June 2015 – Page 3 – David and Yanmei

June 20, 2015

Budapest, Hungary

Since it is so close we decided to use our Eurail pass to take a day trip to Budapest. We had to get up early for this, to catch the 7:12am train to Budapest. It is about a 2.5 hour train ride.

Dense field of wind turbines in Austria. Big too, this continued for at least 10 miles.

On the other side of the Danube is Slovakia. This is the closest we got this time.

Our train was a little late arriving at about 10am. We planned to go on a free walking tour at 10:30am, which meant it would be a challenge to get there on time. We found the metro station outside the rail station, but there was a huge line for the single ticket machine. We decided we wouldn't make it if we waited in line, so we went outside to get a taxi. There were lots of taxis waiting outside the train station, but none of them would take us, they were all reserved. Then I noticed another ticket machine for the buses with no line, so I quickly bought us two tickets and we went back into the metro. The tickets worked and we made it to the tour starting point with 2 minutes to spare.

The Budapest metro is nice. Very clean and easy to navigate. As you can see from the metro map Budapest is made up of the Buda side and the Pest side.

I guess a lot of people had the same idea as us, because there was a huge crowd for the tour, so much so that they broke it up into 4 groups, and each group was still about 40 people. Our guide was named Zoltan and although he was Hungarian, he spoke clearly enough that Yanmei could understand him very well.

Buda Castle as viewed from the Pest side of the Danube

Overlooking the Pest side from the Buda side

Changing of the Hungarian Presidential guard. After we watched this the guide mentioned they just started doing this 3 years ago as a tourist attraction.

When the tour finished we had lunch. After lunch Yanmei wanted to go to a thermal bath house. Budapest is known for its mineral water hot springs even from Roman times. More recently when conquered by the Turks they started building bath houses. We went to Gellert Baths, which is not the biggest one, but is supposed to be less crowded and touristy. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but it turned out to be pretty nice.

One picture of the main pool from the entrance. After this I didn't take any more. I think it's a little rude to take photos of people bathing, although some people were doing it.

It is mixed bathing with swim suits required. First you shower, then you go into the swimming pool or thermal baths. We went to the baths. There is a certain sequence they recommend, but we just did whatever we felt like. It wasn't very crowded and sometimes there were only a couple of other people in the large thermal pools with us. I'm not sure what the age limit was, but there were no kids running around wrecking havoc, so it was easy to relax and float around in the pools. We also used the saunas. They had three levels of saunas, I tried to go in the hottest one, but the floor was so hot it burned my feet so I left after about 5 seconds. If I had flip flops and a towel to sit on so I didn't burn my legs I probably could have stayed a few minutes.

I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and would have stayed longer but we had to get back to catch our train back to Vienna. After so many days on the road, and a long walking tour it helped relax my joints and soothe my sore feet.

I know there is a Veeva office in Budapest. I looked up the address and I wore my Veeva shirt just in case, but we didn't have time for a visit this time.

-David

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June 19, 2015June 19, 2015

Vienna

As I mentioned in the previous post, after we got back from the Tuscany tour we went directly to the train station to catch the night train to Vienna. We had reserved tickets the previous day, but unfortunately the sleeper berths were sold out so we got couchettes. Fortunately we were in a 4 person cabin, so it was only bunk beds, not triple level bunks like the 6 person cabins, but the bad news is we both had upper bunks. It was hot and uncomfortable and even though we were both tired from the long day we couldn't have a good sleep.

The train ended up being over an hour late, but it was still pretty early when we got to our hotel in Vienna. Happily they had the room ready even though it was more than 3 hours ahead of check in time. We went to the room and collapsed.

Night trains are good because you don't need to book a hotel or other accommodations for that night, and you don't waste a day traveling. However for that reason the comfortable berths sell out early. With our last minute planning style it doesn't work very well. If you get an uncomfortable berth then you essentially blow a day anyway because you don't feel like doing anything the next day. That's what happened to us. We mostly just rested in the hotel room all day, although we did go out for some Wiener schnitzel.

The next day we still got up late and finally went out to see some of Vienna. Yanmei has been here before, but she doesn't remember much other than the opera house.

We got tickets for a hop on hop off bus. These are double decker buses that drive around to various points of interest and you can get off, stay as long as you want, the get back on when the next bus comes by. It also included a short walking tour of the city center.

One of the interesting things the guide mentioned was that although most of the buildings appear old, many of them are only about 150 years old, including the state opera house. They were built with the style of previous periods to given the feeling of age.

We visited a flower and fruit market. Didn't see any flowers but there were a lot of fruits and vegetables and spices. It made Yanmei wish we had access to a kitchen.

We were considering going to an opera in the evening, but since we didn't plan ahead they were sold out already. Our other option was to stand in line for the standing room only tickets that go on sale each day at 6pm. We both felt tired so we decided to skip that.

Coming out of a pay toilet. This one played opera music to help you enjoy your visit.

I feel like Vienna is a city we should visit again. We barely scratched the surface, and it is located close to a lot of other interesting cities, such as Bratislava, Budapest and Prague.

-David

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June 19, 2015June 19, 2015

Tuscany, part 2

After lunch we headed to San Gimignano. It is famous for being a well preserved example of a walled medieval village. While other wealthy cities like Florence and Sienna periodically tore down buildings and rebuilt them in the current style (Renaissance, neoclassical, etc.), San Gimignano was particularly devastated by the Black Plague in 1348, losing over half its population, and never really recovered, so they basically didn't change anything in the town for the next 500 years.

Unfortunately our luck didn't hold and it dumped rain on us. The town is very small and there was no tour, we were just given 1.5 hours of free time to explore. It was windy and there was thunder and lightning. The hilly streets became mini rivers. Even with an umbrella my pants and shoes were getting wet. This basically forced us to go into the many tourist shops for shelter.

Finally the rain stopped for a bit and we ventured out. One nice thing is the rain reduced the crowds, so we felt like we had it almost to ourselves in some places.