Local guides will be with you during sightseeing tours and a Danube Express Tour Manager will accompany you throughout.
Budapest
Arrival in Budapest for a two-night stay in this cosmopolitan city straddling the Danube. You will stay in the recently refurbished Hotel Astoria (4 star), or similar, situated in the very center, only a few minutes walk from the Danube and with easy access to all parts of the city. Dinner will be in the hotel and you will have time for a stroll along the river to see the illuminated city.
Budapest
Your morning sightseeing tour includes the Cathedral, Heroes Square, and City Park on the Pest side. On the Buda side you will visit Gellert Hill for possibly the best views of Budapest and finally Castle Hill and the St. Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion. In the afternoon you have the option of a visit to the Children’s Railway in the Buda Hills. In the evening you will have dinner in a restaurant close to the hotel.
Budapest to Keszthely
On departure from
Budapest the Danube Express heads westwards. Lunch is served as the train skirts the southern shore of
Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe. In
Keszthely you have the option of visiting the baroque castle or taking a short coach journey to Hvz to enjoy a swim in the lake fed by warm springs. Dinner is served as the train heads alongside the northern shore of the lake.
Keszthely to Vienna to Budapest
After breakfast on the train you arrive in
Vienna, a city with one of the finest cultural, architectural and artistic heritages in Europe. Your sightseeing tour includes St Stephan’s Cathedral, Schnbrunn Palace, the Ring with it’s imposing buildings and the Prater wheel made famous in the film “The Third Man”. You re-join the train for lunch as it heads south over the
Semmering Pass, the first railway to be constructed over the Alps and itself a UNESCO World Heritage site. 150 years after its building, it still impresses the traveller as a special experience by its varied landscape and characteristic sequence of viaducts and tunnels, curvature and grades. Conceived from the outset as an effort of ‘landscape gardening’, it attempts a harmonious combination of technology and nature. In
Graz there will be free time to wander round this University City, where the ‘old town’ is one of the best preserved city centres in Central Europe. Enjoy a drink in the lounge car before dinner as the train heads eastwards and back into Hungary.
Budapest
After breakfast the train arrives back in
Budapest and there will be an excursion to the Buda Hills for a ride on the Children’s Railway. Under adult supervision, this short narrow-gauge line is operated by school children who have done well at school, fulfilling the roles of cashiers, ticket inspectors, signalmen and traffic manager. Akin to a railway academy, many of the children will progress to a career on the big railway. The journey of around ten kilometres takes you through the woods with views over Budapest.
Your last night will be back in the Hotel Astoria.
Budapest
After breakfast, departure for onward connections home.
Please note this tour also operates in the reverse direction.
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