Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Brno and Wroclaw

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Budapest is one of the cities for which I had great expectations, and on most fronts, the city did not disappoint – it is truly a beautiful capital city. Arriving on the train from Kosice, quite late at night, wasn't that great an experience – the area around the station didn't seem that safe, and there were more homeless people in the area between the station and the centre than I've seen in any other European capital. Arriving so late at night I didn't really get a chance to see any of the city until the following day. The defining element of the city is the majestic River Danube, which separates the historically separate Buda on the west bank from Pest on the east bank. The two areas are very distinct from one another – Buda is dominated by hills and the medieval Buda Castle, whereas Pest is more or less flat and features fashionable shopping quarters, elegant baroque town houses and the majority of the plush restaurants and hotels. I found Buda to be more interesting – there just seemed to be much more to see in a very compact area. Within the walled area of Buda, which is a fair climb up from the Danube, the first building I came across was St Matthias Church, which stood out with its enormous spire and multicoloured tiles. Next to this church is Fisherman's Bastion, which was absolutely packed with fellow tourists admiring the views over the Danube and Pest beyond. On the other side of Buda Castle there are equally impressive views in the opposite direction, over the hills of West Buda. To the south is one of Budapest's major landmarks, the Royal Palace, which is now home to The National Gallery. It boasts incredibly ornate architecture, as you would expect from any Hapsburg palace. Also in Buda, but not within the walled city, is “The Citadel”, to get to which you have to descend all the way down to the Danube before climbing even higher than Buda Castle. At the top is a fort and the Hungarian Statue of Liberty, but more importantly a cracking view of all the bridges of the Danube in central Budapest. Unfortunately for me the heavens opened soon after I got to the top and I got lost trying to take a short cut back to my hostel.

Most of the main sights in Pest are much more spread out than in Buda; the biggest draw must be the iconic Parliament building, which has become the symbol of both the city and Hungary as a whole. Another main attraction is the world's second largest synagogue, with another virtually identical but much older synagogue just around the corner. The focal point for Pest however is the impressive St Stephen's Basilica, somewhat reminiscent of London's St Paul's, and unquestionably beautiful on the inside and out. Stretching north-east from St Stephen's is Andrássy Street – a boulevard filled with ornate mansions, embassies and museums, which stretches to Heroes' Square and the City Park. Beneath Andrássy Street is the oldest metro line in the world outside of London, though I didn't use the metro as all of the sights are in easy walking distance of one another. The City Park is home to yet more museums, as well as a castle built at the end of the 19th century for the World Fair, which today is surrounded by a lake filled with random modern art – it's all rather quirky.

Although Budapest is undoubtedly beautiful in the daytime, at night time it is probably even more attractive, with all of the main attractions with the notable exception of the Parliament building being well illuminated. The city's most famous bridge, The Chain Bridge (vaguely reminiscent of a mini Brooklyn Bridge) is much more impressive at night, as is the Royal Palace in Buda Castle.

The area outside of Budapest was equally as intriguing as the city itself. The Danube valley, stretching north towards Slovakia, is home to a number of historic and picturesque sights, of which I was able to visit but a few. I started off in Esztergom, 65km north of Budapest and right on the Slovak border. The city is home to the largest basilica in Central Europe, which is by far the largest attraction in the city, but Esztergom also had a nice centre and riverfront. From Esztergom I followed the Danube back to Budapest, first stopping off at Visegrad, which is little more than a village, but has an imposing citadel looming hundreds of metres above the Danube. The climb to the top from the river-front was quite arduous, but the views, even in the light rain, were definitely worth it. There's not that much left of the castle itself unfortunately, but the views more than compensated for this. From Visegrad, I made one more stop before returning to Budapest, in the town of Szentendre (meaning St Andrew in English). This town, just 17km from the capital, is one of the most visited places in the country, as it is known for its sinuous cobbled streets adorned with historic buildings and quaint houses. The town was very quirky and arty, with strange attractions like the Marzipan Museum and the Christmas Museum (open all year round). The downside was the amount of road works going on in the town – most of the streets were being worked on, and the tourist office was closed as the street it was on wasn't accessible. Szentendre will probably be much nicer and more peaceful to visit whenever they finish the building works.

The only other town in Hungary I visited was the Royal city of Gödöllő, in Pest County. This small city is essentially a city of parks and palaces, having been a favourite with the Hapsburg rulers. Unlike everywhere else around Budapest, there were no signs in English and most of the information boards had been defaced, so finding my way around was very much a guessing game. I found the main palace, Grassalkovich Palace, without too many difficulties, and everything else seemed to surround this central site. Quite an impressive and peaceful town all in all.

So after my brief stay in Hungary, I headed back to Slovakia, and this time to Bratislava, which was just under 3 hours away by train. Bratislava was okay, but not great. Being situated so close to Vienna, Prague and Budapest – 3 of Central Europe's most compelling cities, it's no wonder that the city feels slightly overlooked by tourists. The city was by no means empty of foreign tourists, but nowhere near as busy as Budapest; being comparatively peaceful whilst still being a capital city is probably one of its greatest attractions. Bratislava didn't really feel like a capital city, with the city centre being incredibly compact, and the whole city lacking that sense of grandeur that most capitals strive for. The historic old town was quite pleasant, with a few preserved attractions such as the castle, which overlooks the town and the Danube. The cathedral, St Martin's, was covered in scaffolding at the time of my visit, and in any case isn't the most interesting cathedral. A few of the other churches were more attractive, and there were a few towers such as St Michael's Gate. Grassalkovich Palace, (which confusingly has the same name as the palace I just visited in Godollo) is the residence of the President, and was one of the more ornate buildings in the city. The views from the castle over the city were pretty good, but the views from Slavin – a monument to the Soviet soldiers killed in the liberation of the city in 1945 – were supposed to be better, as it is the highest point in the city. From the monument, most of the views of the old town are blocked out by the trees and the embassies that surround Slavin, with the only views being towards the less attractive suburbs filled with Soviet-era buildings. The climb up from the old town might not actually have been worth it.

10km outside of the city is Devin, home to an impressive castle. As Slovakia has the highest concentration of castles in the world, and I haven't actually been in a proper one (the one in Bratislava was reconstructed in the 1950s), I thought I had better see it. Although most of the castle is ruined (destroyed on the orders of Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century), it was still quite interesting, and with views of the Danube and Austria on the opposite bank. Definitely a step up from anything I saw in Bratislava.

Another city I visited whilst staying in Bratislava was Trenčín, which lies an hour and a half by train to the north. Trenčín is the capital of the north-western region of the country but maintains the feel of a small provincial city. Despite the wet weather, I liked Trenčín (more so than Bratislava). The town itself is just a mere couple of streets, but above, jutting out over the centre, the imposing Trenčín Castle was quite a sight. And quite a climb to get to it as well. Looking over the city from the top of the tallest tower was very impressive. Not much else at the castles besides a few poor exhibitions, some wandering goats and some tethered falcons. There isn't much else to the city beyond the castle to be frank, but it turned out to be my lucky day when I found out that I had timed my arrival with the day of the Roman Festival. This promised gladiator fighting, amongst other Roman activities, in the main square in the evening. I stayed for 90 or so minutes before I had to rush off and get my train back to Bratislava, in which time there was a lot of introducing gladiators and a lot of dancing, but alas no actual gladiator fighting or in fact that much of interest at all. I imagine they were saving all of the best bits for later. Trenčín was the last city I visited in Slovakia. A very nice country indeed, but east was definitely better than west. From Bratislava it was just a hop and a skip across the border to Austria and its magnificent capital, Vienna.

When I got to the centre of Vienna and had a look around, I was really not that impressed. The focal point is St Stephen's Cathedral, which although is clearly a nice-enough building, probably doesn't stand out in the dozens of cathedrals I've seen of late. Around the cathedral are streets filled with expensive and luxury goods – it isn't until you get a bit further away from the very centre that the city really becomes impressive. The inner core of Vienna is encircled by “The Ring”, which is a road following the original city walls, which also shows how small the medieval city must have been. The buildings along the ring are amongst the most impressive in the city, ranging from the church on Karlsplatz and the nearby ornate Opera House, to the myriad of palaces in the Museum Quarter. The main Imperial Palace, Hofburg, is situated just inside the ring in the Museum Quarter, and itself houses a handful of museums, as well as the famous Spanish Riding School. To one side of the Hofburg palace, on the other side of The Ring, two identical palaces face each other, both housing more museums. A park and the Volksgarten separate the palaces from the Austrian Parliament building, and adjacent to that, the imposing Rathaus (City Hall). These are probably the main attractions in the city, but it seemed that no matter what street I took, there were always beautiful and interesting buildings around – all paying homage to Vienna's previous role as the capital of a great empire. Besides its architecture, Vienna is best known for classical music, so in the spirit of things I went to a concert in Peterskirche (St Peter's Church) not far from St Stephen's. The Rathaus also shows opera on a big screen every evening for free – I managed to get through half of Carmen before deciding that was enough. But it is certainly good for the city that there are so many musical options available for visitors. Outside of the city centre there are plenty of interesting sights – in the south is Belvedere Palace (another royal palace which is now a museum) and in the west is Schonbrunn Palace – the Hapsburgs' main summer residence. The gardens and palace were truly delightful, only spoiled by the sheer number of visitors, but that goes to show how special Schonbrunn is. In short, I really liked Vienna – I could have spent a good few more days there exploring, but it's somewhere I'll look forward to coming back to. I'm not sure if I preferred Vienna or Budapest – both are amazing cities – and Vienna definitely lacks the beautiful river-front that Budapest enjoys, with the Danube in Vienna unfortunately going nowhere near the centre.

From Vienna, I headed north and into the Czech Republic. I only really had a fleeting glimpse of Moravia (the Eastern half of the Czech Republic), starting off in Brno, the country's second city. Being not that far from Vienna, it is not surprising that in some ways Brno looks like a miniature version of the Austrian capital, though obviously not to the same scale. Being a Sunday, the city was more or less deserted whilst I was there, which made a nice change from the hustle and bustle of Vienna. In many ways, Brno is just your standard city – it has the usual castle, cathedral and central square. It doesn't have that much more to make it stand out from other cities, but despite this I did like its charms. The main attraction is Spilberk Castle, which is one of the more impressive castles I've been to, and although I didn't actually go inside, I did do a tour of the prisons underneath the castle, which are reputed to have been the most notorious in the whole of the Austrian Empire. The prison was closed down in the latter half of the 19th century and immediately became the largest tourist attraction in the area; consequently lots of stories and legends grew, though as the tour pointed out, most were completely untrue and the prison was essentially turned into what tourists would expect it to look like rather than what it actually was. It was quite interesting seeing the actual conditions and the conditions they portrayed the prisoners as having to tourists in the 1800s. The city's cathedral, named “Petrov” or St Peter's and St Paul's, is the other landmark building in the city, though was definitely more impressive from the outside than the inside. Besides a couple of other churches with pleasant façades, there was also the Old Town Hall, with its high tower covered with the city's emblems. After a night in Brno, I headed east towards Poland, stopping off along the way at Olomouc and Ostrava.

Olomouc was a really nice city – in many ways a miniature version of Prague. It boasts the country's only Astronomical Clock outside of Prague, only this one was repaired by the Soviets after the war so instead of featuring angels and saints, it depicts workmen. The clock is in the impressive City Hall on the main square, which is also surrounded by attractive fountains and attractive town houses. I would have probably explored a bit more, but the constant rain was rather dissuasive. Ostrava, an hour away from Olomouc, is the country's third city. I didn't find the city that interesting – it's very industrial, so didn't linger. From Ostrava I caught a train across the border to the Polish city of Katowice. Katowice from the very beginning was very confusing. The station is being rebuilt and the exits from the temporary station lead you away from the centre of town – with no signs or indications of which way to go. Coupled with the torrential rain which coincided with my arrival in the city, it would possibly be an understatement to say I didn't particularly like Katowice, so didn't stay for more than a couple of hours. When I got to the actual centre, I wished I hadn't bothered trying to find it at all – really not worth it. Anyway, I headed back to the station and caught a 3 hour train to Wroclaw.

Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots-wav) was in stark contrast, a very impressive city. One of my favourite in Poland. Although not quite as picturesque as Krakow, it's slightly smaller and there are certainly fewer tourists, so it's not quite as chaotic. It mixes beautiful Germanic architecture with lots of green open spaces and a fair amount of waterways. The main square, Rynek, is surrounded by colourful town houses, gothic churches and a large city hall, with the roads sprawling out from the main square similarly featuring ornate buildings. Across the River Oder lies the cathedral as well as picturesque gardens; in between are several islands with even more churches and open parkland. The views from St Elizabeth's church, just off the main square, were amazing – the only downside being the narrow spiral staircase you have to climb and descend (squeezing past people going in the opposite direction) to get to the views. There were a few not-so-nice parts to the city, as there are to every city, and the railway station here is being rebuilt as well, but here they've actually thought of putting diversion signs up to let people know how to get to the centre from the station – something that obviously escaped the people in Katowice. I'm definitely glad I stopped off in Wroclaw, as it really is a city worth visiting. So, after a couple of weeks skipping through several countries, I'm now heading for Germany, where I will probably spend a couple of weeks, before heading south again to Austria. Catch my next blog from Berlin.

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Photos

Vajdahunyad Castle and lake
Quirky modern art!

A street in Szentendre
One of the view with no roadworks...