These two journeys, to and fro from Krakow, I have deliberately put on the blog, because we had a tough time getting these tickets and that too, was through a third party, Czech-Transport.com, not the official railway website itself.
These were the tickets which had been the most difficult to purchase. Quite a bit of time which we spent planning, was devoted to this leg of the journey, and these were the costliest tickets too. Contrary to the impression which one gets through reviews on the internet, the station in Krakow was good. The best part was that there was a lift direct from the parking to the platform. As we already had the ticket with us we went to our designated platform and there was hardly any walking involved with the luggage. We went down the escalator from the platform to confirm our train number as the number on the ticket and that on the display board was not matching.
Our ticket this time was in couchette(equivalent to sleeper in India). It was a compartment of six berths but had been given to us as four berths. We had the compartment to ourselves and the water closet was outside. It was cramped after all our luggage came in. As there were heaters installed below the berths there was not enough space for the luggage. The compartment was not air conditioned and neither did it have any fans. It was a little stuffy initially but as the train started it became pleasant.
Budapest Keleti.
Once reaching Budapest, we had to buy tickets to Vienna, as it was not possible to purchase them on the net. At the international ticket counter. There were small boxes from where you could get a token number, and the number was displayed on the counter where you were supposed to go.
The clerk was helpful because she asked us if we were traveling as a family and advised us to take a return ticket, instead of one way, to Vienna, because it worked out to be cheaper, as then our 13yr old would travel free. We had asked us for the 5am tickets but she said that as maintenance work was going on, the train is usually late, so better to go for the 6:30am one. We were more than happy that she had taken the pains to help us.
Just outside the station towards the left was the taxi stand, from where we took the taxi to our apartment.
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