We woke up on Friday morning to discover (we knew already really) that Enda was missing. The sly dog. He got back in and we all decided to head to the thermal baths. A quick hop skip and a metro away and we arrived in the north (?) of the town, to these pretty extensive thermal baths. There were hundreds of people there. It was like a night club except during the day, with no booze, with lots of water and swimsuits. Yep, thats exactly what it was like. We messed around trying different water temperatures (i recommend 36 degrees) before [View Full Entry]

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I am not sure what to say about Budapest. It is so many places all at once. It reminded us a bit of Prague in terms of the ornate nature of its architecture but it seemed a magnitude in size bigger and the old buildings were generally in poorer condition. We walked for hours looking at what could be some of the most beautiful buildings if anyone was willing to restore them. Clearly this city was once one of the most beautiful places in the world, but years of war and economic hardship including years of communism took much of the [View Full Entry]

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We woke, we showered, we lounged in bean bags, we planned what to do for the day. I had an interesting chat with the most ignorant Irish guy i have ever met. It wasnt Conor or Enda. That guy really pissed me off. Maybe it was the heat. Probably not. We took a group decision to walk around town rather than use public transport. This was actually alot of fun. For the first two hours. The second two hours were a mix of sweat and effort and cursing. We saw lots of sights...the chain bridge, the palace, a GIANT hill which [View Full Entry]

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Following the huge activity day the previous day, we had decided to follow it up with paragliding. It should be noted that we skipped our night train to do so.....but we (mostly me tbh, figured it would be worth it). So five of us set off (our three intrepid heroes and an Aussie and a Danish guy) to a nearby town to go paragliding. I could go into it, but basically, it was expensive. WAY TOO EXPENSIVE. He was charging us for stuff even before we got to the top of the hill/mountain. So we bailed. We headed back to the [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick update. There isn´t anywhere around our hotel with an internet connection so I am just sending a quick note that I will update the blog and add pictures when I can. Right now I have about ten minutes in an internet cafe and I can´t hook my laptop up. Everything is going great and I will update more later. [View Full Entry]

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I. Bathing in Budapest I didn't know what to do with it at first. It was a piece of cloth, about the size of a small handkerchief, with two long strings. This, apparently, was the "costume" for bathing in the thermal baths, at least for the men's only day. I am not quite sure what purpose this little flap is supposed to serve. If it is meant to foster a sense of modesty, I think it might have the opposite effect. Nothing draws attention to the fact that you are all but naked more t [View Full Entry]

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THURSDAY 30 JULY Got up and made my way to the Zagreb train station for my 10am train. It was late and didn’t get there until closer to 11am. Boarded and sat in the wrong carriage and got told off by the ticket conductor - which was just as well as the back half of the train wasn’t going to Budapest. Ended up sharing a compartment with two Americans (from Georgia) who were interrailing through where you would expect - their next stop was Budapest before heading onto Vienna and eventually through to Paris and London. Seemed nice enough although young [View Full Entry]

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In many parts of Europe, you notice the absence of Jewish life in once thriving Jewish neighborhoods. You see synagogues that are now museums. You see graveyards that haven’t been used since before WWII. Prague had only one synagogue, out of at least six, where services were actually still conducted. Budapest, however, has a visible, living community. Although the current 80,000 Jews in Budapest are about half the pre-war estimates (when they made up nearly twenty-five percent of the city’s population), it is still the largest community of any city in Central Europe today. W [View Full Entry]

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The Buda side of Budapest is, as I've already noted, hilly. But the two main hills are the one with the castle district and Géllert Hill. You can't miss either of them if you are anywhere near the Danube in Budapest - and both give you amazing views of the city if you get to their summits. Buda Castle looms over the city. It is an obvious place to put a seat of power in the area, so it's not too suprising that all the successive governments that Budapest has seen over the centuries would have left their stamp here. Yes, [View Full Entry]

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That would be us. Or at least that's what we feel like. Days in the sun and 'terme' at Fonteverde made our brains mush I think. We opted to skip Prague this trip so that it wouldn't be so rushed but we had to get to Budapest as we had pre-purchased our flight to Portugal from there. We booked on an overnight train from Venice to Budapest as it was loads cheaper than flying and this part of our trip had never been minutely planned. So we drove back to Venice and found ourselvse waiting on the platform Friday night for [View Full Entry]

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