Budapest is the capital of Hungary (honest). Hungary is a part of the EU (which Hungarians are undoubtedly proud of, because of the number of EU flags hung out everywhere). But it isn’t part of eurozone, which was a complete surprise for me. They have their own currency called forint, and you exchange it at the rate of one kilo 260 for one euro. Because of that, you usually count them in thousands (1000 HUF ≈ 4 EUR).
Train ticket from Vienna to Budapest is about € 35. Railjet trains look modern and hi-tech. It is equipped, as we were told, with 80 displays, which try hard to keep us, the passengers, duly informed. Some 40 in one direction:
The Schönbrunn palace is situated in the Schlosspark (which simply means “castle park”) and is one of the best spots in Vienna.
We proceed in the direction of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Restless Austrians demand freedom of religion (as though they lack for it):
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To cut a long story short, we landed in Vienna, we were warmly welcome right in the airport and transferred to the city. Austrians speak Austrian German, which I can barely understand, but is no problem for my Dutch fellow: he understands it fairly well and can speak it to a certain extent (that is, it’s advisable to have a Dutch fellow traveler in Austria).
One bright, or maybe cloudy day we’ve fancied a trip to Vienna. A friend of mine got to know a pretty generous person willing to put up a couple of noisy fellows. (Russians believe in their unique hospitality, but is it indeed unique?)
Why is it always like that? Poor aliens!
At last it looks the right way, just like it was. I’m really amazed at indefatigability of the Dutch: would you plant a half kilometer of flowers?
Warning: these pictures can make you jealous. Watch with care.
My first visit to the see in this year is as early as the spring itself.
Originally found on the Internet. I amended the picture by including Russia. Mr Navalny is an opposition leader that actively tackles corruption in Russia.
A friend of mine is recently back from Southeast Asia. His intention originally was to visit Vietnam and Laos, but he ended up visiting also Cambodia, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
His currency exchanges yielded some peculiar things, whether accidentally or not happened to be in the deck of banknotes, such as this Brunei dollar: