Advertisement
Published: November 2nd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Castle in Krakow
Us after we climbed to the top of the castle hill Krakow We arrived in Krakow on the overnight train from Prague before the sun had even risen. It was freezing but luckily our hostel, the Tutti Frutti hostel, was easy to find, despite not having a map. It was in a great location - you could see the main square of Krakow from the doorstep. After breakfast, we explored the shops and walked up to the castle to see the view, which was more windy than breathtaking. So we retreated to the warmth of our hostel and saved our energy for our trip to Auschwitz the following day. Although we did attempt to cook spaghetti bolognese for dinner. But with no Polish dictionary or menu guide on hand, we ended up buying pork mince and mexican sauce, so it was kind of rank.
We had a long day at Auschwitz, made even longer by the rainy cold weather. We caught a bus there in the morning, and allowed enough time to do the 11am English tour. However, the bus got stuck in traffic and we were just starting to stress that we weren't going to make it when the bus got a flat tire! So we were late and
Upper Belvedere Museum
An interesting statue at the gallery in Vienna missed the tour, and we had to wait until 1pm for the next tour. And it was constantly raining and about 8 degrees. Even though we had umbrellas and jackets and gloves, it was still horrible and we both got the sniffles. But the tour was intense. Probably the most shocking things were the personal items that the Nazis kept, such as piles of hair and thousands of pairs of childrens shoes.
Other than the weather, Krakow was really nice, and cheap. We did some shopping to get rid of the rest of our Polish money, before our 7 hour bus to Budapest.
Budapest The bus ride was long and boring, my only entertainment being the Polish teenagers sitting behind me who were playing drinking games! For some reason they were playing in English (broken English) e.g. "I haven't never..." and they were so annoying!
We arrived after dark and it was raining, so we had a fun time finding our hostel. The next day it was still raining and grey - not nice for sightseeing. So we went from cafe to bookstore to metro stop to keep dry. It was very lazy. The following day
View of Vienna
From the art gallery windows we we equally as lazy, but we went to the Thermal Baths to be even more lazy. It was so relaxing! There were 9 different baths, one was as hot as 38 degrees C and another had a whirlpool which span you around in a circle. We decided that Hungarian people are just as rude as Czechs, after an altercation with the staff at the thermal baths involving the receipts that we never received but needed to get out of the complex. But we asked to speak to the manager and they decided to just let us go. Stupid system it was anyway.
That night we went out with some really cool American girls that we met at the hostel. And that's about all I remember of the night. Maybe ask Hayden about the rest!
The next day we caught the bus to Vienna, and 3 hours on the bus was not fun...
Vienna We were disappointed to find that the rain had followed us to Vienna.
Not wanting to brave the weather (we are so weak!), we went to an art gallery called Upper Belvedere, that houses alot of Austrian art, including Klimt's The Kiss,
Autumn in Vienna
Golden trees in central Vienna which i was very excited to see. We were going to go to the opera that night, but when we got there the good seats were all sold and only expensive ones were left. So we are going to try again tomorrow night. But we went to see the Michael Moore movie, Sicko instead. Much more informative!
Thankfully, we awoke the following day to blue skies so we explored Vienna. It's surprising how much prettier a city looks under sunshine! We visited the Imperial Palace and St Stephen Cathedral and walked around the opera house and central shopping area. That night we went to the opera, which was amazingly confusing. And it even had subtitles!
We also repacked our bags, as we had a Skyeurope flight to Venice the next day. We have bought so much stuff, all the souvenirs make up Stephen's hand luggage with no room for anything else. And Stephen has hoarded a lot of useless stuff e.g. the toilet sign from the pub that we went to in Budapest... he said it just fell off in his hand so it is rightfully his!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.261s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0389s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb