Heading into the unknown

Before I headed to Europe, I had a general idea about where I would be travelling in the first month. Not that I had every day planned, but there were signposts - people I had arranged to visit or meet up with on more or less specific days. But for various reasons, I didn't make any particular plans beyond a month into my trip, when I would reach Vienna. Apart from vague plans to head west, ending in Lisbon.

I did get to Vienna at the end of that first month, but by the time I got there, my motivation to go west had waned, and I had become more and more interested in going east instead. I finally decided to do so when my couchsurfing host in Vienna headed off to Bratislava for the day. I still find the concept of taking a day trip to another country slightly incredible... Anyway, she gave the city rave reviews, and her flatmate did the same for Budapest when she returned from a weekend there on my last night in Vienna. So I headed east, to Budapest via Bratislava.

This leg of my trip was the only time I almost got the trains wrong. I arrived in Bratislava in the evening, after the tourist office was closed, but the information I found online suggested there was a train to Budapest in the afternoon. I spent the evening wandering around the old town, thinking I would have a better chance to explore the next day. However, by the time the tourist office opened and I found out that the latest train was at midday, I only had a couple of hours to wander a bit more, pick up my bag from the hostel, and get to the station. As a result, it was somewhat rushed.

The old town is quite well-preserved, but everything seems to be aimed at tourists. What I saw of the other part of the town was very different.

Anyway, I only ended up taking a few photos. There were a number of bronze statues hanging around one of the streets. Although the first one I saw was climbing out of a manhole, for the rest, I really do mean hanging around.







It was actually a bit of a shock to the system to get to Bratislava. Everywhere else I'd been, people either spoke quite a bit of English, and/or I had some familiarity with the language. Slovakian sounded completely alien to my ear. It was also a little disconcerting to arrive at a station that was, apparently, in the middle of nowhere. Even more so to then feel so rushed the next day. But in the end, I was quite happy to spend the extra time in Budapest.