Euro Trip

Total Duration: 8 days (3rd - 11th November)

Total Expenses (per person): ~Rs. 85000

Places Covered: Prague, Vienna, Budapest (Layover at Paris, Amsterdam, Kyiv)

Snapshot of the Trip:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VnGUSy0Z9N3yXUkteHxMAVZcuZBmIz5KN_3HUZUdXog/edit#gid=0

Route Map

Forex: We used the forex card and cash (euros) from bookmyforex.com which was offering us the cheapest rates back then (approx in the range of 83-85). Conversion rates that we followed in our trip was:

1 EUR = 85 INR

1 CZK = 3 INR

320 Hungarian Forint = 1 EUR

If you have read some of my earlier blogs, you would know that I usually begin them with a Whatsapp conversation. However, it would in the best interest of the readers (as well as mine) to skip a 2.5 month long conversation which mostly involved - making fun of Gourab, deciding the hostels, the places to visit, things to do, and making some more fun of Gourab. So let's cut to the chase, shall we?

2nd November (Mumbai/Delhi):

Gourab, Rishi and Sanchit were going to fly from Delhi to Prague via Amsterdam. I was supposed to catch a flight from Mumbai with a layover in Paris. As luck may have it, OLA cabs were on strike in Mumbai. So the next best course of action was to schedule an Uber hours in advance and pray that it would arrive on time 'cos I ain't travelling in a train from New Bombay to Mumbai. It's a herculean task, trust me. God bless Uber since I reached on time and received a compliment from the CISF guy, "Ehsan? Wow, that's a very nice and meaningful name". Mentally facepalming myself, I forced a smile and moved ahead only to realize that I am not flying with Jet Airways but with Air France. Oui Oui Oui, pour me some of your Sauvignon Blanc Monsieur ;). I had a couple of hours to kill at the airport so I went to the Lounge to eat since I was starving. Praises HDFC Regalia for I had a 1200 rupee meal for 25 bucks. As I looked around the lounge, I noticed that there was just no place to sit. Of course, why would there be?  Indians+Free food+Free alcohol. How can we resist it. I couldn't contain myself from being amused at the irony of all of it. I mean there wasn't a single person in that room who couldn't afford to pay for that meal and yet was having it all for free, whereas countless poor people go hungry every single night. Sometimes, capitalism just doesn't make any sense at all. Anyway, I finished my meal and boarded the plane in which THEY DIDN'T SERVE ANY WINEEEE!!!!!! Bummer. 

3rd November (Paris/Amsterdam):

I landed in Paris the next day and I had to kill 5 long boring hours at the airport which had these amazing table thingies which blew hot air and kept you warm and cozy. This is called design thinking, man!! Of course there was a security check in and immigration and stuff which was pretty smooth for me. Well, I sorta forgot my DSLR at the security and after I had walked a few meters ahead, I heard someone shout Monsieur, monsieur. So I turned around to get my DSLR back. By this time, I had been addressed with Monsieur so many times that I had started feeling like a royal king who owned many palaces. Anyhow, the 5 hours went by observing people and their dogs. Yup, dogs at the airport. I had no idea that they were allowed. 

Charles De Gaulle airport, Paris

Them hot air blowing table thingies

Meanwhile in Amsterdam, things were getting really heated. I don't know which one among those 3 approached an airport personnel and asked them, "Can we go out and visit Amsterdam". All hell broke lose after that for they were asked to show their hotel booking in Amsterdam which we didn't have. Now, these 3 geniuses were taken to separate rooms for interrogation. They were asked about every thing possible ranging from itinerary to why Prague. To make matters worse, the officer saw our Whatsapp group wherein we had discussed about various guns that we would like to try in the shooting range of Prague. And the expertise with which Mr. Rishi was throwing around the jargons in the group.....ummm let's just say, it was not really helping their case. Finally after an hour of grilling, when the officers had reached the conclusion that these people can't even kill a mosquito were they allowed to let go. Of course, the officer told them about the various places that they could see in Amsterdam in the limited time that they had. Sweet!!

3rd November (Prague):

By the time I came out of the Prague airport Gourab, Rishi and Sanchit had already started munching on a couple of sandwiches and had beers with them. The temperature outside was probably 12 degrees. They were pretty excited when they offered me a beer since it was damn cheap, just 1 euro.

While I was finishing my sandwich, Gourab got bitten by a strange looking bug on his neck but unfortunately, nothing happened to Gourab.

We took a bus from the airport to a particular stop that I can't recollect the name of. Then we hopped on to a tram which was supposed to drop us at the right place but a bunch of locals trolled us and told us that this was the wrong train. So we got down at what we thought was kouření zakázáno stop and tried to locate it on the map so that we could catch the right tram. We tried really hard to locate it on the map but even after 15 minutes of scrutinizing, we just couldn't locate it. 4 MBAs are unable to locate a bloody place on the map!! Suddenly, it stuck me that kouření zakázáno is NOT  a place but it means - No Smoking. It was a true LOL moment.

Finally we got on the right tram and headed towards our hostel - Art Hole. Prague appeared to be a desolate place, as if everyone has abandoned this city all of a sudden; the streets were pretty clean, minimal amount of people, calmness and quietude lurked in the air, buildings not too flashy but not crumbling either. Serene is the word.

This is Spartaaaaaaa

Once we reached Art Hole, we met with the fellow hostel mates from Germany, USA, Canada, Sweden, etc. and had a couple of beers.

Then we headed out and walked next to Vltava river for a couple of kms. After an insanely long journey and walking for miles, we got pretty hungry but none of us had a SIM card (we chose not to buy one and I am really not sure why, not that it affected us much since we were able to find free wifi every now and then) otherwise we would have looked for a nice place on Zomato. Nevertheless, we found this cute little cafe called Little Break??? which served us an average food but costed a bomb. Since then, we became pretty conscious about the restaurants that we visit. From here we went back to the hostel and decided to skip the pub crawl that night to catch on some sleep. As soon as Gray hit the bed, he started snoring, a feature that not only us but our roommates throughout our trip laughed at. As I was about to sleep, a roommate Andy walked in and told us about the last boat party of the season which we decided to attend. So all the people from the hostel gathered and Yoannes the caretaker took us to the boat party where we really had a great time. After a couple of hours, Gray wanted to go back by a cab but Rishi was hell bent on walking for 4kms back to the hostel which resulted in a minor discord (Delhi people and their shenanigans, ughhhh). All the hostel people finally took a few Ubers to a bar from which we went to another bar. We hung out for a while and then called it a day.

4th November (Prague):

We got up the next morning at a pretty decent hour and were ready to explore the city. Later that night, Brooke (from the hostel) told me that she was pretty surprised that after such a hectic day we even got up :P. First things first, we had our breakfast at the hostel and then we headed to the old town square to check out the famous Astronomical Clock which is the 3rd oldest and the oldest running astronomical clock in the world. The way to the clock included crossing some really interesting sights.

Wahan bhi kapde aise hi sookhte hain

Not his

We are everywhere

Old Town Square

The Astronomical Clock

I don't know what's happening here

They have such cute restaurants all over the place

From the Old Town Square, we headed towards the Charles Bridge which connects the old town with the Prague castle. Apparently this bridge is supposed to undergo some renovations beginning in 2019 and might take up to 20 years :O. The bridge offers some really breathtaking sights of the river as well as the city.

A common sight on the Charles bridge is the plethora of sketch artists and musicians.

I happened to notice a violinist at the bridge and couldn't stop myself from spending a moment listening to his music. We had a small chat afterwards where I told him about how Indian classical tuning of the violin is completely different from the Western classical which surprised him a lot. He even recommended a place where i could find a student violin in Prague as I was looking for one.

Galiyan of Prague

Do try Tredlnik

We tried a piiza slice from this place and it was too damn good

Looked pretty

Once we had crossed the Charles Bridge, the search for a local dish called Goulash had begun. We looked through the menus of several restaurants which were offering 'a' Goulash but not 'the' Goulash that Gourab had read about...so the search continued. The next stop was the Lennon Wall which has a pretty cool history. It used to be a normal wall but after the assassination of John Lennon in 1980, it has been filled with Lennon inspired graffiti and lyrics from Beatles' songs. You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennon_Wall

 A restaurant like this :D

Picturesque

What a city 

By this time, the three of us had started getting really amused by an irritated Gourab who just couldn't be happy with the Goulash that was being offered by the restaurants that we were encountering on our way. So Rishi named him Rekha. For those who don't understand the context, feel free to refresh your memory here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nOSn6HfULA. Finally we landed up in a restaurant called Beseda where he got the Goulash that he wanted, and I had a Rezane.

Once Rekha became Gourab, we headed to the Prague castle which is the largest ancient castle in the world. It is the office of the President of Czechia, and has some Bohemian Crown Jewels hidden inside a particular room. The castle complex also houses St. Vitus' cathedral.

Road to the castle

View from the top

Guard changing ceremony happens every hour

The cathedral

While we were slowly making our way down from the castle to the main city, we noticed an antique Czech restaurant called Staroceska restaurace which is housed in a building constructed in the 1500s. We had a couple of desserts here. Once we had paid the bill, Sanchit asked for an onion from the owner for his ready to eat food. Yup, an onion. The owner had a bizarre look on his face, quite understandably though.

We reached the city pretty quickly and the sight of the Charles Bridge during the night was quite mesmerizing.

Sure is

The next morning we were supposed to go to a shooting range for which we had paid an advance. Rishi and I were pretty pumped about this but Gourab on the other hand, had joined purely because of FOMO (fear of missing out). For reasons unknown to me, Gourab backed out from this and Sanchit followed suit for he wanted to explore the city instead of spending 3-4 hours in the shooting activity. Nevertheless, Rishi and I had decided to go anyway but we lost 20 euros on the advance that we had paid. Once we reached the hostel I started penning down stuff for the blog while the rest of them went to sleep. We had decided to venture out that night but I wasn't feeling too great so I stayed back and chatted with Brooke for a couple of hours while writing the points for the blog. Sanchit, Rishi and Gourab went out to explore the city. For further details about this, feel free to contact Gourab ;)

5th November (Prague):

The next morning Rishi and I got up a bit early to go for shooting. We tried AR 15 semi automatic rifle and a CZ 550 Winchester 0.303 sniper rifle. What we didn't like was that the shooting was done indoors otherwise firing these guns felt just too great.

Around 3 hours had passed in this activity post which we returned to the hostel. The grand plan of Gourab and Sanchit to explore the city while we were shooting came to a naught because laziness, you know :P. The four of us went to the main street where Sanchit wanted to do some shopping from H&M. I waited outside to hear the music of a street musician; he was playing a 100 year old violin. 

That's Sigmund Freud hanging there

We were feeling a bit hungry so I purchased a hotdog and Gourab got a Chlebicek.

We started heading towards the Spanish Synagogue which we just had a look at from the outside as the entry tickets were too damn costly. Anyway, on Gourab's insistence we went to check out the Prague City Hall which happens to be an administrative building. Why on earth would I want to check such a boring place, ugh!! But the building had something really interesting called Paternoster, the elevator of death.

We spent 15 minutes with this crazy elevator and then we went to a bibliophile's heaven, the Municipal Library of Prague which was established in 1891 and has a Bible from 1488 :O

The next stop was the New Town Square wherein Sanchit, Rishi, and Gourab headed to H&M again for some shopping. I decided to finally pay a visit to a violin shop call Spidlen where I got to touch a hundred year old violin. If only I were rich, I would have purchased it....what a beauty it was.

After an hour or so, the four of us met at a McDs where an argument ensued. Sanchit and Rishi wanted to skip the Petrin Tower whereas Gourab wanted to first check out the funicular train which leads to the Petrin Tower and then visit the Vysehrad castle, so went our separate ways. Much to the chagrin of Gourab, the train had got closed the very same day for maintenance and repair work. Neverthless, Gourab and I clicked some pictures and headed towards the Vysehrad castle. 

Prague (and Vienna, Budapest as well) closes so early that the route for the castle was really dark and spooky. And by the time we reached, there was hardly anyone in sight. We literally shouted for Sanchit and Rishi so that we could find them. Since we didn't have local SIM cards, there was just no other option to find each other. Luckily, after 30 minutes we found each other and for some reason were pretty excited about it. So there we were, the four of us near a spooky castle, chugging some beers and having poop corns.  

We spent close to an hour at the castle and then we took a tram + bus for the hostel. Once we reached there, I bumped into a Colombian hostel mate whom I had met earlier in the morning. We conversed in Spanish for a while and went to a bar called Deja Vu. Rishi, Sanchit and an Indian lawyer whom we had met during breakfast joined us. All of us had a couple of drinks, shared our stories and then called it a day.

A testament of love in a toilet. Yes, even they do this :P

6th November (Vienna):

We were supposed to take a train to Vienna the next morning so we woke up pretty early, had free breakfast at the hostel, took (read: stole) an apple from the fridge and walked till the station. Guess what? The train was delayed by 20 mins. India is not that bad now, huh? But it was really great to see a passenger playing a piano kept at the station. Our train journey was pretty smooth and we reached Vienna in a few hours. 

Restaurant in the trian

A store in Vienna 

Rishi, Sanchit and I walked till our hostel Wombat and Gourab took taxi (grandpa I tell you). 

Wombat hostels are insane. they are unlike any other hostel that you might have stayed at. Luxurious, spacious, good crowd, and they have they their own bars :D. 

Since we had reached a bit earlier, we were chilling in the hostel lobby until we got our rooms. Once we got the rooms, we quickly kept our luggage and went to explore the Naschmarket which has a 16th century origin and has a lot of stalls selling spices, food items, desserts, etc. 

My bed in Wombat :D

Naschmarket 

We hogged on some delicious falafel and started walking towards the Schonbrunn Palace which was the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers and has 1441 rooms. Well, it was a 1 hour walk for the three of us but Gourab had taken a metro to the palace and was super pissed with us for wasting time. 

By the time we reached there it got pretty dark and we didn't explore the palace much as no one was interested in paying 30 euro entry ticket. This is when I realized that my next trip has to be solo :P. 

 

We then took a metro aka tube to Opera House because it would be insane to not experience an Opera in Vienna. We stood in a queue for an hour just to get in. The whole setup, the orchestra, story line, actors was just so grand and mesmerizing, an experience which is unlike anything. Unfortunately, the other three were getting bored so we had to leave after the break :(. 

We then went to a really famous hot dog stand for a hot dog. It was getting really cold but we had planned to pay Travel Shack a visit since Gourab had read about it on the internet. But it turned out to be such a bore that we left after just a shot.

We decided to go back to the hostel and check out their bar and boy was it a madhouse. People were buying shots for others, crazy games all around, pool, great music....total fun. Some dude bought us Jagerbombs!!! And thus ended our 1st day in Vienna. 

7th November (Vienna):

I woke up the next morning a bit early and a bit unhappy with the fact that we hadn't really explored much of the city. So I got a map of the place and started figuring out the places which we should visit and other things we should do. The first place that we visited was a museum called Leopold which was under renovation so we didn't get to see much. But before that, we had a quick look at the Nachmarket.

Entering the Museumquartier

Christmas celebrations underway

From there, we walked to Maria Theresien Platz which is a large public square. On one side of the square, there is Natural History Museum and on the other side there is the Art History Museum. When we were clicking photographs at the square, something interesting happened which I would let Sanchit describe: "We were doing some artsy sightseeing when one aunty was handing out some roses to people in general, I saw and knew that had to avoid her but next thing I know is rRshi is taking one rose from her and whats more is that he is calling me to take one as well. Next thing is that aunty starts saying (with elaborate hand actions) that she has a kid with no eyes and needs money for surgery. Now figuring out what exactly her intentions were Rishi immediately hands back her rose but I thought ok fine 1 Euro types de dete hai! Little did I know waha ke bikhaari India ke bikhaari se bhi do kadam aage hai, she took out a 10 Euro note from my wallet!! I was like wapis kar!! But ended up giving 5 euros for that one rose which me and rishi put on splitwise!!😂😂"

From the square, we went to the Hofburg Palace which serves as the official residence and workplace of the President of Austria. It is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty.

The palace houses the Spanish Riding School where the horses train and perform. 

The next stop on our list was the Vienna City Hall called Rathaus which is where the Mayor works. We sat here for a while, maybe even slept for a while for the whole building seemed to be a bit deserted. While going to Rathaus, Sanchit spotted a very pretty girl walking on the street and gave the rose to her by saying (if my memory serves me right), "This for good luck". And she smiled and accepted it. Lol.

We passed through a beautiful garden before reaching the Rathaus

On the way to Rathaus, we saw the Austrian Parliament Building which was under renovation. The building has around a 100 rooms. 

Founding fathers of Vienna

Since we were getting a bit thirsty, we walked to the University of Vienna, not to quench our thirst for knowledge :P but to have some beer. Yeah, that's right, the university has a beer garden. We had amazing food and beer at the Stiegl Ambulanz restaurant in the university. 

Microbrewery in the campus

After having a sumptuous meal (and packing up the leftovers), we headed to the Stephen's cathedral, also known as the Stephansdom which had opened up in 1160. 

There were quite many souvenir shops near the church so we purchased a few things there. And in one of these shops I discovered something priceless and has become one of my most prized possessions now. 

Since it was going to be a sunset soon, Gourab and I decided to have a cruise on the river Danube to explore the city further. Sanchit and Rishi on the other hand, decided to go for a shopping. But they also went somewhere which gave them a really good view of the river.

Once we completed our respective activities, we met at the hostel, ate somewhere and went to a casino where we pretty much lost everything. Phew, what a fun day it was!!!

8th November (Budapest):

We took a bus from Vienna to Budapest and the ride was super comfy. 

We were reminiscing India a bit once we encountered some traffic the moment we entered Budapest. We took a train and walked the last bit to reach Hostel One which gave us a really cool and cozy vibes, and of course we met some really amazing people from all over the globe. 

Longest escalator that I have ever seen

As soon as we arrived, the caretakers informed us of a mini tour which was going to visit a small village 30km away from Budapest called Szentendre. The village was beautiful and scenic beyond words. We enjoyed some local ice cream, had a wine tasting session in a wine cellar, and enjoyed some quiet time by the riverside. 

We have left our mark everywhere :P

Creativity max

As the sun was setting, we started heading towards the train and we were mingling with others. Now, yes, I agree that people sometimes make up stuff to sound interesting and impress people but then there is a limit to the exaggeration, something which Rishi clearly doesn't pay heed to. I will let Sanchit describe the whole thing - 

Ok so here it goes.We were on a day trip to this village called Szentendre near Budapest and after chilling there for an hour and after a nice wine tasting (which for us was wine shots and asking for a refill a few times earning ourselves a couple of "how gawaar are u, that's not how wine tasting works looks") Mr Siwach was very nicely drunk and then came in his natural element.

At some sunset point with a beautiful panaromic view of the village Mr siwach was talking to some firang and told her that he liked Indian Chinese cuisine and to which she asked how did that come into existence. Mr Siwach - "loong loong time ago one Chinese guy came to india and met some Indian people (like in the movie the last samurai) and introduced his local cuisine to the Indian guy but we Indians don't like bland food so we mixed some.of our herbs and masala to add a kick of flavour to it and hence the origin of Indian Chinese and the origin of the phrase "Hindi cheeni Bhai Bhai".

Well, that's that :D. We reached our hostel and just chilled for a while, met a few other other people and then went out for some sight seeing. 

We almost bought a Ferrari.....Ferrari miniature but then changed our minds once we realized that we couldn't even afford that. 

ROFL

We walked a bit further and reached the St. Stephen's Basilica. Wikipedia says the right hand of Mr. Stephen, the 1st king of Hungary is kept in this cathedral. Ughh. 

We accidentally came across a controversial war memorial called the Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation which has quite a history. We saw several photos, suitcases, shoes, etc. of the survivors and their descendants and family members. 

It was getting a bit dark and more importantly, time for a free dinner at the hostel so we rushed back to save money and to enjoy the local cuisine. Before the hostel caretakers take you out for bar hopping, some pre drinking sessions and games are conducted in the hostel itself. Much Love _/\_. We went to Simpla, Fogas, and a couple of other places before calling it a night.

9th November (Budapest):

We woke up the next morning at around 10, had a quick breakfast, and went out to explore the city. We walked up to the chain bridge so that we could reach across the Buda side of the city from the Pest side where we were staying. 

Then Gourab and I took the funicular to the Buda castle, whereas Rishi and Sanchit chose to climb up (they took their own sweet time :P). While Gourab and I were waiting for the guard changing ceremony to begin, Rishi and Sanchit reached the top with a really concerned and horrified look on their face. What happened was that Rishi got a call from the airlines that our flight back to Delhi has been cancelled, and a smaller aircraft would be flying us back to India. Now, there is no guarantee that it would accommodate all of us so would it be okay if we postponed our return by 2 more days. Rishi being a typical Delhite began his, "Jaanta hai mera baap kaun hai' kind of approach which pretty much scared the airlines I presume. All four of us panicked and started looking for a wifi so that we could checkin at the earliest. We asked a random girl to give us a hotspot and we wuickly checked in, and thanked her profusely. Gourab was worried that the airlines had not called him, and I was worried that airlines wouldn't be even able to contact me since I had no sim. 

Anyway, we saw the guard changing ceremony which happens every hour, and from there we went to the Fisherman's Bastion. After a couple of hours we headed back to the hostel, mingled with the others and geared up for the boat party.

 

Rishi, Sanchit, and I headed to the boat party with the rest of the hostel walks and boy, what a great fun was that. We met people from all over the globe, even a Hindi speaking Brit. All of us went to a few more pubs after the boat party and then called it a day.

This guy reminded me of Chris Hemsworth

10th November (Budapest - Kiev - Delhi):

Finally, the D-day came and none of us were very interested in leaving this beautiful place behind. I don't know about others, but I was secretly hoping that our tickets don't get confirmed and we get to stay back for 2 more days. There is nothing great waiting back there anyway; I for sure don't find any happiness in the noise and filth that awaits in India. Every inch of my body was hating the idea of going back but...what other option did we have? We landed in Delhi on 11th November and for several weeks that followed, none of us were physically present here in India. We were missing Europe badly, and I was seriously thinking about finding ways to move to Europe. It has been months now and the feeling hasn't gone away completely. As compared to my other trips, this was the most impactful because this is the one which left me with many answered questions and has thrown umpteen dilemmas on me. Well, I don't want to end this blog on a serious note, so I present you this:

Also, please don't forget to vote in this election. Maybe we will become as clean, disciplined, and full of civic sense like Europe some day.

Wandering Wheelz of The Trip:

Rishi, Sanchit, Gourab/Gray/Rekha, Eshan

Check out more photos/videos of the trip on: 

http://www.pictame.com/user/eshan_kaptures/2434263180