City Hopping: Prague

9th-10th July 2016

On the move again

After an intense few days Dave and I were able to relax a little bit on the train from Budapest to Prague. It wasn't a busy train either so we could spread out. I spent most of the time trying to sort out the many pictures I had been taking from the last few places.

We continued with the relaxed theme when we arrived in Prague early evening. We checked into our hostel before finding a place to get some food and a beer. We found that people in the Czech Republic give good head. We had a few drinks that night at a couple of different places. Drinks were surprisingly cheap.

What is this?!

The Dalek train station

The next morning feeling fully refreshed we went into the centre of Prague to explore. We got the underground and we somehow seemed to stumble inside a Dalek.

Old town

We headed towards the Old Town with a new tactic for exploring a city. We had been trying to see everything there is to see in each place but it had been exhausting. From this point on we vowed to just see the highlights and not tire ourselves out too much. With this in mind we mostly just wandered around to see what we could find.

Extravagant sex toy

One such place we stumbled across was the sex toy museum. There were a couple of interesting things in the entrance but it was expensive to go in to the actual museum so instead, we just had a go on the love tester machine.

Test your sex bomb rating

On a scale of burning desire to frozen I got cold. It could have been worse, Dave was frozen!

Old town square

In the centre of Prague is the historical Old Town Square. There was a lot going on here and it was very busy. There were buskers everywhere, living statues and a guy blowing big bubbles for kids to chase.

BUBBLES!

Clock Tower

In the corner of the square is the worlds oldest working astronomical clock. Its over 600 years old! It looks very complicated. I latched onto a tourist group where their guide was explaining what it all means. It was so busy I couldn't quite catch what he was saying and people kept walking into me so I left and never found out.

Worlds most complicated clock

Weird cars

As we walked around we noticed that the richer tourist were being chauffeured around in all kinds of old fashioned cars including a very old converted fire engine. We opted to walk with the rest of the peasants.

Another square

Apple shop

On our wanderings we came this small store that really reflected the culture of Prague and gave us in insight into how it was like to live hear. Not really, it was an Apple store which had a really amusing quote in the window.

SWEETS!

Next to it was a sweet shop which looked traditional but I don't think it was. I couldn't help but get myself a bag with a selection of sweets. I think it came to €12. I felt like I'd been robbed!

Vltava River

The Charles Bridge

The next highlight is the famous Charles Bridge which would look amazing if it wasn't for the excessive crowd. We couldn't see it for people. I think if you could get here early morning you might be able to get some nice pictures with all the statues but by mid afternoon we had no chance.

Shuffling along

A busy bridge

Clean Bandit wannabes

There were a group of musicians playing modern songs on traditional instruments Clean Bandit style. They were actually pretty good. We sat on the wall and watched for a while until the sheer volume of people made us want to leave.

More of the river

Heading up to the castle

Prague

St. Vitus Cathedral

We went up the hill to Prague Castle the highlight of which is St Vitus Cathedral which is massive. There was a long queue to get in but we thought it would be worth it. The outside was very gothic and some of the statues wouldn't look out of place in a horror film. Maybe a Dracula horror film.

What is it?!

Huge

Very impressive

Prague

We checked out the great view over the city before heading back down the hill and wandering along the river. We came across a culture park which had some very unusual statues. This one had moving parts!

Statues taking a piss

What's happened to its face!

Dancing House

Dave was obsessed about seeing the Dancing House which, admittedly, looks cool but once you've seen it then that's it.

Overall, I enjoyed Prague. We hadn't overdone it like we had in Vienna and Budapest and we were able to enjoy it more. Plus the weather was still excellent.

I want to play in the river

We went out for dinner again that evening. I love Eastern Europe's cheapness! Then we went back to the hostel with a couple of beers to watch the Euro 2016 final Portugal vs France. This was the most boring match in international football history. My GOD it was dull. Ronaldo did cry though which is a highlight of any tournament.

After the life had been drained out of us from watching the match we went to bed. Tomorrow we would be off again to the most Easterly destination we visited in Europe, Krakow.

City Hopping: Bratislava and Budapest

7th-8th July 2017

Bratislava

This was the time where we bit of more than we could chew. The interrail pass that we bought allowed us to travel on 10 separate days in a 28 day window. We wanted, or rather I wanted to see as much as we could so as Bratislava in Slovenia was only an hour from Vienna we thought we would go there for the day before travelling on to Budapest in the evening. This meant that after spending a full day walking around the centre of Vienna, we would another day walking around Bratislava followed by just one day to explore everything in Budapest. Three cities in three days was a daunting task but it meant I could scratch off a whole other country so we went for it.

Pretty roof on a church

We had an early start in Vienna to check out and catch the train over to Bratislava. We left our bags at the hostel rather than carry them around with us. We arrived late morning to the small capital city of Bratislava. I knew absolutely nothing about its history or in fact anything about Slovenia. I'm not really sure our brief visit really taught us anything either.

Reaction to Brexit

We got stopped by a couple of people who were doing a survey of what the public thought were the issues facing young people in Europe. My first thought was the impact Brexit will have. They wanted us to write a message on a whiteboard so that they could take a picture so I'm on some facebook group somewhere.

About to be impaled

In the old city

The 18th century old town was pretty cool. I took some pictures of the old style buildings. There didn't seem to be an awful lot to see here or maybe we didn't do enough research. We ended up just posing with all the random statues dotted around the town centre.

Dave's new mate

Massive brain freeze

Needed to sit down

The national Theatre

The castle on the hill

The highlight of Bratislava is undoubtedly the castle on the hill. No, not the one Ed Sheeran's been singing about. Its a reconstruction of an old Bratislava Castle.

UFO?

Just opposite the old and traditional castle is this eye sore that forms part of the bridge. It definitely ruins the landscape and spoils the view over the old city.

Centre of Bratislava

The Castle

After a few hours we got the train back to Vienna to collect our bags before travelling on to Budapest. We were pretty exhausted by this point so we were looking forward to sitting for a few hours on the train. Unfortunately this train as quite busy so we were a little cramped in a full compartment with all our bags.

Nice scenery though...

Traditional Village

Budapest Train Station

As we pulled into Budapest I couldn't help but think about the song Budapest by George Ezra which ironically is not about Budapest at all but still.

Oldskool Escalators

After a well needed nights sleep the relentless journey continued. We took a ride on what seemed to be the oldest subway in the world. Its not, its only the second oldest but I don't think its been updated since it was opened. Even the escalators were made out of wood!

Old subway station

House of Terror

The first stop was the House of Terror. This is a museum dedication to the oppression of the Nazi and communist regimes that terrorised the country. It was interesting to learn what happened here. I never really listened at school when we were learning about the war so it was good to relearn this stuff. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but I did manage to get one of this tank.

Tank

We had been in the museum for over an hour when I suddenly realised what a catastrophic mistake I had made. When choosing what to wear in the morning I had decided to don my Vietnam t-shirt which I suddenly realised has a massive soviet style star on the front!

Awkward

I was absolutely mortified when I realised what I'd done. I'm surprised nobody said anything. Even though its just the Vietnamese flag its MASSIVELY inappropriate to be wearing it when exploring a former soviet prison! We did the last bit rather quickly and hurried out of there. What an epic fail!

Opera House

St Stephen's Basilica

Another stop on our tour of European Churches was at St Stephen's Basilica. We only nipped in to have a look before continuing on down to the river.

Inside another church

Budapest selfie

Dave made a friend

I reckon he was a jolly fellow

Steep climb

We crossed the river from Pest into Buda and climbed the hill up to the Buda castle where we were treated to an excellent view over the city. We found a spot in the shade to have our lunch. It was probably the hottest day we had in all of the Europe trip and it was stifling in the city.

Another church

The Citadella

Fairytale castle

Further along the hill we found another fortress that looked like it had been plucked straight out of a fairytale. It wouldn't out of place at Disneyland.

Back down the hill

Parliament Building

The next stop was the most iconic building in Budapest, the Parliament Building. We didn't go in but it is very impressive and makes for good photo opportunities.

Very grand

Shoes

This was a sobering find after what had been an enjoyable day. The shoes on the river bank are a memorial to the Jews of Budapest. They were taken down to the river, told to take of their shoes and were shot on the waters edge so that their bodies fell into the river. Over 3000 people, mostly Jews, were murdered in this way. The shoes have since been placed there to remember them.

Very sad

Mist

On a lighter note we had a play in some man made mist to cool down. I have no idea what the point of this is for but it was nice to cool off on this hot day.

Chilling

Millennium Monument

The last couple of spots for the day were a monument and a castle. The castle was in a large park which we sat in for a while in silence. We were both exhausted. Three cities in three days had been a bad idea. As much as we enjoyed Budapest the relentlessness of our trip so far was taking its toll. We decided we would try not to take on too much after leaving Budapest. We would only one full day in each of the next two destinations but we thought we'd just see the highlights rather than try to see absolutely everything there is to see.

Vajdahunyad Castle

We didn't do too much on our final night in Budapest because we were so tired. The next day we would be able to rest a bit on the train journey from Budapest to Prague.