The train journey from Budapest to Ljubljana was a long one, about 8 hours, so we arrived in a strange city, in a foreign country we really knew very little about, in the dark at 9.30pm hoping to settle quickly into our hostel. The hostel (Dragondoss, for future reference) was just a short walk from the train station, which turned out to be pretty much the only good thing about it. We arrived to a dark, seemingly empty building. There was no answer when we rang the doorbell, or when we banged on the door or when we tried hollering. After some 15 minutes of apprehension a very grumpy looking couple opened the door, handed us a card with a phone number on it and walked out. I rang the number and proceeded to explain that we were waiting outside the hostel, at the time we had arranged to arrive by email. "You're where?" "Outside Dragondoss" "What are you outside the hostel?" "Yes, we have a booking.." "Right now, you are outside the hostel?" "Yes.." "Hmmm okay I will be there soon". Eventually the hostel owner arrived, let us in, and everything was sorted. Although as we went looking for the bathroom one of us goes to open a door and the owner goes "don't open that, there's nothing to see in there", at which point we more or less convinced ourselves that we'd walked into the middle of a horror movie and that's where all the other dead bodies were being kept. Luckily our rooms didn't turn out to be quite as bad as we had begun to imagine in our heads, and the rest of the evening passed uneventfully.
Having survived out first night in Ljubljana, we got up early to take a coach out to Lake Bled, a famous Slovenian lake with an island in the centre. This ended up being one of my favourite days of the whole trip, as Lake Bled was beautiful. The water was such a vivid blue colour, and you could see mountains all around. Despite the weather forecasts insisting that a storm was impending we had sunny weather the whole day. Lake Bled is relatively small, so it was fairly easy to walk all the way around, giving us great views of every angle. About halfway around the lake we got to a rowing centre. Apparently this is a major location of olympic rowing training and world championships, and we even got to see some races out on the lake.
From just around the corner we could also rent a row boat to take out to the island in the middle. The island's main building is a church, with a famous wishing bell. Our entire time on the island the bell barely stopped ringing. We walked around the island, and also enjoyed some of the best dark chocolate ice cream I've had, before rowing back to land.
From there we kept walking around until we reached the main shopping area. Every cafe at Lake Bled was advertising the famous "Bled Cream Cake", basically a custard square. Feeling we couldn't leave without trying all of the traditional foods, we headed to the hotel claiming to be the original home the cream cake. It was delicious, although the slices were massive and far to sweet to manage a whole one.
Completely tired out, we headed back to the bus station only to realise we had a 90 minute wait for the next coach back to Ljubljana. Luckily we had a beautiful view to enjoy while we waited.
Our next day was spent in Ljubljana. We took a walking tour in the morning, which took us around the city centre. It's amazing that our guide managed to stretch the tour out to a good 2+ hours, as Ljubljana is a very small city. We learnt a lot about Slovenian history, particularly their separation from Yugoslavia. We entered one of the major churches, saw the university and crossed a number of bridges over the Ljubljanica river. Probably the most famous of these was the Dragon bridge, which ties in with the many myths about dragons and Ljubljana.
We were unlucky with the rest of our time in Ljubljana as just after the tour finished there was a sudden downpour. The heavy rain continued for most of the afternoon and through the evening, so we more or less gave up on exploring any more of the city.
With another long journey to Salzburg ahead of us we took an early train out of Ljubljana the next morning. Our first train was very busy and we found ourselves seated next to a Slovenian family. Part way through the ride the young boy turned to me to ask in English if I had a pen, I said no but my friend leaned across the aisle to offer his. Much to our amusement the boy replied "ah, so English truly is the language of the world".
Byyeeeee!!
We arrived in Budapest early evening, as it was just getting dark. Our first task upon arrival at the hostel was to take the terrifying elevator ride up to its location on the fifth floor. First of all the elevator was tiny, fitting two people plus suitcases was a stretch. Then it had those non-automatic doors, which basically make you feel like you're in charge of your own impending doom. As we got in the whole elevator moved, then began it's very slow, very dodgy ascent, before thudding to a stop. Apparently our companions who had already arrived could hear us crying all the way up. After that traumatising experience we grabbed dinner and took a late night walk. There was an ever ubiquitous turkish takeaway below our hostel, which was incredibly cheap like pretty much everything in Hungary, so this quickly became our regular dining spot. Being introduced to Budapest at night was a great experience. Both sides of the city were lit up beautifully, and we had an excellent spot to view it all from one of the bridges across the Danube.
We started our first proper day in Budapest with a walking tour. We were lucky enough to finally have some really sunny weather, so it was the perfect day to wander the city. Our tour guide was Hungarian, so she filled us in about the language, food and general culture in Hungary throughout the tour. The language was probably the hardest of any I'd encountered so far on the trip, I couldn't even master "hello" and "thank you", but this is largely because Hungarian doesn't share its roots with any other European language, so there was really no basis from which to start. We also learnt that the correct pronunciation of Budapest is more like Budapesht, which made us laugh because any time someone used that pronunciation it just sounded like a bad Sean Connery impersonation. Our tour first explored the Pest side (where we were staying), past the Great Synagogue, St Stephen's Basilica, and various famous statues. Every statue in the city had one particular shiny body part or section, as particular myths would arise about rubbing certain statues for good luck.
We then crossed the Danube to the Buda side, where we walked up the hill to the Castle District. This is famous for it's old houses and churches, as well as the Buda Castle. We walked around the area, finishing the tour outside Matthias Church. This was the perfect spot to finish the tour, as there were amazing views down to the rest of Budapest. Our guide also recommended to us the best place to get proper traditional Hungarian food, in my case mushroom paprikas with spaetzl, which was both cheap and delicious.
After returning to the Pest side of the city a few of us visited the Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe. This was probably the first non-christian religious building I've been in, and it was amazing. Our tour guide was a Jewish New Yorker with the strongest accent I've ever heard. In my head I thought those accents were only exaggerated on television, but I seriously couldn't understand half the things he said. The synagogue itself was really beautifully decorated, and there was also a memorial and garden outside, and a small museum covering Jewish practices, culture and history. It was fascinating to learn about, especially given how little Jewish culture I've really encountered.
That evening we visited on of Budapest's famous ruin pubs, bars located in formerly abandoned buildings, which are usually known for their eclectic style. We went to Szimpla, which was just around the corner from our hostel and had a reputation as one of the best bars in the world. It did not disappoint, with a myriad of different rooms, with all different lights, decorations and art all over the world. We spent most of our time in the outdoor area, which had fairy lights, bucket lamps, cartoons on the walls, and a seat made from the front of a car. It's really difficult to describe everything that we saw, as there was just so much to take in. We did have a friendly reminder of just how far Hungary is from what we know when we went to find the bathrooms and discovered some squatting loos. Luckily they had real toilets as well or I think we might not have been able to handle the jandal.
The next day we were all absolutely exhuasted, but luckily Budapest is the perfect city to cater to the weary, as it is famous for its Turkish baths. After a late morning we headed out to Szechenyi thermal baths, the largest medicinal baths in Europe. The whole complex was quite large with various hot and even hotter pools, both indoor and outdoor. It was absolutely the perfect way to relax, and we definitely all needed to take a day off our feet. It also felt like even though we took a rest it wasn't really a wasted day because the baths are a major attraction for Budapest.
We ended our day with home-made (hostel-made?) goulash prepared by the hostel staff. This was a nice way to bring everyone in the hostel together, we met a few of the other residents, and also a nice end to our stay in Hungary. It was also the last night our whole group would spend together. We farewelled various groups heading off to Spain, Italy and back to the UK, leaving just 5 of us to hop on the train to Ljubljana in the morning.
Byyyyeeee!
While I've been trying my best to catch up on my Europe travels, I have also been busy celebrating the end of exams and the semester. One of the biggest events of the post-exam celebrations was the No Tomorrow Festival, which I got to go to yesterday, so I thought I'd better fill you in. This was basically a music festival at Wollaton Park, AKA Wayne Manor AKA home to everyone's favourite caped crusader. With dire weather forecasts and a miserable morning, I approached the afternoon of the festival with some trepidation. As it happens, Nottingham suprised us all with an absolutely stunning afternoon. We had sun the entire time, and no mud so we could lay on the grass and relax. The festival itself was great, with stalls, fairground rides, Pimms and of course a bunch of awesome musical acts. We spent the afternoon and evening dancing along to Jess Glynne, Clean Bandit, Sam Smith and London Grammar (none of whom I'd heard of until arriving in Nottingham). It was especially cool to see London Grammar who actually met at the University of Nottingham. Actually, being excited to see them BECAUSE they came from Nottingham made me realise how much the University feels like a place I would consider a second home. Also, I would thoroughly recommend seeing London Grammar live if you get the chance, as their lead singer sounds even more amazing in real life than she does recorded. All in all it was an amazing day and an epic way to celebrate the start of the break.
(PS cred to Emily White for the last couple of photos, I was a bit slack with taking my own)
Finally! As of Wednesday I am a happily free woman, having finished all of my exams. Of course this is just one step closer to leaving Nottingham, but in the meantime I have two weeks to enjoy free of studying, so I can't complain. In an ideal world I'd now be spending all of my time outside in the sunshine, frolicking in meadows and what have you, but unfortunately this is England, and the weather is not that kind, so I guess there's no excuse not to spend my down time stuck inside catching up on my Europe travels.
We had timed our arrival in Vienna to coincide with Easter Sunday, so that we could enjoy markets outside Schonbrunn Palace. Our first morning we headed into the city centre to explore before heading out to the palace. We visited St Stephen's, the main catholic cathedral in Vienna, during their Easter service. The church was huge, and really beautiful on the inside, and it was interesting to see a little bit of a European catholic service. Of course, it was all in German so we couldn't understand anything. We then walked towards the Museumsquarter via the Spanish Riding School. This area was just surrounded with amazing buildings and statues, so it was great to explore.
The rest of the day was spent out at Schonnbrunn Palace, a former summer residence. When we arrived it was teeming with tourists, so we had a few hours to wait around before our tour. Luckily the weather was great, so we got to enjoy the easter markets and have a picnic in the sun.
It really was a beautiful setting, and we also had a chance to explore the gardens behind the palace. The gardens were huge, and filled with greenery and flower gardens, not to mention a zoo and a hedge maze, which we certainly made the most of. We had an audio guide for a tour of the palace, which was quite a nice way to go at your own pace but still take in a lot of information. There was so much history behind the palace, and its various residents, but probably the most entertaining point in the tour came when everyone realised they were in the room where a 6-year old Mozart played, and simultaneously flipped out. After the tour we returned to the gardens and walked up the hill behind Schonbrunn, past the beautiful Neptune Fountain to the Gloriette. From here we had an amazing view of both the palace and the city of Vienna.
Having completely exhausted ourselves, we finished the day with the all-important Wiener Schnitzel.
Our second day in Vienna we took a walk along the Danube river, where we encountered some amazing street art. The walls on both sides of the river were covered in a huge variety of art, some of it very cool and plenty of very weird stuff.
From the river we walked towards the Museumsquarter, with a detour to the old home of Sigmund Freud, which has now become a Freud museum. Once at the Museumsquarter we spent some time at the Natural History Museum. The place was huge, with so much to see, so we didn't get a chance to get around all of the exhibitions, but we certainly saw a lot. Probably amongst the most popular displays would be the dinosaur fossils, which were very impressive. One of the other most famous displays has to be the Venus of Willendorf statuette, which I found surprisingly tiny. The whole museum was great, and it was only a shame that we were short of time, not to mention exhausted, and couldn't see everything there. Having exhausted ourselves out from days of walking around, we had a very laid back afternoon, which mostly involved deciding where we should stop to eat next. Austria is particularly well-known for its cakes, so we took it upon ourselves to try some of the most famous ones, particularly the Mozart Cake and Sacher Torte. These were 10/10 would recommend.
Once it got dark we also got the opportunity to see Vienna at night. Walking past the Opera House they had an outdoor screen to get to watch and listen to the opera for free, which give the area a great atmosphere. The buildings in the Museumsquarter and surrounding looked even more impressive all lit up, especially the Rathaus (town hall), and the parliament building.
Our final morning in Vienna I thought I should take the chance to visit the Hundertwasserhaus, especially to enjoy a little link with home. It did not disappoint, with a whole set of apartments designed in classic Hundertwasser style. There was also a gallery with some of his artworks and images of other buildings designed all around the world. There was also an underground bathroom with fountain, but of course not as great as the toilets in Kawakawa.
It was great to see something that was both a part of the country I was visiting, and of New Zealand, and also to see a part of Vienna a little out of the central tourist area.
I felt like we saw such a range of things in Vienna, from the historical palace to brand new street art, and everything in between. The city had such a lively feel, bustling with tourists and locals. It was a great place to explore, not to mention Vienna's great cafe culture (to rival Wellington even). Having very much enjoyed what Vienna had to offer we hopped on a train to our next destination, Budapest.
Byyyyeeee!
