A good reason to pedal

80,000 cyclists in Deák Ferenc Tér.

Critical Mass

The future?

The youngest person in the rally

Parliament

The night skyline

Spring has sprung

An alternative view of the castle

The only royalty left in Budapest

Who's across the street?

A memorial to a life that should have been

Hungarian National Opera House

Deák Ferenc Tér

WWII items, probably stolen

Flea market

An evening thunderstorm seen from our balcony

One could wonder how it is possible to get something so wrong. This is a city that suite cycling perfectly, it is mostly flat and distances are short. For me and 80,000 others who share this view it was time to show it on Sunday with the annual "Critical Mass" bike awareness rally. It is quite a sight when this many cyclists gather to do a tour of the city and show just how "critical" the need is for proper infrastructure. The reality is that most people don't cycle anywhere, and it appears that many dusted off their bikes and pumped up their tyres just for the event. The surprises me because the very efficient and wide reaching transport system reduces people to despair because of an arcane ticketing that can bring even the most experienced traveller to tears! I guess for most locals, a monthly travel card is the solution, however, for those of us that ride bikes normally and only stoop to the lows of this system when absolutely required. You may wonder what I'm going on about? Well, say you want to head to the lovely Buda Hills, easy...a great range of transport CAN whisk you there from anywhere in the city in no time IF you have the correct tickets. Here is the challenge! A new ticket is required for each segment of the journey, in my case that is one to get to down, a second to get across the rover to Buda, a third to get the tram to the cog railway that ascends the hill and a fourth to board for the final ascent. Easy? NO. The ticket windows are never open at the small stations so one must grapple with the high-tech touch screen ticket machine which is on the other side of the track, to get there you must head back up to the street and wait for the traffic to clear in order to cross and go back down into the station. The machine will refuse your money until you realise that you can not put more than a 2000 forint note into it. Ok, no problem, for my 270 forint ticket I have a 500 forint note. It happily sucks in the note only to spit it out again...every angle is futile. Finally I feed it 200 forints, yes! Just what it wanted. It then sounds like I have gotten the jack pot on the slot machine as my 1730 forints come rattling out in coins! So, with my shorts now dangling around my ankle because of 13 kgs of coins in my pocket and clutching my now precious ticket, I again return to the other side of the road to the sound of the train arriving. I frantically stuffing the ticket into the validation machine, I wait while it neatly takes a small nibble out of the corner and stamps it, phew...done. I take a step towards the cute little yellow train as the door buzzes, closes in my face and the train rolls out. Fortunately, this is an efficient system and the next one is just two minutes away. I wait in silence.

To cut a VERY long story short, this is an easy stop! Just imagine the multitude of machines where it simply takes your money and does not give you a ticket, or only accepts coins but gives no ticket. Every combination is possible. How do you explain that to the controller who is standing waiting for you? They are just there waiting impatiently to relieve me of the content of my 13 kg wallet. They are specifically chosen for there lack of compassion, language skills and interest in their jobs. A perfect combination for anyone working with the public.

Finally after repeating this 4 times, I arrive for a relaxed stroll in the leafy hills.

Why would anyone want to cycle instead?