Bratislava/Budapest

We caught a 9am Twin City Liner hydrofoil ship from Vienna to Bratislava to better experience the Danube, though it wasn't exactly blue (perhaps it was when Strauss wrote about it over a hundred years ago). Nevertheless, the 75 minute trip was a great experience. After enjoying most of the journey from my seat, I decided to go topside to take a few photos on the deck and brave the strong gusts as we whipped along the river.

We arrived in Bratislava mid-morning and immediately set to explore the city in the short few hours we had allotted on our way to Budapest. The old town was very quaint and fairly easy to walk around. We had to haul our massive backpacks around the whole time, so breaks along the way were much needed. After we were satisfied with a bit of peeking around town, we settled on a place in the main square for a small bite and then made our way to the castle on the hill.

The hike up wasn't far, but wow was it a workout! The view at the top was well worth the trek, though, and after initially being disappointed by the castle's interior, we discovered a more interesting wing of the grounds and ultimately found that there was a tower we could climb to gain a panoramic view of the city. We had no idea how sprawling Bratislava was after only exploring the old town, and were surprised to find that it was probably as big as Prague.

It was getting later into the afternoon and we needed to move on to catch the next train to Budapest, so we caught a cab to the main station. After a small delay, and due to a last-minute platform change, we nearly missed our train. Luckily, I heard the last call announcement and we jumped on board just in time. After some more sleep and lots of beautiful farmland and countryside scenery, we were in Budapest.

We had some trouble finding the gate into our hostel, but before long we discovered its secret hiding spot and went in and up the old mansion staircase. Once we were settled in and showered up, we headed downstairs with a few of our roommates and enjoyed a traditional Hungarian drink with some of the hostel hosts before heading out to meet our old London buddies for a pub crawl.

The bars and clubs in Budapest were similar in feel to the ones we went to in Berlin--very casual and tons of fun. The common thread between the Budapest bars we went to on the pub crawl were that they all had open-roofed courtyards and unusual decorations with various colored lights. As usual, we had another great night out with the fellas, and also made some new friends along the way. Another late night turned into watching the sunrise, but it was all worth it.