Musings

It was a week into my solo trip, and I was enjoying exploring places at my pace and schedule. As I moved from one city to another, I realized that they were all pretty much similar in terms of sights to see – old town, churches, castles with most of them having a water body in the form of a sea, river or lake. Further, just when I was getting the hang of things in one place, it was time to move to another. However, with a limited budget and a desire to see as much of Europe as possible, it was the best itinerary.   Poland was my next stop and included three cities, Wroclaw, Krakow and Warsaw. A friend suggested halting for a day at Wroclaw from Prague before heading to Krakow and to check out the gnomes spread all over the city. I reached Wroclaw in the afternoon and after checking in, I picked up a map of gnomes at the reception and hurriedly went to the market square. It was a slightly cold day and the brisk pace helped. The first building that I came across in the old town area ...

I t was time to pack my bags and travel to Prague. I n case it wasn’t obvious from my earlier blog posts , I loved the two cities I had visited so far. I ha d read and heard so much about Prague and its old-world charm that I couldn’t wait to see if it would meet and beat my imagination. As promised in my previous blog post, here is my Bratislava local train adventure. I was going to take the local train to the bus station and I just couldn’t find the nearest stop from the hotel from which I was just a couple of minutes away as per google maps. A fter many failed attempts to locate it, I walked to the next stop which was more straightforward to find . I got on the train only to realize that I was going in the opposite direction. The next stop which , to my ill luck, was the presidential palace stop was on a wide busy road with heavy traffic where I couldn’t find a way to cross to the other side. A friendly person who saw me walking aimlessly and frantically told me to cross ov...

Like I wrote in the sabbatical travel glimpses blog post, FlixBus is a godsend. It is a cheap and convenient mode of transport. The bus station is usually located in the city center and therefore, getting there is easy and light on one’s pocket. It is a no-frills service; the driver may or may not help with loading and unloading your luggage, may speak only the local language and may not be the friendliest of the lot. However, in the end, it meets your needs and takes you from point A to point B safely. No points for guessing that I took a FlixBus from Budapest to Bratislava. I met a couple of girls on the bus, who made the travel time go by super-fast. One was going to Prague, and another was going to Germany to start a job as an Au-pair. We are Insta friends now, and I follow their significant moments through their Insta updates.  On reaching Bratislava in the afternoon, I checked google maps and it showed that the hotel is just a 20 min walk away. I thought I will get my exercis...

Budapest was the perfect starting point to ease into my solo travels. I met another Indian who was traveling abroad for the first time and was nervous about how to get to her Airbnb from the airport. We shared a cab and chatted all the way to the hotel. She was excited to start a new job the next day and from what little I saw as we drove through the city, I was excited to see all that it had to offer. When we reached my hotel, we wished each other and bid goodbye. The manager of the hotel I had booked had contacted me earlier to check my arrival time to make sure someone was there when I reached the hotel as it didn’t have a 24-hour reception. Despite my flight being delayed by an hour, there was a person waiting at the hotel reception to welcome me, show me to my room and was kind enough to share the list of nearby restaurants. The hotel was clean and cozy and had a small kitchen and dining area. It is in the city center in Pest; a stone’s throw away from the train station and with a...