Hungary For a Good Time (lolololololol)

Our appetite for central European countries not quite sated, we headed to our next destination, Budapest. We unashamedly stayed in a hostel named ‘Hi-5 Party-ish Hostel’ which well and truly lived up to its name, we were even kitted out with fluoro watches which not only looked fashionable but doubled as room keys, a handy initiative for inebriated hostel-goers trying to find their way home. We won't really miss you, Hi-5.

Budapest as a city is pretty amazing. As some of you may know, it originated as 2 main cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube river. Modern day Buda is hilly, expensive and houses the impressive Buda castle, while modern day Pest is flat, and contains most of the tourist attractions like the baths, bars, restaurants and museums. It has a similar feel to Prague in that it balances old beautiful buildings with a modern and fun atmosphere, but with a definite Turkish influence to it (something to do with the fact that Budapest was occupied by the Turks for 150 years, we’re told).

A few words of warning for fellow travelers heading to Hungary: Always count your change carefully, even from the metro ticket office! The currency is quite confusing as 1 euro ~ 285 Hungarian forints, so it turns out it is embarrassingly easy to get given 10 times less change than you are owed…

Looking out at the great Pest from the mighty Buda Castle.

Looking up at Buda Castle, from Buda Castle. Hello Buda Castle.

Apparently if you rub this guys' belly, you will eat good food. Classic Hungarian superstition.

We present to you: St Stephen's Cathedral! Another church, isn't she lovely. It's named after the Hungarian patron-saint St Stephen, whose arm is inside the cathedral on display. The rest of his body is scattered throughout the various Hungarian communities of the world, like some sort of gruesome puzzle.

The Szechenyi Baths! Easily the best tradition that was kept from the Turkish occupation. Temperatures ranged from 18 to 70 (in the saunas). A nice way to unwind, or to push  your body to its limits in the sweaty, sweaty saunas.

  Also great for playing chess..?

 How could you ever have a bad night out when mixing Happy Day and Tatra Tea?

Hanging in Szimpla, one of Budapest's famous ruin bars. According to Lonely Planet it's the number 3 bar in the world (behind the Cook and Monkey Bar, we suppose). Though we didn't manage to capture the crazy inside of Szimpla, this picture adequately captures the festive spirit in the bar.

Our plans from Budapest were to head straight to Croatia, but alas the one and only train to Croatia was full. Instead we had to spend a night in the resort town of Siofok, by Lake Balaton. Judging by the tourist office lady's reaction when we told her we were from New Zealand, they don't get many kiwis in Siofok. Most of the accommodation was booked out, but we found a very cheap 'camping hotel', which is a lot less glamorous than it sounds. Basically they hire out a bit of floor space and some inflatable mattresses for you to crash on. Uncomfortable and hilarious.

When we say we 'had' to spend a night in Siofok, we could think of worse places to be stranded for a night.

Next time: We finally make it to Croatia, and are greeted by crippling heat.

The Tatras Mountains: In the House of the Ginger Monkey.

After our whirlwind capital tour we were ready for a breath of non-polluted fresh mountain air and a break from the hoards of tourists. The obvious choice was to head to The Ginger Monkey, of course. The Ginger Monkey is the single coolest hostel we’ve stayed in so far, situated on the edge of the High Tatras mountain range, in northern Slovakia (near the Polish border). It’s got a lot going for it: everyone there was a like-minded intrepid traveler like ourselves, the staff were super friendly, the hostel itself was brightly coloured and filled with an eclectic décor, the surroundings are totes gorgeous, and there is a hammock (WE SWEAR WE’RE NOT GETTING PAID TO WRITE THIS). It was one of the most international weekends we've had, with Brits, Scots, Canadians, 'Mericans, Danes, Australians and Argentinians all getting amongst in the Monkey.

 

We even got to sample the nightlife in the Slovakian mountains, which exists in the form of one single club, potentially the most ridiculous club we’ve ever been to. A snow-plough had been driven through the wall and turned into a DJ booth, there was a pile of snow in front of the plough which made for a rather slippery dancefloor, and there was a car hanging from the ceiling. We don’t exactly remember what happened in there, but we do remember waking the next morning and going for the most disorganised tramp in the history of tramps. Doing a 7 hour tramp when hungover and with only peanuts and banana chips as food is a generally terrible (and yet money-saving) idea. At least we had a map.

Weird things happened. Rock that barrel!

 

Setting off on the beautiful Polish Lakes tramp.After 8 months of being in Europe, the novelty of being able to literally walk across into another country still hasn't worn off. Also kinda cool as our Eurail pass doesn't include Poland!

We were rather thankful that it was clouded over, it made the temperatures well within the bearable range. We were also grateful at the amount of wild blueberries and strawberries we found - without them we surely would have perished. The Gods were definitely on our side.

 The waterfalls were lovely, but reminded us of the countless waterfalls we had done on the previous evening.

Heston Blumenthal came on the tramp, he thought the scenery was fantastic.

 The team steps out of the steady stream of Poles to take a few photos.

 The climactic final ascent; the view from the top was incredible.

Being the patriots that we are, we took one for team NZ and completed a pizza challenge each. In a tortoise-and-the-hare turn of events, Phoebe took 1h45 to eat the whole pizza, while team USA's pizza came back up onto the floor, two bites before the end.

Next time: The mighty Budapest, and a Hungarian holiday resort.

Prague, Vienna, Bratislava: European Capital-Hopping.

Eurail passes are the best things in the world, but sometimes it’s easy to get carried away with them. This was probably the case over the past days when we visited Prague, Vienna and Bratislava, all in the space of 4 days. This rather ambitious plan was essentially a whirlwind of central European history, culture and beer.

Prague, a classic stop for all central European travelers and the capital of the Czech Republic, was first up. It’s difficult not to love Prague – the old town centre is mind-blowingly beautiful with different architecture and colours everywhere you turn, being the birthplace of pilsner, the beer is delicious and dangerously cheap, and it has the largest castle complex in the world (who doesn’t love castles??). They say that one is lured in to Prague by its past, but compelled to stay by the present, a description that seems fairly accurate. We’ll be back.

Help! Phoebe's drowning in a sea of history and culture! HEEELP!! (She survived)

 The old clocktower, which is famous for the animation it does on every hour. Often voted one of the most overrated tourist attractions in Europe, but considering it was all done in the 15th century, it's not bad.

The view from Prague Castle. The most interesting history fact we learnt here was about the 'Defenestrations of Prague'. Czech people love throwing folk out windows (defenestrating) when they get into arguments - there have been several defenestrations throughout Prague's history. Basically if you get into an argument with a Czech person, make sure it's on ground level.

We fell in love with the Czech/Slovakian desserts, particularly the poppy seed ones!

 One pizza in Oslo = 35 euros.

Beef goulash, a pint of beer and an after dinner shot in Prague = 7 euros.
Need more be said?

Looking up at Prague Castle from the old Charles Bridge. The lights on the castle are courtesy of Mick Jagger, that old devil. Cheers Mick.

After czeching out from our hostel in Prague, we popped over the border to Vienna, another classic stop. Vienna is beautiful, there is no doubt about that – it is populated with some of the most luxurious and decadent palaces you could ever imagine, left over from when Austria was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it overall feels very clean and safe. Maybe we needed more time there, but we couldn’t help but feel that Vienna is just another beautiful European city. It sounds horribly blazé, but there was nothing that made Vienna special to us. Or maybe it just had some pretty tough acts to follow, after Berlin and Prague.

In an unexpected turn of events, Felix got crowned king of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Lol just kidding, he's just wearing a map on his head.

The Real Estate in Vienna is through the roof. Bucketloads of nice buildings.

 We felt lost in Vienna without a free walking tour. We got some electronic walking guides instead, which were completely abysmal. Never ever get one of these. The only good thing about it was that it played classical music in between chapters. Speaking of which, this is a statue of Mozart, who is a bit of a big deal in Vienna.

The Opera House. Very nice, but not nice enough to make us want to see an opera show. We'll stick to music festivals!

Get that wiener down ya, boy!

We hurried on to our next European capital city (we love you Europe for being so compact), Bratislava. We had no idea what to expect as we had heard very mixed reviews from other travelers, but it turns out Bratislava is a bit of an underdog in Europe. We love underdogs. Sure, a lot of the old town of Bratislava was destroyed to make way for communist development during the Soviet occupation – the buildings are quite ugly, with no real embellishments at all except the odd creepy, sad looking statue. But if you stick to the part of the old town that remains today, which has become the centre for all the hustle and bustle, it’s a pretty nice city with plenty of character. Slovakia has had a huge increase in tourism over the past few years and is continuing to boom; a pretty cool place to explore!

The old part of Bratislava. The same as any European town centre you might say, but dang it's got character.

The view from Bratislava Castle looking out towards lego city/concrete jungle, aka the Communist block. Also Bratislava is right on the border, with views into Hungary on the left, and Austria on the right. Geography, it's science.

The Blue Church (10 points if you can guess why it's called that), built as part of the Art Nouveau movement in Europe. Oh yes, we're quite partial to a bit of the ol' Art History.

Next time: You can never get sick of mountains, can you?

Munster, Frankfurt, Berlin: Ich Bin Ein Wanderer.

Having passed through Germany so many times without really having explored the country at all, we thought it was just about time to get amongst the German scene for good. We started off with a stop in the pretty university town of Munster – where Phoebe’s friend Pepita lives.

Being only a few hours from the Dutch border, bikes were all the rage in Munster - we got some sweet ones and headed around the student city with Pepita showing us the cathedrals (there were so many!) and the pretty old streets.

When it's sunny everyone goes to the lake to hang out. We were a bit confused by this as the lake isn't actually clean enough to swim in. It's like a form of torture - looking at it but not being able to get in it.

Frankfurt was next on the list, to visit Luke and relax for a few days. Compared with the last time we were in Frankfurt back in November, there were significantly more celsiuses in the air this time around, and the gluhwein had turned into apfelwein. We were starting to think Germany didn't do summer until now, and were happy to be proven wrong. The Germans themselves all seemed pretty excited about the good weather too, they were taking their clothes off all over the place and sunbathing wherever they could.

Felix got a bit carried away with the razor. From woolly mammoth to giant egg, in a matter of minutes.

Luke took us out to the Rheinesteig walking track not far from Frankfurt for a 22km stroll along the Rhine. Castles every 500m (literally) made for some lovely scenery.

This was our first urban tramping experience. It took a while to get used to the idea of tramping through towns and on tar-sealed roads, which we came across every few kilometres. When on a tramp, you shouldn't have to be mindful of traffic.

Although one benefit of urban tramping is the bonus activities along the way!

Our final German destination was, of course, Berlin. This was also our first stop in a while in which we didn’t know someone to stay with – thankfully we found a cheap hostel run by a bloke from the Wairarapa called Lindsay, who quickly became our pal. Lindsay had decorated the inside of his hostel with Maori carvings which he’d done himself with a chainsaw, he had a giant kiwi perched out the front, and the logo was a sheep. He was a pretty top bloke, full of quality banter and advice on the must-see sites of Berlin (most of them were night-clubs). Berlin is a rather unique place, with constant reminders of its dark past integrated with the arty, funky, lively atmosphere that East Berlin is infused with today. In some of the more underground/alternative parts of the city it was easy to forget that we were in Germany as it felt so different to much of the rest of the country, yet in the centre the iconic buildings and associated history screamed Germany. Both a fascinating and fun place, it seems like today is a great time to be visiting Berlin, and it is easily one of our favourite cities we’ve visited so far.

On a side note, our latest money saving initiative backfired rather disastrously. Everyone says not to pay for the metro in Berlin - 'cos they never check tickets. While this may work in many European cities, it turns out in Berlin it's not so easy to escape the ticket people, and if they catch you they'll be really mean, then charge you 40euro each.

Token pic in front of Brandenburg gate. We've been getting amongst the free walking tours recently, which are actually super interesting with funny stories weaved throughout. History is full of the lolz.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in central Berlin. A very simple but abstract design. No names, no explanations, just thousands of concrete slabs which seem to get taller (or does the ground sink lower?) as you walk further into it. Pretty effective and haunting.

On Saturday the 13th of July, 2013, Felix ate a sausage at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, Germany. When the historians write the history books they will no doubt leave this out, but it happened.

If you were to only visit one thing in Berlin, make it the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining part of the Berlin Wall today. It's the cheapest art gallery you'll ever visit, and you could easily spend hours perusing the amazing artwork along it. And of course for you history buffs out there (which we seem to be turning into) it's a pretty concrete reminder of the effect the Cold War had in Berlin.

One of the many flea markets in Berlin. Old records, bike parts, homemade clothing, jewellery, German books and tasty treats, all in the convenience of your local bombed-out war bunker.

Ich bin ein currywurst! Nomnomnomnomnomnom.

Next time: Speed tourism in Prague, Vienna and Bratislava.