Air travel was difficult for Miklos, but there were assistants at each airport to help with luggage and with getting from place to place. There is no such help on a train. No helpers, no wheelchairs, not even a luggage cart. We had our carryon baggage plus one larger suitcase. Yes, I can learn to travel lighter, but for this trip, I thought we needed extra because we would be gone three weeks and experience different weather patterns.

Boarding the train in Budapest was straight-forward and easy to navigate. Signage is in both Hungarian and English, and besides, Miklos reads Hungarian. There were some strong, friendly Scots traveling on the same train who helped us get our luggage up the stairs. Service in first class was excellent and we enjoyed the passing scenery.

We arrived in Prague and found no directions for departing the station. There was no one to ask directions. When we finally found an exit, it was obviously a back entrance. We hauled our luggage up a hill and looked for a taxi. There were none available. I tried to get service on my phone, but of course, I didn’t have an international calling plan, and I needed Internet service to use What’sApp.

We were finally able to stop a pedestrian and ask where we might be able to get Internet service. She suggested a coffee shop at the end of the block, and up another hill. We were exhausted by the time we got there. And I still had no way to call a taxi or Uber. The manager saw our plight and called for us.

When the Uber driver deposited us at the address for the hotel, we found a corrugated metal door covering the entrance, and no sign at all. We were tired, confused, and more than a little stressed. We lugged our suitcases down the street looking for help.

Finally, we found a restaurant where a young man from Ukraine explained to us that most establishments in Prague close at five pm, including the reception areas for hotels. He kindly called the number given for the hotel. We discovered that we should have received an email telling us that if we arrived after five, we would need to retrieve our keys from a different hotel.

Armed with that information, we again trudged several blocks, suitcases in tow, to the right address, picked up our room keys, and returned to our hotel. We discovered that, like many European establishments of a certain age, our hotel’s elevator landed between floors. We carried our by now extremely heavy bags up to the elevator, went up two flights, and carried the bags up another half flight to the third floor (second floor in European terminology, where the ground floor is not first). There we discovered that our room was actually in the attic, up another flight of stairs. We were exhausted.

Our train travels continued to be travails until we arrived in Vienna and were welcomed at the station by Cousin Anna and her husband Edward.