On our last day in Vienna, we took a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It was only about an hour by train (both cities are pretty close to the border). From Bratislava's train station, we got some rather mixed messages about how Slovakia views itself:
We moseyed on into town from the station, checking out the local graffiti on the way:
As we contemplated the understatedness of the above, we formulated a plan for the rest of the day. Guess what Bratislava's two main attractions are? If you've been paying attention thus far, you will probably be able to guess that they are a castle on a hill and a big church. We hit up the castle-turned-museum first, which was a bit of an odd experience. The museum was almost eerily empty except for the occasional yells from the group of kids on a field trip. Whole rooms were basically empty, and the rooms that did have stuff in the tended to have little or no interpretation of their stuff. That said, the castle itself was reconstructed to reflect the building's original Baroque fancyness (I'm giving Tim bunny ears in this photo, if it's too small to see...).
After the castle was, of course, the church. We were a little disappointed thus far, seeing as the castle was empty and the outdoor areas were all about 97 degrees. Luckily, the church was both interesting to see and a much nicer temperature. On the left is the elaborate stained glass in the church, and on the right is the crypt, which had graves from as long ago as the 17th century:
After all this, we walked around town a little and went to a microbrewery we had seen good reviews for. This place was *legit*. They only really had a couple beers, but they were delicious, and the food was amazing. We had a slightly currant-y dark lager and a German (non-microbrew) weissbier. Seriously some of the best food we had had for the entirety of the trip. (We tried a pickled sausage served with onions and hot peppers!) We left Bratislava happy and went home to pack our bags for Budapest.
We arrived in Budapest in the mid-morning after taking a train most of the way from Vienna and a bus part of the way to avoid parts of the tracks that had been damaged from the flooding of the Danube, which had gotten pretty bad in the past few weeks but has since improved somewhat. Our first stop in Budapest was where Tim used to live:
After walking around his old neighborhood a bit, we picnicked on the banks of the Danube, which had left a beachy sand covering on the pathway next to it from the flooding. It was actually kind of nice, and we were certainly not the only ones taking advantage of this tiny little beach under shady trees. Seeing as it was another blazing-hot day, I also happily stuck my feet in.
We then ventured on to - you guessed it - a church (Budapest apparently also has a synagogue, but it was closed on Friday afternoon and Saturday). This church was relatively new - finished in 1905 - and it is beautiful. It is the St. Stephen church, named for the guy who apparently founded Hungary. They even have his right hand in a box. The picture below shows the box holding the 'Holy Right', and the text is taken from the Wikipedia article on St. Stephen (link above). You can also find a quite detailed photo of the rotting right hand on that page. It's lovely.
The king's right hand, known as the Holy Right, is kept as a relic. Hungarians interpreted the incorruptibility of his right arm and hand - with which he had held the Holy Crown aloft from his deathbed when asking Virgin Mary to be the Queen of the Hungarians - as a sign that the Blessed Virgin Mary had accepted the king's offer to her of the Hungarian people, and she remains officially their queen.
- Wikipedia
Anyway, after the church we hit up a beautiful park where there were pillows laid out for people to sit on in the shade of trees next to a small lake. It was great, if still really hot. Also we got a langos, which is a Hungarian snack basically involving a funnel cake, except instead of sugar, you put a garlic sauce, sour cream and cheese on it. Certainly not the healthiest, but oh-man delicious. Later on, we got a bit fancier food for dinner, including a cold raspberry-and-melon soup (yum!):
Today we took things easy (again) to beat the heat. One of the things we saw today was the Fisherman's Bastion, which was pretty cool:
So, as of now, Budapest is really high up on my list of places we've been. It's a truly beautiful city that kind of looks like Istanbul and Vienna were smushed together, with some of the Communist-looking architecture of the Balkans peeking in a little further out of town. The prices are super reasonable and so far the food has been amazing. It is clear that our hosts are incredibly welcoming even though we can't understand their Hungarian, and they can't understand our English. Tomorrow, we're looking forward to hopefully a bit cooler temperatures and more beautiful architecture. This is the life!
Also, I put up a link to our Serbia pictures - enjoy! Ljubljana pictures will be going up soon.
Much love from Hungary!
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