psalmi's "Touring Europe at summer 2008"

Milan was just a starting point; quick stop here before train took us to Venice. The food here was surprisingly good. We chose to eat in a trendy cafe by the station where airport line ended and had really excellent meals both.

A day at Venice was a bit too little. We didn't even make it to the St. Marcus Square in the given time.

From Venice we got to the Venice Express, a night train to Budapest, Hungary via Slovenia and Croatia. What it basically meant was you are woken up six times per night with and angry call "passport control".

Arriving at Siofok early in the morning. By the dawn we hit the shores of Lake Balaton and found the way to our hotel. There is plenty of things to do at Siofók, including renting cars, bikes, vespas or other means of transportations.

It is also no more than a few hours from Budapest so a daytrip there is also an option but why would anyone bother? (We would, an explanation follows soon.)

Hotel Azur is the family hotel of the party capital of Hungary, Siófok. It has lots of activities for children, including guided drawing, sports and even mini-olympics while parents may relax over the bar or taking sun baths.

Hotel Azur was also our pick of choice when we needed a bit of luxury at the beginning of our vacation. Luckily we chose the Siofók side of Lake Balaton as the biggest city and all of the north side, Balatonfüred and others were mostly occupied by germans and even getting service in english proved to be difficult.

Just as I mentioned you're not supposed to leave Lake Balaton for Budapest, enter Sziget festival. The biggest rock festival in Central Europe with more than half a million visitors was just something we couldn't miss. It was going on between 13th and 18th so it was really something we couldn't miss and didn't have and opportunity to wait so there we were.

Bigger than all Finnish summer festivals put together, Sziget was really a festival to see. Tens of stages meant every genre was available in Sziget, only your imagination being the limit. Music wasn't even played too loud as you could still hear on the day after the festival something else than the ringing in your ears.

People also came here to stay for the whole week. Every open green bit contained dozens of tents, not only the official camping area but every green bit. Even while the place was crowded, the toilets seem to be in rather good condition, quite unlike anywhere I've been before. There were also containers with water closets so you didn't need to use bajamajas if was not urgent.

Getting to and from Budapest was easy but in a crowded trains you can't really count on having seats for you. On our way there the train was so overcrowded they had us standing and sitting by the car doors. Although it doesn't compare to the rush in Italian trains during a national holiday it was still a way too uncomfortable.

As it was the week on which Hungarians had their national day there was some extra partying going on at Siófok at the evening. That meant we had to share the car in which we sat in the train with about hundred youngsters coming there to party. That wasn't bad at all, we had nice conversations with a couple of them wondering why on earth we came to Hungary and to Sziget festivals while there were better ones like Tuska in Finland and Helsinki in particular. Go figure.

In the picture is the wonderful tourist information center of Siófok. It's quite close to the railway station and worth a visit just to see its exteriors. This vine-covered old water tower is awesome.

The most disappointing tourist sight seeing there was. The next day, on Sunday, we hiked for an hour or so to get there and for what - a puny cave with nothing interesting to see. It was really no reason to come all the way up here. Luckily at least parts of the remaining day proved to be better.

On this picture I pose by the skull cave lookalike, btw.

From Lóczy cave we decided to try for something different; the water skiing and wind surfing. Füred Kemping by Balatonfüred was the only place it was supposed to be possible by norhern Balaton, but as it were, nothing is ever that simple.

As for water skiing, they had only during mornings those practice sessions you can ski all you want. We, us two total beginners, didn't want to waste our precious dimes there, turned into wind surfing instead. Strangely enough, you would have to have a license for doing that in Hungary, too. Of course the only way you can get it is via day long course which we were of course late already as it was way past midday when we finally arrived there.

To add to the misery, everybody talked germany and we had really trouble understanding eachother.

We didn't take the boat to Balatonfüred for nothing after all. As we were heading back to the boat really unhappy with the events of the day so far we noticed something that made it all go away. There was the annual Balatonfüred wine fair going on - a mile long boulevard crowded with cabins selling local (excellent) wines for less that one euro per glass.

I wish we didn't leave the city in the first place for the "sights" and "sports".

Disclaimer. While there isn't possibility to create sight of day trip entries to travel stories, you'll have to forgive me for duplicating places we slept.

And don't be fooled that our trip would end here, I am just at the very beginning of it. There will be more just when I have time for adding more to it.

On Monday we really got into doing some sports. We rented bikes from our hotel as we thought it was supposed to be cheap there. Little did we know that instead of the low list price we'd be charged per hour for full 1,5 € per hour. And we were happy to pay as originally they tried to charge us five times more by accident.

Put that aside and you have a perfect day out by the Balaton. Sun was shining from cloudless sky and temperature was somewhere well beyond 30°C as it was for the whole week.

Tihány itself was a lovely village on a top of a small hill. It was a tough ride to get up there with our lousy bikes and all (we were lucky they actually found two that worked) but well worth the trouble.

Somewhere on our way back to Siófok we took a wrong turn and ended to a private beach with an outrageous entry fee. We had to turn around and cycle around the whole of Tihany, a good five kilometers extra. While at it, we got to see some nature and animals, too.

Traveling between Siófok and Tihány is easiest by the ferry crossing at Tihány peninsula. Its only a few minutes and you're on the other side. Ferries seem to be pretty frequent too. Another option would be to take the boat from Siófok or Balatonfüred directly and enjoy the boat ride.

This is really something you want to see - national day, or even better, the whole previous week in Hungary. Siófok had big installations by the port, including country fair, where you could get anything from cheese to wines and sheep skins.

We actually got one of those sheep skins, a black one, although we are still not sure whether it was the sheep's or sheep dog's skin as it had such a long white tail.

What was interesting was the party they had set up on the stage. The main performer way - YOU. Yes, it was karaoke stage. The cacophony was unbelievable when you could hear three to four different sources of music overlapping.

After the national holiday it was our turn to vacate to the nations capital, Budapest. This time the trains were much less crowded, maybe due to the fact that it wasn't Saturday or a holiday season peak.

Budapest itself provided much more activity than we managed to squeeze in for the tree days. Thinking of it afterwards we should've spent more time in Budapest and less in Vienna and replace Milan with Venice altogether but more on that later.

During the three days we stayed at very exquisite Kempinski group five stars hotel downtown Budapest. Service was matching the quality of rooms, this was one of the finest hotels I've slept a night.

Castle Hill at the Pest side of the city houses many attractive sites for tourists. We visited the national museum that had excellent changing exhibitions from hungarian artists and loads of paintings and sculptures in their constant exhibition too.

We also visited the wonderful Labyrinths that are under the hill.

Our afternoon was spent exercising by walking through the Margaret Island in Donau between Buda and Pest. It seems that half the city had the same idea as you could find loads of people there enjoying the warm afternoons of August.

We had the fun of seeing football games, capoeira practises and wall climbing and loads of other tourist attractions like this guy with a funny hat who wanted to pose to us.

After a day out in Budapest, it's good to return back to our hotel room for some Olympics. Not before we walk by the nightly Donau though.

National museum looked really beautiful in its night lights.

Vienna was the fourth stop of our trip, if you count our quick visit to Venice that is. Instead of the normal way of traveling by plane we took the more idyllic option and took a river boat. In just quick six hours we were from Budapest to Vienna and saw a great deal more than you would see from a plane. The bad thing was that it took almost two extra hours because of the dams ans canals in our way.

Hotel Hollmann Beletage Design & Boutique was a unique place in the downtown vienna in first district just a few blocks from all major sights.

The atmosphere of this hotel cannot be described in words. Everything is designed to be unique and quite unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

Rooms are quite big (for 2 persons at least). What makes them different is their design. Bath is in a closet-like space behind a desk+bed combination. Minibar is put in an oval shaped table and decoration is finished with a nice sofa. They have cd-player, tv and free lan connection in every room and a small movie theatre with three shows every night. It's only that you need to know some germany before the movies are of use as most of them didn't have any subtitles.

Museumsquartet in Vienna is the home of numerous museums in one place. We decided to visit MoMA, museum of modern art and Austrias national museum on the other side of the square.

Museums were, as expected, dull as museums get (or disruptive, when it comes to modern art) but most fun we got out the ticket office when trying to buy a cheaper family ticket for just the two of us. Apparently being pregnant doesn't count as family but the clerk pitied us enough to give us the discount anyway.

What is a visit to Vienna without an opera? Nothing it seems as eating a fish sandwich from a street bar proved to be a bad idea. I suffered from a food poisoning and had to stay confined in the hotel quarters for the next 36 hours and was unable to do anything touristy in the city.

Our vacation continued back to where we came from - Milan, Italy. This time flew the short distance from Vienna to Milan with a cheap airline owned by former Austrian F1 driver Niki Lauda. I would be amazed if it's still operating after the current recession, so bad was the service and everything during the flight.

Milan was a big disappointment anyway. La Scala was closed, Gallery (in the picture) expensive and we tired after a week of city holiday. Unfortunately we learned only now that Venice had its international film festival going on - of course we should've be there instead of Milan; we originally made the choice because both had seen Venice enough.

Now we have seen enough Milan, too.

Hotel Pierre Milano is a smallish five star hotel quite near to center of Milano. While it doesn't quite match with all the luxury hotel chains, you have to give them points for attempting their best.

Lobby is beautiful and if you know any italian you can read local newspapers there. Cable channels are also free, but we didn't manage to figure out if there was a free wifi connection.