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.