Bratislava to Belgrade via Budapest

6th August

Met up with Marie Plotena and her group again today and had a lovely day. We caught a boat up the River Danube.... and it’s not blue! Beautiful trip, Austria on one side of the river and Slovakia on the other. The river is very deep and fast flowing and makes its way down to the Black Sea. We saw a couple big commercial boats on their way there. We then arrived at the lovely ruin of Devin Castle. It’s very old and has been occupied by Celts, Romans and Hungarians so has had a varied history. It’s high up o the hillside surrounded by woodland.
We arrived early evening back in town to watch some free classical music in one of the squares. There is a nice culture of free entertainment in the town squares. Then I came back to hostel.

7th August

Walked into town ... did some touristy things; museums etc and in the afternoon met up with Marie Plotena again and her cartoonist friend Olga Pazerini. We walked along the Danube and found a lovely cafe. Olga couldn’t speak any English but we still had a great laugh together. The joke about 2 monkeys in the bath went down a storm. Maria could not stop laughing. We then went up into the UFO Bridge tower and had a birds-eye view of Bratislava, then unfortunately had to say goodbye to Maria, but Olga and I went on to a cafe for a hot chocolate. We communicated entirely by cartooning ... it was great fun and we were in fits of laughter! We then said our goodbyes. I loved Bratislava

8th August

Traveled down to Budapest. It’s a pleasant enough train journey. Had a terrible job finding the hostel, just a brown door in a wall not sign posted. The Mafia owns most of the hostels and they make it very difficult for the independent hostels to advertise or be visible. I had picked an independent one. It was in fact really bad. Paint and tools everywhere. No Internet or luggage store. A homemade spiral staircase to a room with 3 bunks and mattresses on the floor, and some very rude Americans to add to the charm! One night was enough there. The next morning I booked out. I advised them to get at least 1 smoke alarm … It was a real deathtrap if ever there was a fire. Unfortunately due to a big music festival, it was difficult to book another hostel.

9th August

I walked a little around a local market and took a photo of the Danube then hopped on a train to Belgrade … Serbia. Wonderful train journey with a lovely Yugoslavian chap who kept me entertained for the journey. Arrived in Belgrade after 8pm and booked in at a cheap hotel - which was heaven compared to my last nights experience.

Sue