Friday 5 August 1994
We had a good night's sleep but we got an early morning call from the ticket inspector who made us pack up our sleeping bags and sit up in our seats. After passing right the way through Slovakia during the night we had now reached the plains of Hungary. We were now heading for the first time in a westerly direction but at least we still had a week left on our rail passes so the thought of having turned the corner didn't seem quite so depressing. 

During the Cold War, I used to think that all the Eastern Bloc countries were pretty much the same, all faceless satellites of the Soviet empire but Hungary was quite different from what I expected. The land was sun-drenched in a southern European way although it was hard to imagine how bitterly cold these plains could get in the winter. The locals on the train had a slight oriental look and their language, being unrelated to any of the major European languages, sounded strange and exotic.

Despite it being a weekday morning, there weren't many commuters on this train but we were joined at one station by a woman and her young daughter who gave us a friendly if reserved greeting. The girl was snacking on seeds which she picked directly from the head of a large sunflower and watching her made me feel hungry but it wasn't long before we arrived at Budapest Keleti Station where we able to buy a few snacks for ourselves. We then bought a fistful of tickets for the Metro, this time ensuring that we stamped enough of them to avoid another Polish style interrogation at the hands of unscrupulous transport officials. The Metro system was monumental in scale with plenty of elegant marble and brass fittings adorning the deeply sunk stations, whilst the trains trundled along the rails like they'd just rolled off the production line of a tank factory. One thing about the Communists, they certainly knew how to build solid looking urban transport systems. Before long, the deep taped voice on the train told us that we had arrived Batthyany ter Station which was where we changed to catch a local HEV train out to the Romaifurdo campsite, handily placed about 20 minutes along the line. This time we didn't have to worry about a long walk from the station which was just as well given the heat.

We booked into the site and found a nice shaded pitch just by the railway line, opposite to where a bunch of German bikers were camped out. It was a good spot with plenty of room and the site was well equipped with a decent shop and restaurant. Even better there was a large outdoor pool attached to the site which had plenty of space to lie out in the sun as well as a couple of flumes to slide down. There were quite a few local kids at the pool but as in Potsdam, it felt good to cool off in the water after a long overnight train journey. After grabbing a nice greasy packet of krumplis (chips) at the pool snackbar, we headed back to the tent for a well-deserved siesta.

By the time early evening came around it had cooled down a little although the air still felt pretty balmy. We ate in the on-site restaurant where we ordered Goulash which was very tasty, even if it didn't resemble the glutinous stew they used to serve under that name at my school. From there we went to the shop where we bought a wonderful bottle of red wine for about 50p. The wine was strong and fruity, almost like a port and nothing like any of the Hungarian wines I had tried back in England. After polishing off the bottle there was nothing else left to do apart from to go to sleep and look forward to our first real lie-in of the trip which we'd planned for the next morning. As we'd booked to stay here two nights, we could afford to take it easy tomorrow.

Saturday 6 August 1994
As we promised ourselves, we had a nice long lie-in followed by a leisurely breakfast outside the tent. We then headed back to Keleti Station to make a couple of reservations for the next stage of our journey which we'd scheduled for tomorrow evening. There were quite a few backpackers hanging around the station, most of whom appeared to be American. Apart from them, there were also some locals offering to exchange cash on the black market whilst others offered cheap accommodation in hostels and private rooms. I felt glad that we had taken the camping option though. It was very cheap (never more than a couple of quid per night) and once we were inside our tent we didn't have to share our environment with anyone else, which given the state of some of the travellers hanging around here didn't seem like such a bad thing.

With our reservations booked we then took the RER to the end of the line at Szentendre, passing the Roman remains of Aquincum as well as our very own tent along the way. This small town fifteen miles north of Budapest marked the position where the River Danube bends sharply through the mountains, hence the name for the area, the Danube Bend! Szentendre was the most quaintly picturesque place we had visited so far and there were quite a few coach tours here although it was easy enough to lose the tourists by walking down the narrow whitewashed streets of the town. The town's focal point was the Catholic church, situated on top of a hill where several meandering side streets converged. Further down the hill were a couple of pleasant cafés and also some artist's studios which had an interesting selection of pieces for sale. There was a faint air of bohemia here which I found quite appealing. After spending most of our trip wandering around cities, it was nice to visit a place which was much smaller in scale.

As we picnicked by the edge of the Danube, we sat and pondered all we had seen so far which was quite a lot considering that we'd only been travelling for about a week. Like every other day so far it was beginning to get very hot so the prospect of heading back to the campsite for a swim in the pool seemed far more inviting than trawling around Budapest on yet another site-seeing jaunt. We therefore hopped back on the train, had a swim, grabbed a couple more bottles of that wonderful red wine and had an early night. We still had a fairly demanding schedule ahead of us during the coming week so once again we just sat back and spent the evening doing nothing much in particular.

Sunday 7 August 1994
We cleared out of the campsite and made our way back to Keleti Station where we dropped off our backpacks at the left luggage office. We then caught the Metro back to the Buda side of the Danube where we boarded a funicular railway which took us up to Castle Hill. As we wandered around the ramparts of the castle it was interesting to see how a whole community had developed within the confines of the fortress wall but then again living under the threat of siege would have been part of everyday life in medieval times. One reminder of those days was the Plague Column whilst nearby in full knight regalia was a statue of St Stephen, the man who at the turn of the first millennium brought Catholicism to the Magyars, who themselves had swept into Hungary from Central Asia only a century earlier.

From the turret-laden Fisherman's Bastion we enjoyed a great view of the city. By the side of the Pest bank was the neo-gothic Parliament building with its striking angular buttresses and huge dome. It was relaxing watching the trams weave in and out of the buildings across the river. Linking the two halves of the city were the Chain Bridge and the Elizabeth Bridge which brought to mind images of 1989 when thousands of people walked across the Danube under torch light. It was still hard to imagine what life must have been like here just five years earlier.

One change and a source of many a travel writers' cliché was the emergence of fast food joints in places such as this and feeling suitably peckish we were tempted by a Burger King which we came across further down Castle Hill. Lorraine was pleased to see that there was a Vegetarian Whopper on the menu but when the order came through it consisted solely of a burger bap and some salad. I suspected that the coming of the spicy bean burger here was still some way off!

Making do with our lunch we went back down to the river and walked across to Pest where we savoured a great view of Castle Hill, the Royal Palace and the imposing looking Citadel. We then caught the Metro to the City Park. This particular journey was along Line 1, which predated the other Soviet built lines by about 60 years. The line was little more than a subsurface tram line but it had a kind of Art Nouveauesque charm which befitted the oldest underground railway on mainland Europe. It also reminded me a little of the Paris Metro and the Parisian ambience was perpetuated above ground as well. This part of the city was characterised by long tree-lined boulevards and elegant apartment blocks with the obligatory wrought-iron balconies.

Nearby were the Public Baths where the citizens of Budapest came to relax in the hot spring waters over a game of chess. Many of the baths here were built under Turkish rule which reminded us of why this East-West crossroads had such an eclectic and seductive appeal. Nearby was the Hosok ter, a monumental square which sported a fine array of neo-classical statues surrounding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After stopping off to admire the Opera further down the elegant Andrassy ut avenue, we headed back to the riverside where we found a nice restaurant outside the Basilica. The food wasn't bad but the waiter tried to rip us off by bringing us dishes we hadn't ordered. By the time we finished our meal it was getting dark but we managed to fit in a little more sightseeing around the Parliament Building. Nearby, we also came across the Soviet Army Memorial which along with the Metro system was one of Budapest's few noticeable relics of the Communist era. After that we just strolled along the river and admired the view. Buda looked stunning with Castle Hill, the Royal Palace and the Chain Bridge all lit up. We stopped for a quick drink and then made our way back to Keleti Station to catch our next overnight train although along the way we came across a couple of hundred young girls congregated around a hotel entrance. As far as we could gather from their cries, Michael Jackson was staying there although we didn't care too much about that.

Once onboard the train we found our compartment which we shared with a Spanish couple who didn't say much and got their heads down pretty early. This time our train was taking us to Prague which meant crossing through Slovakia again before entering the Czech Republic. It seemed a shame that we didn't get the chance to stop off in Slovakia as it looked like an interesting country and I had read in my guidebook that Bratislava, where our train stopped for a while, was well worth a visit. Our schedule was tight though and after our two night mid-journey break in Hungary, a feeling that our trip was already drawing to a close was now dawning upon us.

Monday 8 August 1994
We arrived at Prague Hlavni station early in the morning, changed some more of our greenbacks and once again went in search of a campsite. If Krakow and Budapest had given us a taste of having arrived upon an established backpacker route, Prague signified that we were now right at the heart of one.

At the station there was a notable number of Americans and Aussies negotiating with hostel owners for a room. At least with our camping option we didn't have to bother with all that and trying to find our campsites out in the suburbs was all part of the fun of arriving in a new city. As with elsewhere, Prague operated an efficient public transport which relied on endorsing tickets in advance. I bought ten tickets from a kiosk and then stamped five just to cover ourselves which thankfully seemed to satisfy the inspector who pounced on us as we made our way down into the bowels of the Metro system.

Like the modern lines on the Budapest system, the Prague Metro was built by Communists at the height of their powers and as such was designed to be more than just a public transport system. However the stations here were a curious hybrid between Soviet monumentalism and seventies kitsch. The effect at one of the stations was almost psychedelic, the walls opposite the wide platforms consisted of metallic hemispheres arranged in rows of different colours which brought to mind the exo-skin of a Dalek. We caught one of the solid looking trains to Andel Station which gave us a more conventional reminder of the good old days. At the entrance to the station was a marble mural depicting the happy people of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union standing together arm in arm, waving flags outside the Kremlin. I wondered why the mural remained there. It might have been too difficult to get rid of or maybe they were quite happy to leave it there as a reminder of the way things used to be. It was difficult to judge really because I had the feeling that visiting Prague alone wouldn't give us much of an insight into the Czechs themselves, mainly because there didn't seem to be that many of them around here!

To get to our campsite we had to catch a bus but as we were waiting for one to come along, a couple of young Australian female backpackers came up to us in search of some advice. They had the same Lonely Planet Guide as us but their's had hardly been touched. Of course by now (at least within our own very limited terms of reference) we could smugly claim to be old hands at this game so I was quite happy to give them the benefit of our hard won expertise in negotiating the public transport systems of Eastern Europe. 'Just go to the kiosk, say the word Metro and then stick up as many fingers as you want tickets,' I said with an air of calm authority. They were eternally grateful for my advice as they followed us onto the bus but when we got off we left them lagging far behind as we marched purposefully up a steep hill towards the entrance to the campsite. It was nice to know that all our long walks with our backpacks over the past ten days had boosted our fitness levels quite considerably. In keeping with the fact that Prague had become a major draw for Western tourists, this site was quite well equipped. There was also a nice view over a suburban concrete housing development towards the obligatory TV tower that most European cities seemed to have.

The clientele here was a 'cosmopolitan' mix. Sitting at the snackbar were a bunch of lads from an Essex Sunday League football team who had come over for a few games and probably a few more beers judging by the way they were knocking back the Staropramens. By way of contrast, up on the slopes of the site itself, a hippyish looking English family were hanging out in an old VW Camper Van. I couldn't work out where they were from but one of their kids, who was called Gabriel, insisted on playing some awful folk tune on a miniature harp. This suggested that the family were actually hippies of the puritanical old school, the type who were more interested in sipping home-made elderflower wine rather than dropping a few tabs of acid. The mother of the family, her straggly grey hair tied up in an unflattering bun, looked like the sort of woman who banned her children from watching TV. In the nice looking camping chalets below us was a sect of evangelical Christians, some of whom didn't seem to know where they were. We watched them indulging in their morning prayer routine which was accompanied by the inevitable acoustic guitar driven songs of praise that even God himself would have been seriously ashamed to be associated with. At one point they all started waving big coloured flags around in a circle as if that was supposed to represent something of major significance. All it did though was spur on the German biker couple camped next to us to indulge in a serious snogging session that culminated in them practically having sex right in front of the 'we're pretending to be oblivious to such sinful activities' Christians. It really was quite a bizarre scene. After the singing stopped, the brethren decided to share their soul uplifting experiences of Prague with each other. One man said that he accidentally ate a red pepper at a restaurant last night but he didn't fall ill despite his extremely serious allergy to that particular type of food.

"Praise the Lord!" they all shouted on hearing of this miraculous event, even if this only served to encourage the German bikers to continue their licentious activities with even greater vigour. With such a compelling spectacle happening all around us, it was difficult to haul ourselves back onto the tourist trail but Prague was by all the accounts the most spectacularly beautiful city we would visit on this trip so we journeyed back into town on the Metro. Our first stop was also the most obvious one, the Stare Mesto, the city's great main square. This was a good if somewhat touristy place to enjoy a nice bottle of Pilsner Urquell and watch the world go by. On one side of the square was the awesome twin steeples of the Tyn Church which surpassed any of the sights we had seen so far in terms of its sheer ability to take the breath away. Given the many wonderful buildings, castles and town squares we had already come across on this trip, that was really saying something. Nearby was the old Town Hall with its mysterious astronomical clock that was decorated with figures of Christ, the Apostles and a sinister looking skeleton. After exploring the backstreets surrounding Wenceslas Square, we made our way to the Jewish quarter with its old Synagogue, Cemetery and Jewish Town Hall.

As in Krakow this was a fascinating neighbourhood to walk around although it lacked the tranquillity of the Polish city simply due to the number of tourists exploring the area. At this point we decided that we didn't really want to do much more sightseeing as there may have been a danger of 'medieval square fatigue'. However a walk along the bank of the River Vltava made it obvious what a stunningly beautiful city Prague really was. Spanning the river was a series of bridges including the majestic Charles Bridge, the setting for many a cheesy TV ad for mid-range family saloon cars and 'sensual' chocolate eating experiences. Across the water was the imposing gothic lines of the Cathedral of St Vitus which stood within the walls of Prague Castle. It was quite a view. As we walked around, the sky started to cloud over and we were soon caught under a heavy thunderstorm. In search of some shelter and refreshment we came across U Fleku, a large beer hall similar to those found in Germany. Here they served large glasses of a strong dark beer which was brewed in-house and tasted a little like porter. The humourless but efficient Teutonic looking waiters chalked up each beer on the long communal table we sat at but the final bill didn't come to much. We decided after that to head back to the campsite as the weather prospects weren't looking any brighter and there was so much more to see in Prague that we thought it would be better to save our energy for tomorrow.

On the way back to the Metro station, we passed a jazz club which boasted of having hosted a saxophone jam session featuring the 'Two Presidents', Messrs Havel and Clinton. There was even a recording of this event available on CD although I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to buy this apart from giving it as present to someone they really hated. If ever there was a sign that maybe we should give the nightlife a miss then that was it. Back at the campsite we had time for one more beer before finally getting our heads down whilst the cooling rain pattered against the side of our tent.

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