Our bus from Kraków reached Budapest Kelenföld bus station a little before 6:00 AM. Most people immediately walked towards the Kelenföld vasútállomás subway stop. I bought a 24-hour Budapest-travelcard. I took the M 4 and M 2 metro from Kelenföld vasútállomás to Deák Ferenc tér. I made a pit stop at Starbucks Fashion for some quick breakfast. After that I took the M 1 metro from Deák Ferenc tér to Széchenyi fürdő to visit the Széchenyi Spa Baths. ...
This was part of Central Europe - Day 2 🇵🇱 🔗. I joined the Jewish Kraków tour at 5:00 PM, and we started at the Old Synagogue situated in the Kazimierz district. We learnt about the Jewish history in Kraków and in Poland. We also saw the Izaak Synagogue. We passed by the Corpus Christi Basilica and also saw some of the locations where the film ‘Schindler’s List’ was shot. ...
This was part of Central Europe - Day 2 🇵🇱 🔗. I joined the Old Town Kraków tour at 2:00 PM and we started at the Kraków Barbican, a fortified outpost once connected to the city walls, and we also saw the St. Florian’s Gate. From there, we made our way to the Rynek Główny which is the Main Square which features the city’s most recognizable icons. We saw the Kraków Cloth Hall and the Town Hall Tower. We also saw the St. Mary’s Basilica and the Church of St. Adalbert (or the Church of St. Wojciech). ...
This was part of Central Europe - Day 2 🇵🇱 🔗. I joined the World War II in Kraków walking tour at 10:30 AM and we started at the Cross of Katyń placed in the 1990s to remember the tragedy of Katyn in 1940, when thousands of Polish citizens lost their lives. We sat around on the benches in the park and our guide told us about the impact of World War II in Kraków and the impact of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia on Poland and Kraków. ...
The overnight train journey from Prague was quite comfortable and I slept well. A small breakfast box was served around 5:30 AM. Our train stopped at Kraków Płaszów Railway Station a little after 6:00 AM and we were asked to move to other forward compartments because only a part of the train would proceed all the way to Kraków Główny Railway Station. My cabin mate thought it would be better if we take a tram to the main station from there rather than wait for the train to move. So we got down and walked up to the Estakada Dworzec Płaszów bridge and waited for the tram. We took the tram, but it was going the wrong way and we ended up reaching the last stop. I had time on my hands so I didn’t mind waiting for the tram to go back. But my cabin mate decided to take a taxi to his destination and insisted that he drop me off at Kraków Główny. ...
This was part of Central Europe - Day 1 🇨🇿 🔗. I joined the Charles Bridge & Prague Castle Free Tour at 5:30 PM. We started from the Krizovnicke Square and headed over the medieval Charles Bridge. There are about 30 statues mounted to the balustrade of Charles Bridge forming two rows on either side. ...
Today was the first day of travel across Central Europe. I checked out of the hotel and left my bags at the front desk. I would be back after four days for one more night here, before flying back home. I had been researching the best way to move around across cities on my go-to site for train travel seat61.com and I found this awesome option to get from Frankfurt to Prague via Nürnberg and Cheb for only €16 each way and booked it on the Czech Railways website. I walked to the train station to catch the ICE 23 from Frankfurt (Main) Hbf to Nürnberg. I changed to regional train RE 5285 at Nürnberg. The train continued till Cheb and I was officially in Czechia. Here I boarded the Ex 559 for Prague. ...
This was part of A day in Brussels 🇧🇪 🔗. We started off from the Grand Place and our guide told us about the history of Brussels and Belgium. We saw the Everard ‘T Serclaes and then walked to the famous Manneken Pis. × < > From there we headed towards Place de la Bourse through some of the surrounding neighbourhoods as we learnt more about Brussels. After the Brussels Stock Exchange and walked to Galerie De La Reine where saw Neuhaus, famous for Belgian chocolate. ...
My flight from Washington-Dulles landed on time around 7:15 AM. There were two paths to clear immigration, one for transit passengers with onward connections and the other for people going to Belgium, I stood in line at the latter. When I reached the immigration desk, the officer asked me where I was going and I replied Frankfurt. He told me that I was in the wrong line and I should have cleared immigration at the other section for transit passengers. I told him that I had a long layover in Brussels and wanted to go into the city to look around before by next flight. He stamped me in and I exited the airport and found the local bus stop. I bought the STIB-MIVB 1 day ticket for € 7.50 from the GO machine and boarded the bus from Brussels Airport to Schuman and then took the metro from Schuman to Gare Centrale. ...
This was part of A day in Amsterdam 🇳🇱 🔗. Because of the constant rain, I wasn’t even sure if anyone else would turn up and if the tour would operate, but there were a few others like me who showed up and we were off. We walked through the Red Light District of Amsterdam and learnt about its history and the legal prostitution. As we heard about the ground realities there, it all was a little disconcerting. ...
Ever since I transited Schiphol airport when I traveled to the USA for the first time in 2003, I’ve always wanted to visit Amsterdam and the Netherlands. During this trip, I managed to get connecting flights back from Zurich to Amsterdam on Swiss and then Munich to Mumbai on Lufthansa with a 23 hours 45 minutes layover in Amsterdam, which was technically still a connection and not a break journey. My flight from Zurich arrived around 9:10 AM, and I exited the airport and took the shuttle bus to Hampton by Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. ...
I had stayed over with a friend (from the USA) who was now based in Basel, and had enjoyed the previous day with him and his family. Today I was to meet up with another friend from work; the plan was to drive to Strasbourg and spend the day there. He picked me up around 7:00 AM, and soon we were on our way. After leaving Switzerland, we drove on the German side of the border until Kehl. We had not met in a long time and it was nice to catch up with each other during the drive. We crossed the Pont de l’Europe over the Rhine into France and parked the car close to Tour du Bourreau. ...
The plan for today was to spend a day at Innsbruck in Austria and add that to my travel map. I wanted to be back in Zurich that night, so I decided to make a day trip. I had booked my tickets in advance on the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB or OEBB) on their website at € 19,00 each way (which was a very good price considering that I paid CHF 16.60 each way only to get to Sargans the previous day when I visited Vaduz 🔗. As I had seen before when I returned from Milan by train, generally, booking train tickets on SBB was more expensive than booking on Trenitalia / ÖBB / Deutsche Bahn / where possible, even when, the actual train on which you travel is the same. ...
My flight to Zurich from Mumbai arrived on time and I made it out of the airport relatively quickly. I boarded the train from the airport to Zurich Hbf and then took the tram to the hotel to drop off my bags. I could have spent the day relaxing after travel, but instead I had decided to make the most of it by visiting Liechtenstein nearby. The plan was made, and I had booked the train tickets to Sargans just the previous evening on the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) website for CHF 16.60 each way. I took the tram back from the hotel to Zurich Hbf and grabbed some breakfast at Rapido. I boarded the InterCity IC563 which arrived from Basel and was headed to Chur. The train left exactly at 9:37 AM; the next stop was Sargans. ...