Over our month and a bit in the region we met some beautiful and very generous people, ate some great food, drank copious quantities of spirits distilled from everything you can think of and have left wanting more and cannot wait to get back to the region in summer to delve deeper.
The Ticks
- Beer snacks and food in general in Czech. We had no idea how much we were going to grow to love this nation's food. Just brilliant.
- Dogs EVERYWHERE in Romania, every train station that you stop at has its own welcoming and farewelling dog pack.
- Zdiar actually gave us snow!
- Christmas markets.
- The Octogon in Budapest for NYE is mental.
- Viennese coffeehouses. So fancy, so traditional, so cool, so good.
- The salamanders at Home Made Hostel.
- Rail and bus services in Czech actually do work like clockwork. They were even more reliable than Germany's. Gasp.
- The Budapest coffee scene. Something that again took us by surprise and gave us a much needed taste of home.
- Romanian "boobies"
The Crosses
- The speed of trains in Serbia and Romania. Whilst they actually allow you to enjoy the countryside as it slowly drifts by, sometimes you just want to get there and not take an hour to do 20 kilometres.
- The hype behind Bratislava. Sorry but it was lost on us.
- Water that gives you the shits in Serbia and Romania.
- Not being able to find traditional Hungarian food in Budapest.
- ATMs that eat your card in Bratislava.
- Unfortunately every place that we visited we found ourselves saying, "wouldn't this place be great in summer".
- Where is the snow?
The Food
Christmas Markets - the "tradelink" in Brno, hands down. We've tried about five or six others throughout the region now and none of them have come close.
The Rest - Czech garlic soup and pickled trout from U Černého Vola . This was a tough one and there are about five other things that we ate in Czech that could've taken this. Czech food wins, that's the moral of the story.
The Booze
Christmas Markets - the wine punč at Český Budějovice that was packed full of sultanas and macerated strawberries. So good when the temperature is hovering around zero and your fingers feel like icey poles.
The Rest - rakia/palinca/fire water/slivovitz/slivovica/brandy. Call it what you will, this drink is now synonymous with Eastern Europe for us and it will feel like we're catching up with an old friend anytime that we have it again throughout our lives. This drink is quite possibly the most memorable thing about our time in Eastern Europe.
We would've already been in Morocco for a week once you read this so look forward to sheep's heads, goat's testicles and year old preserved camel meat. The regularity of those posts will depend on us getting decent internet connections.
There's one more post on its way before the Morocco ones begin to (hopefully) roll though, it's a goodie. At least I think it is anyway...
