Singing in the rain ....

:: Lake Bled ::

Up until now the weather has been glorious. Unfortunately on the morning of our departure to Bled the heavens opened and the rain began pelting down, it hasn't abated since and the forecast remains ominous as a nasty weather front covers Eastern Europe. At the moment we are stationed in Budapest within easy walking distance of sheltering structures old, the Palace and slightly newer, the local Mammoth shopping centre. Our adventures in Lake Bled did not last as long as expected. Our bus pulled into the bus shelter amid torrential rain. A surprising amount of people boarded the bus back to Ljubljana leaving behind a huddle of drowned looking girls who had spent a couple of nights in the campsite and were now heading for Italy to dry out. We located the fully booked youth hostel past a farmyard of chickens and ventured on to "The George Best Bar and Backpackers" an odd addition to the little town of Bled. After a couple of hours of wandering around in the rain the magic of Bled had wained and we headed back to examine the George Best memorabilia located underneath our sleeping quarters. I have to say the authenticity of Mohammad Ali´s hand print on the way to the toilet threw suspicion on George Best´s golden boots hanging from the rafters. We were later to meet the owner John, a Belfast man, who briefed us the origins of everything. To find that out you´ll have to go yourselves! Following a two day weather check and a quick group vote we decided that there wasn't much to do in Bled in the rain and we might as well advance northwards and catch the dawn bus back to Ljubljana and the early train on to Budapest.

OK so we took the cheap train to Budapest, and the only difference the lady told us was that this one went through Croatia (although we didn't get to see any Croatian border guards)...but.....what we did have to endure on this journey was the frustrating train manoeuvre of heading into a town, moving the engine from one end of the carriages to the other then driving off the same way to a different track up the road....basically we tacked up the country to reach Budapest. Our plans of dropping into Siofok on Lake Balaton were foiled when we realised this train didn't route through there, so we found ourselves in Budapest when we had mentally prepared for sunshine and water. Well we got the water craving satisfied, straight off the train into the drizzle only a grey formerly communist city can provide. From a rather unwelcoming start we then managed to bump into the only guy meeting the train offering accommodation. He was very quietly spoken and seemed to be offering a good product so we headed with him a couple of tram stops ("Don't worry about tickets no one ever checks") down to his place. Through the grey door into quite an elaborate apartment complex , into a lift "The lift used to be nice and carpeted, before the communists" and into our nice dry room we went - All good.

:: Tacking train .... ::

So Budapest. Well its scale is something we are yet to hit on our journeys so far, so our wander out to grab a bite on the first night found us on a bridge mid-Danube saying to each other "gee, it really is a long way across here". The buildings are awesome, the scale is vast (roads, Buildings, bridges), the city is bustling (no doubt contributed to by the F1 Grand Prix on this weekend here). We have spent a couple of days wandering around checking out the castle, palaces and neighbourhoods and have spent an afternoon in one of the famous Baths. This was a great experience - grand old buildings containing and surrounding various pools and tubs of different temperature mineral water. There were saunas and steam rooms to balance the cold and hot (38c ish) pools. One of the outdoor pools had a great circular walled area which had jets propelling the water in a whirlpool - you could just float along and be whizzed around the loop. We went to this one Széchenyi and we walked out feeling sooo relaxed.

:: Catherdral in Budapest ::

So we have had our fill of Goulash and the huge range of beers here and are heading on to Bratislava tomorrow...will check in soon.

P.S - we have uploaded all our photos so far to the Flick page so check out the link on the right to see them

:: Spectacular Parliament building in Budapest ::