Wednesday 5 June 2013 - Budapest to Bratislava

The morning started with breakfast in Budapest, Belgian waffles with banana, vanilla and ice cream washed down with coffee and orange juice in a small café a couple of streets from our accommodation. Time passed very quickly and it seemed that quite soon we were having to rush back to collect our bags and take a brisk walk to the railway station.

At the station a porter offered to help us by carrying our bags to our carriage, we both had HUF's (Hungarian Florints) left over and handed our helpful porter 5000 HUF's, that's about £15. I would have thought for less than 5 minutes work that we had been quite generous, but he was less than satisfied and kept requesting Euro's, we didn't buckle, he eventually gave up keeping the HUF's and left in a huff. 

Our journey was uneventful and Rob slept through most of it, my journey was punctuated with an exchange of messages with one good friend and my phone ringing, a welcome call from another good friend. Although the train had pulled out of Budapest on time at 9.25, it somehow arrived in Bratislava about 20 minutes late, this is only our second train journey in Central Europe and neither have been on time.

At Bratislava we had a short walk to reach our hotel and checked in at about 13:00. This is the first hotel we have stayed at on this trip, previous accommodation had been a hostel, overnight train carriage and rooms, the hotel is small clean and close to the old town. Rob headed off immediately to get some euros, the chip in his card is not working and he needs to find a bank that can swipe his card. I wanted to shower and change before heading off to meet him.

We met up for lunch in the old town and opted for an "all you can eat" buffet for 4.99 €, very good and plenty of choice including dessert, although Rob does tend to take the "all you can eat" as a challenge.

After lunch we headed off to the Danube to see the affectionately named UFO bridge, it's real name is Most Slovenského národného povstania, or in English: Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising, it is named UFO because, we'll quite simply it has a restaurant and viewing structure at the top of its pylon that looks like a flying saucer. The plan was to go up to the flying saucer, a great vantage point for looking back to the city, however it was closed because of the swelling waters of the Danube, very disappointing!

The state of the Danube had attracted a lot of people, tourists and locals alike, there were several "restaurant boats" but were  all closed as their gang planks, in places, were submerged in the fast flowing waters.  From here we walked up to Hrad Castle which gave us views over the city. We walked right round the castle which brought us back to our hotel which is adjacent to part of the old castle wall.

In the evening we walked to Modrá Hviezda, a restaurant recommended on trip advisor, the restaurant was a good choice, it was close to our hotel, the building was old and quirky but most importantly the food was fab and seemed to be traditional Slovak cuisine. Early night for both of us, this travelling is tiring, but my bed was ultra comfy, so had a really good nights sleep.