iPandaAroundEurope

21.07.2014 - 04.08.2014

I must admit it is just half europe, south-east europe to be precise but 'iPandaAroundEurope' sounds more dramatic. I also must admit that this is my first time doing backpacking and blogging and stuff. Let me think, what else do I have to admit...? Na, whatever. Lets go! ;)

Lindau (Lake Constance)

With my bag on my back (lol) and a friend by my side, our first destination was the huge lake Constance. There we met up with three other pals of ours and took their little rubber boat to discover the lake (five person in one little boat - that was crazy :D). Although we could not find any sea monsters living in there, we were not dissapointed. The nature was breathtaking, the air clean and the rain not too annoying. We even could swim in the lake. What a nice place to start our journey.

Milan

Serious guys, I have spent the past five minutes to think about Milan and what to write, but all that pops in head were muffins. ._. 
Just kiddin'.
The first problem in Milan was their streets. There were so many cross roads, so many side roads, we had a hard time finding our hostel. The owner laugh at us later on, how one could not find a hostel located at the biggest street in Milan. Cars were still driving and honking at 1 A.M. Yeah, it was one hell of big street. Nonetheless Milan has one of the greatest cathedral I've ever, EVER saw. If you get out of the Duomo subway station and walk up the stairs to the surface, the first thing you will see is this white, gigantic building. I was standing there like frozen and couldn't do anything but starring. The white marble, the enormous number of statue, the Neo-Gothic architectural style and the huge organ inside the building give the Duomo di Milano a unique and magnificent presence. I am not surprised that there were so many tourists.

Unfortunately the cathedral is the only interesting sight. At least for me. The city was fine (Italian drivers were horrible though...), but Milan is more a shopping/glamour town than a 'sightseeing town'.

If you are in Italy and you don't try pizza or pasta there, you gonna miss something. That's what we thought and we could find a nice little restaurant to eat great pizza. Super delicious, super prices! :D The trick is not to search for a restaurant near town center. The same goes for Rome...

Rome

Rome was like a level up to me. It has this Italian flair ('Non grazie' here, 'Ciao' there and drivers were still crazy...) but has much, much more to offer. In Milan you could find some churches that are really pompous with all the gold and marble and fresco. In Rome you could find ten times more of such churches after every corner. Every church had another 'wow'-effect to me, every church was more magnificent than the other one.

Also Rome has this great historical background. We were walking hours through the Palatin (and tried to have a philosophical talk like Aristotle and Plato :D), were stunned by the Colosseum and discovered the center of Christianity - the Vatican. Not expecting pope Francis there, but got to see and listen him preaching about piece and solving the conflicts in the middle east. Although we didn't understand a word he was saying it impressive and we could tell by the crowd that it also touching.

And as if this isn't the highlight already, there was a great ice cream palour, the oldest ice cream palour throughout Italy, lads and gents. I do not exaggerate when I say the ice cream there tasted like heaven... ;)





After amazing two days in Rome, we travel on to Vienna. We decided to take the night train. 'It would spare us one whole day', we said. 'We can lay down and sleep and all', we said.

We were so wrong. It was a huge mistake...

Vienna

The first time we entered the cabinet I was thinking that this wasn't bad at all. There was enough space and the seats look somehow comfortable too. Then four other people came in and with them four big bags. Our space were gone and the body heat of six people let the small cabin (around 170 x 150 cm) getting warmer and warmer. Not to mentioned that the outside temperature was 36°C already. To top it all we couldn't even sit straight on our beds ('bed' - it took us some damn time to figure out how to revert the seats to beds). I was not expecting too much sleep that night, but our 'roommates' were all nice, gentle and quiet and I even could stretch out my entire legs (first time I was glad not to be that tall :D) so that I could found some sleep in the late night. The train arrived in Vienna with one hour of delay, but we got a little breakfast and some tea, which was nice.

In our hostel we got to met Nathalia (I am sorry, I don't know how to spell her name). She is from Columbia and could speak Spanish, French and English fluently. I was impressed. She was kinda lively and talkative, but also a little bit clumsy. We went to town with her and that was fun. The second guy was from Australian. His name was Joe and he was like the typical surfer boy (he did surfing though :D). He was backpacking around the world and we could chat a little bit, sharing some experiences but he left early in the morning already leaving us some Forints (about 3€) for Budapest. Good Guy Joe!  The third guy was Ismael (And again, I don't know how to spell his name :D). We couldn't talk to him much, cause he was away, when we were in the room and he changed rooms in the middle of the night, because some people were too loud outside.

I didn't take too much picture of Vienne somehow, but Vienna was also a great city. It has a cathedral, that 'Anker Uhr' with different famous personalities like Marcus Aurelius or Charles the Great showing up at specific hours and a few nice churches. What is definitely worth mentioned is a restaurant called 'Cafe Central'. It is more like a cafe and its apple strudel is superb! The cafe has a long tradition going back up to 1870 and so does the cafe looks. 

Mum, don't worry. I only has alcohol-free cockteils! ;)

Before leaving to Budapest, my friend and I had a bet. There were so many people waiting on the platform for the train to Budapest and it was obviously hard for us to find seats, since we didn't even make any reservations. The bet was about finding free, non-booked seats  next to each other. I won the bet, although we found some seats but we were like hundred miles apart. I had a nice talk with a girl from Munich though.

Budapest

My house in Budapest

My hidden treasure chest,

Golden grand piano

My beautiful Castillo

This is what George Ezra sings in his song 'Budapest'. It is quite matching, isn't it? ;) The first thing I noticed in Budapest was its cleanliness. And this already started in the metro. It was super modern (obviously new build), there where lights to mark stairs and signs, no vandalism in the subway, security in front of every metro entrance. The streets were clean (compared to Rome, where there were garbage in every narrow street...) and the drivers were least paying attention to traffic lights and cross-walks. You can tell, Budapest was my personal highlight. :D The city has this modern touch, but manage to combine their history and architecture to a harmonic ensemble. As I walked the streets of Budapest I got the feeling that the city can carry their history along without being 'stuck in time'.

The other day, we climbed Gellért Hill. It was so exhausting, but it was really worth it. The view of city, the river and the bridges was amazing! You could even spot some hills far away. It was splendid. And of course we enjoyed the city and the river Danube, dividing the two former city districts Buda and Pest.


































Budapest was the cheapest city after Prague. We could eat so much and saved so much money at the same time. How is this possible? :D The Ungarian have an interesting way to prepare Goulash. It was not too hot and very tasty though (I just was happy to get anything apart from pizza and pasta. Couldn't see it anymore :D). Too bad we missed to try Palacsinta :(. From what I heard it is like sweet pancakes.

There are also a lot of good clubs around Budapest. And since it is so cheap, you could meet a lot of people just visiting the city for its clubs. As if the prices aren't low enough there are many promoters standing in front of restaurants and clubs, handing out sales discounts. At least they were serious and gentle and not as persistent as those street vendors who want to foist shit on someone. But I must mentioned, that we didn't saw any of them since Vienna though.

With a 'slow' and rather old train, we travel on to Prague. It took us about 7 hours on the train (with a high speed train we would have been sooner there. And what the hell was with the toilet?! It was just like a pit latrine, a seat with a hole! Guys really, it's the 21. century...)

Prague

After arriving in Prague I was like 'My feet hurts, I am tired, I have seen enough, I miss my bed, I want to go home'. Then we got to our hostel and I can tell you that was one hell of a hostel! The building is a stunning 17-century baroque one and so was the inside and the facilities. Marble and golden doorknob everywhere! Our bathroom was marble only and the receptionist had a good taste of music (playing Linkin Park and Alternative Rock all the time :D) Jesus, that was awesome.  

In our six-bed-dorm we got to meet quite a lot of people. There were two guys from the United Kingdom (they study law and they left early), another guy from Spain (he worked for facebook, we called him the 'facebok-insider' in secret :D) and four guys from America. Three of them were from Seattle and they studied computer science/web design. One even had cambodian roots. I never met a Cambodian in my age before, so that was nice. He couldn't talk that good Khmer though. One our last day a South Korean woman moved in our room. She was a elementary school teacher and made use of the summer vacation in South Korea to travel around Europe. She also seemed to be very impressed by Germans. Germans are always so strict and on time, which is a good thing, she said. She also said Physicist are sexy as I told her I gonna study Physics this fall. That was the sweetest thing I've heard in a while... :D We spent one whole day visiting the Prague Castle, with the St. Vitus Cathedral. The cathedral reminded us of the Cologne Cathedral in Germany and it turned out that both cathedral had the same architect.

At our last day, we went and visit the Charles Bridge and the old town square with the astronomical clock and the gothic Tyn Church (unfortunately it wasn't open, so that we could take a look inside). While walking on the old street enjoying the sights, a rather nice thing happened. I found some money laying on the ground. It was about 600 Czech Crowns (about 20€) and there was couple standing some meters away looking at a map. We walked toward them, asking them if they've lost something. They negated, we apologized and explained ourselves and they walked on. We didn't really know what to do, so I suggested to wait for the next ten minutes. It may be possible, that the people are coming back searching for their  money. At least that's what I would do, I said and was not mistaken. After about seven minutes I noticed another couple, looking somehow desperate, searching for something in their bags, putting all stuff out, looking in every pocket. Again we asked, if they might have lost something. 'Yes, money', the woman answered. 'How exactly?' '600 Crowns'. I smiled and gave them the money we've found. The woman was like shocked, surprised, super glad, happy at the same time. We explained her the situation and she was super thankful. We also were glad about this outcome and I could bet that we've made their day.

Czech dark beer

To celebrate our last evening in this beautiful city, we went to a pub and got ourselves drinks. There is something worth mentioning about beer at this point. Water, pure water costs double as much as beer. Everywhere you could get beer or some alcoholic drinks, but water was like super expensive in comparison. And I am not talking about 0,33l or something. You could get 0,5l for a little bit more than 1€. That the Czech Republic for you! :D

But the food were quite cheap here in Prague. It was the cheapest place in our journey. You could get a super big steak with fries and a drink for around 9€. The good girl receptionist recommended us a small restaurant quite hidden around a corner and it was so good, that we decided to have dinner there every time. :D

After spending every Crown we had left, we went to the river side and enjoyed the lights and the Charles Bridge.

Some facts

Total hours spent in the train: 40+ h

Total distance covered: 3000+ km

Total distance walked in town: 35+ km

Sweat level: over 9000

Got a frickin' cold right away back in Germany. Glad to have my bed again though... ;)



Psst! For more pics, check out my G+! ;)