Quan a Budapest, Cracòvia i Roma... Part 1

Ok. So, these past two weekends have been CRAZY! Two weekends ago: Budapest, Krakow, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.  This past weekend: Rome and the Vatican.  In case you haven't noticed with my blog... the first half was chill--hence, the lack of entries; the second half, however, is a bit loco and will be full of travels!  Sorry (in advance) for blowing up everyone's Facebook and Twitter accounts :)

BUDAPEST/KRAKOW 

(Mar 1-5)

So, I'll begin with two weekends ago.  The breakdown:

• Thursday: Fly in and spend the day in Budapest.
• Friday: Wake up and bus it to Krakow.
• Saturday: Wake up and bus it to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• Sunday: Wake up, leave Krakow, bus it back to Budapest.
• Monday: Fly back to Barcelona.

This weekend was a blur! There was not a single moment of relaxation or calmness... but, who wants that? So, Thursday morning, I get up before the sun. (For those of you that know me, haha, this never happens!)  My mom had woke up 5:30a to make me my food and fix me a cup of coffee.  How I love her so much! Well, I wake up, drink the café, grab the bags, and metro it to the bus stop to meet my friends: Sam, Katt, Peter, and Aaron.

We arrive at the airport and do the norm.  I'm pretty sure we could do this whole "check-in" thing in our sleep, and at that time of the morning that may be a fair statement.  We board the plane and wooooosh! PS: flying to Budapest was the most beautiful flight yet! Flying over the Swiss Alps is a view that has yet to be matched!  

We land.  We go straight to our hostel (Thank God for Sam! Queen of Navigation!)  We check-in, get keys, unload, and head straight out! We only have ONE full day in Budapest to see as much as we can! So what do we do first? Eat, duh. Goulash! Um, if you go to Budapest, there is this restaurant called Frici Papa that serves the best goulash in all of Budapest! Go. Eat. Love. 

Afterwards... we walk and walk and walk and then walk some more.  The sad truth is... I do not know the majority of the names of anything we saw.  We didn't really have much time to learn what we were looking at, haha! So, I had to do what any normal person would do when they don't know something... Google and Wikipedia.

So, after eating, we took off. 

This city was full of artwork! Both large and small.  There was a lot of art... and statues that a person could interact with...

Of course, we stumbled upon one of the main basilicas in Budapest: Saint Stephen's Basilica. (Szent István-bazilika)

Since we already knew what we were doing that night (in fact, we knew before we had even arrived to Budapest), we had all heard of and wanted to see the famous Széchenyi Chain Bridge (Lánchíd)...  So, with our map, Sam guided us to it! Once on the bridge, the views were spectacular.  In one instant, we saw some of the most famous sites of Budapest: Buda Castle, Matthias Church, and Parliament.

Chain Bridge

Matthias Church

Parliament

Buda Castle

We walked across Danube, the river that separated Buda from Pest, and then returned to the hostel.  We took about a 35 minutes nap (Spain has spoiled us with siestas!), got up and headed out to... Szechenyi Turkish Baths!!! 
 

We spent three hours in jacuzzi-temperature waters and I got a massage!  Best. Idea. Ever!  After the most relaxing time OF MY LIFE, we headed to hostel to get a few hours of sleep because it was another early rise.


The next morning, we wake up early and take the metro across town to the bus stations to board our bus to take us to Krakow, Poland.  Oh, did I mention? It was a 6 to 7-hour bus ride... In case you were wondering, I slept.  Since the bus took us through the Czech Republic and Slovakia, am I allowed to add those to the countries I have been to?


So, just like Budapest, we only have one full day to see it all!  Again, we arrive at the bus station and head to our hostel!  Kraków is a very underestimated town... The monuments are not famous, it is not a huge place, but it is has a certain charm and enchanting feeling.  It's quaintness made it all the better.  For the past few months, we have visited some of the most famous (and GRAND) cities in all of Europe, so it was nice to be in a town that had its own whimsicality. 

There was not much to Friday, but walking and exploring the hidden beauty of this town, which included the Jewish Quarters.

Saturday: Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Honestly, I don't have anything to say about this.  I will do another blog dedicated to this day... Thinking about this experience still breaks my heart.  No one person is affected the same way; but, all are affected.

Sunday and Monday were strictly travel days.  On Sunday morning, we bussed our way back to Budapest.  That night was rather interesting... we decided not to book a hostel.  We thought: We have to be at the airport at 4a, why waste the money? Luckily, Katt had a friend studying abroad there.  He let us crash at his flat.  That whole hour and a half of sleep made all the difference.  Like I said, we were at the airport at 4a. So early. Too early. We landed at 9:30a, I thought about going to class, but decided it wasn't worth it.  I went home and slept until my 3p class.  Went to it, came back home, and slept until the next day.

ROMA...tomorrow.