We check out of our hostel and depart on a 1 hr short bus ride to BLED (8.5 euros per person). We were all eagerly anticipating this trip because in our travel so far, the people we met mostly recommended lake bled as a must-go in slovenia and you’ll be stunned by how beautiful the place is.
Our hostel is called Andrea’s Home. Its a lovely apartment where we have 2 rooms and a bathroom, kitchen and a outdoor area all for ourselves. I think we are always very excited to have kitchen in our hostel, thus grocery shopping top our to-do-list immediately. Andrea is also a very warm host, where she carefully explain to us the main attractions in Bled, how to get there, how much time we need for each area. We then planned our 2 nights stay here accordingly from there onwards.
andrea's home after grocery shopping
bits of Bled
Without further delay, we headed for a VERY strenous hike to Vintgar Gourge. (more tiring than a 21km “road march” as peishi usually exclaimed). But I would say its well worth the effort because it brings us closer to nature. As city dwellers, we are pretty easily amazed and wowed when we see farm animals like cows, goats, hen and horses. Other than animals, the flowers along our estimated 15km hike in total accompanied us and cheered us on. And the view are mostly spectacular with mountains as the backdrop. I shall let the pictures do most of the talking for this entry.
at the start of the hike when we are still rather energetic
yijun with the big wheel truck driver
after an hour or so, we arrived at the entrance of the Triglavski National Park
refreshed breezy feel after entering the park
a ray of light 🙂
waterfall!
Cost 3 euros per person to enter this national park (Always make an effort to say that you are student, we made alot of savings by declaring ourselves as students, and most of them do not check your student pass. Estimated savings so far is about 20 euros each person)
After a 35 minutes relaxing, rejuvenating and revitalising walk in the park, we reward ourselves with Walls ice cream. After that, we took the advice of the guidebook, instead of heading back the way the came, we challenge ourselves with a super steep strenous 25 minutes walk up the hill behind the cafe where we have our ice cream. It is deep into the forested area where you can only get around your way by following the red white dots marked on some of the trees in there. (not recommended to walk after sunset).
Wanted to post some photos on how steep the slopes are but the photos are somehow corrupted. Found a very handy and sturdy branch for yijun to climb the steepest slope ever. The end of the hike is a rewarding top view (again no photos to show unfortunately).
flowers at the roadside on our journey back
good dinner to reward our tiring legs
battle of the swan at lake bled
- lake bled
Personally i feel that lake bled is overrated. Its not much difference between our bedok reservoir if i can convince the town council to build something in the middle of the reservoir too. The only difference is that bedok one is surrounded by HDB, while lake bled is mountains, bled castle and churches. Perhaps, we had too high of an expectation before heading here, thus we were left slightly disppointed with it.
surrounding the not-too-friendly swan
ending off the day
We had our “pub crawl 3”, this time rund with a dozen cans of beer. (photos not ready yet, but come back again to see a video of the loser of the night weird behaviour & the story of the hotdog friend)
Goodnights
Today was a peaceful sunday, with the least activities lined up in a day for the trip so far. We went to the Skocjan Caves, an underground canyon located near Divaca. We took the 8am bus from Ljubljana arriving Divaca at 930am, had to wait for a 7 min free shuttle into Skocjan Caves at only 10am. There are only guided tours into Skocjan Caves; we ‘posed’ as students using our long expired student cards which reduced the entrance fees from 15 Euros to 11 Euros. Its a pity that photos cannot be take inside the Skocjan caves as the flash might have some influence on the development of the caves.
The overcrowding tour
The Skocjan caves were created by River Reka which flows 50km on the surface before sinking ino the undergrounds. Some interesting facts about the caves: The deepest part of the cave was some 160m from the ground surface and the highest cave reaches as high as 150m. The first explorers discovered the caves when they were on the river searching for fresh water before they stumbled upon these caves around 1823. The other parts of the caves were subsequently discovered by other explorers at later ages. We travelled on the caves using well paved and hand railed foot path that were created just for the tourists. We were then shown to the steps that the explorers have craved out from the rocks using simple tools and just candles as the source of lighting. The steps were merely 15cm by 30cm, spaced far apart, bearly enough for the explorers to walk on. These trails extended up to 12 km around the caves while the paths that were created for the tourists were only 6km long. Salutes to the brave and enduring explorers! The cave tour ended in 3 hours time, stretching a distance of 2km, there are longer tours but due to our energy and financial level, this tour is sufficient.
The insides, ripped from the net
the bridge across the canyon, 100 meters above the water, ripped from the net too
a poorly taken photo
compare the height of the cave to the size of the man
We were back in the information centre around 1pm, but had to wait for the free shuttle back to Divaca before taking a bus back to Ljubljana. The 7mins shuttle was only scheduled to arrive at 2pm and the bus back to Ljubljana will only arrive at 330pm. It was then starvation and waiting and waiting before we made it back to the Ljubljana.
Back in the hostel, chef Chow and Leon managed to whip up delicious Carbonara with no ham and bacon but cheap offer hotdogs that we previously found in the supermarket. This time round they managed a better job than days before when the duo had a very bad evening in the kitchen. The super upsized managed to save Peishi who was already suffering from gastric attacks, who have to gobble energy bar and milk before dinner was ready. She had only a hotdog bun and strands of fries since morning till 6pm?
the chefsthe end product
the end product
After dinner we headed for chill out along the river, intending to do some people watching; ended up have 2 hours of non stop 5-10s. The biggest loser is myself, forfeiting 3 cans of beer, Yijun and Leon, almost 3 cans each and Peishi 2 cans. We will have to finish these amount before begin our ‘pub crawl’ at Lake Bled tomorrow! Hopefully 3 cans still makes me sober enough to make them drunk! View from the ‘Ugly duckling’ wooden bridge was good, but not as impressive as what the guidebook had describe “taking pictures non stop”.
view of the triple bridges from the 'ugly duckling'
The day was simple, probably everyone was already tired after 10 days of travelling; walking most of the time. Time to sleep and heading for Lake Bled not too far from Ljubljana tomorrow!
330am! We woke up feeling tired and angry. Haha. 4 hrs of sleep and we need to set off from pula to Ljubljana. It was difficult to travel out frm pula due to off peak season now. Buses only operate on every mon n fri. We have no choice But to take a train(150kn) 1Sgd -4.18kn. It was a chore…
Train start 505am from pula-lupoglab, change a bus to rjeka transit for 5 hrs then train to Ljubljana. Journey took 9 hrs! We had the chance to sleep openly in public due to the long transit wait. We were so tired that we just sleep unglamly with mouth open n drooling when we saw a seat.
Here we go Ljubljana! 245pm. Found our hostel, alibli hostel m14(17eur per night) for a 10men dorm. Pula hostel is by far the most fun loving and friendly accommodation. Thus when we reach this new hostel, we felt a bit disappointed. No big welcome..no cosy homely feel. cramp and limited wireless..
We took an area map from the reception and went to explore the city. I m the appointed tour guide for slovenia. Did a bit of homework and here’s some history of Ljubljana if you r interested.
Ljubljana is said to be founded by a Greek mythological hero, Jason, who had stolen a golden fleece from king Aetes and fled frm him. On their way to the sea, they made a stop at ljubljana marshes, the dwelling place of a monster, which Jason fought and killed. The monster now referred to as ljubljana dragon, found it’s place atop the castle tower depicted on the ljubljana coat of arms.
Ljubljana is famous for Joze Plecnik and France Preseren. Joze Plecnik is the architect who shaped Ljubljana, designing most of the city’s most important landmarks. France Preseren is Slovenia’s Greatest poet.
We visited the
Preseren square – city’s meeting point with a large statue of France Preseren whose works include the lyrics to the slovenian nation anthem.
Triple bridge – design by Joze Plecnik.
Hauptmann house
Dragon bridge
Unknown bridge – have a lot of locks with wishes. Some even went into extent of decorating their locks. interesting sight..i think it is very sweet for couple to write their wishes and lock it on a bridge of good hopes. May all be happy always.
Ljubljana castle – this is the no.?? castle that we climbed… Eastern Europe trip has been continuously climbing uphill and non stop walking. Quoted frm Yijun (the amt of distance we walked during these 9 days was more than what we walked in sg for a mth)
This was the most challenging castle to climb so far. We needed to walk up a damn steep hill and climbed up a long flight of stairs before we reached the summit of the castle. There is an easier way up, that is to pay for a tram. (3eur round trip) However, in order to save up for the later part of the trip, we decided to go by foot. Entrance to the castle is free. But u would need to pay 4eur if u wan to go up to the summit, enter the museum and watch a 3d film of an aintroduction to Ljubljana. Student has a discount! 2eur to enjoy all these! We look young enuf to smoke through…n yes! We got the 2eur deal! It was a worthwhile trip despite the tiring climbing.
Dinner was settle in mac..we each reward ourselves with a meal. 3 country burger meal at 4.70eur each and 1 1955 burger at 5.90eur.
After which, We went to a wooden bridge, also known as the ugly duckling. it was said to Hv the best view for photographer. Views was truly awesome!
We r planning for a skocjan caves trip tml. So we headed to the bus interchange and purchase the tix(8.8eur). Tml bus will depart at 8am. Need to rest early then. Gd night..
Good morning Pula! I think i am the loser of our 2nd pub crawl!
i am the loser last night!
Nevertheless, i still managed to give everyone a morning call at 730am, thats what i am best at. Chef S & K prepared delicious breakfast for us.
breakfast in progress
our triple burger!
We bought our bus ticket at the main bus station for 35 kuna each. Rovinj is located 45 mins bus ride from Pula. Rovinj is like a little Venice on the hill, it’s the most Italian town in Croatia because Rovinj is under the republic of Venice for 5 centuries. Hence its architecture, culture and even dialect are influenced by it.
Supposedly we wanted to hunt for a 5 mins boat ride (from the guide book) to see Rovinj from the sea. As we approach the Mali Molo (Little harbour), we were greeted by this friendly ‘promoter’ who mentioned nothing about the 5 mins ride but instead a 1.5 hours of cruise ride with drinks like brandy, ice tea, included for 15 euro. Initially we were quite skeptical of his ‘touristy’ offer and the price tag also exceed our budget. He went on asking where we are from, saying the girls look like Japanese. (I think this was the turning point, the girls probably gave in to this comment) We began to bargain with him and eventually we close the deal a 250 kuna for 4 persons which is around 8 euros per pax. 50% reduction in price, so always remember to look reluctant to offers and say that you are students.
all on board!
Rovinj from the sea
Boat steward serving the drinks
photo with the friendly scottish couples
departing photo with the tiko boat steward
The view of Rovinj was much much much better from walking along its streets. Therefore i strongly recommend to take a boat ride to have views from all sides. Minutes after departure, the boat ‘steward’ aka “the guy that look like a shellfish who served on Davis Jones ship; Orlando Bloom father” served us the first drink: Brandy neat. I think the alcoholic content is at least 50% as we can feel the brandy burning in our stomach and the stench of it stayed in our breath hours after drinking it. The boat ‘steward’ shortly served voda water, orange juice, home made white wine and ice tea which the they had all promised. Personally i enjoyed the brandy despite its awful taste as it really felt like a sailor’s drink. If Kebin was around, i would have dare him to have another shot and see who falls off the boat first! The white wine was pretty good, 8 euros on a scenic boat ride, brandy and white wine definitely worth the 8 euros.
the upskirt shot
a really nice rock suntan bar
the clarity of the water
seagull of the day
The effect of the brandy continued even after we alighted from the boat, everyone getting tipsy and a little more crappy than usual. Is it the high content of the ‘secret’ brandy or its us that cannot hold our liquor? Haha suddenly i had the thoughts: if only i can get hold of this brandy and have it during our gathering! Awesome! imagine the number of knock outs. We had our triple layer sandwich bearly enough to satisfy our hunger and the burning sensation that is still in our stomachs. We hiked up towards Church of St Euphemia with the aim of climbing up the bell tower. It has always been our goal or rather Leon’s goal to climb up the highest point of every city and town to have a glimpse of it. Most of them were greatly except at Vienna’s St Stephen, dont bother going up! Back to the bell tower: The gapped wooden steps are old and creaky, makes you constantly looking at them wondering if you will fall through them if you missed your steps. I liked the climb up the bell tower, the steps are really authentic unlike those that have been re built with hand and guard rails just to cater the needs of the tourists. The view from the tower. Awesome.
the wooden steps
when the sea meets the horizon
Bus back to Pula was quick, departs almost hour takes about 45 minutes to fast for us to catch enough rest. Back in Pula, we were busy hunting for our tickets out of Pula into Ljubljana. Irritating and fucked up. The bus station told us bus service are only for Mondays and Fridays for non summer period. We walked to the train station, the train station was like what the hostel lady told us “old fashioned and nobody uses it”. There were hardly anyone there and after enquiring, we were told that there is a train leaving at 2pm but we will have to change a couple of trains and buses arriving only at 11pm. We walked back to the city center again, marched into the ‘TOURIST INFORMATION’, and the lady told us that there are actually bus service operating other than Mondays and Fridays but we have to check out at the bus terminal. We walked back again to the bus station, and they told us the bus services only for summers! WTF! Curse that Tourist Information. Alas! We secured our tickets at a travel agency in which we will take 5am train to Lupoglav, then transfer a bus to Rijeka (4 mins to transfer). From Rijeka we have to wait for 4 hours before taking a 3 hours train to Ljubljana.
We have marched around the city center from 4pm since we gotten back from Rovinj till 7pm when we secured our tickets. 3 hours non stop walking and walking: Bus station – train station – tourist info – bus station – agency. I think the culprit is the lady in the tourist info, screw her. The shop owners and the restaurants waiters saw us marching up and down the town, seems to be looking for something. We were so embarrassed and even gave ourselves nick names: Asian 4 Weirdos. Grabbed Jupiter’s pizza as our dinner, take out because we were still searching for our tickets but yet too hungry, in the end ate right outside the pizzeria. The waitress gave us the ‘wtf’ look, Asian 4 Weirdos indeed.
We spent every single Kunas that we have on the tickets, used card to pay for the groceries for tonight supper and tomorrow breakfast and lunch. Headed back to the hostel. The walkings not over yet, wonder who’s idea it was, to head for the beach which is 40 mins walk away from our hostel. We changed our flip flops to trek shoes, began walking at 715pm, trying to catch a glimpse of the beach before dusk. Walking walking, too broke to even take a 11 Kuna bus. This is a beach:
No sand but lots of pebbles
The beach is okay! considering the 40 mins x 2 walks in exchange for a burly dusk beach. Tomorrow train 5am, waking up at 330am, just thinking of that is emotional enough. Good night walkings, time to ‘sayang’ our legs.
After witnessing merlion last night in the street of Zagreb last night, I wake up wondering if i’m actually back in Singapore. Surprisingly after last night drinking session, we managed to drag ourselves out of the bed to visit a local morning market near our hostel.
at the market
The market is quite big, with the ground level selling fresh fruits and vegetables, and the lower level selling raw meat and bread. The fruits here looked exceptionally fresh and inviting, thus we bought ourselves a box of strawberry (10Kuna).
mutant size strawberries
Next, we bought some bread for breakfast and settled along the Jelanic Square to have our breakfast. We are fortunate enough to have a street busker singing while we enjoy our meal and people watch.
After checking out of the rather lousy hostel, we took a 5 hours comfortable bus ride (161 Kuna per person) to Pula. They say never judge a book by its cover, I think we should also not judge a town by the moment you arrived.
Pula itself is a off the beaten track destination. It is not a typical touristy city, thus we had problems securing transportation in and out of Pula. Upon reaching the rather run-down looking bus station, we could not find a decent map to guide us to the hostel.
A brief background on Pula: It is strategically situated at Southern tip of Istria(Western side of Croatia), thus it served as an important port since the time of the Roman Empire. You can say geographically wise it is many ways similar to Singapore situated at the Southern tip of the Malaysia Peninsula. (Pardon me for always bringing in Singapore, must be the effect of the Merlion). It is not surprising that such a strategic location is often a warzone in its almost 3000 years of history. After the fall of the Roman empire, the town changed hands repeatedly, caught in the crossfire of wars between greater owers – Venetians Genoa, Byzantines & Hapsburgs. Pula became a ghost town, only served as a military base in the 14th century. Until 19th century, Italian unification forced the Austrian Hapsburg to relocate to Pula, where they started to develop thw town to a bristling port. Thus, you can see Roman, Venetian and Austrian artifacts and buildings all in this small town.
After about 45 minutes of figuring our way through gut feel and asking around, we finally arrive at our hostel. BUT, there is not one there in the hostel and we were stranded outside the door. We tried calling the number left behind on the door in a post-it pad but it could not get through. Luckily, the kind hearted neighbour who was about to leave the place helped us to locate the hostel host! If not I have no idea how long we are going to be there, feeling tired and hungry.
stranded outside our hostel
From there onwards, it became all good as we begin to appreciate the charm of this small little town. The hostel host was exceptionally warm and friendly, feeding us with all information we need without us asking. To be honest I am surpised that the hostel is run by this grandma, because usually you will expect young fun people running the hostel, blending in with their customers. Young or old doesn’t matter, she is one of the better ones I’ve encountered so far.
I have to mention about how good the hostel is because we felt so at home, we were inspired to make our own dinner. The hostel is an apartment with 3 rooms (6 beds, 8 beds and 10 beds), with a living room equipped with dvd player, flat screen tv, computer, wireless in the entire place, kitchen with all you need utensils and cooking cordiments, fridge with milk, coffee, tea, 2 bathrooms with washing machine! What more can you ask for in a hostel? Oh, i almost forgot that there are electronic safe for each person in the rooms.
After settling down and grocery shopping (93 Kuna for ingredients for dinner, breakfast, packed lunch, beer and chips), we started to explore the town. This is one of the most enjoyable and relaxing walk so far, might be because of the weather, or the proximity of the attractions, the fantastic hostel to look forward to after the walk, the friendly locals greeting us “ko-ni-chi-wa” with a smile when we walked pass, the 5 Kuna super delicious ice cream, the dirty looking dogs of all sizes and shapes or simply because this is a not-so-touristy town which makes it different from other city walks where we see big churches and palace.
roman architecture
The twin brother of the Rome Colosseum is situated in Pula; the Roman amphitheater. This is the sixth-largest (435 feet long and 345 feet wide) Roman amphitheater left, and one of the best-preserved one. It took several decades to complete it at around 80 A.D,about the same time as the one in Rome. Imagine the scene here some 2000 years back,more than 25,000 cheering fans of all social class filled the seats to watch the gladiators fight. The Romans made these spectacles cheap or even free – distracting commoners with a steady diet of mindless entertainment prevented discontent and rebelion. The gladiators were criminals and war prisoners from land conquered by Rome, dressed and used weapon according to their countr of origin. The fight exotic animals and the most ended in death for the losers. (Sand in the ground to absorb the bood and water spray on top to mask the stench of blood.)
frame in front of the roman amphitheature
evening view of the amphitheatre
our usual practice at each city
Dinner preparation commenced almost immediately after we returned to our hostel feeling famished. Chef Chow & me whopped up a not-so-delicious pasta, a too-milky cream of mushroom soup and not-so-cooked sausage for our very hungry guest.
chefs of the day
Next up is pub crawl part 2, where we crawl from Zagreb to Pula. This time round we played alot more games extracted from the ring-of-fire drinking game. I think I’m not the loser of the night! Heading for a short trip to Rovinj tomorrow!
warcry before the game by kelvin
loser of the night AGAIN
loser of the night 2 - who can't stop laughing
Took the 6:30 am train from Budapest Keleti train station to Zagreb. Fret not if you have to catch an early train as the public transport in Budapest starts as early as 4:30am. The train is not as comfortable as the one we first took to Budapest. The train ride took us almost 7 hours and half way into the Croatian border, close to 10 police officers, custom officers and ticket inspectors boarded the train, busily combing the train and check our passports. Its probably the first time we got checked since we arrived in Prague 6 days ago. Dont not be intimidated by them, as they are much friendlier than they looked.
Ms chow presenting S brands, 99 Forint of a pack of ham! These were our breakfast and lunch on the train
The end product, tasted slightly better than it looked
Zagreb main train station look more like a train station of a small town rather than of a country’s capital. Zagreb offically became an European capital when Croatia declared indepence as late as 1991 with a population of 780,000 (Croatia’s population is only 4.5 million). Croatia road to independence was tough and bloody.
Those who are not interested in history please skip this paragraph. For those who are interested in history read on: Yugoslavia (used to exist) consisted of 6 republics such as: Croatia. Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macdeonia. But till 1991, these countries began to declared their own independence from Yugoslavia. There much bloodshed, countries began their own ‘ethic cleansing ‘ removing the minority ethic groups from their grounds; there were many atrocities committed such as ‘rape camps’, mass graves, torture and murdering of soldiers and civilians, dynamiting of homes. The complexity in Yugoslavia was that there were huge mixtures of ethic groups living in every of the countires. And example was when Slovenia declared independence, the Yugoslavia National Army (made up of men from all the republics) intervened and the Slovenia soldiers found themselves fighting against their own countrymen. As the army had cut off all news and communication, most of them didnt realized that they were fighting their friends and neighbours unti they were close enough to see them. The crisis in Yugoslavia only stopped a decade ago when the Serbian army left Kosovo in 1999 after NATO intervention. However till now, there are still border disputes among the countries, tension still exist especially areas that were the most war torn. An interesting point to note is all these happened when only in the recent decades!
Okay! Enough of boring history lessons! Arrival at Zagreb, we were welcome by a row of street vendors selling a common item: Strawberry! 12 Kuna fora box. 1 SGD equivalent to 4.18 Kuna. Zagreb city centre consisted of the Upper and Lower Towns. The historic Upper Town has most of the tourist attractions located along and on the hill, while the Lower Town is made up of parks and the modern residential buildings. The heart of Zagreb is Jelacic Square, where it boast to be the ‘Time Square ‘ of Zagreb with banks, commercial buildings and shops and cafe. Our hostel is just a stone throw away from the square, highly accessible, cost us 20 Euros per person.
Our 'must take' photo in every city
Zagreb has no underground metro or buses in the city centre, most people rely on these electric trams (2SGD per trip)
View from top of the Upper Town
We were lucky enough to stay in Zagreb for only one night as you can easily tour through the attractions in less than half a day. At least we manage to have a taste of the best and recommended ice cream stall and sandwich bar in Zagreb. Ice cream cost 6 Kuna per scoop, 1.5 SGD, definitely a must try if you are in Zagreb. The rest of the attractions are typical, not really worth mentioning.
Vincek, the best ice cream stall in Zagreb?
The famous sandwich stall
The style of ordering is almost similar to Subway's, cost around 3 SGD each
As recommended by the host in our hostel, we visited the museum of broken relationship (20 Kuna per person). This is our first museum visit in this tour, and I can foresee it as our last since most of us are not arty-farty enough to appreciate the usual museums featuring statues or paintings. It feature symbolic items of couples during their relationships (eg, teddy bear, photograph, letters etc) with a note explaining the significance of the item in their relationship. Some of the stories are sad, some are sick and some are funny. Yijun’s favourite is a photograph with a circle marked on it. The description is as such – this is where i saw a penis in the sunshine for the first time in my life.
We had our first ‘pub crawl’ as desperately requested by Peishi. We crashed into a random pub along the streets in our flip flops, local draft beers ‘Karlovacko’ selling at 12 Kuna (3 SGD) for 0.5L.
Their local beer
Drinking alone was too boring, so we brought in our local ‘5-10’. Biggest loser of the night:
Wasted No.1 (before she puked)
Wasted No.2
Peishi even had the honour of puking on the street of Zagreb, inviting hoards of cheers and cat whistles. What a disgrace! She ‘merlion-ed’ without any warning signals, luckily only stained my feet and slippers. So in the end we did not managed to go to another pub, failing our ‘pub crawl’ event. But at least the duo are sober enough to walk back to the hostel. Tomorrow night we shall challenge ourselves to pub crawl at our next destination, Pula!
PS: remember to lock your to toilet door when your are shitting. I have the real life experience this afternoon in the hostel. My business was too urgent that i forgotten to lock the door! Luckily the girl opened the door when i was clearing up. I’m not sure what she seen, but i am sure she must be traumatized by the sights and the smell!
Alarm went off and it was 8am. We were all struggling to wake up after 4 long tiring days. Goat hostel(budapest) is the first hostel that we spend 2 nights so far. We have the whole day to explore budapest today and kelvin was the guide for the day. This was his 2nd time here and he was far more familiar than us.
interior of goat hostel.bright and clean
Set off to purchase train tix from budapest to croatia for the following morning. We took a metro near our hostel to the train station which cost 320ft (1SGD-150ft). Pretty expensive as it was a single trip tix. There was a need to change from the blue line to red line…i felt it was quite complicated. If not for the guys, i dun think i will made it to the train station tat fast. I will probably still be stranded at the hostel after an hr. (PS; there is a need to validate the tix by inserting it in a yellow box. A fierce looking uncle will always be spot checking at the station and cheaters will be fined 40eur!)
metro in budapest
Train tix to croatia is 30eur(return trip), apparently it is cheaper to get a return trip tix than a one way. All miscellaneous stuff done and we are ready to explore budapest!!
The city is split down the center by the danube river. West side is the hilly buda(with all the castle hill) and east side is flat pest (cities). Buda and pest are connected by a series of bridges but we visited the famous chain bridge.
the chain bridge
We started off with pest by visiting the great market hall. Unlike singapore wet market, theirs are dry and clean. Their vegetables and fruits colors are vibrant and look very fresh. Pastries and cakes are a must-try in budapest. We spotted a pastry shop and decided to give it a try.
the market place
Before going in to any scenic tourist spot, a narrator is appointed to give a rough idea of the history behind it and the fame of the spot. I think it is a very gd idea as this gives us a better picture of what are we looking and a better motive.
Budapest is a huge city and we conquer it by foot! No aid of public transport. Climbing uphill and downhill….up the castle and down to cities. As the title suggest, it is a day more tiring than a 21km road march.
Awesome architectures that we visit in pest includes:
Hungarian Parliament house
St Istvan’s Basilica (A catholic church which u see the first hungarian christian king, St Istvan at the altar instead of Jesus)
Hungarian state opera house (one of Europe’s finest opera house as it was restored after WW2 with lavish marble, frescoes decor and hight quality performance with bargain prices)
Great synagogue – (2nd biggest in the world, beind the synagogue, a tree of life scuplture was built. Each leaf listed the name of the victims who were killed during the nazi empire and pebbles represent prayers)
Along our way we saw a supermarket, and we decided to settle our lunch there. We bought a roasted chicken(1140ft, 4 bread each 25ft a large coke to share ) Yijun could not eat chicken so she bought a sandwich for herself. A simple and budget lunch, settled just on a bench outside a metro station. We ripped the chicken and accompanied with the bread. Taste amazingly nice though it was quite unglam and messy. Satisfy our tummy and we will continue with buda explore….
Chain Bridge – a bridge that connect buda and pest. View is awesome. We could see the distinctive difference of both buda and pest from the bridge. Buda architectures are more magnificent with many churches and castle while pest are more city like. But the Parliament house building at pest is still one of my fav so far.
Awesome architectures we visited in Buda includes:
Royal Palace
Fisherman Bastion
Matthias church
We spotted a post office in Buda and wrote a post card back to our family. Each about 300+ft inclusive of stamp. Along our way back to the hostel, we saw a shopping lane with Mango, H&M Promod….girls are tempted! Kelvin went to the lego shop which was near the hostel. Han accompanied the girls to shop and was also the hero to protect us back since we were directional idiots.
Rest in hostel for abt an hr, and we were off for dinner. We still have quite a lot of hun currency left so we decided to reward ourselves with a nice dinner. However, the place was out of soup and dessert, we could only have main course and drinks. After buying bread, ham and water for the train ride next morning we are stll left with 4000ft thus we changed the rest of the money to euro with the hostel boss(15eur to start with at slovenia which use euro).
Kelvin was seriously blogging for day 4. We are all shag and tired. Tml will be another long day..7hrs of train ride. Gd night….
Good morning Vienna! We woke up at 7am and get ready for our half day tour at vienna. Due to time constraint, we can only tour Vienna till 3pm as we are taking 3.55pm train to budapest. Our guide of the day, Mr seet, had planned out a walking tour for us!
We started our day with delicious Mac breakfast. The choices here is quite different from Sg. They have bacon n egg muffin, ham and egg crossiant, slightly more variety than SG cost around 7-8 SGD per set?
Our delicious mac breakfast to start the day!
We marched down Mariahilfer Strasse, 4 metro stations from our hostel to the main attraction area, in order to save 1.8 Euros per person. The walk was quite okay considering the route is lined with shops, boutiques and eateries; and also the distance between the metro stops are pretty near. Upon reaching the Opera, the world famous opera house, we took the Tram No. 2 as told by the travel guide book, 1.8 Euros per person. The tram ride should allow us to have a glimpse of the attractions area within the 30 mins ride. My recommendation is ignore the tram ride. Its too fast and confusing; it will be better if you cover them by foot.
Alighted near the Danube Canal and our first attraction is..
St Stephen Cathedral
We paid 3.5 Euros per person to scale the 343 steps up the south tower, thinking that we might have a paranomic view of the entire city center. The view aint as good as we expected and it wasnt an open air concept, the tiny windows were grilled up. The viewing point was even more stuffy than the spiral staircase. I wouldnt recommend going up the tower unless you have extra euros and you need a good workout. PS: The climb up and down the spiral tower was probably the most enjoyable part.
View from the south tower
View of the city, notice the colourful tiling on the roof of St Stephen
One of the shopping belts
Everyone in their own world
I wonder what are they trying to tell us
My personal highlight of Vienna: Coffee for 4 and 2 pasteries for 20 Euros
The train from Vienna to Budapest cost us 36 Euros each, quite expensive, we did not consider get Eurail passes beforehand; they might end up cheaper. The ride to Budapest was comfortable, took us only 3 hours.
Spotted wind turbines along the way
Blogging on the train
Wake up feeling slightly excited about the rafting trip. This could well be our highlight of the trip. However, the weather didn’t help a lot. The rain over the night continued in the morning. What’s worse, all of us are poorly equipped for the rafting. We ended up wearing shorts, t-shirts and slippers for the 3 hrs rafting trip in the chilling morning.
at the starting point
We headed out to the agency at 8.20am after having cup noodles for breakfast. The moment we step out of the hostel, we know that this wouldn’t be an easy ride. We struggled abit to kickstart our water rafting trip after the person drop of the raft, life racket and paddle at the starting point, he left without saying a word.
figuring our way to kickstart the trip
After 3 rapids through the town area, we were pretty much used to it and were looking forward to the final rapid after the forest area. However, the rain got heavier and our morale got lower as we wind through the never ending river. We were feeling cold, tired and hungry, with our bladders bursting. Some of us got into trance mode, and started to behave and talk weirdly. Yijun & Peishi also had the honour to experience peeing in the wild for the first time (and probaby their only) in their life. We rewarded ourselves with hot chocolate and pizza upon reaching our destination after about 3.5hrs later. Most of our limbs are numb and frozen, we trode up to the cafe like survivors from a shipwreck.
raft in town area
raft in the forest
view like this kept us going
heart warming scene from the "survivors"
We spend the next hour or so exploring parts of the town we missed out the day before. Climbing 163 steps up the tower to see the bird eye view of Cesky Krumlov is well worth the effort. Like many other European cities, the view is breathtaking from the top and you will further fall in love with this small town.
doing what we do best, acting stupid
before saying goodbye to Cesky
"cup noodles" for dinner
Goodnight Vienna.
Eastern Europe 2011 
