The Craic on Krakow.....

Krakow is a whole load of everything rolled up into one compact city which is good news for worn out walking feet. We really enjoyed hanging out there for a few days... lots of eating pierogi, zapiekankas and kebabs. We were introduced to zapiekankas the first night when we rolled into the city late and went in search of something to eat. In the Jewish quarter we found a square whose sides were lined with bars and in the centre of the square was a series of window hatches selling cheap food of the "lining the stomach" variety. Zapiekankas .. toasted french bread rolls with pizza topping and a trade mark squiggle of ketchup replaces the ice-cream phenomena that we've seen elsewhere. It's worth saying that we've got to the stage where we are dying for a spicy Chinese. There's been a couple of instances where we've loitered outside the window of a Chinese restaurant peering in to see if there are real Chinese cooking the food. I'm pretty sure the irony will come back to bite us in a couple of months when we are in the middle of china crying out for a pizza!



Krakow's old walled town houses the 2nd largest square in the world (or so it claims) and is overlooked by a castle and cathedral. The old town is magnificently restored and has achieved a lovely balance of having all the chain shops most European capitals have without ruining the old feel and charm of the city. A tasteful golden arches is always a welcome sign.... We spent a couple of days checking out the old town's small streets, taking in the views from the castle, visiting the little markets and generally soaking up the Krakow laid back atmosphere.



After four nights in one place the Krakow dorm room (with the creakiest beds in the world) began to feel like a home. We'd seen people come and go in all of the other beds in the room and I fear we started to get territorial over who "owned" the table and how much space everyone else was entitled to on "our" clothes horse. I caught myself straightening up the beds and picking stray bits of paper from from floor. A sure sign that it was time to move!


So taking stock so far - we're a month on the road and still enjoying it. Despite some long journeys we haven't reached for the iPods or books just yet which has surprised us both. Our approach was to ease ourselves into the travelling rather than burning out too much at the start. We seem to be almost too good at the taking it easy ...excluding the compulsory frantic last minute sprints for trains! Over the last few stops there are less and less people on holidays and more people doing longer trips like ourselves so we're picking up lots of tips for future destinations. Hostels full of long haul travellers tend to very social places so there are plenty of laughs, stories and good times along the way.

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It hasn't rained in two days......

Our number one purchase since the last blog was an umbrella and it sure has seen a lot of use. We've had to learn how to say "thank you" in three different languages and our pockets are filled with worthless coins from the last country.


After some hasty research at the last minute we realised that accommodation in Bratislava was expensive and the standards left a lot to be desired. On a tip off from one website we made our way to Juraj's Hostel ... there were warnings that it was a "different" place. Juraj turned out to be an eccentric who opened the hostel three years ago and is "still renovating". You got the feeling every project was started and stopped at 90% completion. Juraj seemed to run the place singlehandedly working unbelievable hours to keep everyone happy. When we arrived I asked about getting sheets and pillowcases (it was raining and everything about the hostel seemed at sixes and sevens so getting dry sheets was a priority) Juraj looked at me and said "yes .. and you'll need towels too.... later later ... who wants a lift into town?". At 10:30pm that night Juraj came by with sheets etc. by that stage he'd driven half the hostel around and was taking everyones laundry to do overnight.

Interestingly this is the first hostel we've taken upon ourselves to review for hotelz.com. We came upon a nice little earner where you can review and photograph places and get paid for it. Incidentally the ads on the top of the blog are our other little earner. "A click a day keeps M and D away!"

Bratislava is a beautiful little city, well worth a weekend hop if you live that side of the world. We don't have a lonely planet for Eastern Europe, the plan was to get by, do the leg work and depend on Marcus's excellent sense of direction to guide us around. This has worked pretty well so far but every now and again we are missing little snippets of information. We suspect there's a party on somewhere .. and there usually is .. it just takes on a while to find it. Our first two hours in Bratislava were spend wandering deserted streets and checking out the only shop open which happened to be Tescos, needless to say Marcus was pleased! No sooner had we exited Tesco and rounded the next corner we came across the last thing you'd expect to see on a Sunday afternoon in Bratislava - the Slovakian beach volleyball finals complete with, real sand, grandstand, dancing girls and hospitality tent in the middle of a big square. On a recommendation from Juraj we headed out of the touristy area to the 1.Slovak pub for some real Slovakian beer and food. All good value .. made all the better sitting in the covered beer area with the rain hitting tarpaulin.


















:: Bratislavas Beach ..... ::


In an effort to outsmart the high euro prices of Austria we decided to base ourselves in Bratislava for a couple of days and take a day trip into Vienna. The two cities are only about an hour away from each other. On the morning of our departure from the hostel in Bratislava the skies were grey but looking promising. Please note we had checked the forecast and it had advised of widespread rain. We still look back and wonder how two people with the full spectrum of outdoor gear could have departed in sandals that day leaving quick dry pants and waterproof shoes behind safely locked up in the rucksacks. Marcus was, and still is determined not to take his raincoat out until we get to some latitude far north of here or until winter arrives whichever comes first. Anyhow we arrived in Vienna at 11am and the rain was so bad that we contemplated getting the 12:15pm train back. Half an hour later and thoroughly drenched we had stretched the budget to purchase a stylish over the shoulder umbrella for 2.50 euros. We emerged from an underground station into St.Stephans Platz looking for a picturesque place to make our picnic lunch only to take the escalator back down and sit like bums on the floor of the underground eating our rolls. Following lunch we did a whirlwind expedition around the fantastic buildings dodging puddles and bracing ourselves against the wind. We managed to find a nice tram that ran around most of the sights and took shelter in that for a while - squinting out fogged up windows. At 5pm we called it a day and headed for the train back to Bratislava. To round of a miserable day the train took us to a little local station the other side of Bratislava leaving us with a sizeable trudge home. Opening the door of our hostel looking forward to hopping into our nice bed we met Juraj who was waiting to tell us that we had to move rooms. Our new room had a guest already installed and there was an inhumane stink in the room. Thankfully Juraj offered us a bed in an open common/ clothes drying area and gave us a beer to sweeten us up. Turned out to be a great alternative!



We're on our fourth night in Krakow now and heading for Vilnius on the early morning train. There's been so much to do here that we haven't had enough time to get it all posted so we'll catch soon.





:: Vienna in sandals.....::

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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 ::

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