I’m back at last, ready to pick up the blog where I left it and to share with you my ten-day trip in Central Europe, through the great cities of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Prague. From August 17th to August 27th, I traveled to these cities by train (without InterRail pass !), through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Moravia and Bohemia!
I left from the airport of Luxemburg – Findel on a small, 80-seat Luxair plane to Vienna, a de Havilland DHC 8-400. A little snack on board and 1h50 later, I was at Vienna International Airport.
I had a loaded program ahead of me: to discover these four very diverse cities and yet linked by their former allegiance to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, dominated by the haughty Vienna! Maybe you followed my trip on live on Twitter – now you’ll find all the details about my trip on the blog, in a series of articles that I will publish regularly during the upcoming weeks, day after day, with some more precise descriptions of hotels, restaurants, curiosities, historical or gastronomical aspects.
And now, a little overview of this eurotrip in Central Europe through a few figures :
- 15 hours of train in 10 days,
- Around 3200 kilometers covered by 5 different means of transportation,
- Until 3 different countries in one day,
- 4 different languages,
- 10 restaurants tested,
- 10 cafés / bars tested,
- 3 hotels and 5 rooms tested,
- 11 churches, 10 museums, 6 castles / palaces et 5 synagogues visited,
- 3 terra cotta golems in only one suitcase!
Ask the program! Here is the summary of this eurotrip in Central Europe and of the coming posts on the blog:
- Day 1 – Arrival in Vienna from Luxemburg at 2:30 p.m., installation at the Hotel Rathaus Wien & Design; Apfelstrudel at the Café Landtmann and a delightful night at the Tel Aviv Beach bar, on the banks of the Danube!
- Day 2 – Imperial Vienna: the Hofburg palace and the Schönbrunn castle; a walk on the Graben and dinner at the Café Central, with the turn-of-the-century ghosts of Freud, Lenin and Hofmannsthal.
- Day 3 – Jugendstil and Baroque, from the Secession Pavilion to the Belveder and the Winterpalais of Eugene of Savoy, old-fashioned stop at the Café Sacher for an essential sweet moment…
- Day 4 – Departure to Bratislava by train, arrival around 10:30 a.m.; walk around the city, very good lunch at the Prasna Basta restaurant. Train to Budapest around 6 p.m. Arrival in the Hungarian capital about two hours later, on Saint-Stephen’s day and installation at the Continental Zara Hotel.
- Day 5 – Pest! The chic, grand streets, Erzsébet boulevard and Andrássy avenue, the Jewish neighborhood, the Elizabeth bridge and the heart of Pest, the Váci utca and the Vörömarty square. Lunch at the Murci Wine bar and afternoon ramble along the Danube and on the Marguerite island.
- Day 6 – Buda! The castle, the Vár neighborhood, an unexpected lunch in a former Communist cafeteria and a walk in the Víziváros neighborhood, on the banks of the Danube. A picturesque night at the Széchenyi baths, like the locals!
- Day 7 – Departure for Prague, seven hours in the train! Arrival in the late afternoon and installation in the Maximilian Hotel; trendy Italian dinner at Grosseto Marina, a lovely barge on the Vltava.
- Day 8 – Josefov, the Jewish neighborhood. Lunch at the Klub Architektu, a designer restaurant in the cellar of a former chapel. Staré Město, the old town, snack at the Municipal House.
- Day 9 – The baroque Malá Strana, walk around the castle and Senate neighborhood, a randomly selected and mediocre lunch at the tavern U tri zlatych trojek, then back to and visit Staré Město of the Mucha Museum!
- Day 10 – Visit of the Art Deco Museum, purchase of small garnet jewelry before heading back to Vienna by train. Dinner at the Palmenhaus in the Burggarten and… stumbling upon the Mission Impossible V shooting at the Staatsoper!
Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria © Eurofluence
Eurofluence takes you around Central Europe for a few weeks – take this trip again with me!
The pictures of this little eurotrip will also be available on Instagram.
Let’s go, and stay euroconnected!
