This is Part 2 of my 40 Days Spring Adventure with my mom. We started the journey at the city of Salzburg. If you like flowers, early May is the right timing to go to Eastern Europe. The temperature was superb. As if you are walking in an air-conditioned space :)
This is my mom's first visit and my second to this part of Europe. My first time was back in 2002. It was such a touch and go visit then that I didn't really get to experience anything. This time round we decided to spend two weeks in four cities. We bought their transportation pass and get to experience all their public transportation; inter-city train, subway, funicular, bus, tram and ferry :) We had plenty of time to take pictures too. Most of the pictures in this post were taken by my mom. I was too busy taking selfies that I forgot to take scenery photos :P
Our itinerary was as follows. What I loved most about the itinerary was the relaxing pace. We had plenty of time to explore the city. We had time to stroll along the river, sit at the park and just blend with the locals. We even had time to go hiking :P
1 May 2016 London - Salzburg
2 May 2016 Salzburg
3 May 2016 Salzburg
4 May 2016 Salzburg - Vienna
5 May 2016 Vienna
6 May 2016 Vienna
7 May 2016 Vienna - Budapest
8 May 2016 Budapest
9 May 2016 Budapest
10 May 2016 Budapest
11 May 2016 Budapest - Prague
12 May 2016 Prague
13 May 2016 Prague
14 May 2016 Prague - Copenhagen
For this trip we stayed at AirBnB's accommodation. I like the one in Prague the most. The apartment was like a hotel :) The Vienna apartment was great too. The host was very nice and the place was bright and modern. In Salzburg, the place was cozy but the host was very rude. In Budapest, the place was huge and in great location but the furniture was a bit dated. The costs of the accomodation were as follows:
Salzburg - RM783 (€163) - 3 nights
Vienna - RM850 (€177) - 3 nights
Budapest - RM912 (€190) - 4 nights
Prague - RM701 (€146) - 3 nights
We took trains to move between the cities. Very convenient and relaxing. OBB trains were new and nice with free WiFi on board. It was quite empty during our journey so no need to pay extra to reserve seats. Mav-Start train was a bit dated and no WiFi :( The tickets came with compulsary allocated seats. The train was quite full during our journey. The costs of the inter-city trains for 2 persons were as follows:
Salzburg - Vienna (OBB) - RM182 (€38)
Vienna - Budapest (OBB) - RM182 (€38)
Budapest - Prague (Mav-Start) - RM182 (€38)
Our flights for 2 persons from London to Salzburg (Ryanair) was RM545 (£88) and from Prague to Copenhagen (Norwegian) was RM546 (€114). Ryanair flight tickets include luggage of 20kg each. Norwegian flight tickets include chosen seats and luggage of 20 kg each. I like Norwegian. Hassle free and customer friendly. They have self checked in kiosks at the airport. Ryanair was a bit calculative with their customers. You better make sure you have printed your boarding pass before you go to the airport. There is no self service kiosks. They also allowed a very limited time to board the aircraft. At Stansted Airport, the gate was announced around 30 minutes before departure and closed around 10 minutes before departure. So you only have 20 minutes to walk (very far) to the gate. To be safe, no toilet stop in between :P If you decide to fly Ryanair, do read in the internet their customers' experiences so that you will not be caught by surprise.
Austria accepts Euro but Hungary and Czechia have their own currency. I changed £101 for Ft19000 and Kč1700 in London. Enough to buy some food, fridge magnets and transportation pass. The costs of the transportation for 2 persons were as follows:
24H Salzburg - RM37 (€8)
72H Vienna - RM151 (€32)
5/30 Budapest - RM157 (Ft9100)
72H Prague - RM112 (Kč620)
I have uploaded 790 photos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels
Hashtag specific for this trip:
#mks2016EasternEurope #mks2016Austria #mks2016Hungary #mks2016Czechia
History Lesson:
(for those who are wondering why I use Czechia instead of the Czech Republic)
After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the so-called "Velvet Divorce" in 1993, the name "the Czech Republic" was created as the official long-form name. The official short-form is Cesko. While almost all languages adopted variants of Cesko for the short-form at this time, the English equivalent "Czechia" though attested as early as 1841 is still quite rarely used in the English-speaking world.
However in 2013, Czech president Milos Zeman recommended the wider official use of Czechia and on 14 April 2016, the country's political leadership agreed to make Czechia the official short name. The new name was approved by the Czech cabinet on 2 May 2016 and was published in the United Nations UNTERM and UNGEGN country name databases on 5 July 2016.
On 23 September 2016, the Permanent Committee of Geographical Names began advising Britons to use the name Czechia. On 26 September 2016, the International Organisation for Standardisation included the short name in the official ISO3166 country codes list.
Six months after the name Czechia was adopted, The Guardian reported that the new name is hardly in use, even on the official Czech government websites. Google replaced the Czech Republic with Czechia on Google Maps on 18 January 2017. The CIA World Factbook and U.S. State Department both now use Czechia instead of the Czech Republic.
On 22 May 2017, a Forbes contributor released an opinion blog saying that "Czechia has won the Czech Republic name debate" and that "If you're feeling petulant, it's the Czech Republic. If you want to be cool, it's Czechia" in reference to the significant progress that has been made for the short name in recent year.
Note: I noticed the change when I screen printed the Google Map for our plan trip to Baltic :P
Njoy!!
