It was a 15-hour train ride to Budapest, leaving at midnight and arriving at 3pm. I took three different trains at night but none of them were night trains with sleeping cars, but regular express trains with normal seats. I had to change trains in Stuttgart with some transfer time (1.30am – 5am…). It was freezing cold inside the station’s main hall, there was only one tiny café open that was already bursting (not even the McDonald’s was open) so I sat on a bench in front of a closed restaurant and tried to sleep. My nap was abruptly interrupted when the cleaning ladies shooed me away at around 4am to wipe the floor (low-point of the trip right there). At least the train ticket was crazy cheap…
Shoes on the Danube Bank, a war memorial to honor the Jews killed during the Nazi Regimes. They were ordered to take off their shoes before they were shot, so their bodies fell into the Danube river and their shoes remained on the river banks.
