Leevi & Sarahs Travel Blog

After 364 days away from the great island downunder Sarah and I are returning home. Our flight leaves tonight at 19:00 and we land back in Aus at 7:00am (roughly) Aussie time on the 13th.

It has been a great adventure and I will take some time out on the 24hr flight home to recount some of the memories that I didn’t blog about, mainly our experiences in Croatia, Italy and France.

Wish us luck and hope that our plain doesn’t get hit by lightning; again!

A big thanks to Bex and Chris for hosting us over the last couple of days and putting up with us overrunning your garage. We love you guys!

Afetr another long and no sleep overnight train ride we arrived at the very early time of 7am at Romania’s capitial Bucharest. The hostel we where staying at was a little bit out of town so the by the time we found where the bus stop was and which number etc I think our eye’s where hanging out of our heads. In one way it was a relief that the we where up so earlier as it was much easier to get a bus with our huge bags on.

The hostel we where staying at stated it had 24 hour service. NOT! It’s not the nicest feeling to be ringing a door bell for about an hour and then to be greeted by a staff member who is hung over and surly. It’s a even worse feeling whilst you are trying to put your stuff away and being told to be quiet yet again for the same staff member who should have been working not in bed with another traveller.

Anywho that was my debriefing, so after a freshen up of we headed to explore the mini Paris of the East. Well Romania does have an Arch of Triumph and tree lined streets, which where lovely to walk under especially with the heat. We also spent the morning walking through the famous parks that where huge and full to the the brim of people and dogs. The parks where also a great place to relax and eat ice cream!

We then decided head into the old city  ignoring the hot sun to see what else Sofia had to offer. We headed down town to check out the Old City well what was left of the Old City,  Nicolae Ceausescu, leader of the Communist Party had a grand old time demolishing all of Bucharest beautiful architecture. So now what is left is home to Bucharest museums and gallieries. By this stage are legs and bodies where weary from both the heat and tirdness but we solidered on a little further to see Ceausescu famous creation a 12-storey palace for himself together with a parliament building.

On arrival to the main street that the Parliament is situated you are greeted by several huge fountains all leading the pathway to the HUGE building. It’s actually the second largest political building in the world and with my own eye’s i believe it. We acually had several issue’s trying to get the huge building to fit into a photo.

So after much walking around on day one what will we do day 2 in Bucharest? More walking! Although this time we decided to keep to Bucharest famous parks and tree lined boulavards. We headed down town to Cismigiu to hire a paddle boat and cruise around the lake. Um and that was pretty much it to be honest, more walking back to our hostel and then drinks and nibbles with other travellers and sharing stories.

On our third day we head up and across Romania not only to edge our selves closer to Hungary but to stop at the UNESCO citadel Sighisoara. It is a beautiful living citadel full of picturesque houses, churches, streets and towers. The whole town is surrounded by a medieval wall with several towers so for me it was a very exciting place to visit. As you feel like the town is almost as how it was several hundreds of years ago. It was also exciting for Dracula fans as this was the birth place of Vlad the impaler although the town didn’t play to heavly on that. It also didn’t help the situation at sun down Leevi would get all worked up, as he noticed people heading in doors - ( due to dinner time)

Our second day was our exploring day, feeling refreshed and alive although slightly down trodend as we found out 80 Euro and Leevi’s watch was missing? After a phone call home to moan and groan we got on with it.Sighisoara is a photographers ( Leevi’s ) dream, this was even more emphasised from the top of the clock tower. The clock tower has been apart of the towns history since the middle-ages. The carved wooden people still move and rotate for different days of the week. Also from the top you get an excellent view of the old tile -roofed home’s that sit along the winding streets.

We both enjoyed Romania, it’s people and history. I wouldn’t go to expect theme parks but go to enjoy the country and it’s progression to leave it’s it dark history behind and move forward. Im glad we went there in a time where we can see the in between transition

After leaving Budapest we headed to Lake Balaton for a small break relaxing on the sand in a seculded bay. Not the case.

As Sarah and I are budget travellers we booked two nights accomodation at Rev Hostel on the south side of Lake Balaton. The train from Budapest took us to the international station at Sifolk where we changed trains for a short trip to Szántód. From the station we slowly walked the 1300m east to the hostel reviewing the contents of our bags with every step. That night we threw out all our old clothes and other crap to make our backs that little bit lighter and managable. Eventually we arrived at Hostel Rev.

The staff at Hostel Rev where great and helped us out with all our needs. The rooms where clean and shower pressure was excellent! We traveled just before peak season and many of the restaurants and markets where closed.

It is important to note that Hostel Rev is not really a hostel and is more of a hotel. There are no dorms (although prices for private doubles with en suites are great) and there is no public kitchen which means you must dine out (very limited options). There is a fridge you can store a small amount of goods or chill a bottle of wine in the reception if you need too. There is also no washing facilities.

The location is great if you want a couple of lazy days doing nothing. However there is no where to swim close by and there is no way of getting cash out of a bank machine unless you travel across the lake to the other side by ferry. There is a well stocked supermarket a short bike ride away (the hotel has bike hire at 2 florints per hour). You will need to hire a bike to see more of the area and I suggest you try and do a daily deal on bike hire and internet usage.  If you are looking for a little more excitement try Siofok (very touristy).

Highlights of our stay at Rev Hostel included:

1. many lazy hours drinking beer and eating tomato and salami sandwiches under the shade of a tree near the ferry port
2. taking the ferry to the peninsula and walking around the bay on the opposite side
3. riding bikes around the edge of the lake

A little late, but better than never.

After leaving Bulgaria we headed to Bucahrest, Romania for a couple of days and on to Sighişoara home of Vlad Tepes. Bucharest was not that great however although Sighasora was small the staff at Nathans Villa Hostel made us both feel very welcome. Sarah will post more about those experiences very soon.

From Sigisora we took an overnight train with Maya (friend we met an Sighişoara) to Budapest and arrived nice and early at 10am and left our bags in left luggage at the station. We grabbed a quick omlete, with Hungarian Salami of course, from good old McDonalds and then headed towards Budapests main city park a partake in one of Sarahs favourite pass times, relaxing in a thermal mineral bath.

We chose the Széchenyi Spa, the largest thermal bath in Budapest. The neo-baroque baths where built in 1913 after its springs where discovered in 1879, the deepest and warmest wells in Budapest. The spa complex is a vast complex of indoor and outdoor pools and saunas and is considered the premier medicinal bath on the Pest side of the city.

We paid our entry fee (approx 10,000 HFL) which included entry to all the pools and made our way up to our little cubicle. We quickly got changed in to our swimmers and headed deeper into the complex. We made our way to the first pool with a temperature of 30 degrees and waded in to relax our tired bodies after another rough night on the train. I closed my eyes briefly and when I opened them I was confronted by an overweight elderly man in bright purple speedos, wearing a gold chain; not the start I was looking for.

That experience was a good enough excuse to change pools to a warmer 38 degree pool just around the corner. We continued to explore the pools for another three hours finding extra saunas, even hotter indoor mineral pools, three large heated outdoor pools and most importantly an ice cream vendor. Feeling suitably refreshed and looking like prunes Sarah and I called it a day and decided to explore more of Budapest.

Budapest is a beautiful city with many treelined boulevards to wander through. We spent the rest of the day admiring the old buildings and the Dambue River. We had to meet our couchsurfing host at 6pm so we jumped on a couple of trains and headed to the stop closest to his apartment. A short walk around the corner followed by a small wait and we where eventually greeted with “Hello Aussies!”.

Quick Tip 1: If you plan to use the metro in Budapest beware of the ticket inspectors. They target travellers so make sure you buy a ticket and validate it before you step onto the platform.

We stayed with Yuri for three nights who provided us with great insight into Hungarian politics, history and the business of importing Pashminas from India.

Our second day in Budapest was similar to the first… more walking. We headed to the Citadel on top of Gellért Hill and visited three of the bridges that cross the Dambue.

On our third day after seeing all the sites with no local knowledge we took a bike tour through the city, it proved to be a great move. Our guide fully explained the affect that communism has on Hungary and the economic state of the country. He discussed the relevance of many of the monuments as well as important pieces of architecture.

After riding all day we where quite tired so we headed back to Yuris house for a rest and dinner knowing the next day we would be travelling 4 hours by train to Lake Balaton for a relaxing three days.

Check out the pics of Budapest on Flickr

Sorry for the lack of updates on the blog recently. Posting takes a significant amount of time to recall al the great experiences we have had so far.

However all is not lost. I have added more sets to Flickr of Romania, Hungary, Croatia and most importantly a new set that lists the beers I have sampled abroad. Enjoy