This time we're trapped
on a party train for 20 hours
before arriving in Budapest,
where we bath in tubs of beer,
eat at Spielberg and De Niro's
favorite Jewish restaurant,
and party again
at an illegal art rave.
Trains aren't just for posh
travel writers anymore,
and with the pandemic putting
pressure on airlines
to have fewer short-haul flights,
we'll hopefully be seeing
a lot more of them.
We'd heard about a 20-hour overnight
train from Amsterdam to Budapest
that had its own nightclub.
Most of the 1,000 people on board
were heading to Sziget Festival.
Yes, we know it is quicker to fly.
But passengers can reduce their
carbon emissions by around 88 percent
if they take the train.
-I think it's great because everyone
here is going to Sziget festival,
so they're on such a good vibe
and everyone's having fun,
drinking, partying,
and there's music.
And if you want to avoid the party
and retire to your cabin, you can.
So, for me, this is the ideal
form of travel.
Hot train!
-What's that?
-What does this get us?
Drinks.
So, the best thing
about flights is the speed
at which you get to your destination.
And the worst thing
is the space.
-You can extend the old legs 11...
-Yeah, you can extend.
all the way, which has no issue.
And when you're tired,
you can pull down,
you can get in bed.
-It's a moving hotel.
-Yeah.
This train, I just went
20 minutes in that direction
and I found a gabber section.
I'm happy, I'm here.
They've repurposed
the train tannoy to play...
fat tunes.
Welcome to The World Without Planes.
Before the pandemic,
we made a sustainable guide
to traveling Europe
and found out it's funner
without them anyway.
Why have you decided
to come by train?
If you have to go to
the other side of the world
then you would take the plane,
but it's not that far.
Do any of you guys have flying shame?
Yeah, pretty much.
It's a lot of CO2 that
you're producing when you're flying
and it's a shame really
because you can really go by bus
or by train.
The only thing is that taxes are so
high on public transport
and not high enough on kerosene.
It would be better to make public
transport, like trains and buses,
more cost-friendly for more people
because airplane companies
are just fighting against each other,
and plane tickets are
getting cheaper and cheaper,
so more people will take planes.
This is the worst bathroom
I've ever seen in my life.
It's taking me back to uni halls,
where the parties
just happened in a corridor.
You know trains,
and you know nightclubs...
I had zero expectation
of a club on a train.
And were those
zero expectations met?
So, I was greeted by a sticky floor,
loud music, sweaty atmosphere,
which is everything that I'm greeted
by in a club that's not moving,
apart from the occasional
throw everyone to the left,
and everyone to the right.
It's Monday night,
so it'd be interesting to see
what Saturday night
looks like for these people.
Oh, hey Shea.
Hair of the dog?
Yes, please.
Shea, how did you find
your first rave train?
I mean, it wasn't quite Berghain.
-I know.
-Cheers.
Where are we right now?
We're in Budapest.
You're in a bath tub,
I'm in a bath tub.
Beer spa.
We're here to, you know,
better ourselves.
When I wake up hungover,
I do often find that
I get the craving to just
pour pints down my throat,
and on my face.
You should talk to someone
about that, but not me.
Because I'm not interested.
What's "Cheers" in Hungarian?
That's got quite
a lot of syllables,
-doesn't it?
-Yeah.
So, I will show you the ingredients
I will put in the water.
The brown one here
is a special bath salt
made from beer.
So this is alcoholic?
No.
The green one here is the hops,
and it's from the same family
as marijuana,
so it's very relaxing
for your muscles.
Oh, hello.
It feels so nice.
-Thank you so much.
-Enjoy!
Thank you.
Cheers!
Cheers!
[Beer Spa 30]
More.
Bottoms up!
It's just good decision
after good decision.
Do you know what I mean?
[Szechenyi Baths]
[Szechenyi Baths 19]
The traffic at this time is terrible,
isn't it, darling?
Oh, it is quite nice.
Apart from spas,
Budapest is well-known
for its ruin bars in the centre.
Highly Instagramable
and filled with tourists,
the DIY party scene has now been
driven to the outskirts of the city.
If you want to be sustainable,
Budapest has a tram system.
But it's also incredibly quick
and easy to hire an electric car
using an app called GreenGo.
Brody House is one of the best
hotels in Europe
you can stay at for under 100 euros.
But for us, any bed that wasn't
hurtling through the night to
the sounds of gabber and vomit
would have done fine.
It's very grand.
Didn't know Budapest
hotels could be so grand.
[Rooms from 75]
Was it built as a hotel
or was it a house that was changed?
Originally it was built for
the pioneering medical practitioner
who did the first
Hungarian caesarean.
The first Hungarian caesarean.
That sounds like a dance move,
The Hungarian Caesarean.
-It wasn't the Hungarian caesarean.
Here's your room.
It's incredible.
We've checked in,
and we're meeting up with Hungarian
photographer Andi Galdi Vilko,
who's going to show us a side
of the city hidden to most tourists.
Nice to meet you.
So, what was the most recent
photography project you did?
So, I'd lived abroad for a while.
And then I kept
coming back to Budapest
because there's this
weird nostalgia feeling
that doesn't let us Eastern Europeans
leave our country.
We dream of not living here,
but then we keep coming back.
So I call this series Homesickland.
The idea is that all the things
that are from your childhood
that make you want
to leave the country,
they are also the things
that make you want to come back
because you don't feel them
anywhere else.
There's a freedom
in slow motion, in a way.
Andi's taking us to an illegal rave
her friends are throwing
on the outskirts of Budapest.
But before that,
she's taking us to one
of her favorite Jewish restaurants,
also a favorite
of Spielberg and De Niro.
Hello.
Actually, you can see Robert De Niro
there with the owner.
Helen Mirren!
You really have
the A-list of Hollywood here.
You think they'll want
a picture of us?
We can give you a picture.
No I'm joking. I'm joking.
Meet my friends.
Tibor Rosenstein.
Rosenstein.
Thank you for having us.
So, who taught you to cook?
Both of my grandmothers.
I was born during the Holocaust.
It's a tragic Jewish family story.
Everybody was deported and died,
except for my two grandmothers.
While my mum was feeding me
by the window, she didn't want
to turn on the lights.
A grenade exploded,
tore through the window frame,
and my sister
was in our cousin's lap.
They both died and we both survived.
My grandmothers
are there in every plate.
So we need to get it all.
We need to try it all.
The feast begins with multiple shots
of Hungarian plum brandy,
known as Pálinka.
-Cheers.
-Pálinka me timbers.
Wait, wait, you take that one.
Cheers, cheers.
-Cheers.
-Cheers!
Cheers! Cheers!
The Pálinka is followed
by another round of Pálinka.
Let me put it there
so they can see I'm working too.
That's perfect, dad.
Dad, you can do no wrong.
You can tell because I'm perfect too.
Father and son.
I give him one too,
on the sweaty face.
Dinner's arrived.
I'm so hungry.
This beer is amazing, by the way.
It's Rosenstein's craft beer.
It's you, it's you.
There you are.
I'm the face of the restaurant.
I'm going to guess this is
the famous matzah ball soup.
-This is so good.
-This is the best.
It's exactly what I needed.
-Chanterelles from the Karpat Basin.
It's the season for chanterelles.
This is Lecsó
[a kind of ratatouille].
This Pálinka is for courage.
Whose idea was this?
-OK, great.
-Cheers.
When Spielberg shot in Hungary,
he came here
and ordered this meal four times.
That guy is the most
official definition of a legend
that I've ever met in my life.
That word gets thrown around a lot.
The word 'legend'
gets thrown around a lot
but that guy is next to
the dictionary definition of legend.
He survived World War II,
he makes amazing food,
he's best friends with
Robert De Niro and Steven Spielberg,
and he's now packing us
dessert to go to a house party.
[Three course meal 22 per person
(not including Pálinka)]
Rosenstein and his family seem to
have turned feeding people
into a professional sport.
And our stomachs are punishingly full
by the time we leave for the rave.
Andi is taking us
to a warehouse party
on the outskirts of Budapest,
where her friends are launching
the next issue of their zine
called Utca & Karrier.
So, why have you guys put on
this party tonight?
We cannot party in
the city centre anymore.
So we organize parties like this
in the outskirts of the city.
For ourselves, by ourselves,
for our friends.
And I think it's really important
to build a community.
The magazine that we are making,
the main idea was to create
a platform for young people
who don't really have the opportunity
to share their thoughts.
I don't know how much you know
about the Hungarian media system.
It's like, totally ****.
It's ruled by fascists.
Almost all of the newspapers
in Hungary
are controlled by the government.
You've got a magazine,
it's in print.
Someone, anyone could get their hands
on this magazine,
do you not still have those fears?
We don't give a ****.
Actually, there are
some sentences like,
"Kill all politicians,"
and, "Kill the government."
So you think we should kill
all politicians?
Yeah, we should have killed
all politicians a long time ago.
Is there any hope that
it's going to get better
amongst the younger generation?
Not at all.
-You don't have any hope?
-No.
Away from the stag dos
in the city centre
and the watchful eyes of the state,
Budapest still has a thriving
DIY party scene.
And in order to prevent food waste,
we distributed Rosenstein's
leftover cakes,
which were a surprise hit at 5:00 am.
Next time on
The World Without Planes,
we drink Serbian moonshine,
spend the night in
the home of a vampire,
I will be honest guys,
I have soiled myself.
and eat the most expensive
cheese on the planet.
