Hello blog-readers! This travelogue is written such that it starts off with the most recent post. To read in chronological order, please go to the header on the right bar called "previous days". The first post of this blog is entitled "On Flight TG924". Happy reading! :)

Werfen and Salzburg - Day 2

Location: Our 8-bed mixed dorm in Euro Youth Hostel, Bad Gastein

Nature is absolutely amazing. It was an arduous walk up, but the Ice Caves were incredible and completely worth it! Really glad we decided to stay on in Salzburg for 2 nights, instead of 1 as we had originally planned!

So we started off our day with a quick breakfast and rushing to the station to catch the 0718 train to Salzburg. Like seriously RUNNING! Next train was only at 0918 so there was no way we could afford to lose 2 hours just like that. When we stepped out of the hostel, we were shocked to see the beauty we were surrounded by! GREEN hills everywhere! Unfortunately in our rush, we couldn't stop to breathe in the fresh mountain air or experience the feeling of living right in the middle of nature. (No wonder the hostel had so many hiking activities! They were quite surprised that we weren't gonna do anything in Bad Gastein heh. Guess this is a place to return to in the future.)

Anyway, we thankfully caught the train and relaxed after all that running (station's only 5 minutes away, but we left the hostel with 7 minutes to catch the train so it was VERY close :P). On the nearly 2-hour journey to Salzburg, we passed through those lovely green hills and I managed to get a photo.

The hills are certainly alive!

We reached Salzburg around 9am and took the funicular up to our first stop - Festung Hohensalzburg (Hohensalzburg Fortress). Lovely brick architecture, similar to Buda Castle from two days ago. I always thought Fortresses were smaller than Forts, but after comparing Singapore's Fort Canning to this, I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. HUGE place with lots of hidden corridors and spiral stairways!

Going up the tower

On our way up, at one of the landings, we saw a fantastic panorama of the city.

Salzburg panorama

Really love European architecture. From up there we could see the river meandering through the city, and the multitudes of hills surrounding Salzburg. Lovely! After taking turns to pose with the background, we heard a bunch of guys near us. Indian dudes! Punjabis from London actually. And Krups recognized them from yesterday ;) no idea where and when she saw them, coz Neela and I definitely didn't remember! hehe. Anyway, to prove that Indians are EVERYWHERE, we took a group photo :P

Balle Balle!

I'm sure at least one of them was sweet on our krupee heehee :D After all that, we went up to get our Audio Guides and started the tour of the fortress. It's actually not just a fortress, but a castle! That explained the similarity to Buda Castle. (What's the difference between a fortress and a castle anyway? To be found out.) It's over 900 years old, and usual history heh. There were lots of artifacts and the whole castle was kinda like a museum. There was also a Marionette Museum! We were really keen to see this after the yodelling marionettes song in Sound of Music! Unfortunately couldn't get good photos from there due to bad lighting. Also, the puppets weren't THAT great :P Not cute, but looked a little scary like they could've been in one of those horror movies where dolls come alive. Ok I should not think about that now, right before sleeping!

On our way back, I'd planned it such that we walk down (approx. 30min) and pass by Nonnberg Abbey, which was the abbey in the Sound of Music! But the websites said that the abbey was closed to the public, and we could only stand outside the gate to take pictures. The same gate that the kids came to, to ask for Maria in the movie. But seeing just that little wasn't worth the time needed to go there, and we didn't want to be late for the Ice Caves tour later, so skipped it and took the funicular back down instead!

The funicular took us to the city centre, Kapitelplatz. And here were saw a huge Fan Zone for Euro 2008!!

Salzburg Fan Zone!

Again we got really excited about watching the match in Zurich in one of these! Huge screens and enough place for huge crowds! Can't wait for that mad atmosphere :D

To get to the Ice Caves, we decided to take a guided tour, coz it's actually in a different town. So we crossed the river to get back to Mirabelplatz. On the way there, we saw the Horse Fountain which was also featured in Sound of Music's Do-Re-Mi! Unfortunately there was renovation going on there (what's new!) so didn't stop for photos. Then we had lunch and went to the office to collect our tickets. I'd found out from the website that the tickets to and fro were 34 Euros each, which at about $70 was decent I guess. But turns out, the transport there was an additional 19 Euros, so the total price was nearly $120 each :( I feel so awful (sorry again guys) for misinterpreting the ticketing prices. But it was too late to go there on our own. We had to take a train (only limited timings) to the town Werfen, and then take a bus up to the coach stand, and then climb all the way up to the caves. Would've taken over 2 hours just to get up there, and we didn't have that kind of time. So decided to stick to the group tour and pay more than the intended budget.

I was kinda irritated with myself the whole way up, so just sat separately and looked at the gorgeous view. We started the journey around 1pm, and around 1.30, we saw Festung Hohenwerfen (yup, the castle in Werfen). The tour guide told us this was the shooting location of the movie, Where Eagle's Dare (Clint Eastwood's the hero)! And he said we'd be stopping there on the way back so we could take pictures then. The castle stood aloof and majestic, the only sign of civilization amidst all the surrounding peaks. Couldn't take good photos in the moving bus but got some nice shots on the way back.

Finally reached the maximum we could go on wheels, and had to go on foot for the rest of the distance up. It was a LONG TREACHEROUS walk up the mountain. And with my fear of slopes after the skiing incident, I was even slower than my usual slow speed. And very very out of breath. Neela walked up super fast (exercise freak that she is) but luckily krups maintained my speed and we slowly drudged up.

The walk up the super steep slopes

God even thinking about it makes me tired! After the whole group reached (yes we were the last, but thankfully we didn't make them wait too long coz everyone was happily taking photos), the guide told us that it wasn't over! Inside the cooold ice caves, we still had to walk up 1400 steps up and the same 1400 steps back down!!! OMG. Luckily, we were sweating so much after the climb that the coldness at that time was quite welcome, just that, 1400 steps! But I remember friends telling me that the Ice Caves was the most memorable part of their trip here, so I was really looking forward to seeing the formations!

The Werfen Ice Caves are called Eisriesenwelt (German for World of the Ice Giants) and are basically a labyrinth of limestone ice caves. We were told that the temperature was gonna be about 0 deg C and one in every 3-4 people were given lamps to guide us through the darkness. The guide led the way in, and thankfully we weren't greeted by the blast of cold air that I was expecting. Since the air was still, the freezing temperature didn't actually feel so bad!

Atmosphere was dark and slightly dank and the initial walk up was quite tiring. But soon the formations came into view. And took our breath away! The guide took his lamp and crossed over to the bigger ones for us to take photos. Seriously. Amazing. Nature is incredible.

One of the larger "Polar Bear" formations

It was totally worth it! The higher we went, the more of these we saw, and always a unique formation. After about 45 minutes of climbing up, we started the journey back down, but this wasn't so bad of course. At the end of it all, we felt victorious! And HIGH!! (hehe.)

V for Victory!

Now we could take more photos since we weren't catching our breath every few minutes. The fog had also descended now as it was around 6pm, making the whole experience even more mystical.

Krups wanted to shoot a horror movie here!

The view was spectacular, but sometimes obscured by the mist. Finally reached the coach and left the place. As promised, the bus stopped at Werfen Castle for photo-taking.

Us and Festung Hohenwerfen

The descending fog made the castle look even mightier. Can you imagine living in such a place! It's so spooky. Then we got back in and made our way down to Salzburg, super high after the trip. (It's a must-see, so people who go to Salzburg, please don't miss this opportunity!)

Got Gyros for our quick dinner at Mirabelplatz and took the 1904 train to our Bad Gastein hostel. After showering in that weirdo bathroom, we've packed up and are now ready to sleep! Our roommates are all sitting outside and socializing with one another. They all seem to be around our age and all English-speaking. I think we're being anti-social. But it's our last day here anyway, so we might as well rest for our journey tomorrow. We're off to Innsbruck! Goodnight.

Salzburg, Austria - Day 1

Location: Our 8-bed mixed dorm in Euro Youth Hostel, Bad Gastein

If you're wondering why Bad Gastein, when the title says Salzburg, well, there are hardly any hostels in Salzburg, and all of them were fully booked due to the Euro matches. So the only option we had was this hostel in Bad Gastein which is about 1.5 hours south of Salzburg.

Because of this, when we arrived at Salzburg, we could not immediately check into our hostel like we've been doing so far, but had to keep our luggage in lockers at the train station till evening. Paying about 5 Euros for each large locker was definitely a better option than carrying our heavy backpacks all around the little city! But before I get ahead of myself..

The day started off with us taking the metro to Nepliget Interchange, and taking the 7am bus (Volanbusz this time) to Vienna. Nicely slept on the bus, which was as nice as the Student Agency one, but slightly more expensive. Much cheaper than the train though. Once we reached Erdberg in Vienna, we took the metro down to Westbahnhoff to catch the 1044 train to Salzburg. Familiar ground! Had to say our final goodbyes to the Eastern-Europe-and-Vienna part of our journey as we now move on to explore other cities in Austria.

The train from Vienna to Salzburg was completely packed with boisterous Swedish fans, all ready to watch their match against Greece (which is going on now btw!). It was REALLY exciting! To see them all clad in yellow and blue, cheering away madly with their fellow Swedes. So much patriotism :) Couldn't really take pictures in the train, without looking very obvious. But when we got to Salzburg and were running around looking for an empty locker (Salzburg is obviously too small a place to accommodate this many people for the matches!), we were greeted by the sight of really HIGH-spirited (pun!) Swedes, with painted faces and crazy hair-dos singing away in glory. They grinned at us in all their highness (definitely drunk too) and we grinned back in sheer excitement :D

Hordes of Swedish fans who'd come to Salzburg to catch the match live

I felt so goosebump-ish. Can't wait to watch the matches in the fan zones whenever possible! But anyway, we were also getting a little worried as we couldn't seem to find any lockers which were big enough for our backpacks. After walking around for about an hour, we got hold of a decent-sized one and all three of us used brute force to push and squash our bags inside. Disadvantage of not having a guy with us! But we were strong and managed to fit everything in and excitedly started our day :D

After grabbing some food at a cheap-ish Gyros shop outside the station, we headed out of the city centre, to Schloss Hellbrunn, a palace full of trick water fountains. The original plan was to rent a bike and cycle all around the city centre, looking for the various Sound of Music sites which I'd located online. Unfortunately, we had to scrap that plan because of the Euro crowds. So we just took a bus down to Hellbrunn Palace instead. I was extremely curious to see what this place had in store for us, as all the guide books raved about it. It didn't disappoint!

When we got there, the tour guide warned us about getting wet, but we already knew that, so just stayed cautious. So when he asked for volunteers, I smartly stayed away while Neela and Krups eagerly ran forward :P They were asked to sit around this innocent-looking table while he was talking away, explaining the history of the palace when suddenly...

Do not trust anything at Schloss Hellbrunn!

hehehehehe. Water just sprayed out of nowhere and I laughed like a maniac :D Awesomeness! These two got COMPLETELY soaked after this hehehe. But of course, I didn't escape. Throughout the tour, the guide used to spring surprises on us and controlled the harmless-looking fountains to randomly squirt water on all of us! Such an interesting place. And there were some mechanical exhibits which were fully running on water. Very cool stuff.

The history of this palace is that, the guy (Archbishop AND Prince, Markus Sittikus) who designed it was very fond of practical jokes. So the whole palace is filled with these little surprises and pranks, making it very popular among tourists! Definitely different from the castles and palaces we've seen so far. After the tour, the guide left us to do some exploration on our own. The interior of the palace was similar to Schonbrunn in Vienna. Looked absolutely gorgeous and spacious. There was a room called the Octogon, named after its shape, and Neela and I tried harmonizing "At the Beginning" there. Great acoustics and we sounded really nice too hehe.

One of the huge rooms in Schloss Hellbrunn

We continued our way through the huge palace, stopping to admire the designs and quaint furniture and portraits. After that, we moved out to explore the lovely gardens and looked out for the Sound of Music gazebo. Unfortunately, it was closed. (Rachu told me they closed it to the public because many elderly couples pranced about in there, assuming Liesl and Rolf's characters, and ended up injuring themselves :P) We did take some jumping photos outside it though hehe.

The "I am 16, going on 17" gazebo in Sound of Music

The grounds were really pretty and peaceful. Grassy lands with kids and dogs running around. We found a playground and Krups delightfully exclaimed "AAAH SWINGS!" like the rest of the kids surrounding us. So we joined them. There was one very interesting swing which all of us took turns to relax in.

Neela's turn to relaxxxx

It was extremely sleep-inducing too, so after each of us slacked there for 15min, we continued our touring. No more obvious Sound of Music sites there, though various parts of the movie were shot around Hellbrunn Palace. I'd read somewhere that the yellow walls of a walking pathway were the backdrop to the "I Have Confidence" song so we took some lame photos there as well.

Krups and I making funny poses

Most of them are really too lame to put up here heh. Anyway, after this, we took the bus back to the city centre. To our dismay, the sites where the movie was shot had been closed off or were under construction. Especially the Do-Re-Mi Horse Fountain, and the location of the film festival right at the end of the movie. We did find the bridge (also Do-Re-Mi) which they run across, Mozartsteg.

Mozartsteg Footbridge

By the way, I forgot to mention that Salzburg is Mozart's hometown. So there are many areas dedicated to him. But we didn't visit any, as we're not particularly into Western classical music. Even Mozart-related items, like Mozartkugeln - marzipan covered with nougat, and dipped into chocolate. We managed to try this and the dark chocolate one tasted AM-AZ-ING! Neela says they're available in Singapore as well, so woohoo!

So after crossing the bridge and getting some food, we went to explore Mirabell Gardens, which was right next to the train station. It looked absolutely gorgeous! Colourful flowers amidst perfectly manicured hedges. This garden was also featured in Do-Re-Mi. Right behind the garden was Schloss Mirabell, but we didn't go in as there's nothing much in there.

Krups and I in Mirabell Gardens, with the Palace in the background

And by this time, we'd experienced Euro-mania firsthand (all the fans swarming the city centre) and were feeling REALLY mad. Decided to watch the France-Italy match in the Zurich Fan Zone and expressed our glee in all the photos we took, which I'm definitely not putting up! Except this one.

Krups posing hahaha

That was the last one we took before rushing off to catch our train to Bad Gastein. Unfortunately, the last train leaves at 1904 daily, so we couldn't stay in Salzburg longer. Luckily we're spending tomorrow here as well. The train journey was uneventful, and we slept as usual :P Not much of a scenery as it was getting dark, but we got the impression that we were travelling through mountainous terrain. We'll be able to know for sure tomorrow morning. The hostel's very close to the station, just a 5-minute walk away. Found a pub at the basement, so we're gonna head there now.

Oh but before that, we wanted to shower first and sleep immediately after the match ends. Bathrooms are super clean here, but OH GOD, combination of Prague bathrooms' light sensors plus doors with no locks!!! It's CRAZY man! We had to go in pairs too, coz one person had to stay back in the room to take care of our stuff. So when I showered, Neela was standing outside and moving around to prevent the lights from going off. I guess this'll be funny when we think about it after a few months, but SERIOUSLY how is someone supposed to shower in peace if the lights keep going off?!

K it's getting late, and at this rate we'll end up missing the match heh. Off to the pub to watch Sweden vs Greece wooot! G'night and will write again tomorrow after ICE CAVES!!! :D

A filler about Budapest

hii again! I was just looking at the picture of the Hungarian Parliament House we took today, and compared it to the Marzipan version we saw yesterday. The resemblence is uncanny!

The actual Parliament House taken from Buda Castle

versus

Krups with the Marzipan Parliament House which we saw at the Marzipan Museum in Szentendre yesterday

Budapest, Hungary - Day 3

Location: Our room in 2night Home Hostel

hiii! Such a tiring day with lots of exercise as we explored most of Budapest on foot, with quite a bit of climbing!

We started it off with an attraction really close to our hostel - the Great Market Hall. From the guide books, it sounded like a huge place piled with tons of groceries and souvenirs, and Matt told us it would be good. So we set off after our last breakfast at 2night Home and walked about 5 minutes towards the city and found the sprawling hall.

It was, as the guide books described, primarily for food. The whole ground level was made up of food stalls selling mainly fruits and vegetables, but there was some other stuff too. Like a Paprika stall! Where they hung strings of chilli and garlic around the shop. We found it really interesting and took turns to take photos there.

Check out the interesting decor of the shop!

While doing that, we even ran into Matt who was doing grocery shopping there. So got a group photo in front of the Paprika stall. We so wanted a photo with him! But none of the passers-by wanted to help, so he just said he'll take one with us when we got back from our touring.

I was craving for a nice, juicy citrus fruit, so got an orange to munch on the way before heading to the second floor which was packed with souvenir stalls, and Hungarian snack stalls. I decided this was the best place to get a Hungarian doll for the golu so got a cute lil thing for a decent price. They had lots of cute stuff! My favourite was a horse hanging on a spring with a cigar in its mouth, and if you light up the candle inside, it actually smokes! Very cute, but I didn't buy it.

After some light shopping, we headed for Gellert Hill. To get there, there's no proper public transport (kind of like how most of the parks in Singapore are not really accessible unless you manage to get the NParks bus) so we decided to exercise and walk all the way up. So we crossed the Danube and walked uphill all the way, taking some breaks in the middle to take photos. Especially when we finally saw the first sign of the peak of the hill after about an hour. The Liberation Monument showed us that we were heading the right direction.

Group photo with the Liberation Monument

The monument was built to commemorate Hungary's liberation from Nazi rule. But it wasn't such a big deal so we leisurely explored the area. The view was absolutely fabulous. In fact there was also a Citadel there which we could've climbed for a better view, but we didn't want to pay extra for it :P This place was actually used as a fort before, so there were some cannons and other artillery here and there. We eventually found a spot overlooking the Danube, with the beautiful Hungarian Parliament building in the background.

Neela and I with the Danube River and the Hungarian Parliament along the river bank

It's not so obvious here in the photo. The weather was really nice and windy too so we decided to relax there for a while, with the stunning view in front of us, and munched on our packed-up breakfast/snacks.

Our next destination was Castle Hill. I forgot to mention that the Danube River splits Budapest into two countys, Buda and Pest. The latter is where we stay, where most of the city is, which we covered day before yesterday, and is on flatter terrain. On the contrary, Buda is mostly hilly, with the two main hills being Gellert Hill and Castle Hill. So we decided to cover both sides of the county today.

Buda Castle was unlike the other castles we had seen so far. The architecture adopted here is Baroque-style: squat and round, rather than the tall, lean, Gothic architecture we saw in Vienna and Prague. But despite the un-impressive height, this seemed the most castle-like to us, with its stone walls and pointed towers. Could totally imagine Rapunzel letting down her hair here!

Us three in front of Buda Castle, atop Castle Hill

The lack of people made a difference too. The castle stood there, lonely and deserted in the gloomy weather (this kind of affected my mood too heh). And there were no signs to take us to the popular areas as we entered from the side, rather than the main entrance. So it really felt like a castle adventure, exploring the place and imagining how past-dwellers would have roamed around.

Soon we found the more popular areas, Matthias Church (which was closed) and Fisherman's Bastion.

A statue of Stephan I of Hungary at the Fisherman's Bastion

The view from here was even more amazing than that from Gellert Hill. We could see a lovely panorama of Pest, including a much closer view of the Hungarian Parliament.

The Hungarian Parliament along the Eastern bank of the Danube

Again, we took a break here to take in the view and take some picture. The breeze was lovely too so we stopped to rest for a while before heading to the most recommended place in our guidebook, the Castle Labyrinths.

The guidebook told us to go there after 6pm for a spookier adventure, as the lights are turned off then and explorers are equipped with just one oil lamp and nothing else. So of course, we waited till 6pm to go in.

It was such a rip-off. Entrance fee was 1500 Ft (about S$12) and what the guide book failed to mention was that half the chambers would be closed during the night-time experience!! We were SO annoyed. And Neela had to stay back to answer a call so Krups and I were all alone in the dark (and I'm pretty scared of the dark coz of dumb Haunted Houses that I've been to before sigh) so I just clutched her arm tightly and we walked through the deserted labyrinths. It was definitely spooky for the first 10 minutes or so, but after that, there seemed to be no purpose to this place. There were no panels giving us historical information, but just random statues with no explanations.

Random Horse statue

Maybe it is interesting that this stuff has prevailed over the years, but with no history, we just could not appreciate it. There was also this really random statue with a wine fountain. It really stank. After some time, we ran into Neela who was exploring ON HER OWN omg. And the three of us left, pretty disappointed as we thought this would be the highlight of the day.

Anyway, it wasn't all bad as we crossed the Chain Bridge back to Pest watching a gorgeous sunset. And since we didn't have anything else planned, we just leisurely strolled back to our hostel, making many stops. Like a still-open-at-9pm clothes shop! We needed some retail therapy to raise our spirits!

Looks like a kaleidoscope!

Neela bought the purple pair of pumps :) And yes, we did feel better after that quick spree. We had to get dinner on our way back and found a Burger King open along Vaci Ut, near our hostel. And they were showing a Euro match! Nederlands vs Italy. It was awesome to watch, with a whole bunch of locals cheering and jeering at the TV screens :D We just cannot wait to catch the other matches, especially after tomorrow when we will be in Austria and Switzerland after that!

Anyway, on our way back, we were taking photos and the male half of a couple offered to take a group shot of us (obviously to impress his gal, concluded Neels and Krups :D).

The Orchard-Road-like Vaci Ut, on our way back to the hostel

I was more worried about him running off with my camera heh. But anyway, it turned out to be a nice atmospheric shot. Unfortunately, we reached our hostel only after 10pm, and Matt had already slept off by then, leaving us a really sweet note saying goodbye. We were really sad, as we'd missed the chance of taking a photo with the nicest hostel owner we've seen so far, and the nicest hostel we have stayed in :( But oh well, there is no choice. We have to leave for Salzburg by 6am tomorrow so there's no way we'll ever see him again.

Anyway, sad stuff aside, Salzburg looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL from what I've seen in the guidebooks and websites. And Sound of Music sites! I'd watched the whole movie in Singapore so that everything will be fresh in my head, so just cannot wait to go there! And from the little preview of Euro 2008 that we saw earlier, I think watching an actual match amidst all the fans would be an incredible experience, and there's a chance for that coming up! So goodbye Hungary and Eastern Europe, and hellooo again Austria! Goodnight.

Szentendre and Budapest, Day 2

Location: Our room in 2night Home Hostel

Heyy! We had such a lovely day at Szentendre today. It's on the outskirts of Budapest, as I'd mentioned yesterday. Left the hostel only around 9.30am, as Matt got us breakfast at 9. Unlike Neela's wistful dreams, we only got a cheese spread and some bread :P Oh and some fruits. But it was better than nothing and it was free! We also met the other 2 hostelites, a couple staying in the private room upstairs. Matt's super super nice and I'm so glad we picked this hostel!

So anyway, we took the Szentendrei HÉV, the Suburban Railway to Szentendre for roughly an hour. There was a station we passed by called Aquincum. It's basically a 1900-year-old suburban city with a museum showcasing Roman ruins from the then-camp settlement. When we stopped at the station, just looking at the architecture reminded me so much of Asterix comics, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go there and I doubt we'll get the time tomorrow.

So we finally reached Szentendre (Saint Andrew) and tried to find our way to Skanzen, the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum. This museum wasn't actually in any of our guide books but I'd seen people raving about it on trip-advisor so thought we should go for it. However, the bus was only gonna leave at 12.30pm and it was only 11 so we had to kill about an hour, and decided to visit the Marzipan Museum in downtown Szentendre (Centrum).

Sooo pretty! Everything there was made with marzipan and looked absolutely beautifully delicious :D We got to see a glass room where people were moulding the artifacts for the museum. They're very talented! Check this out - one of my favourite items.

Needlework/Crochet all in marzipan!

There were different themes. General stuff, and then it went on to Hungarian artifacts and portraits of people - I'm still figuring out how they managed to do that - oh and a whole room with fairytale scenes. Lots of Disney movie scenes, and fables.

A revolving Sleeping Beauty piece

Yes, we badly wanted to eat all of it. The arty intricacies only made the sculptures more attractive to our stomachs :P There was a marzipan shop which we visited after the museum, and got ourselves some snacks for the next museum.

The open-air museum was totally worth it! We only hoped that it wouldn't rain as it did yesterday, as this place involved about 3-4 hours of walking. When we entered, we were greeted by a huge expanse of land with houses lining the path, houses which we learnt contained the exhibits.

Skanzen - Open-air ethnographic museum

The place was divided into 10 regions of Hungary, with a total of nearly 350 buildings containing various exhibits - including art, folk stuff, tribal stuff, games, model rooms, etc. I'll only talk about the highlights here. We found a room where this oldish friendly-looking guy taught everyone to make a traditional Hungarian musical instrument with just bits of wood, cord and paper. He didn't know a word of English but all three of us managed to make one each and play it too. Krups was the best, Neela and I though musically inclined, just couldn't make the sound properly :P

Hard at work. Mine was completed and I was figuring it out.

Next we walked down and saw a lovely windmill which we took photos with of course. And a pig pen and a sheep pen. Stinky. The next most interesting site was the one with the traditional games.

Krups and I playing traditional Hungarian games

Here, we had to hit the balloon-like object into the basket with the bat. Seems simple enough but it actually took many tries and aiming! Everything was made of organic stuff. Like the bat was made using a wooden frame and what seemed like animal skin. And the balloon thing? It somehow reminded me of an animal's stomach so I refused to touch it heh. There were other games too but we were running out of time so went off to the next place.

We found a nice big patch of green green grass with a lovely backdrop, including the windmill and got some charming Frenchmen to take a group picture for us. They took plenty of pictures and kept commenting on how 'magnifique' we were :D 3 girls travelling together can sure have its benefits! I love this photo so much.

Group shot at Skanzen

Not sure if you can see in this, but the ominous rain clouds started rolling in. So we found some shelter at one of the houses and stayed till it stopped pouring. It was still drizzling for a while but we didn't want to waste anymore time so continued walking. There was no way we could finish all the settlements so just did what we could before heading towards the Danube River as we hadn't seen it properly yet. Before that, we got distracted by some cherry trees and plucked cherries right out of them! Lots of others were doing it too so guess it wasn't illegal or anything. It was so fun! We washed them in the rainwater and ate them there and then! Delicious stuff, and red and ripe :) I wish we'd get stuff like that in Singapore too. Plucked a whole bunch of them to eat for supper too.

So then we took the bus back to Szentendre and walked towards the Danube River.

Neela and I with the Blue Danube

The river looked so peaceful. We'd have sat there for a longer time if it wasn't drizzling and on the verge of a downpour. Right next to this spot was a little cafe selling Hungarian snacks. It was pretty crowded and people were buying what looked like some fried 'naan' with a whole lot of CHEESE topping it. Naturally we just HAD to try it out! Only thing is, the whole menu was in Magyar and the people at the counter didn't seem to know English, and we needed to check if the stuff was vegetarian. So we got the help of a very nice local guy who told us that the food they were eating was Lángos, a fried pancake-like bread to be eaten with cheese and sour cream. It was really good and very filling!

Us three with Yann, a Szentendre resident

We chatted with Yann for a while about Szentendre and Hungary, and then decided to try out another dish which he recommended. Can't remember the name (aah I should've written it down)! It was something like a soft crepe/dosai rolled into a burrito and topped with castor sugar, cinnamon powder and whatever you asked for. Very tasty too. And we ended up spending a good 45 minutes there! So had to rush to catch the HEV back to Budapest.

We skipped dinner as we were really full, so returned to the hostel around 9-ish. And now these two nuts want to do a makeover on me!! Sigh I shall go get prepared to look like a ghost. Till tomorrow, g'night!

Budapest, Hungary - Day 1

Location: Our room in 2night Home hostel.

Hii! I LOVE this hostel! We all do. It's so cozy. And extremely private. There are just 2 rooms in this little place and we get very personalized attention. Right now, we're sharing a 4-bed room with an Australian girl. :) :) But more about it later.

So we started our day at 4.30am! Had to wake up then and leave really early to catch the bus to Budapest at 6.30am. Of course we didn't get breakfast, but the receptionist gave us a bottled drink each. I got myself some Mirinda for the 7 hour journey and we've all loaded up on Milo and Oreos! Oh but this morning, we gave off some more Milo to our new roommate, this Sri Lankan dude from Canada. Lots of Canadian backpackers eh! And we also used the free computer to book tickets for the Salzburg Ice Caves. So had a very busy morning. We thankfully reached the Florenc bus station on time :) and said our goodbyes to Prague!

The journey was spent mostly sleeping and watching TV. I was sitting with a stranger this time and the other two were a few seats in front. Bus was pretty packed! They played some hilarious Czech movies (they weren't intentionally funny, but the acting and expressions were too comical!) so I spent my time watching that. Totally forgot to try the free beverages again, and sadly won't get the chance to anymore since this is our last Student Agency bus. Oh well.

Anyway, we reached Nepliget bus station around 2. Where we stopped seemed to be right in the middle of nowhere and everyone was just walking off in different directions. So we asked the bus driver and assistant who gave us vague directions to the actual station. The trip there was scary! Traffic here is CRAZY! Kinda like India :/ Nobody waits for us poor pedestrians man. Sigh. Anyway, we reached the station and that, thankfully, was a proper station. It kinda reminded me of the Greyhound stations in Canada. A nice busy place. We had to go collect our bus ticket for the Budapest-Vienna journey so had to go to the station. And decided to change our money here too, since the bus station at Prague had a very decent rate. But oh, what a rip-off! We found out much later that we lost about 800 Forints (about 7 SGD) due to the poor exchange rate we were given! Grr. And the toilets here charge about 100 Ft. Awful. I can't wait for free toilets again.

From Nepliget, we took the metro down to Ferenciek Tere which is where our hostel is. There is NO WAY we can cheat on metro tickets here! The wardens at the station make sure we have the right ticket both before and after the train ride!! They actually ambushed us today. And the tickets aren't even that cheap. Worst part is, we have to buy 2 tickets if we need to change lines! And there is only one line that comes to Ferenciek Tere which doesn't even go to most of the places we need to go to. Sigh. This means a lot of walking from the interchange which is thankfully only one stop away. And the road down to the hostel is kinda like Orchard Road. It's actually a touristy area. I'm so thankful for that! Especially after that deserted area we were at in Prague.

So we walked and walked and walked with our heavy backpacks, down to the hostel. We nearly missed it! It's a really tiny place. And it's part of a group of apartments. We were greeted by a Dutch guy called Jimmy. He pointed us to a very cozy room complete with bedside lamps and told us that's where we would be staying. A really welcome change from the previous dorm experience! And we were even happier to learn that after tonight, the room would be fully ours for 2 nights! The bathroom's incredibly clean too. I love it here. And Jimmy was very helpful and told us the various places we could check out, and recommended a restaurant with veg food for dinner. Really warm and hospitable. And he told us that the owner, Matt would be providing breakfast, and we even have a computer with free internet! Neela's now dreaming of home-made breakfast like pancakes and stuff hehehe. I wish!

The weather wasn't too good. So we decided to take it easy and walk along Andrassy ut. Only now we started taking photos! First, we walked down to the interchange Deak Ter, to see St. Stephen's Basilica. Didn't wanna go in as we'd seen enough churches!

Krups and I with our umbrellas outside the basilica

Neela looking v v cute in teenu's oversized jacket! And krups nut wanting to get wet in the rain

Thankfully it went down to a drizzle. I am now the guide for this part of the journey so the book's in my hand

As we walked along Andrassy ut, we came upon the Hungarian State Opera House

After lots of strolling and not much phototaking, we stopped at the House of Terror which is a pretty recommended place here. It was SO depressing. It's basically a history museum depicting the dark days of communist repression in Hungary. There were many rooms with realistic exhibits, and even spooky background music. We learnt quite a bit, despite feeling out of sorts after the tour. As we exited, the sun started coming out, and I realised that the word terror was spelt on the ground beside the building, and this was a shadow formed by the awning of the building. It gave me the chills.

We decided to treat ourselves for dinner. Checked out a coupla places, including an Indian restaurant! Forgot its name, but it reminded me of Bombay Cafe. It didn't seem worth the prices. Finally we went to the restaurant recommended by Jimmy and it was a great choice. With watering mouths, we ordered a plate of pasta each. And I asked the waiter if I could have a non-veg dish without the meat, and he offered to get it for me, at a cheaper price even!! I love the Hungarians' hospitality! The restaurant had excellent ambience too, and it was such a satisfying dinner.

After stuffing our stomachs, we walked down the street and ended up at Vorosmarty Ter, some millenium underground metro station. Honestly it didn't seem all that great. Decor was just slightly different from the rest of the stations. Anyway, we walked back (more walking!) and it started raining pretty heavily. Our jeans got thoroughly soaked and this is why I hate rain sigh. But having an umbrella soon became pointless. Krups LOVES the rain, and her enthusiasm was infectious. So we started doing crazy things..

Krups going nuts.

Neela and I going nuts.

So after taking nutty photos, we slowly walked back and here we are! Had a lovely warm shower with no water problems, no light problems, and no cleanliness problems! This place is great. I'm looking forward to our next few days here! Off to Szentendre tomorrow. It's outside the city. Goodnight!

Prague, Czech Republic - Day 3

Location: Outside our room, Hostel U Melounu

Hii! I'm pretty sad that today's our last day in Prague, despite the first day's weird experiences. We saw some of Prague's most beautiful sights today.

Started off by getting breakfast from the hostel, and taking a tram to the Old Town, as we'd decided last night. So we've got a glimpse of the night life and the day life at Staré Město. We walked from the tram stop along the same road that gave us those brilliant shots of Prague Castle last night, and so we decided to stop and take some daylight photos of the castle.

Me with breakfast and Krups with the guide book, and Prague Castle

Staré Město was as busy as it was last night. In fact, they were getting ready for a big anniversary celebration of something, which I couldn't understand. But there were lots of costumed people and we even saw a wedding about to take place there!

The whole square (Namesti) was surrounded by tourist spots. On one side was the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn. One side had the St. Nicholas Church, which we entered for free. And the other side had the famous Astronomical Clock. On the sides of the clock were Vanity, The Miser, Death and The Turk. These came out when the clock struck and performed different actions. There were also the mobile 12 Apostles above the dials. The dials themselves were very informative, showing us a calendar, solar movement, lunar movement, the equinoxes, etc. We couldn't really figure them out, unfortunately :(

Neela and I at the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn

The huge gorgeous crystal chandelier in St. Nicholas' Church

Astronomical Clock

Me pointing at the roadsign, which translates to Old Town Square

Right next to the Astronomical Clock was the Old Town City Hall and its tower. Paying a small fee, we got to go up the tower and get a lovely panoramic view of Prague.

Prague Castle in the background

Prague's Old Town Square


Another Angle

Once we were done with the panorama (and it was quite chilly up there!), we decided to head to the majestic Prague Castle which we'd seen from so many angles but not up close! We had to cross a bridge, on the other side of the Charles Bridge this time, and we got a different view of the Vltava river and the castle.

Czech tram and Prague Castle

Right before going up, we spotted a little stall that sold Fried CHEESE which we'd been dreaming about since our first day here! And it wasn't too expensive. So we sat ourselves down along the stairs up the castle with a nice view of the tourist going up, and had a little picnic :P

Neela, Krups and Fried Cheese in bread!

Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as we'd dreamed it would be :( Couldn't really taste the cheese! But we were pretty hungry so we managed to finish it all up. The taste kinda grew on me after my third bite actually. I wish we'd gotten a chance to try it at another place. Anyway, we continued our walk up and first thing we saw was the beautiful St. Vitus Cathedral, which is what is so prominent from all over the city. And the building on the other side was the St. George's Basilica.

Krups and I in front of the St. George's Basilica

St. Vitus Cathedral

We were really upset about the construction going on, which definitely spoilt the beauty of the cathedral. Hopefully it's not like this wherever we go, but so far in Vienna, there was always something blocking our view of the different places we went to. Sigh. Bad timing I guess. Anyway, we went into the cathedral and it was really huge. Managed to get another view of Prague! And a nice group photo.

Prague's panorama from Prague Castle

After that, as we were running out of time, we went directly to the Golden Lane which was made up of little houses and really nice shops, selling very interesting things like marionettes and puzzles.

Along Golden Lane

After that, we went to check out the famous Prague pubs. And I made use of the free toilet (too much info, sorry :P) We were the ONLY ones there! Too early for drinking I guess :P

Inside a pub in Prague

After that, we walked back really slowly to the tram stop, stopping at the souvenir shops on the way. I did lots of souvenir shopping here. The slogan "czech me out" seemed popular among all the stuff here so I thought it was perfect for teenu :D After all that shopping and a quick dinner, we stopped by at another pub near our hostel, to finish up our spare cash. This time, the pub was full and they ALL majorly stared at us coz like I said, Indians are REALLY rare here! We only saw a few at the castle. About 5 or 6. I hope it's better at other places! Neela's mom just told her that Switzerland's FULL of Indians so guess the Swiss will be more used to us heh.

Anyway, after we got home, we were informed by our Canadian roommate that the only tubelight in our room is fused! So I have no idea how we're gonna pack up for tomorrow morning. I'd better go now. Looong bus journey tomorrow so need to be well-rested! Goodnight.