It's been a busy month since the last blog entry so here goes.

Serbia : Originally Serbia was not in our itinerary but as we decided to skip our week side trip into Greece from Turkey we gained a week in which to visit Serbia. Firstly we visited the capital of Belgrade. Quite a small town with the usual to see - the old fortress, national museum (which was closed), large churches and shopping. The people here were very friendly and helpful and most spoke a little english. We stayed at a really cool hostel which made the stay even more enjoyable. It was a 2 bedroom appartment converted into a small hostel so it really felt like we were at home. We made some friends from England and stayed in and watched the Wimbledon final over some cheap local beer. Next we visited a small town a couple of hours out from Belgrade called Novi Sad. The town was busy preparing for their largest annual event the EXIT rock festival which we missed out on by a couple of days which, in the end, was a good thing as prices for accom tripled over that week. Here we again visited the town square and the city fortress. We also had a day at the mock beach set up along the Danube River. The temperature was in the mid 30's so we took a quick dip. From here we took a train back into Hungary.

Hungary : Our first stop after the Serbian border was into the small southern town of Szeged. Our guide book described it as being an untouched beauty which shoudn't be missed so we had planned on staying here for 2 nights but that failed. After we got off the train and walked around for about 2 hours with our packs on looking for accomodation but couldn't find anything (in our price range anyway) so we sat down in the park in the city sqaure to have lunch and think about where we would try next for accomodation. We both looked at eachother and said 'let's get the hell out of here and get the afternoon train to Budapest ' and so we did. So our few days in the country side of Hungary turned in to a few hours in which we saw almost all of the city which was the city park and its towering clock tower and church.

Budapest is an awesome city. It is huge and expands over a large area so it is very spread out and has great little pockets here and there. The city is divided by the Danube River into Buda (the old town and its castle) and Pest (the new town with it's impressive river front Parliament house, loads of shops and reasturants). Our hostel recommended a great local resturant, we orded the pork knuckle for 2 and Trent and didn't even come close to finishing it. We took a doggy bag home and ate the left over the next night for dinner. The pork was so good though that we had to take Leigh and Rach there when they arrived. Again we ordered the meal for 2 but this time for all 4 of us. Even then we only just managed to finish it and we were all full to the brim of pork, pototoes and pickels. The four of us also went to another pork knuckls specialist recommended to us by Ian (from work). It was more a touristy restaurant with the young, grumpy waitresses dressed in their hungarian style dresses revealing their buxum breast and not giving a hint of a smile. The knuckle here was delicious and was served up whole with the crackle still on top. mmmm yumm. We were fortunate to be staying in awesome room with just the four of us in Budapest as the nightlife just didn't seem to kick off here. We went out for drinks in the bar district on a Friday night and only had time for 1 as the bars closed at 11pm. So we had plenty of nights in playing cards and getting very drunk on whatever we had in the fridge - beer, wine, vodka or whisky.

The thermal baths of Budapest were very impressive. The large touristy one that we vistited had 3 large outdoor pools - one of normal temperature, one at 34deg and the other at 38 deg. The indoor thermal baths were a little smaller but had varying temperatures from 20 deg to 38 deg as well as steam rooms and saunas.

Bratislava : There is not much to Bratislava and infact we walked around the old town in about 2 hours. Fortunately though Trent's friends are living and working here so we are greatful to them for letting us stay in there beautiful appartment a short walk away from town. We have been eating like pigs for the last few days and i think i have put on a few kilos to proove it. Bratislava is only an hour train ride away from Vienna so Trent, Leigh, Rach and myself took the train into Vienna just for lunch. Having been to Vienna before in 2004 we knew an awesome restaurant that does schintzles larger than the size of your plate at a small cost (Justin you know the place i am talking about) called Schitzlewirt. Again, today, Steve and Leisa drove us just over the border into Austria to a sleepy lakeside town where we enjoyed lunch and a few drinks. At the moment we don't really feel like backpackers as Steve and Leisa have been looking after us so well.

Tomorrow we head back to Budapest for a night and then we are on an early morning flight into Italy to continue our culinary tour of the world.