Oh Yeah! I know someone who is going to want these!

When my brother and I went to Europe together last year he would look for Hobbits in each grocery store we went into, which was good because it gave him something to do while I visited every grocery store in town looking for energy drinks and candy bars. We never did find any Hobbits on our trip, but we knew they had been sighted in Budapest. So on my way from Sighişoara to Bratislava I stopped in Budapest to have a look. It was too easy, the first grocery store I went into had them (and every store after that as well, even in Bratislava).

Shopping

Number one on the to do list in Bratislava, other than just being here and enjoying the city, was to go to Carrefour. I read a Carrefour press release last year that said they were selling all of their Slovakian stores to Tesco, pending regulatory approval. I guess that hasn't gone through yet because Carrefour is still here. I've now been to Carrefour in 14 different countries on 3 continents.

Bratislava

Not just another Austro-Hungarian city on the Danube, Bratislava is actually really cool. It has a nice compact historic center and you can spend a lazy day wandering around and enjoying the sunshine, which is exactly what I did. Also, I guess it's an open secret now but I have a thing for communist train station art! I better enjoy it now while it's still around.

Sighişoara

A nice enough Medieval town in Romania, but Romanian towns aren't very interesting. If you really want to enjoy Romania you need to do a farmstay in a tiny village. I met a girl who did one for a week and her pictures and stories were amazing, it's really like time travel.

Train trip through the Transylvanian countryside

Brasov, Romania

I didn't really want to come here. I left Bucharest after only about 5 hours having seen the 2 things I wanted to see. I intended to go straight to Sighişoara but with the extra time I had from not spending the night in Bucharest I kinda ended up here by default (all backpackers going through Romania end up here for some reason, I think it's to see some kind of Dracula Castle but I'm not interested). Brasov is another city that people are calling "the new Prague" but I just don't see it. It's too small and not very exciting.

A picnic lunch in Bucharest

Bucharest

The Parliamentary Palace which is apparently the 2nd largest building in the world. I don't know if that's really true or not but it is pretty big.

Boyana Church, Sofia

From the outside it just looks like a little chapel tucked away in a quite suburb of Sofia, but this part of the church was built in the 10th century and when you go inside you are just floored by some amazing 13th century frescoes (which of course they don't let you take pictures of). Just to look at the frescoes for a few minutes was well worth the hassle and a couple very long walks to get there.

Sofia, Bulgaria

After much debate about my many options I decided to head for Germany overland. My first stop was Sofia, Bulgaria on an overnight train. Upon arrival I had some more choices to make and instead of going to Skopje like I should have, I ended up spending 7 hours in Sofia to visit just one church and then catching another overnight train to Bucharest. Sofia was nice and I really didn't do it justice by only spending 7 hours there. I can't really say I know anything about the city, which means now I need to go back.