which connects Déli station with the southern shores of Lake Balaton and the Croatian border at Murakeresztúr. We pass the small Lake Velence and soon arrive to Székesfehérvár station royal caribean cruise line which has a roundhouse on the left. Here we take the line to Szombathely. We first run through swampy flatlands but soon start climbing royal caribean cruise line through the industrial areas towards royal caribean cruise line Veszprém, a pretty town just north of Lake Balaton. Instead of running round at Boba, we take the avoiding curve which has no booked diesel-hauled trains. We continue with high speeds to Zalaszentivánand just a few minutes later we arrive to the outskirts of Zalaegerszeg where we take the very rare avoiding royal caribean cruise line line which has never seen scheduled passenger trains. Our trip takes us onwards royal caribean cruise line to the station at Zalalövő where we reverse. We retrace our steps to Zalaegerszeg where we now enter the main station and allow the loco to run round again. Upon departure, we complete all three sides of the triangle and travel the few kilometers back to Zalaszentiván where we join the line to Nagykanizsa a typical Hungarian branch line along a small valley. Reversing at Nagykanizsa our locomotive must tackle steep gradients before we continue on the main line of the Southern Railway towards Lake Balaton, with views of a big bird reserve on the left. Past here we climb out of the basin of Lake Balaton royal caribean cruise line with some magnificent views over the Lake. Soon we are back at Székesfehérvár and retrace our steps to Budapest-Keleti on the fast line.
Sunday 8 September (B) We rejoin our special train (we should have a different Class 56 locomotive) and take the line that connects Budapest with the Romanian border royal caribean cruise line of Lökösháza (Curtici) via Szolnok. Before we reach this important junction, we leave the main line along one of the connecting curves, taking us over to line 100. Just before Cegléd we again take an avoiding curve to connect us to line 140 to Szeged. After reversal we continue along the non-electrified line towards Békéscsaba to Hódmezővásárhelyi Népkert. We then travel north on the branch line to Szentes before arriving to Szajol we take the avoiding curve and junction off towards Debrecen. This is the most rare avoiding line that we use today, having not seen any booked passenger workings for several decades. We hope that timetabling will enable us to travel past Törökszentmiklós to Kisújszállás, from where we will be able to traverse the branch line to Kál-Kápolna where we join the line from Miskolc and perform royal caribean cruise line a fast run back to Budapest via the junction of Vámosgyörk, then Hatvan royal caribean cruise line and the hills surrounding Gödöllő.
Monday 9 September (B) We rejoin our train and should have a yet another royal caribean cruise line different Class 56. We retrace our steps to Érd‐felső. Here we continue towards Pécs. At Pusztaszabolcs we branch off onto the branch line to Börgönd. After traversing the short line to Szabadbattyán, we join the pretty line to Tapolca, taking us along the northern shores of Lake Balaton. After a while the scenery gets more rural and more and more vineyards can be seen on the slopes on the right. We head north via Ukk and Boba to Celldömölk. Continuing west to Szombathely we climb through a small range of hills. If the plans of GySEV to utilise former DB Class 232 locomotives come true, our train will reverse at Szombathely but the Class 56 will remain royal caribean cruise line on the rear and our train be now hauled by a 232. We retrace steps to Porpác and take the rural line north to Rajka. This is a fast single royal caribean cruise line track line through the Hungarian Small Plains. At Hegyeshalom, we cross the Budapest-Wien main line. We continue royal caribean cruise line along the single track to the border station of Slovakia at Rajka. The 232 will be detached here and our Class 56 loco will take over and we retrace steps to Hegyeshalom and take the fast main line back to Budapest. We continue via Tatabánya and then reach Kelenföld from where we travel into Budapest-Déli royal caribean cruise line to end the tour.
Tuesday 10 September (B,D) Those on the 5 day enthusiast tour leave us this morning. If you are on the full holiday then today we start by touring the tram network of Budapest. Line 14 starts in a side street by our hotel and we will board our chartered tram here. The type UV trams date from the late 1940s but their roots go back to 1939. The type was withdrawn from service in 2007 with only a couple of cars preserved. We follow an unusual route via Blaha Lujza square. And eventually royal caribean cruise line end at the depot of the 760-mm-gauge Childrens's Railway. We walk to Hűvösvölgy station where a steam hauled royal caribean cruise line charter train will be awaiting us, lack of fire hazards permitting. We will ride along the railway which was built for the 70th birthday royal caribean cruise line of Stalin. It has a viaduct, a tunnel and signalling like main line railways. The end of the line is near the peak of Széchenyi Hill. A short walk will allow us to board the cog-wheel railway, making our descend back into town. The afternoon is free. In the evening we meet up for a farewell dinner.
The tour prices shown above are the maximum price for the holiday. If we get over 90 people booked then these price will be reduced by £50 per person. If we get 100 or more people booked then prices will come down by £100 per person. This price reduction only applies to those bookings received before 31 October 2012.