Our days in Budapest were sadly running out, but we had decided to be a little daring and sign up to a spot of caving. I had never tried caving before, and the brochure warned us that anyone with Claustrophobia should stay well clear of the caves. Having had little experience in small spaces, I was not exactly sure what my feelings would be if I was wedged in between a bunch of rocks, but decided there was only one way to find out. It turns out that the hot springs which provided us with the delicious heated water at the Szechenyi Bathhouse also created a huge cave system under…

After arriving at yet another grotty train station (named somewhat amusingly Keleti-Pu), we spent a good half an hour trying to work out which type of public transport we should be getting to our hostel. We queued up for ages at the train station ticket office in order to purchase some bus passes, only to be told we should buy these at the nearby sweet shop. Eventually, we arrived at Astoria and headed to our hostel, ‘Njoy Budapest’. We immediately knew that this was going to be an extremely friendly hostel, as they guy behind the desk, Oliver, shook our hands and gave us a tour of the place. He…

After a rather unpleasant journey on the train, we arrived at Bratislava with a vague idea of how to get to our Botel, which was located somewhere along the Danube. The train station was full of people trying to convince us to stay at their hostel instead, but there was no way we were going to forgo our lodgings on a boat. We realised pretty quickly that unlike many of the places we have visited so far, the locals of Bratislava are not so hot on the English language. Secretly, I was quite pleased as it forced us to think on our toes, but it did mean that getting to…

On Thursday morning, we rose from our beds bright and early because we wanted to go on the ‘Prague Extravaganza’ free tour that had been recommended to us by a fellow traveller. We were instructed to look for the people carrying the blue umbrella at the Old Town Square at ten o’clock. We arrived at the meeting point and began looking for the blue umbrella, but after about 20 minutes we still couldn’t spot it and decided to join one of the other free tours. There was a friendly-looking guy with a huge green umbrella who told us his tour began at 10:45, so we went for a walk then…

From Vienna to Prague was a rather long journey, but this time at least we were able to book our seats on the train so we knew we would be comfortable. After a while, a family joined us in our compartment and turned out to provide some excellent conversation. The father and mother were originally from China, but now live in New Jersey. They have two children, the youngest of whom accompanied them on their holiday. The father is currently working in Beijing as an investment banker, and we talked mostly about the pros and cons of the school systems in China, America and England. To be honest England came…

On Monday at around midday, we boarded our very smart train to Vienna. We were only staying one night, having got a bit carried away in Slovenia and booked an extra night. We had been recommended Vienna by several other travellers, so were looking forward to exploring the city. As our time was limited, we planned what we wanted to do during the day on Tuesday: a trip to the interactive ‘Haus der Musik’ (Museum of Music), some traditional Austrian food then a climb to the top of the south spire of the magnificent Stephansdom. We were staying the night at the ‘Hotel Birg Cyrus’ in yet another less-than-picturesque area…

We arrived at Lake Bled in Slovenia during one beautiful, sunny afternoon last week. We had been travelling around some of the most famous capital cities in Europe,  and were really looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet and some gorgeous views. Lake Bled is one of the most stunning places I have ever visited. The lake itself is piercing blue and totally clear, with lots of fish and ducks swimming about. The lake is surrounded by mountains and fairytale trees. There is a beautiful church which sits on an island in the middle of the lake, and of course one of the most famous landmarks in Slovenia…

The following day, it took us a while to get ourselves into gear (unsurprisingly). We finally managed to leave the hostel and decided to have an early lunch at the aforementioned Zitronengras. The weather was once again hot and sunny, so we headed to the Englischer Garten, the world’s largest municipal park. This is the home of hundreds of scantily-clad teenagers, old naked Germans, cyclists and friendly (and greedy) quackers. We went and sat in a quiet spot by the water where some ducks were paddling about. One particularly inquisitive duck hopped out and very slowly edged towards us, presumingly hoping we could provide it with some lunch. In the…

Following our trip to Brugge, we planned to spend a day in Frankfurt with my friend, Verena, who I knew from school. Verena had spent a year at Bryanston studying, and I in turn had visited her in the summer for a week and enjoyed the delights of the city. We were staying at the 5-Elements Hostel, once again located in the Red Light District. This was actually one of the safer RLDs that we had the pleasure of visiting, as there were lots of police and very few creepy men. In fact, we saw with great amusement that the main clientèle were sharply-dressed businessmen, who left the brothels in…