One week later, I thought you might want to know about our 4 day weekend. Last Saturday morning (2am to be exact) our train left from Romania to Vienna, Austria. We spent 2 days in Vienna, then took a train, and spent about 2 days in Budapest.
In Vienna, we stayed with a Romanian family, friends of one of our contacts here. They blessed us so much; providing beds for each of us, plenty of delicious food, and a chauffeur (the husband). The first day we went to Schonbrunn Palace, Belvedere, up a mountain to see the city at night and an amuesment park. Day two we went to the center of the city, walked through St. Stephen’s, then split up to do our own exploring for the day. Samantha and I walked all over the city; our day included ice cream, Starbucks, a walk on the beach, a cheese filled sausage, and a protest.
me, Samantha, Aimee, Jenny and Carmen at Schonbrunn
part of St. Stephen’s Cathedral
me and my Starbucks on the bank of the Wein River
Budapest was quite the adventure. The adventure started trying to get from the train station to our hostel; long story short, the five women of WO[men], ended up in an engineer’s office at a construction site for the new metro line having him print us out a map. That afternoon Carmen, Samantha, and I thought we would explore Buda (Buda and Pest are separated by the Danube River). We ended up spending the day in Pest, finding the Opera House, St. Stephen’s Basilica, attending a classical strings concert, then crossing back over the river to view Parliament and The Chain Bridge lit up at night. Tuesday, Carmen and I went to a large in-door market, then we parted ways for the afternoon. I walked over to Buda, climbed the hill to see the Liberty Statue and the Citadel. The rest of the day I went walked down Andrassy Avenue, went to Heros’ Square, and found Starbucks. The adventure of Budapest concluded with us ending up at the wrong train station to leave, so with less than 30 minutes until departure time, we found a bus and had to go across the city, but we made it with 2 minutes to spare.
please ignore the dirt on my lens…Budapest (Buda is on the left, Pest is on the right)
St. Stephen’s Basilica
Samantha and Carmen on Chain Bridge
Chain Bridge and Parliament at night
All in all I’d say we had a pretty great trip. We had our own time to do what we wanted and I was able to walk around and see a lot of both cities.
much
love
