OK, Olomouc is one of the coolest places ever. It has the beauty of Prague but no crowds. Thank god. The cute “old town” architecture is present through the entire town, which is also blessed with abundant interesting churches and museums plus a high student population which means a cool bar scene! Highight was surely going to a bar in a dodgy old communist era Russian aeroplane. It still had the aeroplane seats, sold crappy beer in cans and a had a constant megamix of 80s and 90s hits playing on the dancefloor (first class). Wicked. We also, while on a walk, met up with an American who started a microwave popcorn factory here. We got a free tour of his factory and 10 packets of free popcorn. Sweet! Of course, since then, we haven’t been able to find a microwave. For god’s sake!
Next was Budapest - we were so city-ed out by this stage that we really didn’t give this city the attention it deserved. Not to mention it was GIGANTIC and largely unnavigatable. We settled for doing the main sites around the Danube - which were very impressive.
We went for a break next to the High Tatras in Slovakia. These mountains are the highest of the Carpathian Range and my god they are impressive. It was breathtaking. We chilled out a lot - drank hot chocolate and ate chicken soup and did wintery things - in between HIKING of course! Our main hike took us from 1000m (our accomodation) to 1700m in 3 hours through forest, before we took a chair lift to 2150m. Wow. It was absolutely insane.
Hell train rides took us to Brasov in Romania, a picturesque little town that gets swamped by tourists in summer because it is close to Bran Castle - famous as Bram Stoker’s Dracula castle. The real Dracula never came here but the castle itself is really cute and perched right on the edge of a cliff. Brasov itself is very cute and quaint with an interesting German Saxon history. I sort of blew our budget here by spending 100 pounds on a new winter jacket. OOPS. It’s awesome though - I look like Napoleon.
From Brasov we made an ill-fated trip to Bucharest - turns out that this untouristy city happened to be holding a karate championship and all accomodation was booked out. So back to Brasov we went and had to do the trip again the next day - only to get straight onto our 20 hour train ride to Istanbul. Fun!
The train ride we knew was going to be hell - leaving at 1pm and arriving at 8am the next day, but we secured a compartment with just us four and settled down to a long ride. I discovered a new favourite pastime - sticking my head out the window of the train. We went past the Romanian border control and had our passports checked for exit when about 5 poeple got on with many bags and boxes got on. Not uncommon on train journeys. Anyway, I was pleasantly enjoying my new hobby, which I interspersed with waving at little kids who were watching the train when suddenly there were about 4 men waving frantically from the ground. Wow, they’re eager I thought, and then looked up to see, sailing slow motion through the air, all the bags and boxes that were on the train floating away. One of the bags broke open and all these zip lock bags filled with powder dropped out and the men on the ground
desperately collected it all. There was suddenly all this yelling on the train as the people who threw the stuff off ran back to their compartments. I shoved everyone back in our compartment so as not to get in their way and waited a while, and we pulled into the Bulgarian border control - and the people had disappeared.
Things were pretty uneventful after that, although we had to get off the train at 3am for Turkish border control and to buy a visa. Beccie had trouble getting hers - at first she was told she didn’t need one and then was marched back and bought one - but it was only for 15 days instead of two months like ours. Apparently they don’t like Italian citizens too much. Bugger. Luckily, Beccie had exactly 15 days until her flight out but it’s cutting it pretty fine!
We arrived in Istanbul pretty tired but determined to see a bit, so we started off with Lunch (essential) at a cafe which was DELICIOUS. We then headed to the Blue Mosque, which was awash with people as it is currently Ramazan, a major Islamic religious festival. As we entered a man bounded up to us and began telling us about what was going on before ushering us to the entrance. Deeply offended when Claire asked how much it was to get in, he said it was free, and he was also a free guide - doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Well, the mosque was amazing and the tour great and informative - but there was a catch - he was kind enough to show us his turkish RUG SHOP! Sigh. But it was good to get a free tour. Poor sod, did we REALLY look like we could afford a rug? I mean most of us hadn’t showered for about 4 days.
