Originally I was going to write a separate post for each place I stopped at, but as I only have 2 weeks, I quickly realised that I wasn’t going to have to time for a post every time I stopped. Then I was going to write nothing at all, but as I’ve been going along I’ve been making so many changes and doing so many cool things that I felt I needed to write them down, even if it was only for my own record. Now what I’m going to do is write 1 post per week (2 posts in total!), one for Hungary and 1 for Slovakia. They’ll be long, but they’ll have everything in them!

Day 1

The idea was to travel from London to Budapest and then from Bratislava back to London 2 weeks later. This was achieved by getting a return ticket from London to Munich and then 2 singles from Munich to Budapest and from Bratislava back to Munich again. I booked the return to Munich from the Eurostar website as I was booking the Channel Tunnel ticket and then used the DB Bahn website to book the 2 singles. The tickets between London and Budapest were all electronic (printouts) and then the ticket for Bratislava to Munich was posted to me. As with the Around the World trip, the plan was to do everything by train, bus and automobile.

The journey started in London, where I got a taxi to the closest station to me. I had been up late the night before, as I hadn’t booked anything other than the train tickets, so needed to arrange accommodation in Munich, a few days in Budapest, insurance and a taxi to the train station the next day.

I had decided to go for the early train from St. Pancras, as it meant that I got into Munich with time to walk around and do something. This meant getting up at 05:00 the next day and getting a taxi at 05:20. This turned up slightly later then expected, but we got to the train station on time.

One thing that I didn’t realise about trains that early is that there may still be engineering works going on. Unfortunately, on this day there was and the next train was delayed with the train after that (the backup train) cancelled. I spoke to someone about this, who said wait, as there was a train on the way and soon the ‘delayed’ status would be cleared, but by this point I was eating in to my transfer time between the Tube stop and St. Pancras, so I decided to get another taxi. Someone I had spoken to on the platform wasn’t interested in sharing the taxi and nor was the person standing next to her, so I called the taxi company that I had used earlier and another taxi turned up within 30 seconds (which I was impressed with!). This took me to the closest Tube stop and I got the Underground to St. Pancras.

The train from St. Pancras went without problems. I transferred in Brussels onto a German ICE train and changed again in Frankfurt where I got another ICE train. I got to Munich and followed the instructions that I had been given by my hosts on Airbnb. I later found out that the only reason that my hosts were able to respond to my accommodation request so quickly was because the boyfriend was taxiing on a runway in New York! I followed the instructions, but found the Hauptbahnhof Nord tram stop instead of the Hauptbahnhof Sud stop, so instead of going a few stops on one tram line and changing to the one I needed, set off to find the Hauptbahnhof Sud stop instead. I found it (by walking in the opposite direction I had walked in for the Nord stop!) and a nice German woman offered to help me with the ticket machine, but there were problems with it and I got on the tram anyway. There was a machine on the tram but this didn’t take the Euros I had.

Once I found where I was staying and was introduced to my hosts Guido and Dana, I set off in search of something to eat. I had been given an Eyewitness guide by Guido, but managed to get my location a bit mixed up and walked in the opposite direction to the restaurant that he had recommended. This wasn’t a problem though, as I found a great Bavarian restaurant with football and beer and ate 1 main course and 1 fairly large starter, as I hadn’t eaten properly since leaving London.

Day 2

This was spent getting from Munich to Budapest. This train was an uncomfortable RailJet train, that had uncomfortable seats and practically no legroom. I didn’t enjoy this part of the journey and ended up in Budapest pretty knackered.

Day 3

This day began by doing some admin, such as getting a Hungarian SIM card and trying to find a cash machine that worked. After calling my bank and running out of phone credit before I could speak to anyone, I did the following:

• go up Castle Hill
• look out at Fisherman’s Point
• speak to Jeremy Clarkson (he was at Fisherman’s Point!)
• go up the Water Tower on Margaret Island
• get a traditional doner kebab (whilst listening to the chef say “chicken kebob, Turkish kebob” every 2 – 3 minutes out of the window)
• go to Szechenyi Baths.

Day 4

This began with more admin, such as finding a laundry. After this I:

• went on a tour of the parliament building
• went into a Jewish family history museum that I walked past (which had an introduction in English with the rest in Hungarian)
• go to the Jewish Memorial Centre
• go to a great bar called Elesztohaz which had 21 beers on tap, 2 helpful people behind the bar and football
• had a quick look in a pub-in-a-ruin, which has been a popular craze in Budapest recently
• end up in Bangla Bufe, which was great.

Day 5

This began with more admin, such as buying a train ticket to Tihany, for Lake Balaton. After this I:

• walked to Hero’s Square
• walked up to the Citadella, to see the Statue of Liberty
• walked back up to Castle Hill and think I found my favourite viewpoint of the city.

I also had dinner in a fancy restaurant, that had Jazz.

Day 6

This day I got the train to Balatonfured, for Tihany (the perninsular on Lake Balaton). I left from Budapest Deli train station, that I hadn’t left from before. I got to Balatonfured and called Andras, who would be my host from Airbnb. He said that I should get the bus to “Elso” (which turned out to be ‘Also’ I think) and look out for a church. Along the route I could see a church, but decided not to get off, as I didn’t know if he meant get off when you saw the church or get off at the church. The bus stopped and most people seemed to get off, so I asked the bus driver if he knew where the street was that I was headed to. He didn’t and didn’t speak any English, so grabbed another tourist who was stood outside the bus and spoke enough English to translate between to two. I got off and stated walking in the direction of number 30, which I believed was along the same street. The friendly tourist had found a map in the meantime and ran down the street to get me and pointed me in the opposite direction to the one I was headed in. I eventually found the street, along the bus route exactly when the church comes into view and met Andras, my host. He was incredibly friendly and informative and I spent the rest of the day walking around Tihany, going for a swim in the lake and going for food in a restaurant called Regi Idok Udvara, which was fantastic. I spent a long time walking around, asking two different people, including an old couple on a bench, where this was. It was worth finding though as it was cheap, they had they own home-brewed beer which was excellent and the food was good. The decor would have meant that I wouldn’t have even looked at it before, but I stuck with it as it was a recommendation and it was worth it.

Day 7

This day I did more walking around Tihany, going up to some peaks and following the hiking trail around the peninsular. This was good, I found the same swimming spot as before (which was free, others you had to pay for), went swimming and tried another restaurant that Andras had recommended. This was Ferenc Pince Restaurant, which had a nice view and wasn’t that expensive either, but afterwards I was left thinking that I fancied a bit more of the nice beer from before and was still a bit hungry, so went back to Regi Idok Udvara and got a traditional mix of sausage, egg and bacon. It was good and I was stuffed.

Day 8

This day I decided to get the train to Eger, before going on to Slovakia. Andras gave me a lift to Balatonfured and I got the train back to Budapest. I stuck on the metro with the single remaining ticket from the 10-ticket book I had bought when originally getting to Budapest and went from Deli to Keleti train stations and went to the ticket office to buy a ticket from Budapest to Eger. The train left in 5 minutes so I ran as quickly as I could along the very long platform to platform 1. The description on the screen was all in Hungarian, so as I was sure it was the right train I got on.

I got my ticket checked and waited until we got to my station. When we arrived, there wasn’t a single sign for the name of the station and I could see some signs that had shortened Fuzesabony to Bony, which I couldn’t be sure about. As I was hurriedly trying to find my train ticket in my bag the train left and I asked the conductor about 2 minutes after leaving the station whether we had just left Fuzesabony, which we had. I stayed on until the next stop, Miskolc-Tiszai and got off, got something to eat, including an incredible cake I had seen a 6-pack of in Tihany and bought a train ticket from Miskolc-Tiszai to Fuzesabony. The train itself was a local train, with leather seats facing eachother, the windows down and almost empty. It stopped everywhere and was great, as the Inter City train I had got there was packed, with uncomfortable seats and air-conditioning that was barely working. This part of the journey I enjoyed a lot and got back to Fuzesabony about 2 hours after setting off!

The rest of the journey to Eger went without problems and I spent about 20 minutes in the station in Eger buying a train ticket to Kosice in Slovakia. After walking outside to find a bus, Eva, who I was staying with from Airbnb, said I should get bus 12. Bus 17 seemed to turn up once an hour from outside the station, so I waited here for 5 minutes to see if 12 would come along. It didn’t (and neither did 17), so I decided to walk to the main road where there might be more buses. There were and eventually bus 12 turned up. The bus driver said he would let me know when we reached the street I needed and he did. He did an excellent job of miming the directions to this place, as after a bit of walking around I found it and his directions had been exactly right.

I spent the rest of the day walking around Eger, which didn’t take long as it’s tiny, getting dinner in a pizza restaurant (the only non-touristy place I could find) and talking to Eva’s son about the Economy, the global financial crisis (that we came up with a solution to) and IT, as he was a fellow computer nerd. I got to bed at 12am, as his mum was saying that I needed to be up early.