UP THE DANUBE

Saturday, … decided to go north up the Denube for a day trip to Szentendre, Visegrad and Esztergom …. On way back to Budapest, the sky opened up and rained like there is no tomorrow …. Car struggled a bit near the end (water got near the leads) …. But ended up back in Budapest ok …. The rains bought a cool change … which is a relief from the scorching heat over last few weeks where temperatures reached 40 plus!

JOZSEF ATTILLA

Stopped by statue of one of Hungary’s greatest poets … so a “sorrow” photo moment!

BUDAPEST BY NIGHT

For a 77 year old woman … she put on a cracking pace … and history lessons to boot.

LUNCH WITH NANNA KRANTZ

Got inited by Máté for lunch with his grandmother … a lovelly lady … who after lunch challenged me for game of chess …. As hard as I tried … there was no getting out of it, and even though I was a bit rusty, ended up winning …. Is it a bad thing to beat a 77 year old nanna, after she made you lunch?? I don’t know weather I should have let her win.
Before saying our fairwells, Nanna Krantz insisted on showing us the Buda Castle later that evening, so it was a date.

PARKING TICKET #2

Got another parking ticket …after last nights drinks, bit hang over, and slept in, and all street parking in Budapest are machine pay between 800 – 1800.

DRINKS WITH MATE IN PEST

For someone who doesn’t check his email regularly, it was plain luck that he actually checked it the day we arrived ….. so had dinner and drinks.

HUNGARy

Note .... Hungarian computer keyboards are f*%ked ... they have letters all over the place, and still havent worked out how to find letter y .... had to copy character from internet, and paste into this post.... too hard looking for capital y for the title!!

BUDAPEST

Decided to head south into Hungary, towards Budapest ... and then backtrack to Bratislava, which is less than 100km north/west.
Planned to spend few days in Budapest … very charming city … and planned on catching up with Máté (Hungarian friend from Adelaide, who is here for few months) who offered to show us around.

SLOVAKIA

Stopped in Kosice for the night, not the most interesting of places … and hard to find any sort of guesthouse/backpacker accommodation, which I found surprising for the second largest city in Slovakia.

MORE SUNFLOWERS

On way to Bardejov, drove past fields totally covered in sunflowers …. Even more amazing photo opportunity … I think yellow might be becoming my favorite colour.

INTO SLOVAKIA

Monday, entered Slovakia … border crossing very casual …. Show passports, and drive through (both Poland and Slovakia are part of EU)

GOLONKA

Sunday, also being more significant as my birthday, went out for a golonki … pigs foot boiled in beer sauce (very popular dish in Poland) …. Absolutely divine … although Pamela thought it was just wrong.

TATRY

Parked the car with the messes, and undertook the 3km uphill walk, only to end up waiting 2 hours for the cable-car ….at the end of it the spectacular landscapes were worth it.
On top of the mountain, you can actually stand with feet on two different countries, Poland and Slovakia.