Vienna to Budapest and onwards...

Before I start, I should point out that my phone mysteriously disappeared from my bedside in the hostel in Munich (the joys of a bed in a dormatory, eh?). The phone wasn't worth much, and had very little credit left in it. However, it did have all my numbers in it - so don't be surprised if you get an email from me when I get to Australia, asking for your number again...
Also, if you happened to send me any texts on or after July 29th then I probably didn't get them.

The train journey from Munich to Vienna was only about 3-4 hours long and travelled through some spectacular countryside. It was like watching heidi or something... with rolling hills and picturesque little houses.

We spent 3 days in Vienna altogether but nothing really stood out about it. This could be because the weather was deteriorating or that we were comparing it to Munich, but either way, I don't have much to say about it. We spent the time walking around the city, and also went to a concert playing Mozart music - there was a city wide festival on celebrating 200 years of Mozart, so every way we looked we saw wigs!

Bratislava was on our itinirary, but we decided to give it a miss since we had both been there before, and the train journeys onwards from there would have been more awkward (we were in for a surprise!). So straight to Budapest we went.

Budapest was the first time that we had to wear our jumpers and raincoats on the trip. When we found our hostel, we were greeted to a 1900's soviet era orphanage (or similar!). All the tiles were cracked, the paint on the walls was peeling and the shower was nothing more than a spout (think 'tap'). Perhaps these are the reasons why there was still room in this hostel despite the hungarian grand prix on and all other placed booked out :-)
Budapest was nice, but the intermitted torrential rain stopped us from making the most of it. We spent 2 days walking around, dodging the showers but were ready for a change when the time arrived.

Oh, I should say that we got to try out the Thermal Baths while there :-) These are basically outdoor swimming pools, but with less emphasis on swimming, and more on just floating around. This is all the more relaxing given that the outdoor temp was about 15 deg C and the water temp was 37C :-) There were signs up telling people not to spend more than 20 mins at a time. Ever since I saw these pics of old men playing chess in the baths, I wanted to have a go. However, when I actually went to play, I was quickly told where to go (by the old men). Looks like in order to play, you need to be a grumpy old man with nothing better to do on a weekday afternoon... well I'm half way there :-)

Getting the night train from Budapest to Krakow seemed like a good idea at the time, but we hadn't fully expected the whole eastern european border crossing scenario. This is where you get passport officials dressed in full military atire - camoflage suit, boots, shaved head (and yes, guns too!) walking though each compartment on the train checking passports. And if there are 3-4 guys checking passports, then this means your passport will be checked 3-4 times. It seems the word 'delegation' has not made it this far east (?).

To add to this, the train route in question travels through two borders (Hungary/Slovakia and Slovakia/Poland) so there's twice the fun... especially when the second crossing happens around 2am and you're standing there in your pj's and bare feet, only half awake, while this big guy with a gun (x4!) eyes you up and down looking for any reason to 'make his day' (perhaps my sleepful state was playing tricks on me at this point!).

We arrived in one piece (and no holes) in Krakow at about 6am the next morning ready for bed!