With the title, I can only be in one place, Hungary. I arrived to a very crowded train station, with many people coming up to me asking if I want a taxi, room to stay, change money, some of it legitimate, some of this not so much. I walked to the Mellow Mood Hostel and Hotel information booth they have permanantly set up in the station, and asked for a bed in a dorm room at the Marco Polo Hostel. A good name for a traveller. This was done, and they even had a shuttle bus to take us to our [View Full Entry]

---

---

The dome arched above, punctuated with small bulbs of glass that allowed in a tepid light. Steam - or maybe it was my general blindness without glasses - enveloped the space in a thin haze. Drip. Drip. The echoes of condensation hitting the stone floor rang against the walls. I could have been hanging out in a hamam in Istanbul. But I wasn’t. Up a steep, cobbled road, I found a pretty rose garden on a hill overlooking a wide river. Within the garden, a grey octagonal tomb sat neatly, its crescent and star glinting in the hot morning sun. I [View Full Entry]

---

---

DAY 109 We leave Ljubjana this morning for a train to take us to Budapest. We are taking the day train because an American we met yesterday told us that the train ride has beautiful scenery along the way. Plus we haven't fully recovered from the over night bus trip yet! The train leaves at 8:40 and we and the train are on schedule. We are told the day before when we purchase the tickets that there are 2 points in the train travel that we have to divert to buses because of track work. The trip will take approximately 8 [View Full Entry]

---

---

Arriving 2 hours or so late after a 10 hour train journey we rocked up at Budapest train station and were confronted with a mass of dodgy looking people that didn’t ender the place to us. We gripped our belongings whilst we had to change money at the station so we could pay for the metro to get out and to the hostel, it just didn’t feel like a safe place to be. They first impressions are everything about places and people etc and unfortunately ours wasn’t an endearing impression and unfortunately it sort of stuck with us the entire stay. [View Full Entry]

---

---

I have just returned from GoAhead’s Budapest, Vienna, Prague tour, July 12-22nd, but instead of enjoying a fun and relaxing time, putting my vacation plans in the hands of your company, this trip turned out to be a very stressful, frightening, and regretful experience for me. It unfortunately began on my very first day of the guided tour in Budapest, when I was left behind by tour guide, Serban Chirilescu, for being 5 minutes late (11:45 am) to a group meeting place!!!!! It was 100 degree temperatures, and we had been walking around the Castle Hill District. After finishing a chur [View Full Entry]

---

---

It’s relatively common knowledge that Budapest was originally two separate cities, divided by the great muddy ribbon of the Danube. There’s Buda on the western side, all hills, parks, and castles. Then there’s Pest in the east, a wide, flat stretch of both grand avenues and more down to earth residential areas. Buda has the main tourist highlights; Pest is where the party is at. During the Habsburg days, Buda was the German side of the city; Pest was the Magyar hot-bed. The two cities, along with the town of Óbuda, were not officially united as Budapest until 1873 (I gu [View Full Entry]

---

---

My last visit to Budapest was back in November 2003. It was my second time in the city to visit one of my best friend Hugues. Over these 2 years I came here for two visits. At that time I was travelling without a camera, but I've always had a lot of fun in Budapest and I've kept great souvenirs of the city. My first two visits were both in the deep of Autumn, with far less great weather than in the middle of summer. This was nearly 6 years ago. Today Hugues lives in Shanghai...and we are more than friends. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Today we were going on a rather long train trip... well only 2 and half hours each way but long enough for now. We decided seen as we were so close we should do a day trip to Budapest in Hungary... best decision we ever made as if Saturday was anything to go by Bratislava would have been a nightmare to stay at on a Sunday. So we managed to catch our delayed train (it seems the train in the morning is always delayed, think the driver stops for breakfast or something!) the train was rather fast and very scenic as [View Full Entry]

---

---

Yesterday was a scorching day in Budapest. We enjoyed the morning - toured the Great Market Hall and had a nice lunch before heading back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and move on to our new hotel close to the airport. We decided to take the subway since the hotel directions said it was an easy 5 minute walk from the last subway station. We had written detailed directions but, sometimes things don't go as planned. The street that we were supposed to turn left on after exiting the station was not marked and we ended up walking [View Full Entry]

---

---

It was pretty swank while it lasted :) [View Full Entry]

---

---