Oh Viennaaaaa!

First and foremost, I'll try not to make this as exhaustive as my last few posts...

Bratislava

After a great few days in Budapest we got back on the travelling wagon- destination Bratislava, Slovakia. We had been warned by others that Bratislava is somewhere you would ideally only visit for a day, something we later found to be very good advice indeed.

I do feel a bit sorry for Bratislava though, it's a relatively new capital city which is full of English due to its cheap beer and nearby Ryanair airport. After only sleeping for a couple of hours the previous night we were in no fit state to wander round the city enthusiastically with our heavy rucksacks, oohing and aahing at various sights, so headed to a bagel café to slob out for a while. Spent a long time watching Glee in Slovakian in the café (fascinating, especially when everyone burst into song in English), before dumping our bags at the station which was one of the most depressing places I have ever seen (we thought it was derelict).

Blue Church, Bratislava. Closed on Sundays incidentally.

It's not that Bratislava is dirty/boring/unsafe/small- delete as appropriate, it's just there's nothing there that we hadn't already seen before in Krakow and Budapest. No wow factor. Like most capitals in Eastern/Central Europe there IS a castle on a hill and cute squares and a gorgeous little blue church which was ironically closed on Sundays. The few hours we spent wandering the Slovakian streets were enough. After a huuuuuge Slovakian sausage (no- no that kind) we boarded the train for Vienna, Austria.

Bratislava is a bit like Ke$ha- a bit scrubby and nothing you haven't seen before. Hope you liked the double negative. SNAP.

Slovakian haute cuisine

Vienna

I spent the 3 nights and 2 days we had in Austria's beautiful capital with Ultravox in my head. Oh Viennaaaaaaa!! Thanks Midge Ure. I know why he was wailing so much- Vienna is FAN-tastic.

The Viennese adventure got off to a shaky sight as it took us the best part of 2 and a half hours to find our CouchSurfing hosts' apartment. Nevertheless, we arrived at Martin and Doris' bedraggled and knackered. Must have been quite frightening for them in retrospect- Doris and Martin were 21 year old students, originally from Salzburg and absolutely lovely. Gave us useful tips- from where to eat schnitzel to how to negotiate the complicated transport system and even ordered midnight pizza for us all one night! Can't get better than that!

Vienna is one of those cities where you can amble around for ages without actually doing anything. Due to the weather (not a cloud in sight for the 2 days we were there), I did a lot of ambling. Met up with Emily, one of my friends from uni who's living in Vienna this year (lucky girl) so had my very own personal tour guide! We wandered round looking at impressive museums, libraries and such before a well earned rest in a café for hot chocolate so thick you had to eat it with a spoon. Nice.

Everything in Vienna is beautiful. Point.

We spent the afternoon catching up, visiting the Kunsthaus (mind how you say that) and riding the tram before meeting up with my fellow travelers for some traditional Austrian food in the Centimeter bar (where the beer you order is priced by the Centimeter!). Here's my meal...

Schnitzel and potatoes in balsamic vinegar. Tasted AMAZING. Shame I couldn't eat it all.

After that, met up with Clemens and Hanna, a young Viennese couple I met whilst working in Brittany last summer (they kept me company in the lonely hostel I was working in for a few rainy days). Went to AltWien, a bar famous for its grumpy waiters apparently. Definitely can confirm that.

My second day in Vienna started at the Schloss Schönbrunn- home of the Habsburgs (think of it as the Austrian equivalent of Versailles). It was beautiful! Just a shame spring hadn't really kicked off yet as all the gardens were bare. Climbed up through the gardens to get views of Vienna, before heading back into the city for some wine fun....

Beautiful!

Just outside Vienna is a little place called Grinzing, famous due to its viticulture. Naturally Emily and I caught the tram to try some Grinzing wine! The 'excursion' to Grinzing made a nice change from the city- although still classed as part of Vienna city, it feels like you've stepped back in time in Grinzing. Yes, it's touristy but it is quaint and tooooo cute! Went for lunch and tried some of the wine- came in a small beer jug and cost less than 3 euros! Wahey!

Grinzing

Our stay in Vienna was rounded off with a night at the opera. How bourgeois of us. Loved the fact that everyone else was dressed to the nines whereas we were wearing jeans/trainers and looked a bit of a mess really. Jackie found some cheap tickets for 3 euros (!), ever the bargain hunter. Thing is these tickets were standing. We had a great view but standing up for 3 hours watching Mozart's Magic Flute in Austrian German was pretty fatigant I've got to say. Still, it was a great experience- made all the more sweet by our cheap tickets.

A night at the opera

Soooooo Vienna. Just go and see it for yourself. The buildings are grand, the architecture impressive and the food portions are huuuuuge! Ride around on the trams, casually check out the opera and eat schnitzel and strudel. Your figure might betray you, but your heart definitely won't. Midge Ure was definitely onto something good...

I left my heart in Budapest.

I fear this blog has turned into a long exhaustive travel account. Meh. Read on at your own peril...

After a 7 and a half hour bus journey which took us through the beautiful mountains of Slovakia, we arrived in Budapest not knowing a word of Hungarian and with no money. Finally found a cashpoint and negociated the metro system and before we knew it we were at our hostel! A strange kind of hostel, I've got to say- it was like a big house with no locks on the doors and the people in the room next to ours had to walk through our room to get out. Still, it cost a mere 10 euros for two nights so we couldn't complain.

We had high hopes for Budapest. Everyone we knew who had already visited didn't have a bad word to say about it, so we decided to spend 4 nights there. Definitely worth it. Our first morning in Budapest was a bit drizzly at first as we met in one of the main squares in Pest (pronounced Pesht) to start our free walking tour. The tour showed us the main tourist spots in downtown Pest, full of ugly buildings from the Communist era before crossing the Danube on the famous Chain Bridge and heading up to Buda, the old part of the city.

View of Buda! Rub the knees of the statue for good luck.

If you go to Budapest, you have to do the walking tours! They're fantastic- our guide was highly informative, approachable and funny. She told us cheap places to eat and places to go to avoid tourists, plus some useful words in Hungarian. Hungarian is a bit of a language isolate really as it is not an Indo-European language and completely different to the Slavic languages spoken in surrounding countries. It is similar to Finnish and Estonian, and bloody hard to learn I can tell you. The only words I have managed to remember are Egészségedre (cheers)and Tíz sör, pronounced 'T-shirt' meaning 'ten beers'. The two most important words= memorised!

Our walking tour ended in a Hungarian cantine, akin to the Polish milk bar we visited where food and drink is dirt cheap. Coincidentally got talking to two people from the tour who turned out to be English language assistants in Nancy-Metz (Verdun)! Small world...Anyway Hungarian food is better than Polish food in my humble opinion- it's got spice! Paprika is the symbolic spice of Hungarian cuisine, added to everything, giving everything more oomph. Michelle and I loved the delicious paprika pork and dumpling stew that cost a mere 3 euros!

After fuelling up, we wandered over to Fisherman's Bastion in Buda- a terrace on Castle Hill with great views of the Hungarian Parliament and Pest. We climbed a statue of a horse, a tradition here in Budapest. According to our tour guide, if you climb the statue and cop a feel of the horse's bollocks, you will do well in your next exams. Plus you will have good sex. Either that or our guide just wanted to make naive tourists act like idiots....

Statue climbing, all in the name of good luck.

Later on we ended up walking by the Danube and up to Gellért Hill, home to the Lady Liberty statue. It was a long climb but definitely worth it for the panoramic views of the city. Amazing. The Lady Liberty statue was first erected in 1947 to celebrate the liberation of Hungary by the Soviet Union. After the transition from Communism in 1989, the statue was covered over with a plastic sheet for 3 days, in order to 'purify' it from Communism and the Soviet Union.

Liberty statue, all the way up Gellért Hill

The rest of the day was spent wandering round Budapest's Central Market- believe me, you will never see as much paprika again and cooking a nutritious meal of eggs and kidney beans. Not. We ended up going out with some people from our hostel- Budapest is famous for its 'ruin bars'- here's a better description than anything I can write...

Budapest now has several very interesting places called ROMKOCSMA (literally ruin pubs). These are pubs installed in the courtyards and gardens of empty houses. You don’t see anything from the outside (except people drifting with their plastic beer glasses and sometimes a beefy guard who is there to make sure people don’t get too noisy, as these places are usually in residential areas..), but once you get in the inner courtyardt, it is something else! There is music, alternative exhibits, some have films, and they are open until at least 4 A.M.…. Definitely a must. The crowd there is young and cosmopolitan!

Went to Szimpla, one of the most famous ruin bars- was packed out so we only stayed for one, before moving on to a club which played dubstep and decent electro. Made a refreshing change from all the crap music we hear in Nancy every time we go out.

Our second day in Budapest started slowly, as you can imagine. Headed to the Central Market for langos, a deep fried flat bread (Hungarian speciality). I opted for the cheese and Hungarian sausage topping, looked like a pizza, grease central. Felt like I never wanted to eat again after it.... After waddling up Váci utca, Budapest's main street (home to Marks and Spencer!), we went in the House of Terror. The building in which the museum is housed was the headquarters of the Communist government and the basement was their torture chamber. The museum was pretty boring in parts because everything was in Hungarian, which is impossible to understand for 99.9% of the world's population. Good one. The basement was pretty sinister- you can enter former torture chambers- see ropes where people were hanged. Uncomfortable, but v. interesting....

Langos from the Central Market!

One of the highlights of the whole Central European trip was to come that afternoon at the Szechenyi baths. Budapest is famous for its thermal spas, so when in Budapest, make like the Hungarians and go to one! Some of the baths are very expensive, some aren't, most are single sex only. We opted for the mixed Szechenyi as we had heard great things about it from friends, plus it was cheap- around 11 euros for a day pass! The baths have around 30 pools which vary in size and purpose. There are hot cools, warm pools, cold pools (went in one for literally 4 seconds before jumping out like the big coward I am), medicinal pools, sulphur pools, saunas, steam rooms. It was a perfect afternoon! My favourite was the outdoor heated pool but all of it was relaxing- it was the perfect antidote to the previous day of sightseeing and clubbing. Felt like we were really on holiday and not just sightseeing.

The Szechenyi baths, pure paradise.

After dragging ourselves away from the baths (it had to end sometime....) we went over to our new CouchSurfer's flat. Reka was a fantastic host- upon our arrival she presented us with a traditional Hungarian stew made from pork, dumplings, potato, and yes, you've guessed it, paprika! All that was washed down with some Hungarian wine and a shot of Becherovka- a spirit previous 'Surfers' from the Czech Republic had brought to Budapest. After originally thinking it was going to be a quiet night, we ended up being treated to a night tour of Budapest from Reka and her boyfriend, going to a bar for Palinka- Hungary's traditional spirit which is distilled from fruit (very strong, I couldn't taste the fruit personally...). Ended the night in a Hungarian folk dancing club- watched as mainly young Hungarians danced the night away. Was so interesting to see, more to come on that later....

Palinka

Our final full day in Budapest was a blinder. After stocking up on much needed Activia and bread in Spar, we headed to Szimpla (remember- the ruin bar) for a quick coffee and wandered round Budapest's Jewish District. The synagogue is the largest in Europe, I'll have you know. Then went in the cathedral, headed across the Chain Bridge over to Buda, took a LOT of photos in the sun and ate in a Hungarian café which was recommended by our hosts. Finished the afternoon with the Communist walking tour which was so so soooo interesting (I realise I sound like a bit of a history geek but go to Budapest and you will be exactly the same!). Our tour guide lived under the Communist regime, so was telling us lots of stories about her life as a child in Hungary.

We found out that

• Hungarians used to have two passports- one for travel to countries East of Hungary and one to travel West. It was relatively easy to travel East but virtually impossible to travel West. Our guide travelled West once, to Vienna in Austria. Upon arrival at the Hungarian border, officials told her family they couldn't take bananas they had bought back into Hungary. Said she never eats bananas now because they ate as many as they could manage at the border.
• The education system was good. Foreign language learning= Russian.
• Old people are nostalgic about the Communist era because the television was decent! And it was cheap to go to the theatre/opera. Nowadays it is too expensive.
• Even today Hungary is pretty corrupt. A number of people told us that virtually anyone official takes bribes. Quite sad really.

Our last night in Budapest was spent in the Hungarian folk dancing club with our hosts! The club also did AMAZING red wine that tasted like grape juice, and at less than one euro for a massive glass, it was guilt free! The dances came from Transylvania (home of Dracula) and pretty much EVERYONE in there knew how to do them. Arg. Still, we joined in- it was a lot harder than it looked though. There was a live band playing the hurdy-gurdy, the violin and the guitar. Felt like we had gone back in time. Apparently, a lot of young Hungarians are sent to dance camps in the summer holidays in order to practice and perfect all the national and regional dances, the culture is completely different to my own. The night ended with us eating Hungarian pork (from a pig the couple had killed 2 days earlier, can't make this stuff up) and trying a very spicy Hungarian pepper at 3 o'clock in the morning. Finally went to bed at quarter to four and after an 90 minutes of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed ready for the bus to Bratislavaaaaaaaa!

Rub his belly for good luck...

My high hopes for Budapest were thankfully not dashed. We definitely had the Hungarian experience, burning the candle at both ends, sampling as much cuisine as possible, dancing traditional Hungarian dances (thank god no one took a video) and learning learning learning about Hungary's fascinating history. They sometimes call Budapest the Paris of Eastern Europe- perhaps that's why I fell in love with it?!

Egészségedre!

Krakow- cold, crazy cats and Communist canteens.

Our Central/Eastern European adventure began not in Krakow but Paris. After a 4 hour Covoiturage (9 strangers in a big white van watching Jamie Foxx film 'Ray' (in French, of course) must have looked hilarious to other motorists), we arrived in the city of dreams. Luckily Jackie knew some CouchSurfing hosts in Paris so we dumped our bags at their flat and had a play with Dégage, their adorable if not slightly annoying kitten. Literal translation of 'Dégage'= clear off, go away. Very fitting! After a quick cuppa we headed to the Moulin Rouge, Montmartre and to the Café des 2 Moulins, made famous by Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). Was a bit of a let down to be honest, lots of tourists (predictable) and high prices. Our afternoon/evening in Paris was a bit of a failure- headed to the Musée d'Orsay which had already closed, ditto the Louvre. Still, had time for some comedy pictures outside the world famous Louvre glass triangle.

I love how blasé I have become about going to Paris. It's a nice attitude to have. Still the favourite I think.

After wandering around rainy Paris all day, we got one of the last RER trains out to Charles de Gaulle airport, which shall forever be known as the airport where I had to spend a night sleeping on the floor. And when I say sleeping, I of course mean not sleeping. We had to kip in the airport because our flight to Krakow was so early that there was no public transport to get us there on time, plus we didn't want to fork out on a hostel in Paris for a mere few hours. Upon arrival around midnight, we settled down on the floor outside a cafe. It was really nice of the airport personnel to switch off the heating around 2am. It made for an even more pleasant night.

Can you tell I'm joking?

Anyway, the important thing is we made it to Krakow! After taking a train into the centre, then negotiating Krakow's extensive tram network we arrived in Nowa Huta, where our lovely CouchSurfing hosts lived. This was my first experience of CouchSurfing and it was a great introduction! Dominika and her boyfriend were 23 year old engineering students who had been together since they were 16. After giving us a while to settle in and have a shower (we were pretty disgusting after pulling a nuit blanche), we sat down to a traditional Polish meal of pork, potatoes, pickle and vegetables. Dominika had also kindly made Piszinger (pronounced pishinger)- a traditional dessert from Krakow made up of wafer and chocolate. Trop bien!

I should also mention the couple also had a cat- Roman, quite possibly the most mental/ fluffy cat I have ever encountered. He made for great entertainment, chasing bits of foil round the room and running after a red laser Dominika's boyfriend was shining all over the living room.

.

Roman, I still miss him.

Instead of exploring Krakow that evening, we stayed in Nowa Huta getting to know our hosts who were seriously cool. They both spoke perfect English, spent an Erasmus year in Spain in 2009/10 and told us lots about Poland, Krakow and Nowa Huta- things we would never have known about had we stayed in a hostel. CouchSurfing really is a brilliant idea.

Nowa Huta

"Come visit historic Nowa Huta, where George Orwell's dark vision of a perfect industrial metropolis was executed with stunning precision. Until, that is, the workers rose up and overthrew Big Brother" - Brian Whitmore.

The couple's flat was situated in Nowa Huta, often classed as a separate city to Krakow as it is so large- home to around 200,000 people. We discovered that after 1945, when Poland became Communist, Nova Huta- a 'satellite industrial town' was created to correct the 'class imbalance', i.e. to attract people from lower class backgrounds to move closer to the city. We learned that Nowa Huta is full of old people who moved in after 1945 (there had only been one previous owner of the couple's flat) and that underneath the community's main square is an air raid shelter big enough for 3000 people. Why? The Communists were preparing for WW3.

Ironically today Nowa Huta is fiercely anti-Communist. The statues of Lenin and streets named after Stalin have long gone, but the buildings remain. History is still alive. It was a privilege to stay in an area where there were no tourists and no signs in English. The trip had got off to a very good start...

Krakow

Let me say that despite the freezing temperatures (it was around minus 7 every day), Krakow was lovely. Smaller than I imagined, most of the main sights can be seen in a day. We started off doing a free walking tour of the city- looking at churches, monuments, hearing anecdotes from our tour guide. What we didn't know is that we accidentally crashed an Erasmus tour- awkward moment when someone asked me to take a photo of the group with my camera and post it 'on the Facebook group'. Oops. Most major European cities offer these walking tours and I cannot recommend them enough. We walked round the main square and up to Wawel hill, whereupon lies Wawel Castle, saw Krakow's famous flaming dragon statue down by the river and saw the Pope! Well not really, we saw an image of John Paul 2nd waving out of a window. We also saw Oscar Schlinder's factory (made famously in the film Schlinder's List) and wandered around Kazimierz- Krakow's Jewish quarter. Hardly saw a soul- went into a synagogue before wandering over to a bar...

Don't let the sun fool you, it was bloody freezing!

Naturally, when in Poland you have to 'profiter bien' from all the food and drink that is available at such cheap prices! Out of the 5 countries we visited, Poland was definitely the cheapest food-wise. We had read about 'bar mleczny'-milk bars that had been established during the Communist era, selling cheap food and milk. The government subsidised the milk bars to ensure that even poor workers could afford to eat out. This meant that everything was, and still is super cheap. Naturally we ended up visiting twice. As the menu is solely in Polish, you either have to point to something that's on show or choose a random name off the menu and take your chances. It definitely made eating so much more exciting/ worrying not knowing what we had ordered! Anyway, I had a 2 course meal of soup and meat/potatoes/vegetables for around 2 euros. The milk bars may not be the most cheerful of places, but they're certainly cheap.

An Obwarzanki seller.

Another local delicacy which went down very well was the Obwarzanki- bread rings that vendors sell on just about every street corner of Krakow. These bread rings come in various flavours- sesame seed, normal cheesy and cost 1 zloty 50- around 40 euro cents. The perfect breakfast. We also discovered a little bakery where we had a huge slab of cake and a coffee for just over 2 euros and a pierogi restaurant that served only pierogi. Pierogi are fried dumplings filled with various things- usually cheese, cheap meat, cabbage or a mixture of the three. I opted for the Ruskie- pierogi with cheese. Needless to say this was another cheap eat!

On the drinks front, it would have been rude to go to Poland and not try its vodka. During a jazz evening we went to with our CouchSurfing hosts we tried Bols vodka- pretty standard really. The day after we went to a bar and after I managed to spill my pint of beer all over myself (clumsy as), we tried some vodka shots. I had a lemon vodka shot which wasn't as nice as it sounds, as the rim of the glass was lined with garlic. Perhaps a cultural taste I just will never understand...

Auschwitz

One of the reasons why we went to Krakow was because all of us wanted to visit Auschwitz, probably the most notorious concentration camp where over one and a half million people, mainly Jews, were put to death between 1940 and 1945. Obviously this is not the kind of thing one can take lightly- we felt numb the entire time we were there. We had a guided tour, something I'm glad we did as we heard a lot of personal stories and learned a lot about the camp. After a tour of Auschwitz 1 where we saw torture chambers and the like, we took a shuttle bus to Auschwitz 2-Birkenau where we saw where the prisoners lived and later died. It was horrific. Looking back I'm amazed we all managed to survive the day without bursting into tears. It felt surreal whilst we were there though. Although I took a few photographs, somehow it doesn't feel right uploading them all onto the internet in the name of tourism. One definitely suffices.

If you ever get a chance to go then go. It's without a doubt one of the most important places you can ever visit.

That concludes the Krakow diaries. It's a great little city, I learned a lot and more importantly, I was very well fed. Next stop Budapest!

C'est la vie!

Hello, hola and bonjour!

Je suis back! From 16 amazing days in Central/Eastern Europe. Had a blast as we galavanted through Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic, stories to follow bientôt. After a fortnight of no rain, we stepped off the train in Nancy on Sunday afternoon to....yes,you've guessed it....RAIN! Bof.

However the rain did not last. This week it got up to 17 degrees, a first for Nancy I think. Spring is here, but it's almost time to leave. Just under 6 weeks left in France. It's going to be good, starting with St. Paddy's, Nancy style.