Budapest, Hungary

Sept 21 - 25

After a loooong day on the bus we finally made it to Budapest! It was almost midnight and the drive through town was stunning, with all the buildings along the river lit up. We made it to Robin and Marie's house very late and had a quick chat about how to best spend our time in Budapest, before we all went to bed.

We started the next day with a free walking tour around the central part of town. In Pest we admired St Stephen's church, then we walked over the chain bridge to Buda.

In Buda we got nice city views and roamed around, admiring the beautiful architecture. Last time I was here, it was all covered in snow! Looks quite different in the summer time.

After lunch, Aamer and I continued to wander the streets of Buda, the "richer" side of the river. The streets were pristine and somewhat empty. It felt like we were walking on a movie set!

Eventually we got ourselves back down towards the river and found a nice spot for a view of the parliament. Among many ridiculously stunning buildings in Budapest, this one was a standout for me. Unfortunately you have to book ahead if you want to go inside and we missed our chance.

We were advised that the #2 tram is a beautifully scenic ride, so we hopped on and it took us down along the Pest side of the river, passing parliament and giving views across the river to the castle. It was lovely, but I actually think I would've preferred to walk it so it didn't all wizz past so quickly.

Marie cooked us a delicious dinner and we all chatted the night away over a bit of wine.

After a lazy morning (where I attempted a run but discovered my "little cough" was preventing me from breathing properly..) we got the bus into town and walked through City Park. We stumbled upon a local festival which included an outdoor cinema, live performances and market stalls with food, wine and crafts - lots of free samples!

At the other end of the park we reached Szechenyi Baths. We spent most of the day there, hopping between saunas, spas, steam rooms and pools. I particularly liked the insanely hot steam rooms, where I could only stay for maybe 30 seconds at a time. Right after the steam room, I would jump either into a cold pool or under a cold shower. Refreshing!

On our way back through the park afterwards, we stopped to go up one of the towers of the castle. The highest tower was already closed but the one we went up still offered a little view of the park.

We went out in the Jewish quarter for dinner, where we found some strange (but delicious) pastry dish that was apparently gluten free! Winner. 

Everyone raves about the ruin bars in Budapest, so we went to check out a few of them. Basically, after many buildings were destroyed in WW2, they started making the run-down buildings into bars. Clever idea - Bosnia should perhaps do something similar. First we went to Szimpla, the original ruin bar - regarded as one of the best bars in the world! Szimpla is enormous, split into many different areas, and decroated with a mish mash of random items; toys, bicycles, posters, traffic signs, plants... While there we caught a little bit of the Open Mic night - where some guy was pumping out really depressing tunes. Odd.

The next one we went to was kind of two separate bars, Fogashaz and Fogaskert, which were connected so you could walk freely between them. This was a much more organised design, less of a jumble of things. Fogashaz was a big club set in what appeared to be an old apartment building. Fogaskert was once, I'm guessing, a courtyard but is now a very cool bar filled with trees that hang fairy lights and flying pigs! Up the back, it has a closed off area with a dancefloor.

Later in the night we hopped on a 'party boat' to see the sights by night. It's beautiful during the day, but my god...at night?! Budapest is actually magical at night!

We danced for an hour and a half on the boat, regularly pausing for photo opportunities.

Once our boat had docked, we were taken to a club in Pest. The club played all the exact same songs we'd heard on the boat, so eventually we got a bit over it and headed back to the Foga bars.

I took Robin's dog, Palko, for a walk in the morning. We went up onto a beautiful trail where I got views of the area - but I didn't manage to find the view point that looks towards the city...oops!

We went back to the Jewish quarter for lunch, where Aamer tried goulash soup and I had a cheesy soup.

The Jewish quarter is where many thousands of Jewish Hungarians were killed in WW2. We passed the Great Synagogue and saw the willow tree memorial monument which has a leaf for every victim, with their names inscribed on them. Unfortunately it was closed, so we couldn't go in.

We had a flowery ice cream in the afternoon, just as delicious as it was pretty!

In the evening, Leda, Milo and I created some pipe cleaner masterpieces! Then we had a BBQ for dinner and attempted to get an early night, in preparation for our 4am wakeup...

Palko trying to escape the family photo!

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sept 19 - 21

For me, Sarajavo was more or less just a city. The war history was interesting, but the city itself was nothing special. We spent our morning walking around quite aimlessly.

On Copper Street the market-style shops were full of handmade copper goods. Inside the shops, men chipped away at their craft.

There were lots of churches and mosques, but the most beautiful building was the City Hall/National Library.

In the afternoon Aamer and I joined a tour to learn more about the Sarajevo Seige, when Serbia surrounded and attacked the city from 1992-1995. Those who were not fighting in the war either left Sarajevo or hid out in their basement for three years. Our guide was a soldier and told us how he lost his brother at the start of the war. As we were driving he pointed out the streets known as "sniper alleys" that one would never dare to cross, because it was in clear view of the Serbian snipers.

The first stop on the tour was the Tunnel of Hope. The UN was based at the airport but that didn't mean it was a safe place. If one attempted to cross the airport, they were sure to be shot. So eventually, the Bosnians built a tunnel to go under the runway, stretching 800m. The tunnel was only 1.6m tall and 1m wide, so soldiers had to crouch down to even fit through. If one person (injured, perhaps) needed to stop for a break, everyone behind them had to stop too. Sometimes it took hours to get from one end to the other.

From the tunnel we drove up into the mountains. I'm sure it would've been a spectacular view, had the clouds not been covering it.

While we were up in the mountains we went to the bob sled track, built for the 1984 Winter Olympics. The Serbians used the track as a base during the war and what's left of it is now covered in street art.

The last stop for the day was the fortress, which looks over the whole city. This was another spot the Serbians occupied during the war.

That evening, we had the most incredible dinner! We went to Apetit, a small restaurant with just four tables and no menu. They simply asked what we might like and created a dish from that. They even had GF pasta! What a treat!!

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sept 17 - 19

A last minute change of plans led us to Bosnia. And boy am I glad it did!

Mostar was badly hit by the Yugoslavian civil war. The damage, more than twenty years later, is still evident on many of the streets and buildings.

Stari Most (the 'Old Bridge') was completely destroyed by the Croatians and was rebuilt exactly how it was originally built - despite the progress of technology, UNESCO insisted that it be built using not only the same design and materials, but also the same building techniques.

So the famous "Old Bridge" is really not that old at all. However, it is still a beautiful and unique bridge. 

Standing 24m tall, it enthuses many dare devils. But before jumping, one must be trained by a local - jumping off a rock just down the river, practising exactly how to land in the water to minimise the risk of injury. Or death. Apparently there is an average of one serious injury per day..! So, no. I most definitely did not jump. I did watch a few people jump though!

Pretending like he's gonna jump...

Actually jumping! 

After roaming around the Old Town (again, not really "old" these days) we headed to the sniper tower. The Croatians used this tower as a base to attack Mostar. Bullet holes were cleverly used in some of the art that covered the walls. We checked out the extensive street art and graffiti on the outside before we jumped over the walls to get inside. 

Once in, we found more graffiti, plus tons of rubbish and broken glass - from all the windows that no longer exist. Climbing up the floors, we got changing views. At one point while we were admiring the view, I found "If happy, look. If sad, jump" spray painted on the ledge.

The views were incredible but it was surreal, standing in a sniper tower that was used in a horrendous war only 20-odd years ago.

We finished off our afternoon at the Stari Most museum, which to be honest was a bit of a waste of time and money. There was lots of dull information about the original constuction of the bridge, very little about how the bridge was destroyed and a decent video about the reconstruction. To be fair, there was a pretty good view from the tower at the top.

The next day we signed up for a full-day tour run by the hostel, which came highly recommended by many people.

Zika firstly took us up to Hum Mountain, which looks over Mostar. He was only 16 when the war began and at 17 he joined the resistance. While at the peak, he told us his own personal war stories; of being shot, of burying his classmates. All this while we stood at the spot where Croatians shot and killed many Bosnians, both soldiers and civilians.

Our next stop was a tunnel used as an air base during the war. We walked through the darkness and explored the man made rooms inside, big enough to sleep 100 soldiers. In the middle of the tunnel, we turned off all our lights and torches and screamed out, listening to a never ending (rather spooky) echo.

Moving on from our rather dark war-related stops, we went to the Dervish house in Blagaj. A beautiful little house built right next to a cave, between a fast flowing river and a massive rock formation.

Unfortunately the weather turned a little miserable as we approached our next stop, Kravica waterfalls. The one place we really wanted it to be sunny, so that we could go for a swim! There was no way I was getting in the icy cold water on an already cold day. Aamer braved it (very quickly) for a photo op.

The last stop was the historical town of Pocitelj. We walked up to the castle and then to the fortess, admiring pretty wicked views of the mountains and the river at both.