Dear Seminar Participants,

Here is some practical information on how to get to Kecskemét and to the Institute.

BY TRAIN to Kecskemét:

In case your flight arrives at Ferihegy Terminal 1:

Since July of 2007 passengers can easily reach Kecskemét (or the centre of Budapest) from Ferihegy Terminal 1 by trains leaving from the Western Railway Station of Budapest (Budapest Nyugati pu.) on the Budapest-Cegléd-Szolnok line.

Arriving travellers can buy their tickets at Tourinform at Terminal 1 from 09.00 to 22.00 or at platform B at the railway station from the ticket vending machine.

The two platforms of the railway station are connected to the Airport Terminal with a pedestrian footbridge equipped with lifts above the clearway. A short pedestrian path of just 200 meters takes the passengers from the terminal to the railway station.

In case your flight arrives at Ferihegy Terminal 2A or 2B:

You can take Bus 200E from Ferihegy Terminal 2. The bus will stop at Ferihegy Terminal 1, you can get off here and take the train to Kecskemét. Do not worry if you forget to get off here, the final stop of the bus is Kőbánya-Kispest Metro station where you can get on the same train. It is a metro station and a railway station together with more than 2 platforms.

You can find the train schedule at the web site of MÁV-START, the Hungarian railway company.
When you click on the icons before the departing time, after you have done your search for trains, you will see the number of the train (and sometimes the name as well, if it is an Intercity train, e.g. Aranyhomok IC). If you click on the number of the train, you will see each stop of that train and the expected arrival time in a pop-up window. Most of the Intercity trains have regular carriages where you do not have to have a seat reservation. These carriages are attached either to the end or to the beginning of the train.

The train in Kecskemét stops only once, at the station.

BY BUS to Kecskemét:

Assuming that some of you might prefer the bus, here is some practical information:

Buses from Budapest to Kecskemét leave from Budapest Népliget Bus Station. It is also a metro station on the blue line. Try to take an express bus (going on the M5 motorway) because it is just one hour and 10 or 20 minutes. The final destination of most of these express buses is not Kecskemét, but Szeged, Gyula or Makó, etc.

Unfortunately, there is no English version of the search for buses of the Hungarian Bus Company website.
So when you open the site and want to search, you can do the following:
Write Budapest in the HONNAN [=from where] field and Kecskemet to the HOVA [=to where] field, then set the date for 2009.07.19, and finally click on the KERESÉS [=search] button. When you get the search results you will see data in columns.
The 1st column is the departure city/station, then the arrival city/station, the departure time, the arrival time, and the duration time.
If you click on the OK button you will see the details. The word NAPONTA means daily; buses running daily.

The bus from Budapest will stop 2 times in Kecskemét. The first one is not the city centre, do not get off there. Get off at the second one, the Kecskemét Autóbusz Állomás [Bus Station].

HOW TO GET TO THE INSTITUTE once you arrived in Kecskemét:

If you have too much luggage you can take a taxi.
You will find some outside the railway station or around the bus station.
The address is Kodály Intézet - KÉTTEMPLOM KÖZ 1. (not the Kodály Iskola [=school] outside the city centre).
The Institute's phone number is
--> 481-518 if you call from a landline in Kecskemét,
--> 06-76-481-518 - from a landline from other Hungarian towns or from a Hungarian mobile phone, and
-->+36-76-481-518 - from abroad or from a foreign mobile network.

It is not worth bothering with a public bus. The time you spend finding the bus and buying the ticket is enough to walk to the Institute.

It is just a 12-15 min. walk either from the railway station or the bus station.
The two stations are next to each other with a park in between.
The bus station [buszállomás in Hungarian] is right next to the Noszlopy Gáspár Park,
the railway station [vasútállomás in Hungarian] is next to the Katona József Park.
From the bus station take Nagykőrösi utca to the centre.
From the railway station you can either take Rákóczi út (as suggested on the map) or Nagykőrösi utca.

View Larger Map

You might find this map useful; it shows the Seminar and Festival venues, hotels and some restaurants right in the centre but still in walking distance:

View Kodály Seminar 2009 Kecskemét in a larger map

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