Eastern Europe

We’ve officially been traveling for a little over a month! Time is going by pretty fast and this past trip since our last post has been a whirlwind. Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary – four countries in a week and a half. Here are our highlights:

Krakow and Auschwitz, Poland – Krakow really surprised us. Tons of fun little pubs and restaurants, very walkable, and crazy cheap! We were only in Kraków for about a day and a half but could have easily spent more time there. We did a three hour private walking tour and gained a lot of info on the city – SO much history and our guide was great. We had no idea how much of an impact WWII had in some areas like Kraków. Prior to the war they had nearly 70,000 active Jews, but that number is now down to the hundreds. Piggy backing on this, our next move was to Auschwitz which is about an hour and a half drive from Kraków. It goes without saying that this was an incredibly heavy tour, but a place we really wanted to visit.

Prague, Czech Republic
From Poland, we took a comfortable and easy train to the city of Prague, another impressive Eastern European city. Tons of Gothic Architecture, and of course, the famous Charles Bridge and John Lennon Wall. One of our nights was spent on a beer and tapas tour with a great group of people including a fun and friendly couple from Baltimore 🙂 We ended our time in Prague with a visit to a sports bar for some Sunday NFL and to watch the Bills defeat the Falcons (definitely a highlight for Matt).

Vienna, Austria
We’re aware this isn’t considered an Eastern European city, but it was easier to include in this post rather than create a separate one for just the little time we spent there. We unfortunately ran into some crappy weather for the first couple of days, so much of our time was spent checking out Vienna’s cocktail bars and restaurants (we also went to watch “IT” one night 🤡. The movie came out right after we left the States so we’ve been wanting to see it for a while). When we did eventually get nice weather, we visited the lovely Schoenbrunn Palace and Gardens – a must see when in Vienna. We also made it to the Prater amusement park at night, but were bummed to find that it closes pretty early in the evening so we couldn’t enjoy it as much as we would have liked. From Matt’s point of view, walking away from this place was like taking a child away from his/her recess or playtime.

Budapest, Hungary
Great city. So many cool bars, restaurants, and great sites to view from the mountainside (Buda Side) as well as along the Danube River. We went the super tourist route and took a private Tuk Tuk tour around the city. This was actually pretty awesome as our driver was aggressive enough to drive through all the tour buses and get to places where only pedestrians could access. Other highlights included wine tasting in a cave cellar, going through Dracula’s prison labyrinth, a night cruise with cocktails along the Danube River, and taking a dip at Szechenyi – one of Budapest’s popular thermal bath spas.