Like many aspiring diarists would understand, at one time or another the task of keeping the diary up to date starts to resemble a core more so than a joy. For me that moment has arrived, temporarily at least. So I shall endeavour to do some swift blogs in succession to catch up, apologies in advance for the suffering quality.

The train ride from Sarajevo to Budapest was scenic but considering the rather short distances took an incredibly long time. We had two delays of over two hours which when added to the scheduled twelve hours of journey time meant that we spent the best part of a whole day on our tuckus. We arrived late.

Budapest is an interesting city that is an amalgamation of three separate cities: Buda, Obuda (Old Buda) and Pest. Thus the city's name Budapest. For many individual travel writers Budapest is the destination that really invigorates and stirs the spirit, more so than Prague and Vienna (which are all in close proximity). Em and I got an insight into Budapest, and certainly I could sense whatever it is that is in a city that makes you fall in love with the city, but I just couldn't tangibly experience it. In other words, either I haven't seen/experienced enough of Budapest, or I am disappointed by it. I was hoping that Budapest would fill me with the feeling that welled up in me in cities such as Buenos Aires, La Paz, Paris and London; alas I was left an empty vessel.

That is not to say that I didn't like Budapest, there is plenty of interesting history and stunning examples of Baroque and Gothic architecture amoung other things. I did like it, just not enough to love the city as many travellers before me have.

What Em and I did love though was the Goulash, the symbolic Hungarian meal was cheap and with its tender stewed goodness was ever so satisfying. To wash this splendid nightly ritual of ours Em and I tried to find the local little drinking holes to wash down our Goulash a couple of nights, but for whatever reason, whether it be the wrong area or our budget restricting our experiences we also unfortunately did not manage to taste Budapest's renowned nightlife.

On our second day in Budapest we visited the Roman Baths, on the western side of the Danube River that separates the old cities of Buda and Pest. We opted for the Gellert Baths, which was Roman rather than the Turkish Baths as the Gellert Baths were co-gender, that is, both sexes could go on the same day (the Turkish Baths were male only six days a week and female only the remaining day). That being said, whilst inside the Gellert baths there was a nice co-gender spa, the really old beautiful spas that got properly hot and relaxing were gender specific.

Old men, nude as they can be wander around with weird white (almost see through) aprons covering their privates, ducking into the 38 °C spa then graduating to the 42 °C spa before plunging in to freezing plunge pool then finally braving the scorching steam rooms. I like saunas and steam rooms and would regard myself as having some resilience to the suffocating heat that one experiences in them, but I lasted all of one minute in the steam room, it was skin searingly hot. But after six hours of soaking, two of them apart in the more pleasant gender specific baths, Em and I emerged from Gellert Baths soothed and at peace with the world.

After four days of exploring the city by foot with visits to...

• Hungarian State Opera House
• City Park with the strange Vajdahunyad Castle
• Heroes Square
• Panoramic viewpoints of the Danube River
• Matthias Church and Buda Castle in 'Old Buda'
• Hungarian Parliament Building

...we were moving onward for a quick peak at Bratislava, the 'worth-a-visit' capital of Slovakia.