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We didn’t spend too long in Pretoria – in fact the same day we flew over to Cape Town. We were picked up by a local quilter – Maggie was going to teach there – and taken straight to our hostel. After a relatively quiet night, the next day was a beautiful one so we went straight up to Table Mountain. Since the weather is so fickle on top of the mountain – including the ubiquitous cloud the locals call the “tablecloth” – we knew that we’d have to book it if we wanted the best experience possible.

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The last time we were in Madrid we missed a few fun things to do, so this time we made sure to do them! The first is known as “Churros con Chocolate”, which as you can see is a delicious savory donut (which is not covered in sugar like in the US) and a pot of very thick hot chocolate, almost like a pudding. It is served for breakfast and is oh-so-delicious. (more…)

In Istanbul, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire are everywhere. This is very readily apparent if you go to visit the Sultan’s Palace Museum in downtown Istanbul. There, they’ve opened most of the palace grounds and some of the interior buildings to give you a sense of what it was like to be king in Istanbul. There are also quite a few surprising relics stored inside.

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The culture in Istanbul is a very interesting mix resulting from a blend of two cultures: Ottoman and Roman. It was the capital of each empire for a time, and absorbed a lot from both cultures. While we were visiting, we got to experience a side of Istanbul that is unusual for us as we came from predominantly Christian areas of the US: Ramadan.

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One of the greatest things to do in Istanbul is to go shopping. The city that bridges Asia and Europe has a reputation for bazaars all around the city where you can purchase anything you can imagine for incredibly little money – provided that you can bargain successfully with professionals.
The first place we went shopping in Istanbul was the famous Spice Bazaar. Here since at least 1597 people have bought and sold their spices from around the world. There are your normal spices: saffron, curry, chili…

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Our plan to leave Budapest was a good one — take the overnight train to Belgrade (Serbia) and then take the train the next day to Sofia, in Bulgaria. This would be a long, but not ridiculous train journey that took us most of the way down through Eastern europe and get us to a place where the travel time to Istanbul would be reasonably short. It didn’t turn out that way — in a thankfully rare instance where the Eurail pass failed us — because it turns out that Eurail “Global” passes (the ones with travel through the entire Eurail network) were not valid in Serbia! This is written in fine print in a few places but was not noted on our map or on our ticket. Thankfully we discovered this fact before we boarded the sleeper train (we would probably have been kicked off at the Serbian border) and made a hasty decision to reroute through Bucharest, in Romania. That way we’d be able to arrive the same day as before and also to use up the same number of days on our Eurail pass.

Unfortunately that also meant that we’d be on the train for nearly 24 hours! We boarded the sleeper train in Budapest and found that we had much more friendly cabin-partners who spoke English. They also didn’t mind leaving the beds out the whole time so we each had our own little space the whole sleeper train. Hazel and I both enjoy sleeper trains; the swaying motion of the train car is much more relaxing than an automobile or airplane. The motion on a train tends to rock you to sleep instead of jolting you awake. Another benefit – free coffee! What could be bettter! And Romanian scenery is really beautiful so we were entertained the whole time.

We only had about an hour once we arrived in Bucharest, unfortunately, because it turned out not to be enough time to prepare for our trip on to Sofia. First, the ATM wouldn’t dispense money — I guess Romania is a risky area for Visa and so they just block any withdrawals. We only tried to take out a small amount to buy lunch with, but they wouldn’t have it. On top of that, the places wouldn’t take Euros and would only accept credit cards with a PIN! So we were unable to buy any food for lunch or dinner which would pass on the coming train ride.

That ride was the worst train on our entire Eurail trip! It was a cabin which had 4 people on either side all crammed together. Combine that with no showers for a day and 100 degree weather, and you have the makings for a really horrible ride. We also only had one sausage (luckily we bought a big enough one to last us the day), one loaf of bread, and half a big bottle of water to last us. The water was the first to go. I think that the heat really increased our need for water because we normally wouldn’t drink that much all at once; we felt pretty parched by the end of the journey. Then the bread went and I ate the rest of the sausage and then we were out. A quick glance at our watches told us we still had a few hours left on the train! We managed, but the only nice parts about the end of the ride were that all of our cabin-partners left us and that the temperature got a lot nicer. I don’t know if we would have survived otherwise!

Our troubles were not quite at an end, though, because we arrived in Sofia after dark. Hazel and I hate to arrive anywhere after dark with all our stuff and this was one of the worst places we’ve done that, because the train terminal was empty and we had to walk to the bus terminal a few hundred yards down the road to catch a taxi to our hostel. Of course it was raining and the taxi driver got the wrong name from the hostess at the taxi rank. So we were taken to a different hostel than we had booked! After the taxi driver tried to get the directions to the other hostel from a few hookers on the corner near the first hostel, we wrote down the address and finally convinced the driver to use his GPS to take us to the other hostel. So we arrived — finally — and crashed in our super nice room at the hostel, wiped out but safe and sound.

Each country that we’ve visited in continental Europe has had its own story to tell about the events surrounding and following WWII.  Hungary, being a territory on the front of the war, was successively occupied by the Nazis (in Hungary the party was known as the Arrow Cross) and then by the Russians.  Both of these groups were well known for the activities of their secret police organizations, and for the real horrors subjected on the population both during and after the war.

In Budapest, there is a museum called the House of Terror which chronicles the acts perpetrated on the Hungarian people by these two groups over the years.  The name is particularly appropriate, because the building that the museum is housed in was actually the headquarters of the secret police for BOTH of the occupying forces!  Inside is a really powerful museum, featuring tons of multimedia – especially videos – that really brings the stories to life.  We spent about 3 hours in the museum and only really watched about half the videos on display.  The most compelling and disturbing part of the museum was the basement which housed many interrogation rooms and still retains the character of what it must have been like while in use.  This museum is highly recommended if you visit Budapest.

Sometimes, you just never know what you’re going to get.  We arrived in Budapest by train as usual, and got out Hazel’s handy-dandy notebook where we’d written the directions to our hostel.  It was reasonably convenient to get there, just a metro ride followed by a short block, but we discovered to our dismay that nobody answered the doorbell when we got there!

Of course we weren’t about to let that stop us, oh no, so we followed another person through the outer gates of the building and entered a 4 story courtyard with anonymous doors – and no sign of a hostel!  So we split up.  I went upstairs and Hazel searched the downstairs doors.  After a good while I reached a door on the top floor that had a sign: “XYZ Hostel – Guests, please call this number when you arrive”.  This is still super suspicious because nobody was there to unlock the outer door — how could we be expected to get to this inner door?

Moreover this door was unlocked.  So we go in and find a more-or-less hostel place but completely abandoned.  At this point we are really stressed out – what happened to our hostel?  Why is nobody there?  We went out in a near-panic.  We had no hostel and no phone to contact the hostel with!  We went to the nearest hotel and phoned this mysterious number.  Here’s how it went:

Do you have a reservation? Yes?  Well sorry we don’t have any space for you.  Yes I know you paid to confirm the reservation, but I can’t help you.

So at this point we were really unhappy!  And to boot it’s getting dark and we don’t have anywhere to stay.  Eventually we find a place with wifi – the Pink Cadillac Pizzeria – and start looking for another place to stay while we eat our dinner.  We did find a place, called “Home to Home Hostel”, which was a really perfect spot for us.  It was even more central than our first pick, had really nice and helpful owners and a great vibe.  We loved it!  So all ended well after a stressful day entering Budapest.

Everything we’d heard about Slovenia told us that we should not just stick to Ljubljana – we needed to get out to the countryside. So, on the recommendation of a fellow hosteler, we set our sights on the small country town of Bohinj, a 2 hour bus ride from the capital.  The direction we headed (NNW for the crossword puzzle geeks out there) took us into the Julian Alps section of Slovenia, a mountainous paradise with lakes and hiking and everything you could want!

In fact, on the way to Bohinj we passed another retreat town well-known to Slovenians called Bled.  There is a rather large lake with a super castle perched on a rocky overlook on the lake.  Unfortunately we had to pick one or the other but we will leave Bled to another trip.  It appeared much more built-up and touristy than our final destination: Bohinj!

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Many of you are probably thinking: Why haven’t they gone up to see the castle yet!  It’s so spectacular!  I don’t know, but we never did end up going to see the castle.  We heard rumors of another sight not far from Prague that sounded so much more unique and exciting to me that we went there instead!  It was the Sedlec Ossuary, a church whose cellar is completely full of (and decorated with) human bones!  This is not the type of thing that even exists in the US so we jumped at the chance to go.  It took a two hour train ride to get to the town, a suburb of the city of Kutna Hora.

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