Hi,

I'm planning a trip from Budapestto Pecs. Looking online, I see several posts of people leaving from the Keleti station and arriving in Pecs in under 3 hours. However, I'm not able to find any trains like this. The best I can find are from Kelenfold station and take 3 hours 10 minutes. This is more inconvenient and adds a lot of travel time for me. Am I missing something? Are there no longer any direct trains from Keleti Station to Pecs in under 3 hours? Any help is much appreciated.

Thank you!

Hi,
Unfortunately not. Those posters probably have messed up something or they were lucky and had some better schedules in the past. Maybe it was some kind of a summer schedule with additional faster trains, but definitely not for the time being.
Our National rail road carrier MAV is always "improving" and many times for the worse.
Only the westbound trains and schedules are affordable or having similarity with Western-Europe train journeys. but the Eastern or Southern are the WORST ever. Just an example:
By car it takes you under 4 hours to get to Belgrade.
By train or bus its 7-8 hours the minimum
Find a carpool service, its less than 2 hours to get to Pecs.

We definitely found a train that goes from Budapest to Pécs in the time mentioned leaving from Keleti station. Same for the return trip.

This is what I found for June travel: http://www.raileurope.com/spip.php?p...s&step=results

www.bahn.de/en - German Railways pan-European schedule page shows only buses changing to trains that take 3 h 20 fastest and require one change of trains. Okszi obviously is the authority here. For lots on trains check also www.seat61.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

Did you check the site I used? It shows direct trains a shade under three hours. And that was my experience. Perhaps it applies only to the summer season, and I recall that I had problems originally in finding a schedule for direct trains. I found it and even purchased the tickets on line before leaving the States.

Thank you both very much!

Okszi - are there any sites/services you recommend for the carpool? Do you have an idea of how much this would cost? I tried looking a few up but wasn't sure how reputable they were.

Michael - that's amazing! I swear I looked on all the Hungarian sites and found nothing. One point that's little worrying is that it's almost $90 roundtrip which seems unusually high for Hungary. Are trains to Pecs just higher in price?

Again, thank you both for your help!

I do not recall paying that much, and recall it as very affordable. But I went through the Hungarian rail site to purchase the tickets, not Rail Europe.

Here's what I found on the Hungarian rail site: MÁV-START :: ELVIRA - belföldi vasúti utastájékoztatás and yes, the ride without any change is takes 3 hours and 40 minutes.


And the cost is about $23 one way.

I wrote a trip report of our cruise on the Danube which includes a section on Budapest and Pécs; click on my name to find it.

Warning: we were accosted by a "plainclothes policeman" outside the Keleti station who asked for our ID and how much money we were carrying. He disappeared as soon as I suggested we go to the police kiosk in the train station.

Okszi I believe, a local, has the most current info.

In other words, the official Hungarian train site is wrong?

Well yes it must be - sorry for looking on bahn.de but usually reliable. Let me bow out. The Hungarian link you provide should be the right one.