I'm in Vienna: Budapest! again... and Wachau!

This past weekend (April 8-10) I went with a group of friends back to Budapest. Gabby, Pete and I took a bus this time, for about 22 euros round trip! Our friends Nick and Zach got in earlier, and Bryan and Harry arrived later that night. Pete, Bryan, Harry and I stayed at the Black Sheep Hostel, a great hostel in an awesome location... and it only cost 11 euros a night!! When we got there, Pete and I walked around downtown Pest before meeting up with the rest of our group at Szimpla, an awesome bar in the former Jewish quarter of Pest. I went here the first time I was in Budapest and had so much fun, and its definitely still my favorite bar I’ve visited outside of Vienna.

Our orange chariot awaits...

The Synagogue... This is the largest synagogue in Europe, and the second largest in the world (right after the synagogue in Brooklyn!)

The Danube, Buda Castle, and Mattias Church

We were semi-obsessed with this statue

St. Stephen’s Basilica

We walked to a park and found this dance competition. They were doing traditional Hungarian folk dances... lots of clapping and slapping and limbs flailing every which way.

The next morning we woke up at 8:30 to get out of the hostel and start exploring! We did so. much. walking. I still can’t believe how much walking we did. The weather was beautiful, but SO windy, which made the walking a lot more challenging. It was a wonderful day.

The Parliament building... up close and personal.

WHAAAT?!?! We were SCREAMING when we saw this bus driving down the Danube.

Pete was extremely confused.

Bryan was excited.

I was a little bit of both... maybe you can tell how windy it was based on my wonderful hairstyle in this photo.

Parliament again!

This is a memorial to a group of Jewish-Hungarians who were shot into the Danube at the end of the Holocaust.

The Chain Bridge

The Parliament.

The wind was outrageous.

Now we’re in Buda!

St. Stephan’s Basilica

St. Mattias’ Church

Fisherman’s Bastion... This area of Buda was so cool.

I think these look like sandcastles

Buda Castle

The view from Buda Castle

We stumbled on the Temple again!

We had a DELICIOUS lunch on Saturday. This is my goulasch soup.

Beef stew with homemade potato dumplings

Heroes’ Square

We went to the Szechenyi Baths... probably the most relaxing thing I’ve ever done in my life. The pools are filled with medicinal water that comes from underneath them, and they are so warm and amazing.

They were also absolutely beautiful. siggggh I want to go back now!

The baths were amazing and when we left Pete and I both felt amazing. We took a bus at 7 Saturday night from Budapest to Vienna. The next morning I got up extra early to leave for the Wachau region in Austria. IES organized this trip, which was a nice change of pace from constantly planning my own trips. We drove through the countryside for about an hour and a half to the small town of Melk, where there is an enormous monastery. The monastery is still in use, and we had a tour of the incredible building and the beautiful church.

The Stift Melk (Melk Abbey) with the town of Melk.
The Baroque monastery has been around since the 12th century.

The Stift Melk

The gardens at the monastery were beaaaaautiful!

Part of one of the courtyards

This is the original cross (made entirely of wood) from the first church in Vienna

This chest had like 17 locks... and one key.

The church attached to the monastery

The library.

Can you find the secret door?!

The inside of the Church was amaaaazing.

After exploring Stift Melk for a long while we loaded back into the bus and made our way down the Danube to a small town called Dürnstein! Dürnstein was an absolutely adorable town and so beautiful. We ate a delicious lunch, tried some very tasty wine, and explored the town. In case you didn’t know, Dürnstein is the location of Richard the Lionhearted’s imprisonment by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Fun fact: His ransom money paid for the original fortifications of Vienna! We climbed up an ENORMOUS mountain to get to the ruins of where RtL was imprisoned. Though I was a bit sweaty and very, very exhausted when I finally reached the top of the mountain, I felt incredible. I may have to add hiking up mountains onto a list of things to try back in America!

The Blue Danube

The beginning of the hike up the mountain!

Pete was feeling like he was the king of the world... we weren’t even halfway up.

Almost there....

The outer walls of RtL’s prison

Finally! At the top!

It was a bit windy...

Me and Pete at the top of Dürnstein!

Pete the Lionhearted

Me and Veronica

And back on the bottom...

THAT IS WHAT I CLIMBED!!!

Our next stop on the Wachau tour was a very, very small town called Krems. There wasn’t much of anything to do in Krems, but it was a very pretty city. We played a game called geo-caching with one of the IES coordinators (Tobi). Geo-caching is a worldwide game played using cellphones that have GPS. You try to find different treasures ALL OVER THE WORLD. There was a treasure in Krems and a group of 5 or 6 of us hunted for about an hour for it. AND WE FOUND IT!!

This building was the entrance into the town of Krems.

Before people could read and write, they used these sort of markers on the corners of streets to identify them!

Tobi writing “IES Vienna Spring 2011” on the geocache!

Tricky hiding spot.

After Krems, we loaded into the bus again and headed for a small winery in a town called Mollens. The Huber Heuriger was a wonderful, family owned vineyard that made unbelievably delicious wine!! There, we had a wine tasting and an amaaaazing dinner!