Budapest, Hungry 11/8 - 11/11

I arrived in Budapest, with little knowledge of the city at all but ended up loving it! Unfortunately, it was the one time in my trip that I had a schedule to keep as I was meeting a friend in Dublin, Ireland and I could not extend my stay.  With my late evening flight, I had a little more than 3 days and it was not enough.  One of the main attractions to Budapest are the natural hot spring baths that are scattered around the area.  You can easily spend the better part of a day relaxing and taking advantage of the amenities at one of these baths, as I did.  After spending a nice relaxing day at the bath, I decided to go "caving", which was an evening trip just outside of the city.  I had not idea what I was getting into, but I was craving some adventure so I decided to check it out.  Like I said, I had no idea what I was getting into.  This adventure ended up being a 3 hour expedition of pretty intense crawling,wiggling and sweating through the tightest spaces I have ever been in to.  It is hard to explain through the blog.  I was so damn sore the next day, I almost went back to the baths!  Instead, I decided to walk it off and take in the city.  Budapest is actually two cities Buda and Pest, seperated by the Danube river.  I spent most of my time on the Pest side, but there is a beautiful castle on the Buda side.  Unfortunately, with the shortened daylight hours, I just ran out of time.  I may try to make it back to Budapest before my trip comes to an end.

Vienna, Austria 11/5 - 11/7

From Cesky Krumlov, I took a bus to Vienna, Austria, where I stayed for 3 nights.  Vienna was a nice city, but not a place that grabbed my attention, but still interesting to explore.  I decided to check out the Spanish Riding School on the first day with two other people that I met.  We caught a practice session, which is a school for white stallion horses.  The training session was enough to satisfy my curiosity.  After a long day of walking around, we decided to check out a few local establishments and naturally wondered into a place called the "Bier Factory."  This place happened to be home to the 2kg (approx. 4 lb.) hamburger, a challenge that we, me and 2 other guys, decided to take on and successfully conquer.  

Vienna had a nice open

 air market on Saturday, which was a great place to grab a cup of coffee to warm up as well as enjoy some people watching.  Another site that I enjoyed was seeing the Hunder

twasserhause, it has no historical reference, just an interesting building with unique architectural features.  From Vienna, I headed to Budapest, Hungry.

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

Feeling the need to get out of the city, I heard good things about this small town called Cesky Krumlov, about 3 hours south of Prague by bus.  Small it may be, but it is awesome.  Things are a bit slow this time of year, but still a very cool place to visit and take in some great scenery.  They say that if you spend more than 3 days in CK, that you will spend 3 years, I can see how this can happen.  The English guy in the same room as me was there to meet an American friend of his who is in CK for two months on a grant to paint pictures, so we all met up that afternoon at the Eggenberg Brewery.  It was real nice to get a tour of the town from someone that has been there a while to see what the locals do and where they hang out.  What exactly they do is run the shops, I guess, where they hang out, I can give you better descriptions!  Krumlov Castle is closed for the season, but you can still wonder around parts of the castle and much of the surrounding gardens for free, probably what I would have done had the castle been open.  The food was quite good and more resonable than Prague.  I would love to make a return trip in the summer months to take advantage of the outdoor activities.   

The night shot is Krumlov Castle from down below in the town.  The guy leaning over the fire is cooking the food that we are eating in the picture below it, very good as you can imagine.

Prague, Czech Republic 10/28 - 11/03

Often referred to as the "Golden City", Prague was like Krackow on steroids.  A much bigger mid-evil city that was virtually untouched by WWI, very beautiful.  I arrived in Prague on 10/28 from Frankfurt by train and bus which offered great views from the windows.  Prague is a pretty popular destination in Europe, so the hostile was pretty crowed and lively, which made for some fun times.  What also made it fun was that my sister Angela meet me in Prague after her week of work in London for 3 days in Prague.  Prague is known quite well for the Prague Castle, which sits high upon a hill.  To get to the castle, you can cross a couple of bridges, but the most well known and used is the St. Charles Bridge.  The St. Charles Bridge has many statutes, street artist vendors and great views which make it a place that you can spend an endless amount of time at.  Me and Ang did a day trip from Prague to Kutna Hora for a change of scenery, where the  Cathedral of Our Lady, or Bone Church as it is called, is the main site to see.  The church has chandeliers, pyramids and sculptures made out of the bones of over 40,000 people, its pretty amazing, yet creepy at the same time.  The exchange rate also makes Prague a nice place to stay, it is pretty affordable to eat, sleep and drink in Prague.

Frankfurt, Germany

I pinned myself in Northern Poland and was looking for a change of scenery, so I looked for a cheap flight out of Poland, which was Frankfurt, Germany.  Frankfurt was not on my list of places to see, but why not check it out anyway.  Frankfurt was pretty interesting, its a financial hub where more people commute into the city everyday than actually live there.  I stayed in a nice hostel in an "interesting" part of the city.  It was here that I saw someone shooting up with heroin for the first time in my life.  The hostel was located in the "Red Light" district as well as across the street from a methadone clinic, still a nice hostel to stay at though.  Sachsenhausen, a neighborhood in Frankfurt, across the river from the city was a nice place to spend a day.  I toured the architecture museum and wondered around the town, trying out some apfelwein (apple wine).  Frankfurt is making a strong effort to be a "Green" city, especially with their high rise buildings.  Check out the picture to the left and the statues below the columns that appear to be holding up the building, pretty cool.

Gdansk, Poland

I headed farther north from Warsaw, about as far north in Poland as you can get to the city of Gdansk.  Gdansk is a harbor city on the Baltic Sea know for amber washing up on its beaches after storms.  From the amber, beautiful jewelry and sculptures are made, as well as dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park, lol.  I was welcomed at the train station by my friends George and Arty's Aunt Mary and Uncle Andrew, who were my wonderful hosts for my stay in Gdansk.   They live in a small island town, about a 15 min walk to the beach.  They showed me around Gdansk and two other neighboring cities, which have a lot offer, especially in the warmer months.  There was a  pretty significant language barrier since only Mary spoke English, but very little.   It was amazing how we managed to get by though.  They arranged for a friend of theirs, Magda, who spoke English to accompany us for one day.  I had a great time in Gdansk.  Pictured to the left is an old grain tower locatedin Old Town, Gdansk.  To the right is the Malbork Castle, which was severely bombed out in WWII, but later rebuilt.  It was very foggy the day we toured the castle.  This was the end of Poland and the great hospitality that the people of their county offer.

Warsaw, Poland

I headed to Warsaw after Krakow, which was quite a big difference.  Warsaw has much more of a big city feel, much more commerical, but still has some old time feel as well.  I had one full day in Warsaw, so I tried to make the most of it and I think I achieved that.  I spent most of the day in the Old Town section of Warsaw, which was 80% rebuilt after WWII, but its hard to tell.  The buildings look as if they have been there for over a hundred years.  Warsaw did have some damn good Polish pastries, not as good as my mom's though.  Joe Biden was also in the city at the same time, so there was much more of a police presence around.  Much more than what was needed.  Since Warsaw is the capital of Poland, there are a lot of historical references and monuments through out the city.  The night shot is at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers  Warsaw was nice.