Tag Archives: Europe

Farewell Zdiar, Hello Bratislava!

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The last few days at the Ginger Monkey were pleasant and, thankfully, uneventful.

The front of the Ginger Monkey.

View from the front of the hostel.

Wally (the hostel’s dog) had come home from the vet (he’d been bitten on the face by a venomous snake) and then been let out (unwittingly by one of the Canadian girls who’d been on the walk where he’d been bitten… I mean… god, I’m not surprised they felt massively guilty even though, of course, none of it was intentional) and not come back for over 24 hours. In fact, he didn’t really come back at all. Danka, the manager (and continuing apologies if I’m spelling your name wrong, Danka) went out to find him sitting by the side of the road, probably debating the various merits of avoiding the vet and possibly dying or going to the vet and getting more injections.

Wally, not looking too happy.

In the midst of all this a new employee for the hostel, Mel, arrived. God knows what she thought of it all. The Ginger Monkey has really stood out to me as completely unlike every swish, modern, 100-room, multi-floor hostel we’ve stayed in so far. It feels a lot more like staying in some kind of log cabin share house, where everything is a bit dodgy but the people are really nice. Asa, the other employee (in fact, I’m not sure Asa and Mel get paid, it’s a few hour’s work for board… maybe? Feel free to correct me, Mel) had only been at the hostel for 3 days when we arrived. Danka had been the manager for 3 months. The owners were currently traveling… it was all a bit Fawlty Towers, tbh.

The kitchen. Note the little cuckoo clock under the red fairy lights. It scared the bejesus out of everyone on the hour with it’s loud monkey noises.

Oh, did I mention that there was a church next door that spent 5 minutes, morning and night letting us know when it was six o’clock? Why six I have no idea. Alternate peals at eight or nine would’ve been more civilised but that’s not what churches are about, I suppose.  And don’t get me started on Sundays, when it was every hour, if not half hour. There was also, even more mysteriously, the loudspeakers positioned around the village that blared incomprehensible (ok, probably Slovakian) folk music once a day.

Combine all this with the fact that Luke also saw a snake (the Canadian girls saw two) and … well. It was surreal. Fun, but surreal.

I take back what I said about the last few days being uneventful.

Luke, Wally and Jen (another guest) chilling in the loungeroom.

This morning we waved goodbye to Asa, Mel and Danka – and of course the beleaguered Wally, the other dog (whose name I’m not going to attempt to spell again) and Kevin the cat, and caught the bus into Poprad.

From Poprad we caught a four hour train to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

I’ve heard mixed reviews of Bratislava. The general consensus seems to be that it’s dull. Mel said she liked it though, which gave us hope. The train journey was certainly picturesque, with castles popping up every so often and a few swan-strewn lakes and many little villages.

We found our hotel and its surly staff pretty easily and settled into our air conditioned, enormous room with our own bathroom. After a month of hostels and shared-bathroom hotels this is a luxury not to be sniffed at.

Immediate impressions of Bratislava are that it is extremely pretty. In the old part of town anyhow, which reminds me of those really over-the-top casinos where they recreate the canals of Venice but it all looks a bit too clean and nice. Bratislava could easily be transported into a Vegas casino to play the part of ‘ye olde European village’ as it is extremely tidy, newly painted, cobblestoned and full of quaintness, including ever-so-slightly cutesy statues around town – more on those tomorrow.

Tonight we’ve eaten an extremely tasty dinner at a gourmet establishment for the astonishing price of 20 euros (that included drinks) and estimated that something similar in Melbourne could be bought for perhaps three times the price. Already the prospect of paying Australian prices for things is boggling our minds. We bought enough groceries in Zdiar to last 6 meals with accompanying drinks for 5 euros. Ludicrous! Although we did hear today that the minimum wage is 3 euros an hour in Slovakia. Kind of puts things into perspective.

More photos, and hopefully something interesting to write about tomorrow, we’ve really no idea what to do here so we may take up Mel’s suggestion of the free walking tour. Night all!

Budapest to Slovakia

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This morning we found our taxi driver asleep in his car outside our hotel, which was kind of funny. What wasn’t funny was being taken the long way to the station  – about 3 times as far as we’d walked the previous day to buy our tickets. Le sigh.

Early morning light at Keleti station.

Still, we found our train and, after being asked to move seats, realised that there was an allocation system that we weren’t part of so we found some unoccupied seats and got comfortable. Hungarian trains are pretty nice and the toilet was decent too. Unlike toilets on Vietnamese trains, which are full of water. Full on a train. Don’t get me started.

Anyhoo. The hostel website was full of confidently brief directions on how to get there via public transport so we didn’t do all the research we should’ve. Note to selves and other travelers: if you’re taking trains in non-English speaking countries don’t just work out where you’re getting on and off, look at the last stop on your line because that’s what the signs will say. No problem with our first train as it stopped at Kosice on the border. Unfortunately our next stop, Poprad, wasn’t the final stop on that line so in the 15 minutes we had to make the connection there was a bit of stressful hurrying about trying to work out which train we wanted. Not ideal when you’re carrying all your worldly possessions on your back.

We found the right train, though, and then got off at Poprad. About 20 minutes before Poprad the view goes from flat fields to OMG! MOUNTAINS! Big, jagged, snow covered mountains. Since this is something I can’t ever recall seeing in such magnitude and at such close proximity previously I was very impressed.

With luck and our last few euros we hopped on the bus to Zdiar and made it to our hostel, the Ginger Monkey. This place was recommended by our friend Ben, who was here a while back. Probably not at the same time of year though – it’s just us and one other guy here at the moment, with a girl arriving tomorrow. I don’t mind a bit of quiet though and it’s a stunning place to have a break.

With no restaurants open during weekdays in the off season, we walked down to the local mini mart with the hostel’s dog, Wally, and bought ingredients for tuna pasta. This will be the second from-scratch meal I’ll have made in two months.

After bringing our food back we took both dogs for a wander, hoping to find the river walk. Miraculously, in a village with two streets, we managed not to find it and lost both dogs along the way. No doubt they’re off greeting all the other dogs we passed – there’s more dogs here than people if our walk was anything to go by.

I’m saving the mountain photos for tomorrow. Tonight will be maybe a movie and then definitely and early night. Hopefully there’ll be blue skies for a nice long walk tomorrow.

Budapest!

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We arrived in Budapest after a long and sleepy bus ride and found our hotel (not hostel! Hurrah!), the Central City Hotel. It’s pretty basic – a shared bathroom (one shower for each sex) on each floor – but clean and, most importantly, quiet. Well, apart from being able to hear the shower and toilet in the men’s bathroom which is in the next room. This is why earplugs are so important when you travel.

Luke waiting for the bus in Vienna.

We unpacked then headed to a restaurant that was recommended by the Lonely Planet – Luke has the ap on his phone that has proven quite handy. The restaurant was great, just a block back from the sparkling Danube. There were tables outside on the footpath and they served traditional Hungarian food. My creamy chicken and bacon dish was fantastic and the serving sizes were big but manageable. The afternoon was lovely and warm and we wandered back to the hotel feeling very kindly towards Budapest.

It might not look like anything fancy, but it was delicious!

Our first full day here we slept in late then walked a few blocks towards downtown to buy tickets for the hop on, hop off bus we’d seen online. There are at least 3 different bus companies doing the major tourist stops here. The red and yellow ‘giraffe’ buses we’d chosen were a bit rickety and the commentary was average – at one point it mentioned a political leader who’d been executed but didn’t say why, then spent a minute giving us the dimensions of a cathedral in metres – *yawn*.

We got off at the castle, from which there was a nice view and a bunch of little towers and walkways that looked like they were made from sand. We stopped for a piece of cake at the little cafe where a string quartet was playing. The violinist wandered over and asked if we had any requests so we gave a few and they played them, then we bought their CD so Luke could use the music for our videos.

We wandered around the balconies to look at the view and saw a bunch of teenagers leaning over the edge and dropping coins, and then bottle tops and who knows what else onto a lady who was busking below. We went over and I told them off, even though they didn’t understand most of what I was saying. A couple of girls in their group pulled them away and we hung around for a few minutes to make sure they didn’t come back. I wish I’d seen their teachers so I could’ve told them what I thought of their students.

We hopped back on the bus and then off again at the Citadella, which has, perhaps, the best view of Budapest – you can certainly see the broadest panorama from there. The bus was supposed to stop there for 10 minutes for photos so we got off but missed getting back on before it left. The next bus, half an hour later, drove right by us, which was both confusing and annoying as we had no idea why it didn’t stop.

Turns out there were two possible stopping places for buses and we’d waited at the wrong one, despite the fact that this was where our bus had stopped. Grrr. When I complained, when we finally got on the next one, the girl said ‘Yeah, that happens,’ and advised me to ring their office. Um, no. I’ll just complain about it on Tripadvisor, thanks. Then other people are more likely to avoid this problem (and possibly this company).

We headed back to the hotel for a break and to pick up our swimmers because we were going to the public baths.

Budapest is set on natural thermal springs and the city is dotted with public baths. We headed to the nearest, Szechenyi. This is the only one that is open after 6 or 7pm and it has 3 large outdoor pools as well as other smaller indoor ones. We took our own towels as it costs money to hire them, and jumped in the pool that was about 34 degrees. It was perhaps 18 degrees outside at that time of night so the water temperature was lovely. In the middle of our pool was a horseshoe shaped enclosure which sporadically turned on jets that made a whirlpool effect. It was fantastic! Luke really liked it and went around lots of times.

Lots of the locals went around too – we’d chosen a really good time to go because there was only maybe 20 other people in the pool with us. I can imagine that in summer or on weekends it would’ve been a crush.

There were also lights in the pool underwater that changed colour. Along with the Victorian architecture the whole scene was very lovely. The sky was clear so we could see the almost-full moon in the sky too. I wished I’d taken my camera, as no one seemed to mind people taking photos but we took a few with Luke’s phone, which will have to do.

I forgot to mention that we had dinner at a very nice outdoor cafe on our way to the pool. It was full of people smoking shisha pipes, which is a much more pleasant smell than cigarettes. The place smelled like jellybeans, actually. I had a raspberry schnapps and apple juice drink with frozen raspberries in it. Delicious!

Today we’ve slacked off – we had an unplanned sleep in til 11am. Which is what you get after staying up til 1am watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (I have to watch them all before we get to the UK as I want to go to the exhibition because I’ve heard it’s good), which, btw, is pretty creepy. I’m not sure I’d be letting children watch it, what with all the stuff that happens in the lake.

Anyhoo, we realised that we hadn’t actually bought our train tickets and whatnot to Poprad for tomorrow. When Luke got online it turns out you can’t order them the day before through Europe Rail. Lucky for us, because we walked to the station and got the tickets for half the online price! Apparently being disorganised does pay off occasionally.

Most of the rest of the afternoon has been spent buying enormous blocks of Milka to keep us sustained on our 6 hour journey to the Ginger Monkey in Zdiar and catching up with online stuff. Tonight we’re going to a ruin pub named Szimpla Kertmozi with our American connections, Daniel and Maggie from Munich. Well, really they’re from Budapest since they’re studying here. Daniel has already been super helpful with suggestions of things to do here, and I feel that there’s a great deal of interesting stuff that we’ve missed and I’d definitely like to come back.

The range of Milka you can get here is another reason to come back.My favourite so far: nougat and toffee – *swoons*.

I think that, for our 9 weeks or so later in the year that we have to jump around Europe, I’ll definitely be trying to budget at least 3 full days everywhere. Feeling that you’re rushed, or are missing out is far worse than having a spare day or half day to spend relaxing or on the net if there’s not much to do. It takes at least one full day to get orientated and work out where things are and how to get around, which doesn’t leave much time in a three night stay to see much else. The benefits of such a long trip, I guess, are being able to learn lessons like this and then have the time to apply them.

Next stop, Slovakia!

Vienna

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Despite initially feeling that Vienna wasn’t quite as nice as Munich, we have seen and done some lovely things here.

We chose a hostel (Wombat’s) that is right next to the Nachtmarkt, markets that run along a long, wide median strip between two roads. It’s a bit less than a kilometre long and the stalls open from early morning to fairly late at night, except on Sundays. As an aside, we are quickly learning that being in European cities on a Sunday means few shops or anything else open so you have to plan your excursions and grocery shopping accordingly.

The markets have lots of great fresh food, although it’s worth doing a sweep up and down to find the best prices as they do vary a bit. We bought soup for breakfast yesterday – it was served inside a bread roll so all we needed was a spoon. Very environmentally friendly! We’re hoping the guy will be back there tomorrow so we can have it for breakfast again. This whole idea of serving hot food in bread rolls is definitely one I’ll be taking home with me.

Gulash served in bread in Krumlov – I forgot to take a picture of the soup in bread in Vienna.

I bought fresh pasta, pesto and vegetables to make into dinner last night. Even though hostel kitchens are always pretty basic the one here isn’t too bad and we ended up sharing our meal with another traveler, Alex, who started chatting to us in the kitchen.

Yesterday we also did a walking tour of the city. It was pretty good, but nowhere near as good as the Munich tour. Nothing beats a tour guide who is funny as well as informative. There seem to be free walking tours everywhere in Europe. The idea is you tip the guide what you think the tour is worth at the end. Doing some sort of tour is a great way to start off in a new city – get one’s bearings and then have an idea of where to go back to. Although we did find Vienna mysteriously difficult to navigate and got lost a few times.

We had trouble finding the Sacher Hotel one afternoon but eventually made it for a piece of the original (well, not *the* original) Sacher Torte. As one might expect, the place is filled almost exclusively with tourists, but the cake was really nice and the iced chocolate was even better. If I hadn’t been trying to moderate my calories somewhat we’d surely have found a few more places selling tortes in order to compare.

One of the last things we did in Vienna was spend an evening at a coffee house – the Kafka Cafe, which several people I know (Anth, I’m looking at you) would’ve loved. Old leather booths, locals sitting around smoking and chatting, endless streams of coffee and beer – it was great. We got chatting to a local girl who’d spent time in Ireland and spoke perfect English with an Irish accent, which was slightly disconcerting. She assured us we’d found the best cafe in Vienna. Lucky us!

Tulips at the markets.

Day 2 in Cesky Krumlov.

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We hauled ourselves out of our beds at 4:45am to walk up a hill outside town to watch the sunrise. Our tour guide from yesterday had said this was a good vantage from which to see the whole city.

No one else seemed aware of this though and we had the streets almost to ourselves on the way there and back, providing great opportunities for photography.

The chapel sits on top of a hill with no paved roads leading to it. The last few hundred metres were boggy mud and grass. Sadly the sunrise was clouded but the view was nice and the walk uphill was a good bit of exercise.

We came back to the hostel for some toasted cheese rolls and got talking to Ryan, one of the other guests and a fellow Australian. He told us about some amazing places he’s been and made us want to visit Lake Bled in Slovenia. Maybe we’ll make it in September after Italy.

We told Ryan about the Eggenberg Brewery Tour which we were doing this morning. It was 130 Kroner for one person with two half litre beers to taste at the end. That’s $6.50 – the tour without beer was 100 Kroner so the beer was effectively $1.50 per litre. Very cheap!

The tour was good – fairly short and the lady who showed us around had good English and was very enthusiastic. I think the most interesting thing was seeing the old equipment (that they still use) and the smells of the malt and the yeast. I grew up in pubs so it was very familiar. Eggenberg is a small brewery on a site of historical significance and they are constrained by many rules when it comes to the upkeep of their buildings etc. The whole town of Cesky is a UNESCO listed.

Also on the tour was Nancy, a Canadian, and Ivan, her tour guide from Intrepid. We all chatted over the beers after the tour and Luke and I decided to meet up with them at dinner at the brewery restaurant that evening.

Foolishly, I only thought to take a photo after all the beer had been drunk.

We took Ivan’s suggestion and went to the Barbican Restaurant for lunch. They serve an arctic fish that is a specialty.

I proceeded to then sleep most of the afternoon away and got up in time for dinner. We went back to the brewery and had a lovely evening of conversation with Nancy and Ivan and the two other people on the tour, Alex and Melissa.

Meeting people is always one of the highlights of travel and Cesky has been no exception. I think the fact that we’ve gotten on really well with Brennan, the American who manages our hostel, is part of the reason we’ve stayed on an extra night here. That and the lovely quiet pace here. On to bigger things soon though – Vienna and then Budapest!