Bled, Slovenia, aka mini-Canada

I realllllly wanted to go to Slovenia. If I'm being completely honest, the main reason was just so I could say I've been, and to add another country to the list, but I had also heard nice things. Unfortunately, booking a hostel to stay in the capital, Ljubljana, proved pretty much impossible, so instead I booked straight through to Bled, a teeny tiny town on a huge, beautiful lake about an hour away from Ljubljana. It did not disappoint. 

As always, getting there took much longer than anticipated, so that first night I didn't have time for much - just a short walk and dinner 

This is what I found on that short walk, though. 

Though it's a lake rather than an ocean, the town reminds me quite a bit of White Rock. 

I had booked a single there, so I actually went home and went to bed rather early... It was glorious, being able to spread stuff out over every surface and sleeping without earplugs and not being woken up multiple times. I'm so glad I did it. I also took the nearly unprecedented opportunity to sleep in, getting a late start on the hike I had planned for the morning. 

The walk to the hike... Could be the Valley, right? 

The hike ran through a national park that enclosed 1500 m of walkways over this creek/river area. It was quite pretty, with clear green water and whirling pools everywhere. 

You can see a bit of the walkway here. It was a lovely hike, and nice and cool in the valley. But it's kind of the unique plight of being Canadian that more than anything, this whole walk made me want to head home and walk some more familiar grounds... Like in the Rockies, eh kids? Camping trip when I get home? 

At the end of the hike, there were waterfalls galore!

There was also this sign, which delighted me. Most of it's so normal! No campfires? Sure! No, um, touching snails? Well, I mean, I wasn't really - no, it's fine. Got it. But in the bottom middle there? No washing cars? But I. The. Um. I just walked 1500 m down a wooden walkway to get here. "Here" is a waterfall with a twenty foot pool in front of it. How could I even get a car here? 

The weirdest part is, it's on the sign, so you know someone tried it. Or else why would they have to specifically forbid it?

After getting back from the hike, I changed into my swimsuit and went for a walk around the lake. It took a little over an hour, but it was pretty the whole way, and so well worth it. 

That's Bled Castle! I walked up there later. It was like 35 degrees. I wanted to die. 

There's also a tiny island with a church on it. 

The church! There's a bell you can ring for luck, so you can hear tourists ringing it the whole way round. 

And this is the view from the castle. Totally. Worth. It. 

Little island is little. 

That was about all I had in me - two multi-hour walks, a swim, and a very hot day really took it out of me. I also tweaked my ankle on the way up to the castle, so that was unpleasant. I had a pizza dinner and then headed in for the night, where I watched some tv and went to bed early and was just so happy to have my own space!

Bled was lovely, and definitely a worthwhile distraction. I'd go back in a heartbeat, though now I'm on the Croatian coast, which is so lovely I can't bear it. This part of the world is amazing! 

Budapest

I was sad to leave Bratislava, but I was excited to get to Hungary and see Budapest, which many people had told me was incredible. I actually had some trouble booking a hostel there, so that seemed like a good sign too! Unfortunately, I think I'm a little too boring for Budapest. 

First: after only managing to sleep for two hours, I got up, dragged my sorry butt to check out, and then headed off in the direction of the bus station... Whereupon I immediately got lost, then missed my bus. I was tired and frustrated, and when I got to the station at 11.30 (the bus was booked for 11.15, but it was only €5 so I wasn't that upset) and found out the next bus, at 11.45 was full and the next wasn't until 7.30, I pretty much wanted to cry. Actually, that's not really true, all I really wanted to do was sleep, but I felt that dropping unconscious in the middle of the bus station without even having bought a ticket probably wasn't a great plan. Instead, I puzzled out that there was another departure at 16.15, and thinking that four hours' wait wasn't so bad, I headed to the platform it would leave from, planning to nap the afternoon away. But as I walked there, I spotted a bus, about to leave, with "Budapest -11.15" in its window. I dashed to it and found out it was, in fact, my bus! It was even later than I was. I managed to hop on and finally, I was on my way. 

Blogger has eaten the rest of this post twice. So you get a photo dump. I'm going to get some ice cream. 

Heroes Square! Always inundated with tourists. 

Fisherman's Bastion! It reminds me of the White City of Gondor. 

Buda and Pest, with the river between them. I no longer remember which was which... I think Buda is on the right?

Same as before, only with a better view of the bridge. 

The statue and the citadel. Fun fact: the citadel wasn't actually built for defence, but to terrorize the population into subservience. Budapest! Into terror regimes before it was cool!

The huuuuge synagogue! There was an enormous Jewish quarter, though there were relatively few Jewish people left after WW2. 

I don't know. It's a statue, alright?

Parliament from the water! It was a pretty imposing structure. 

A fountain! These are massively out of order. 

In the end, I had a good time in Budapest. It's a nice city, and when I could drag my lame butt out to see things, there was lots of cool stuff to cover. I also went on a pub crawl, and the ruin pub was really interesting - sprawling and massive, with random rooms full of strange items and hookahs available at every corner. I wouldn't mind going back to one of those... 

Beautiful Bratislava

I got to Bratislava early Saturday afternoon, and immediately felt a little concerned - what the hell was I going to do here for three days? When I finally left on Wednesday (after extending my stay for a night!) I was sad to see it go. Bratislava was wonderful, and one of my favourite places so far!

The first afternoon, I took it pretty easy; after checking into my hostel (Hostel Blues, which was excellent, I would recommend it highly!) I got lunch at Slovak Pub, where it was something like €7 for garlic soup in a bread bowl, a tomato salad, and a cup of the local soda, Kofola, nearly the size of my arm. Lunch was really tasty, although I wasn't really into the soda, which tasted a bit like a liquorice-y root beer. Tummy filled, I wandered into the area of downtown Bratislava and hung out in the shade for a little while, soaking up the sights and sounds. When that got boring, I headed to the main tourist attraction, Brat Castle, which is a little ways up the hill from the downtown plaza. 

Apparently I failed to get a photo of the castle from a distance. But, uh, this is the castle. 

An outbuilding of the castle. 

Castle gates, which seem to be showcasing different styles of armour through the ages. 

The UFO bridge, which has a restaurant and viewing platform built in. 

I don't remember why I took this picture. It's pretty boring, isn't it?

I didn't get up to much the next day; I ran some errands, did some laundry, and generally tried to take it easy. Sometimes I just need a break from all the touring and touristy crap, and that seemed like a good day for it. Monday, though, I got up at a reasonable hour to take the walking tour and poke around the city for a bit. 

I can't figure out what this fountain is supposed to represent. It makes me think of an anchor, but I've no idea if that's right or not. 

A statue in the same park. I was not able to determine whether it was a man or a lady until I was quite close to it... And now I've forgotten. 

The old Slovakian National Theatre. It'd be quite a bit more picturesque without that banner!

I also went across the river and headed up to the UFO for a bit. It turned out to be quite a nice spot, and the views were really cool. 

There's the castle! And parts of the old town. 

The river's edge and the old town - the bits with the red roofs. 

I had a cold Coke here for a while. It was really lovely, and the wifi worked so unbelievably well I never wanted to leave. 

The next day, I went to one of the memorials visible from the whole city - a huge monument to the 6,000 Russian soldiers who died defending the city in WW2. It was quite a hike, but the memorial is peaceful and pretty. 

Each of the grassy squares you can see on the sides are actually mass graves! I guess they didn't have time or resources to bury many of them independently. 

It had been smoking hot the last few days in Bratislava - to the point that it was getting a little difficult to convince myself to continue wandering around all day. One of the guys in my room suggested we go to the lake a twenty-minute tram ride away, and am I ever glad he did! We headed out there in the afternoon, and met a few other people from the hostel to lie on the beach for a few hours. It was a great spot, with a grassy beach, cool water, and €3 double vodkas from a stand just a minute or so away. We spent the entire afternoon there, swimming and tanning, and it may have been one of the best times I've had in Europe so far. I was almost tempted to add another day! 

Once we finally dragged ourselves away from the water, we returned to town and slowly (very slowly) got ready to head out. We took dinner at Slovak Pub again before joining a really unusual pub crawl that ended in the middle of nowhere... Not so sure about that! Regardless, I had quite a lot of fun, and I made it back to the hostel in good time to catch a few hours' sleep before getting up to check out and head to Budapest in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't get any of the sleep I was hoping for, but you win some, you lose some, right?

Vienna, or, Barely Escaping With My Life

Vienna was a challenge. I mean, it was great, and I liked it a lot, but it tried so hard to kill me that every instant was nerve-wracking. What do I need to worry about next? A car? A muddy spot on the ground? Those god-forsaken, impossible-to-predict, pain in the ass trams? I had to be on my toes just to make it out of there alive. Fortunately, I did, and in between near death experiences I had quite a nice time there. 

Before leaving I asked Oliver for his recommendations about what I should do, and he referred me to a map with a tour outlined and quite a bit of other interesting things highlighted. It was hugely useful! Vienna is filled with lovely gardens and parks, so I wound up spending quite a chunk of time sitting in the shade, reading and relaxing. There are tonnes of palaces, monuments, statues and museums, too, so every time I turned a corner there would be some new sight to marvel at. It's all very densely packed, so it's easy to walk around and see a huge chunk of the coolest stuff in just a morning or so. 

It also had the freshest tap water I've had since Canada, and I was knocking that stuff back by the litre. It was amazing. 

My first morning in Vienna I set off, shokocroissant (basically a pain au chocolat but with Nutella) in hand, to see the sights. I loosely followed the tour itinerary, and wandered down to the first district to look around. 

Statues! Of all the things. No clue what any of em are though. 

A garden with one of the museums visible in the background. 

This is the Austrian Parliament. It makes ours look so unbelievably ugly, doesn't it?

I can't remember what this was, specifically, but there was a film fest on, hence the giant screen obscuring most of it. That's actually why I took the photo - I kind of loved the huge screen in the open air. There were also a whole bunch of food vendors around, and I wound up returning here for some currywurst for lunch. I did look into what was showing but it was (shockingly) all in German, so I didn't catch any movies there. 

The next day, I got up early to go out to Schonnbrun, one of the imperial palaces a little ways out of town. It was huge and incredibly impressive, and it was well worth the visit. Unfortunately, you couldn't take any photos inside, and there far too many people around to get good photos of the exterior, but it was surrounded by gardens that no one else walked through, so there was some cool stuff to be found there. 

That's the castle itself...

And that's the gorgeous fountain at the other end of the garden. It's a maybe 200 metres away from the palace. 

There's also the... Thing I have forgotten the name of higher on the hill.  And see what I mean about the people? 

Fortunately, a two-minute walk away from the main path and I'd have it all to myself. 

While I really like this, it is rather funny: a huge monument made to look like they stumbled upon Roman ruins in the palace grounds. 

Once I was through with the palace, I headed back into the centre of town for a guided tour of the Lipizzaner stallions training facilities and stables - something 12 year old me would have been crazy excited about, and if I'm being honest, 26 year old me was pretty happy too. It was cool, although I forgot to take any photos...

I stayed in the area til dark so I could take some photos of everything lit up for night. Some of it was even more impressive then! 

Parliament again - take notes, Ottawa!

A random statue near the stables. 

One of the palaces, now a museum. Well, like all of them, really. 

The next day, i was off to Bratislava, which couldn't have been quicker or easier. Vienna was a great place to visit, and I'm very glad to have gone. I'm also pretty glad it didn't succeed in killing me, Bratislava wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable then!