Shakespeare in Slovakian? No worries!

Hello again people,

I am actually now in Oradea, Romania, but we're gonna go back a few days and learn about the goings on in Bratislava (Slovakia) where we were for 2 days, and then Budapest for 3 days.

Similar to Prague and Krakow, Bratislava is another very beautiful city.  Not quite as extensive as Prague, but pretty all the same.  Here is a good example of one of the many beautiful buildings:

(what we called the marshmallow church!)

(note the famous UFO bridge tower in the background!)

It is worth noting that by this time, both Gill and I were absolutely pooped! (as in, very tired, haha).
So, it was rather convenient that as it happens, there is not actually that much to do in Bratislava!

This did puzzle us I must admit, and I shall explain why.
Prague is obviously a massive tourist attraction, so we are assuming this contributes to it's relatively strong economic status.  Krakow, did not seem to be as well off as Prague in several noticeable ways, one of them being the lack of English spoken by the natives.
Slovakia however, even though it did not have much of a developed tourist industry, seems to be doing very well nevertheless!  Almost everyone spoke English, and that's to say even your average Joe in a shop, (one lady even responded 'of course!' when I asked her whether she spoke English haha).  The prices in the shops were also not that different from what I would expect in the UK, not to mention the fact that they had most of our UK chain stores (Debenhams, H&M, even Next!)

Slovakians were also the friendliest.  :)  For those whose English was not so good, they really tried anyway!  Something that we really appreciated after a stream of grumpy people in train stations. :(

Anyway, back to the itinerary!

We made a bee line for the free tour.  Good stuff, learnt lots about Communism.

We also happily stumbled across a free concert!  In the main square there was an orchestra playing some classic tunes, which definitely put my musical knowledge to the test, but once we eventually found the programme I discovered I wasn't far off (with regards to guessing composers etc).  Yes! I've still got it ;)

Having learnt that we could not longer travel by boat to Budapest along the Danube because it just cost too much, we instead did a 45 minute boat tour, so I can still say I have been on the Blue Danube! (FYI, it's not that blue).
(View from boat)

We had a stroll around the beautiful Castle, which was to our delight and confusion, completely free from the tourist hordes!  This was where we came back later and watched a Slovakian version (and translation!) of Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure', much to the Slovakians' bewilderment!
Apart from the token Polish word and 'Do you speak English' that must have been added out of artistic license (?!), no, we did not understand a word.  However with the aid of spark notes revision summaries we could at least follow the plot!  Did I also mention that the play was performed in the Castle?  Specifically in the central and open air courtyard.  The white castle made a fantastic background, here is what it looked like in the day, we were through that big main entrance for the performance.

Four hours later on a train and we were in Budapest.  To my distress and deepest loss, Gill was visiting a friend in the south of Hungary for two days, so we waved goodbye as she boarded a second train (not entirely in the certainty that it was the right one but now I can confirm it was!) and I had the next two days by myself.  But it's ok, sniff, (plus it was my choice to stay! lol) I have had a wonderful time.

As another aside, I will mention that Budapest, on the surface at least, was not nearly as pretty as the last few places we had been to!  In fact, the poverty was a lot more overt here than anywhere else, and we were greeted by beggars and warnings againts pickpockets, which was worrying knowing that I would be here by myself.  However, since I have got to know the city more, I can confirm that my reservations have subsided, and having since dug a little deeper, I have discovered that Budapest is a city rich in culture and architectural beauty, even if it is not immediately noticable like in Prague etc.

With my two new friends from the hostel, we headed to a Hungarian Folk dance concert, which was flippin' awesome!
There was a heck of a lot of boot and thigh slapping, yowling and rhythmic stomping; all very exciting if you ask me.  I unfortunately however decided it would be a good idea to NOT bring my camera. Duh, what a fool.  Of course you can take pictures, it's a tourist's concert.  Never mind, so with the help of my trusty friend youtube, I think I may actually have successfully found a video of the same group!  Click below for some gypsy fun:

http://youtu.be/SmJNc74cdDM

The next day was spent dragging another friend from the hostel around Budapest where we saw some hilarious modern art:

A sunken house, obviously.

Yep, you guessed it, it's a portaloo!

We also took a whistle stop tour around the biggest synagogue in Europe, and then went on a Communist walking tour!  Our tour guide had lived through the Communist era so had plenty of fascinating stories to tell.

A trip to the Spa was also not to be missed (Hungary apparently sits upon a faultline, so there are many spas with naturally heated spring water!) Another friend from the hostel and I made our way to the most famous baths, Szechenyi.  After scaulding ourselves then jumping into 20 degree pools to cool us off (ok fine we didn't jump, but it was soooooo cold!) we nipped around sneakily with our cameras to take some sneaky pics:

My new friend Miseon by the outside baths

By this time Gill had arrived back into Budapest.
Her friend's aunt had also by this time offered to tour us around Budapest, so we ticked of the famous sites in Pest, then headed over the river to Buda, to check out the Castle! (did I not mention that they are actually two cities? Divded by the river. )

Gill and I by a walled fortress?  Either way it was the view of Pest from Buda, and it looked like a movie set! Amazing.

My all time favourite I think had to be the waterfall, which I might have dragged the girls to after an entire day's walking, but they kindly put up with me :) (By this time I must have walked about a marathon)

Right, I think that's enough from me for one day!

You can look forward to the next blog post describing our encounter with Romanian ticket inspectors....  lol
Hasta luego!
V
xxxx

Nuns and Sleeper trains

Wowee!
We are actually already in our third destination, Bratislava, my how time flies!

But let's start at the beginning in Prague.
First of all I was delighted to discover that Prague has a nearly-free metro system! Yay for ignorant tourists like me! No barriers, no ticket inspectors (well, nearly none), so I just made my merry way around. :)

The language was rather a challenge though, gosh I have never had such trouble pronouncing words!
Thank you was = neshledanou.  However that is said.
However, conveniently greetings were a little more familiar, hello being 'ahoy' and goodbye 'ciao'! (ok those are my spellings but still).
Below is the famous astronomical clock and some of the buildings in the main square in the Old Town:

After doing a free tour of the sights, we happily sought out a cinema to get our Harry Potter no 7 part 2 fix, so exciting! After our well needed rest off our feet (FYI, touristing= a LOT of walking!) we ambled over to the famous Charles Bridge for a night time view of Prague castle lit up, where I attempted to take some photos with the correct settings, although failing somewhat but I am making progress!  Here is the castle:

It must also be said that the weather so far had been glorious! Until then. Doh! It rained and poured, but fortunately we made it back our home reasonably dry by running in the right moments haha.

Sunday was spent doing another walking tour around the Castle, I have to say there are some very knowledgable tour guides out there!

Our first sleeper train  was in the evening, to our next stop, Krakow.

Has anybody ever been on a sleeper train? Not for the faint hearted.  Reminiscent of sardines.
But we found it comical nonetheless, until we couldn't sleep haha, but am I glad I brought my eye mask and ear plugs!!

Accommodation in Krakow was a Convent.  I kid you not!  Sister Bernarda greeted us, in polish and german no less.  We quickly learnt that the Poles were rather less anglicised than the Czechs, but fortunately Gill and I speak French so we conversed in French with Bernarda.  I even had to make use of my very broken German whilst buying a train ticket, that was interesting!

Our rooms were in a little house at the back of a garden, basic but everything we needed, even little model Jesus' and Marys for good measure :)

Day one in Krakow, another free tour! (why pay?!)
Day two - Gill was getting a little twitchy due to lack of green space, so off we went on a 3 and a half hour train trip to the Tatra mountain range, specifically, Zakopane.

A trip on the funicular up the mountain and toboggan ride down (amazing!) we headed back to make it back to the convent before our 9.30 curfew, however, there was a three hour dellllaaaayyyyyyy ugh.  We had to ring them to ask them to stay up to let us in, thank God for 3G Kindles with access to emails to we could get the phone number! I love modern technology.  When it works haha.
Here are some mountains and the awesome toboggan:

Day three we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the infamous concentration and death camps used during the second world war.  This was a rather sobering trip but very worth it none the less.
This is a picture of the bunks where people had to sleep, I suddenly became very grateful for my sleeper train cabin.

I'll leave y'all on the amusing note that the first thing I ate in Prague was a sandwich the label of which I could read so it was all a bit of guess work what it was, however after finishing it I saw the english at the top saying 'fresh crocadille sandwich' eeeeeeeek let's hope it wasn't anyway!!!

 Until next time guys :)

xxxxx

Our lil' itinerary route. Ok actually it's quite long.

Were I the slightest bit computer savvy I might have been able to delete the old map and just had one, with my nice little red route on it.  But alas, I am not, so we're just going to have to have two.  We start by the big arrow in the Czech Republic!

headless chicken

Sooooo it's the morning of my first flight departure.  Actually, despite the title of this post, I have most things planned and packed and in plastic bags wrapped with rubber bands and photocopied and backed up on a cd and send in a spare document to my Mother and waterproofed.  If you get what I mean.  But if any of you have been travelling yourselves I expect you still had that panicky-oh dear god what have I forgotten- feeling in the pit of your stomach, making me behave like a headless chicken anyway.

Basically, all I actually have to do is work out how to actually use my new camera, better get stuck into that manual.....

I feel it is also worth mentioning that things have changed slightly since the post on wall, (admittedly I did write that in March!).
Update 1: we are now only travelling for 5 and half weeks, not quite 2 months! No time no money no time. Lol.
Update 2:  Macedonia just didn't make the cut.  Shame.  So now we're only going to 11 countries! Yay! (or not, if you're Macedonian....)

First stop is Lyon, France. Visiting my wonderful family that I au-paired for, actually going with my parents.  (ok this is not really part of the trip but hey, I'm still leaving in a jet plane!)

Next stop, this Saturday, Prague.
Not exactly sure how I'm going to get from the airport to the hostel, but hopefully I'll work it out. :)

Ciao amigos!