Slovakia

In between being in Vienna, and going to Saltzburg I spent a bit of time in Bratislava, Slovakia.  Its a great city that has some amazing views, and what is currently my favorite pub in Europe!

Compared with all of the views of Bratislava, I had from various movies (Hostel, Eurotrip) I was quite happy to see its a little different. 

Screenshot from Eurotrip in Bratislava

Actual Bratislava

I really enjoyed my brief time in Bratislava, there is a fantastic free walking tour that takes you around town and they have a nice castle (Rebuild completed in 2005).  They also have the most fantastic blue church I have ever seen (It looks like a fairytale).  

In my favorite bar, I thought I would try all 3 of the local dishes in one go.  I asked for the mixed plate, and the waiter looked at me a little bit funny before asking: "Are you sure you want that".  I assured him I did (it was a little expensive at almost 10euro), and he agreed to bring it.  About 10 min later I found out why he had asked.  The plate was actually 3 full size plates carved into a wooden plater containing Bryndzove Halusky (potatoes with sheep's cheese), Bryndzove Pirohy (Perogies), and Strapacky (Cabbage also known as Cabbage Halusky).  All three were delicious but I don't think I even managed to eat half as they are all very heavy!  

Some more pictures:

My huge plate of food.

The old national theatre building.

 

Cumil the "Typical Slovak Worker" (According to my tour guide not me!)  More Info

 

The amazing blue church! ... Just like a fairytale!

Austria

Well I am quickly falling behind on my blog posts.  That said the next stop on my Christmas trip was a Vienna in Austria.  Unfortunately, I was not able to book a seat on the train from Budapest to Vienna, and so I ended up sitting on the floor between two cars.  After a less then perfect trip, I got to Vienna and wandered off to find my hostel.  After checking in I started to wander around town and check out Vienna's many beautiful sites. I ended up meeting a few people in the hostel to wander with and have a few drinks with. 

The palaces and churches in Vienna are really quite nice, and they are conveniently mostly in one area so you can walk in an almost straight line and see all of them.

After being in Vienna I had a brief stopover in Bratislava (next blog post) and then I headed to Salzberg to visit Vera. We had a great time going around the city of Salzberg and after a short wander up to the castle on top of the mountain we went for beers followed by chocolate cake.  I had forgotten how much I missed having mountains around (Ottawa and Malmo are both very flat!).  After our snack we headed off for dinner at the top of a mountain in a Gasthaus. To get to the gasthaus, we hiked all the way to the top of the mountain in the snow.  Once we arrived and enjoyed dinner with beers and then hit the schnapps.  As we were the last ones left in the place the owner came by to chat and buy us one last round of schnapps.  After the schnapps we took sleds down the mountain to get back to our car.  I only crashed a few times, and it was great fun! 

The next day after an amazing lunch with Vera's grandmother it was off to Croatia!

Pictures:

Schönbrunn Palace

Schlosspark

 

The Rathaus 

 

Austria's Parliament

 The Hofburg

 

In Salzberg statues live in glass houses

 The River through Salzberg.

 Me and my Sachertorte!

The view from Vera's kitchen.

Hungary

The next stop on my Christmas trip was to go to Hungary.  I took the train from Brno and after a bit of wandering I Hostel.  I even ran into two Canadian guys in the street before finding the hostel.  As it was nearing both my birthday and Christmas I had only booked a couple of nights (Hoping to find a fun crowd to spend the two with).  After checking in and meeting the awesome folks there, I quickly decided that I would stay until after Christmas.  We all worked on creating more than a few empty bottles, and the Australians cooked a great risotto for Christmas dinner!

The hostel crowd:

 

Budapest is actually two cities "Buda" and "Pest" which are on opposite sides of the river.  Here is a view of the "Pest" side from up on the hill: (also someone's Christmas welcome!)

The hostel was called HomePlus and had a really neat common area with a multi-level platform common area:  (Picture stolen from google)

We all hung out lots, cooked a batch of mulled wine with about 20 bottles of wine, and then we went to the Turkish baths for Christmas day:

(I stole this picture from national geographic since I didn't want to be that creepy dude in the bath with a camera!)

We also did a walking tour and saw lots of cool sites.  I will definitely be going to Budapest again as it is an amazing city!

A couple more pictures from the walking tour:

The Czech Republic -- Christmas Trip Stop 1

Well as many people know I have a firm belief that if you're going to get what you want for Christmas, you should buy it for yourself.  So with that in mind I decided I would get myself an interrail ticket.  I had 24 days off and a 21 day interrail ticket.  Since there was a night train from Copenhagen to Prague,  I decided that Prague would be the best place to start my trip.

Prague is an amazing city, it has great beer, amazing food, and a beautiful castle.  I stayed in what was one of neatest hostels I've ever stayed in.  With lots of great activities including baking some traditional cookies in the evening, and I love eating free cookies!  I took the usual free walking tour, and then from there went for lunch at a traditional restaurant with some new friends.   After eating the fresh homemade cookies I met another Canadian and we went to go explore Prague at night and wandered up to the castle and back. 

As some of my close friends weren't in town I decided I would keep the Prague visit short and went on to Brno to visit friends there :)

Brno was very foggy, although I did find a great Christmas tradition there! I would like to encourage other places to start the same tradition.  In the Czech Republic you will often find large pools of water set up around Christmas.  In these pools will be tones of large carp because Czech people like to have "fresh" carp soup for Christmas.  The trick is that if you want really fresh soup you should keep the fish in your bathtub and feed it each day!  (I'm serious: http://www.myczechrepublic.com/czech_culture/czech_holidays/christmas.html )

After a great night out I was off to the next country: Hungary!

Some Pictures:

 Cathedral in Prague

 The Opera House

 The Bridge and Castle in Prague

 Another picture of the Cathedral

 A picture from wandering around at night.

 The bridge and castle at night (The amazing castle lights were provided by the Rolling Stones! http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/504571/stones-light-up-prague-castle.jhtml)

 

Another Cathedral

Me an Katka in Brno

England

Well this post is way overdue.  Thanks to Cecilia for calling me out for not writing it.  Last year I had gone to the UK to visit an old buddy of mine I'd met in Australia.  I started had started in Manchester, took the train to Birmingham and then we went to Hinckley which is where my buddy actually lives.  Its tricky to write about Hinckley as we went out and my memory is a little fuzzy.  Although I did run into someone else I had met in Australia!

Due to the fuzzy memories I'll have to plan another trip to the UK soon!

My one and only picture from the UK:

Latvia

The last stop in my little mini trip was Riga.  When I was on the walking tour in Vilnius I'd met a couple of cool girls from Riga who'd offered to show me around.  They wouldn't be back in in Riga until my last day there, so I'd also have to do some of my own exploring. 

I arrived in the evening and quickly started by checking out a couple of bars and finding some dinner.  After an early night, I decided to kick off the next day with the walking tour.  The walking tour was great and was almost entirely outside of the old town. 

We then decided that we had to see the beach.  We took the train out and wandered down the beach a some, but it was a little cold and windy.  Luckily we had seen a bar while walking from the train to the beach, so we went there and enjoyed a couple of nice pints.  The beach however, was amazing and I will definitely have to go back to Riga in the summer to enjoy it!

After arriving back at the hostel I discovered that Team Briton had arrived (unexpectedly), so we all sampled the "Tipsy Sally" drinking game, which was rather entertaining.  (Also rather effective!).  After another night on the town I met up with my new friend from Vilnius who gave me the personal tour. 

The personal tour was great! We wandered around the old town, went to a great bakery, and I enjoyed some traditional food and a glass of traditional Riga black balsam.  After all this I managed to grab my bag and only had to run about 2 blocks to make it to the bus for the airplane.  (The bus passed me and I had to chase it down)

 

Stalins Birthday Cake (yes... another one)

 

Freedom Statue

 

A really nice beach near Riga

 

 Me on the beach

 The usual hostel crew.

 The Opera House

 

A cool building I saw someplace in the old town.

 

Me and my Black Balsam

Curious how many countries I've been to?  You can follow progress here:Current Progress

*Note that only countries I have written the blog post for are posted as done!.

Lithuania!

Next stop is Vilnius.  I was joined by the two British guy's I'd met in Poland.  There are so many different things to like about Vilnius, its a nice little town, the beer is cheap, and the mayor is awesome!

Example of awesome mayor: http://en.ria.ru/strange/20110803/165538168.html

Thats right ... don't park your car in the bike lane or he will run over it with a tank!

 After people started parking in the bike lanes again he decided to provide the local citizens with stickers to put on any cars they found in the bike lanes:

In addition to an awesome mayor Vilnius also has an arts district that issues passport stamps.  The district is called Užupis and is full of statues, signs, and all sorts of other artwork in addition to an interesting constitution and a law that you have to smile.

If this wasn't enough they also have a castle, on an island! The castle technically isn't in Vilnius but is in Trakai a quite close on the train.  We made a day trip of going to the castle and found a really nice restaurant near it to enjoy some traditional Lithuanian foods.  My favorite was Didžkukuliai which is a bit of meet surrounded by potatoes (always good!), we also sampled the rye bread (bread bowls for soup seemed popular), Bulvinai blynai which are potato pancakes (and a close 2nd for favorite food).  We also tried Gira which is some kind of fermented drink made from bread (non alcoholic).

I stayed at a hostel called Jimmy Jumps, it's owned by a Canadian guy and is really awesome.  Great atmosphere and also amazing staff!  We had a fantastic time here!  Link if you want to stay there too: http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Jimmy-Jumps-House-Hostel/Vilnius/43131

After one of the rather fun nights I decided that I should do something cultural and did the walking tour.  Highly recommended as it even goes up to the top of a large hill and you can climb a random old tower.

Pictures:

 

Vilnius Town Hall

 

Trakai Island Castle

 

Trakai Island Castle

 

The art republic

 

My favorite sign in the republic. (Apple republic Sign)

 

I love when I see old trucks still being used.

Next stop: Riga! 

Curious how many countries I've been to?  You can follow progress here:Current Progress

*Note that only countries I have written the blog post for are posted as done!.