City Number 5 was Vienna.  I checked into Meringer Hotel.  This was a weird place, trying to be a hotel and trying to be a hostel and not achieving either.  I didn’t really care for it but never mind, I would only be there for two nights.  I headed into town and got dinner at Swing Kitchen.  A tasty vegan burger and swing music, what else could I need?

I spent a lot of time wander around the city admiring the architecture of the various palaces and museums.  They certainly like the statues in Vienna, certainly the ones depicting scenes of violence:P

Vienna was another vegan dreamland.  I visited the Nasch Market which was huuuuge and had loads of different stalls with food, clothes jewellery and cafe’s. I managed to find another great falafel wrap this time at a stall called Dr Falafel.  I also found myself at I love Veggie Burge where, guess what, I had another really tasty burger.

The art history museum was really interesting which had lots of artefacts from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the interior of the building was beautiful!!

Bratislava, city 6 of 7, was only an hour on the train from Vienna.  I checked into Brickyard Hostel which was just a 5 minute walk from the train station and a 20 minute walk from the town centre.  The hostel was really nice, clean had a good atmosphere and I nearly always count en-suites in a hostel as a bonus! I was sharing my room with a friendly Greek called Irene.  We headed into the old town for a wander around to see the sights.  It was Friday night and I have to say the place was jumping and bars spilled out onto the pedestrian streets.  We also took a walk up to the Castle where the grounds were open and beautifully lit.  Afterwards, we enjoyed some Very reasonably priced beer.

The next day, me and Irene wandered around the old town again before she left for Zvolen in central Slovakia.  Like Prague, I loved all of the small twisty streets surrounded by old impressive buildings.  The UFO Bridge was pretty cool even if it was a bit dated.  If Aliens had indeed landed their flying saucer there they had been there a while and probably spaceship design has moved on a bit:P In the town we were also treated to some Slovak dancing, see the video section of my blog!

The 7^th and final stop was Budaaaapessst! I checked into the Hive Party Hostel.  It was nice and had a massive bar but in hindsight this was not the best choice I made….let’s just say I felt pretty old!:P  On the first night I went to Napfenyes Etterum and had a fantastic vegan pizza for a very reasonable price.

I then wandered around and visited touristy hot spots like Heroes Square, the Chain Bridge and the parliament buildings which were beautifully lit at night.  There were also boards up around the town that described what Budapest was like after WWII under Soviet Control.  Again, like other things I have learned on this trip, this was still going on in my life time not so far from home which I found pretty mental!

The next day I visited various landmarks on in Buda (west of the river) The Citadel offered amazing views of the city.  It was also interesting to learn about the various occupiers of the Citadel stretching from medieval times to the Soviets.  Next I visited the Royal Palace but not before getting an amazing sweet potato burger from Vegan Love.  The Palace was really pretty and also offered amazing views of the city.  The history museum was really interesting to learn about the various skirmishes between Buda and Pest and with various other countries.  Basically it seemed as though that until recently there was never more than a few years between wars involving at least one of the two cities.  Last but not least, Matthias Church was absolutely stunning and the area that it was located in looked like somewhere out of Lord of the Rings.

Overall I had a great time during my 3 weeks in Europe.  I seen some incredible things, met some really nice people and enjoyed some really tasty food.  I wouldn’t hesitate to coming back to any of these cities to try and see more at a future date.