Leaving Istanbul, we crossed the 'official' continental line from Europe into Asia, so this is the first entry from Asia. We arrived into Selcuk on a beautiful sunny day (no, I'm not joking) at 8:00am after a fairly sleepless night and checked into our hotel, the Paris Hotel. Not quite as upmarket as it sounds but still perfectly comfortable and the first time we've been treated to a private room. We had an hour to shower and power sleep before we were picked up for our day tour to Ephesus, one of the wonders of the ancient world and a cornerstone [View Full Entry]

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The train ride was long and we whiled away the first few hours consuming beer and playing cards together with our travelling companions Farah, Justin and Christine. After being told to keep the noise down by others in our sleeper carriage, we pulled down our bunks and tried to make some hay. Our brief efforts of sleep were cut short when we arrived at the Bulgarian border at 3am. We went through the usual rigmorale of passports, customs etc and were shortly back on our way, and attempting to sleep. 20 minustes later we arrived at the Turkish border and this [View Full Entry]

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We boarded the train at 13:37 and ran into an American couple from our hostel in Bucharest, Justine and Christine who joined us in our Romanian train compartment. The conductor in our carriage was trying to extort 100,000 Romanian Lei from us for the privilege and when we refused to pay he got quite angry, waving his cigar around and shouting something that not one of us understood. At the Bulgarian border we changed carriages and continued our journey in peace. We arrived into Veliko Tarnovo shortly before dusk and walked for about 40 minutes to a homestay which had been [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Bucharest and took a metro to the Elvis Villa Hostel where we had planned to stay. We ate a typical Romanian Meal of pork leg and beans, bought some beers and settled down to watch Arsenal v Villareal. We had a relatively lazy morning before leaving the hostel to see Bucharest's major tourist attraction, the Parliamentary Palace. After first finding the wrong palace and then stumbling accross teh royal palace it was a major anti-climax. Billed as the second largest building in Europe, it was big. And thats all I have to say about that. We returned to [View Full Entry]

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We had been alerted to the fact that this was Easter weekend in Romania - a week after the rest of the world celebrates it (Crazy Romanians) and that all the hostels in Brasov were fully booked. We arrived at Brasov station hoping to meet a room tout who could give us a roof over our heads and luckily were met off the train by a retired mechanic named Radu. We managed to haggle a few Lei off his price and he took us to his apartment. On arrival we were just happy to have somewhere to sleep at night, but [View Full Entry]

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We pulled into Sighisoara under a grey, foggy sky and you guessed it, in the rain. We were approached on the platform by Andrej, a Romanian hostel worker, who took us to Nathan's hostel which was only a short walk from the station. Apart from us, there were only 3 other people staying at the hostel so it was pretty quiet. We went to a bank and took some money out. The Romanian Lei is going through a transistion period to try and avoid inflation and as a result, they are using what is basically two currencies. Not only is this [View Full Entry]

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After our Budapest blow-out, we decided to slow the pace down a bit and took a train out some 160km east to a small town called Eger in Heves County. Eger is at the heart of Hungary's wine region and this increased its appeal. We arrived at Eger station shortly after midday and were greeted by an elderly woman called Kathy who offered us to stay in her home during our stay. As Eger is such a small place we decided that stopping over with an old lady was better than sleeping on the street so took her up on her [View Full Entry]

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We took a train from Bratislava and arrived at Budapest in the rain. It seems that everytime we arrive in a new place, the sky is wet and grey. We walked about half an hour to our hostel, Caterina Hostel close to the Oktagon, which is very quiet but clean and comfortable with exceptionally friendly staff. After our whistle stop tour of Bratislava, we took the afternoon off before heading to check out some of the local bars. Saturday morning and we found the new best hangover cure...Thermal baths. The baths at Szechnyi are set in the centre of a public [View Full Entry]

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Bratislava. What can I say about the place? Not a lot in all honesty. Unless you are a fan of decaying, grey Soviet architecture or 12% Aabv beer it's probably not worth a trip. We did have a great meal in a small Slovak restaurant of venison Goulash and dumplings though. Is that another reason to visit? Not really. In all honesty, the place is much prettier under moonlight when the huge tennement blocks on the south side of the Danube are lit up and you are unable to see the beautiful shades of grey. That's Bratislava. [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Prague station shortly before 7pm after a very picturesque journey along the banks of the River Elbe, currently flooded due to rain and snow-melt. The train runs right alongside the river for much of the journey, often engulfed by steep cliffs making for a very pretty journey. It was raining when we arrived in Prague so we opted to take our first taxi to get to our hostel called Travellers Hostel (very original name!). Unfortunately the charge of 30 Euros for a five minute journey meant that we had paid well over the odds for the ride but [View Full Entry]

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