Budapest

First out of border trip in Poland! That's what Budapest mean. Budapest is the favorite city of mine with its fascinating environment. I really liked the city's atmosphere, Danube River and the bridges over it reminded me Istanbul's enchanting Bosphorous view.

It was very funny trip with friends. We went there with bus full of people with my Erasmus friends. We started from Krakow and it took 7 hours for us to reach Budapest. After dropping out our luggages to hostel, We started discovering the city. Even it looks like one city it actually consist of two regions. Old Buda and new Pest side. Danube river splits Buda and Pest side of city. Two sides are connected with bridges. Chain bridge is the most famous bridge in Budapest. It connects two side of city.

   Chain bridge

Our trip in Budapest was planned trip so we have followed the schedule which is organized by ESN AGH (Erasmus Student Network). Our first stop was wine cellar in Hilton Hotel on the Buda bank of the city. We tasted famous wines of Hungary. It was very sophisticated and well decorated place. Beside tasting, you can buy wide range of wines from cellar. I really liked this place.

After wine cellar we have seen the Fisherman's bastion which is terrace in the Castle Hill with the view of river and bridges.

Fisherman's bastion

Fisherman's bastion is located around Matthias church and it has cafe with perfect view of Budapest. I suggest you to sit and enjoy Budapest's beauty from this terrace. After these places we have returned Pest side. Walking on bridge and other places gets us hungry and it was time for lunch with Hungarian traditional foods. If we want talk about Hungarian foods, we can say that Goulash and Langosh are most famous dishes of Hungarian cuisine. It is mostly focused to meat and dough. You can also find different types of drinks made with fruits and vodka which are special for Hungary.

Langosh

After eating delicious dishes, our next stop was boat tour in Danube river. Weather was sunny and we were ready to know Budapest's beauty. We have seen a lot of iconic places such as Parliament building and Buda Castle. Here are some pictures from boat trip.

Budapest is full of historical and cultural places but it is also famous with its night life. Budapest famous with its ruin pubs. Best ruin pubs in Europe are located in Budapest. Ruin pubs are unique places to have fun with its historical and sophisticated decoration. Second day of trip started with city tour with guide. We have walked around city centre and learnt the history of Hungary and stories of important places of Budapest. One of them is Buda Castle. Buda Castle is the Royal Palace of Hungarian Kings, It has been built in 1265. Today castle is used as museum and gallery. 

Buda Castle

We have also encountered with Peter Pan statue in city center. Our guide said that if you make a wish while you are touching kneecap of Peter Pan, your wish will come true. So we just decided to realize this myth. Let's wait and see legend is true or not :)

Budapest has not only offers for buildings but also for natural parks. City Park is one of the natural beauty's of Budapest. It has statues, small lake, walking trails, bike paths in it. We have met with funny violinist in City Park and this photo has taken thanks to him...

Funny memory in Park :)

Another worth-to-see points of Budapest are Andrassy avenue and Heroes square. Andrassy avenue is main boulevard with lots of luxury cafes,restaurants and boutiques. It is known as Champs-Elysee of Budapest. Andrassy Avenue connects city to Heroes square and city park. It is one of must-to-see places of Budapest.

Opera House in Andrassy Avenue

At the end of Andrassy avenue you will see Heroes square which is one of the most famous squares in Budapest. Name of square is given to commemorate Hungarian national leaders and heroes.

Heroes square

At the third day of trip in Budapest, we had free time to discover city by ourselves and to buy souvenirs. After taking my usual souvenirs -postcards and magnets- I discovered another taste of Hungary. Kürtőskalács... I called Kürtos in short. Kürtos is different type of pastry which is made from dough stripped around cone and served with sugar or almond according to choice. I liked it because it was like my mother's cakes :) 

In summary, Budapest is a place full of with cultural, historical and also entartainment background. If you are interested in culture and history, you will find a lot of museums, exhibitions, palaces, statues to learn about. If you are looking for fun, you can find most amazing pubs and bars for interesting experience. If you are looking for nature, you will find huge park in the center of city to get relaxed.

Kraków

Hello everyone! 

This article will be my first entry in my brand new blog. From now on I will be sharing my experiences around world. I am really excited about my first entry so I wanted to start with place which is very special for me. Kraków... 

Kraków is a very special place for me because I have lived there for 5 months as Erasmus student. In these 5 months, this beautiful city turned into be "home" for me after Turkey so I may do positive discrimination in this article for my second home :)

Ok, now let's start with quick preview of Kraków's history and culture background. Kraków is second largest and former capital of Poland before Warsaw. It has also known as science, culture and art center of Poland. You can be sure that you will bump into museum, exhibition or cultural events in Kraków streets regardless the time of a year. Kraków can also be proven its science and art background with having oldest university of Europe which is Jagiellonian University. Jean Paul II lived and studied in Krakow. He became an archbishop of Krakow and at the end he was the first Slavic Pope in Catholic church.

Before getting started talking about places to visit, I want to inform you about climate and transportation alternatives of Krakow and Poland. Poland is known with its drastic weather conditions in winter. My friends from previous year warned me about its cold weather so I took warm coats, sweaters and very thick clothes that I have never wore in my life however I was lucky in period when I was in Kraków because I have never encountered with any snow or frozen cold weather so that thick clothes went back to Turkey without even be worn but don't take my experience as reference and be sure that you took some sweaters and coats with you if you go Poland in winter period. Krakow is easily reachable from almost all main European cities. City has airport and lots of airline companies has direct flights to Krakow and also some airline companies such as Ryanair offer very affordable prices for people who have limited budget like students. If you are coming from Turkey, unfortunately Ryanair is not an option for flight to Krakow but you can find wide range of options among lots of airline companies. There are several options to reach Krakow except Krakow airport. I will tell you my path. Me and my friend from my faculty - Beste choose fly to Warsaw and then taking bus which is called PolskiBus. We took our ticket from Ukranian airlines which is indirect flight. Our first stop was Kiev and then Warsaw but you can choose direct flights from Istanbul to Warsaw which takes approximately one and half hour. After reaching Warsaw it takes 5 hours with bus to Krakow. You may say its a long trip but it can also be seen as advantage because you will be able to see different cities of Poland in quick view. 

Well if you reached Krakow, now we ready to explore Krakow's natural and historical beauties as well as its fantastic night life :) We will start with Rynek Główny which means main square in Polish language. If you reach Krakow with plane, you can take bus and tram to reach main square, it is approximately 1 hour in total. If you chose bus, it means you will reach main station of Krakow. This station is used not only for busses but also for trains. Krakow Glowny (Main station) is really nice because its located near city center and there is shopping mall connected with station which is called Galeria Krakowska. You can easily meet your needs in this mall before your trip. You can take bus or tram to get city center but if you don't have big luggages I suggest you to walk to main square because it's only 10 minutes by walk. Rynek Glowny is rectangular shaped area, there is Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) among the square and it is surrounded by St. Mary's Church, Town Hall Tower and lots of restaurants and shops and bars. Main square is in World Heritage List of UNESCO since 1978 as part of old town of Krakow.

Sukiennice was center for trade for selling goods such as textiles, spices, silks and salts which are imported from various countries by traders. 

Sukiennice in main square at the beginning of our first trip in Krakow :)

For me St. Mary's Church is the most important symbol of main square with its magnificient siluet. Two towers of church are not same and it has legend behind it. Two architects of church were brothers. Famous and old brother finishes his tower and he starts to wait for his younger brother to finish its tower but soon he realises that the tower which was building by his younger brother will be much better than his own tower and he starts to be jealous and finally one day when he was drunk, he kills his brother. Younger brother's tower remains incompleted... There is a tradition in St. Mary's Church. Every hour, trumpet signal is played by real trumpeter from the top of the taller tower and If you wave your hands to trumpeter you will see that he will reply you back. Feel free to try :) This trumpet signal is cut off suddenly in the middle of signal. It's because to commemorate the trumpeter who was shot while he was playing the alarm before Mongol attack to city.

St. Mary's Church

There are lots of options to do around main square. You can sit in nice and cozy cafes and restaurants with the view of main square, you can take a trip with horse cars which are making circle around main square, you can take pictures with street artists or you can chill out in bars while trying famous polish beers and if you are adrenalin addicted, you may even try haunted house which gives you thrilling and breath-taking 15 minutes in very special decorated house in Florianska street which is most famous street of main square.

Main Square

After enjoying the charm of main square, it's time to visit the power nest of Krakow. Wawel Castle has built in 14th century in the reign of Casimir III the Great. Wawel Royal Castle was Royal palace of Polish Kings until Warsaw become new Capital of Poland. Today Wawel Royal Castle is art museum which contains collection of Italian Renaissance paintings, sculptures and Royal armories. You can visit Leonardo Da Vinci's famous Lady with Ermine painting in Wawel Royal Castle Museum. One of the most interesting legend of Wawel Hill is about cave of dragon. It is presumed that this dragon was living in the cave under the Wawel Castle. Dragon was feeding itself with sheeps and cattle. King of Poland announced that if anyone kills dragon he promised to give his beautiful daughter as bride to him. After lots of trials by young and powerful knights nobody had defeated dragon with power strength yet finally one men named Krak prepared sulphure inside of dead sheep and let it near dragon's cave. Dragon ate dead sheep full with sulphure and it got very thirsty and it drank lots of water from Wisla river. After drinking lots of water it exploded. Krak married with King's daughter and became a King to Poland and his name was given to this city after him. Today there is dragon statue in Wawel Hill under Wawel Castle and it sprays fire from time to time. If you are lucky you can catch a photo with dragon's fire.

Dragon statue

If you are visitor of Krakow, you shouldn't skip to see one of the most famous parts of Krakow which has entitled in UNESCO World Heritage List. It is Wieliczka Salt Mine. It has been built in 13th century to produce table salt need of Poland and neighbour countries. Salt was one of the most important trade element in Poland. Today Wieliczka is museum open for tourist attractions. Mine contains statues, three chapels and one big cathedral carved out from rock salt 135 meters underground. Mine has 20 chambers to visit and each of them decorated in different style. In one part of tour, you will have visual show with music, lights and water reflections.

One of the chambers in Mine

You can see Da Vinci's The Last Supper carved in wall of rock salt and salt statue of Jean Paul II in cathedral. Mine also has ballroom for weddings and special events. I think it's really unique idea to have wedding here :D

You can capture your memory in Wieliczka even if you don't have camera. You can use Mine's photo docks to have photo with rock salts.

After cultural and historical places of Krakow I want to mention another culture of Poland. Every year in middle of May before final exams there is holiday for university students celebrated for 3 days. It is called Juwenalia. When I searched about Juwenalia in web I learnt that first Juwenalia celebrated in 15th century in Krakow. These 3 days are free of lectures and it is celebrated with concerts, festivals and special costume parade. This year Juwenalia started with festival in our university. There were parties and concerts in campus by popular bands and singers of Poland.

Funniest part was last day of Juwenalia, there was costume parade for us. All of the university students in Krakow dressed up like superheros, fairytale, comic or cartoon characters. We walked from university campus to main square and it was one of the best memory of me in Poland. It must be seen if you are there in this time. 

Funny festivals are not limited only with Juwenalia. Festival of color's target audience is same with Juwenalia. University students all around Krakow meet in festival area and fun begins. Students have fun with Concerts, competitons and color parties. All people buy packet of colorful powders in entrance of festival area. After concerts all people threw up their colorful powders to air and each other and everyone gets colorful :) We were really happy and stress relieved at the end of the day.

All in all Krakow is worth to visit with its historical, cultural and warm environment and my advice would be to you to have at least 3 days in Krakow. One day for museums and main square, one day for Wieliczka salt mine and one day for sightseeing small lakes and botanic parks around Krakow.

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