Cardinal sin of Interail: observations from Florence...

Train station platforms are considerably lower in Italy, trains are reliably late. As you are patiently waiting, absorbing your surroundings in the penetrating warmth of the mediterranean sun, do not be fooled. Your brain has not been fried to the point of distortion, your eyes are not deceiving you in some sort of twisted mirage. That is most definitely not a log on the train line, nor a disgarded Mars bar. That my friend is a train line truffle of the highest order- an undeniably steaming, stinking TURD OF MAN!

Let this serve as a lesson to you...NEVER EVER EVER FLUSH THE TOILET WHEN THE TRAIN IS PULLED INTO A STATION (it may be big, depending on the length of journey, but it is most certainly not clever).

Sights, songs and sparkles...

A three hour train journey from Budapest to Vienna and so continues our great European education...the silver haired vixen in the seat opposite has ensured that never again will we view banana consumption as a nutritional requirement, but as more of a performance- enough said.

As we leave the train station attempting to decipher a public transportation system worthy of a chapter in the Da Vinci code we are joined by a local man who has made his career pickling himself in the local park. Charlotte, unable to resist the opportunity to enrich a simple mind takes the time to teach him a few choice phrases from the Yorkshire dialect which translate to the masses as "would you kindly go away please".

Our hostel is better ordered than Sandhurst and clean, clinically clean. On meeting the owner- a minute Chinese lady whose razor sharp tongue would have ensured her prime candidacy for running the Austro-Hungarian empire single handedly (providing of course that she was not asked to do so in her sacred break time), we quickly cotton on to the fact that in the Blue Corridor Hostel YOU DO AS YOU ARE TOLD JA?!!

We do as we are told-spend a day taking in the beautiful sights of Vienna and steer well clear of McDonalds in favour of more local Weiner cuisine (well actually pasta, the scnitzel looked a million kinds of wrong- Italy is still more local than the USA anyway). We have yet to see the beautiful blue Danube after seeking it out in two countries... here it still resembles something more akin to a third world waterhole after a dysentry outbreak.

Then off to Salzburg, the land of Mozart, more importantly Maria and grown men and women dressed in clothing worthy of the Disneyworld workforce. A small fortune later we are happily camping it up on "The Most Unique Sound of Music Tour Bus". The tour guide certainly accounts for the "Most Unique" component- leather shorts, knee high socks and Iraqui terrorist glasses complete with Anglo/American/German accent make for a place on the borderline between hilarious and terryfying. Lots of group singing, yodelling and posing a la Julie Andrews all the way through the Alps, and we are unashamedly in pink paradise. Salzburg in a word was... well surreal. A halfway house between the stage and the asylum- perhaps that's why we fitted in so nicely.

Last stop Innsbruck for amazing sunshine, MAHOUSSIVE mountains and a visit to the spangdoodletastic Swarovski crystal factory. Seriously, they should hand out Ritalin on the door as this place is enough to turn a devout Tibetan monk into Rumplestiltskin (albeit a follically challenged version). After an afternoon of flitting around the treasure trove caves like demented magpies we are exhausted- definitely time to slow down to a more Mediterranean pace of life...

Ode to Budapest...

NB/ If easily offended do not read!!



Twelve hours on the night train,
just starting to snore
Some Hungarian bird,
bursts in through the door;
"Have you got any questions,
for Budapest to make?"
"Erm, yeah actually love,
why the hell am I awake?!?"


Eight in the morning,
we trudge to our dwellings
Nursing our heads,
and our various swellings
Living twelve years,
in Mike Tyson's marriage
Or was it twelve hours,
in a second class carriage?


Culture oozing
out of every last pore
Our tiny Brit minds
can't take any more!
Fountains of knowledge,
dried up, need to rest
Thank Atilla the Hun
for Budapest!


Off to the spa,
for some spiritual healing
Beer guts sweating,
from the floor to the ceiling
Bananas in pyjamas,
or lycra, being literal
Too close for comfort,
to man...and his schnitzel.


R and R sorted,
we head to a club
Local cattlemarket,
and breakdancing hub
Drinks are aflowing,
along with Magyar affection
More rats here
than a Piper picks up on bin collection


Formula 1 is in town,
what better sport for the lazy?
Than one that is viewed
drinking beer, picking daisies
Suddenly I remember
I have no gift for my sis
Then I spy a young driver
that noone will miss...


Hot Formula 1 property
stashed deep in my pack
"We have to leave Hungary,
I don't want to give him back!"
Poor Lewis is looking
all lost and forlorn
"Chin up lad, In Austria
being held hostage is the norm" :-/