Zakopane to Split

From Zakopane it was onwards to Budapest, but we’d have to cross Slovakia first before we could get there. Along the way we stopped in Slovakia and had an awesome lunch at a little place that made a hearty leek and onion soup that comes served in a bread bowl. It was pretty tasty!

In the late afternoon we arrived in Budapest and headed out to a great place recommended by Ben the Trekker guide to have a 3 course meal as well as a boat cruise (which included 3 drinks in the price). We cruised up the and down the Danube River checking out all the amazing buildings lit up by night, it was our own personal little party boat for about an hour before we made our way back to the dock and then onwards to a night spot in our local district VII (they don’t have suburbs in the inner areas of Budapest instead they have a bunch of numbered districts).

The following morning we got up and headed off on a Bike tour to check out the city of Budapest (thankfully the rain held out that day) it lasted for about 3-4 hours and we got to zip around and check out a few highlights of the city such as St Stephen’s Cathedral and Square, The Opera House, Heroes Square and lastly Castle Hill. The Church was pretty impressive but I’ve seen a lot of them already so I wasn’t overly excited about seeing another. Heroes Square was quite cool and had statues of many of the various saints (mainly kings) who had some significance at one point or another; the most obvious example being Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary. Castle Hill, as the name suggests, was on a hill so that was a bit of a hectic ride to the top, but after 10 minutes of powering up the hill we finally made it up the top and I snapped some excellent views of the city, parliament house and the Danube river. Apparently the Parliament house is the most expensive building in Hungary; it cost the same to erect/design/build it as it would to house a population of 46,000 with homes.

That night, we made our way to the fabled hot springs of Budapest, they were the perfect temperature and it was a great wind down after a long day of cycling and sightseeing. Where the hot springs come up the water temperature is about 75 degrees, so they actually have to cool it down a bit to make it tolerable haha. We had a great night and headed back to have some pizza back at the hostel, these pizzas were huge! Probably about the size of a whole pizza hut pizza in one slice, maybe just under, either way they were filling! We left a few people behind at Budapest as the Eastern Trekker has a few tours running down this route and some people were getting off here. But we also gained some new friends and moved on to Plitvice National Park.

We arrived in the late afternoon after a brief stopover at an open air war museum that had a few old tanks and other war machines from civil conflicts that have occurred in the Slavic area. On arrival in the park we organized a big BBQ and fried up some sausages and had a salad and some tasty grilled vegetables, by this time we’d gotten to know everyone and we had a big night of fun and laughs before we made our way back to the cabins for a good night of rest for lots of energy to explore the national park the following day.

We jumped up bright and early to get down to the national park and we spent a good 4 hours wandering around checking out the beautiful waterfalls, caves, lakes and the general greenery. I’ve never seen anything like it, this place was timeless. We walked through a good section of the park checking out the caves and waterfalls and then jumped on a ferry which takes you across one of the bigger sections of the lake, walked through some more and then jumped on a road train back down to a café for a coffee before our rendezvous at midday. It was a shame it was raining, but the rain didn’t dampen the day (no pun intended haha), I got some excellent shots all over the park, even some underwater ones. We then continued onwards to Split, after jumping off the bus I can feel it’s sort of warmer here already, maybe I can get some good weather too? We’ll see, but either way tomorrow it’s off to sail the Dalmatian coast, it should be great fun. =)




PS I've got lots of photos and I'll upload them when I get the chance to use wifi and stuff again.. at the moment I've only really had time to get to an internet cafe for a few minutes... perhaps after the sail because I'll have lots of great pictures.