travels in europe

dublin, brussels & bratislava

the sun began to rise upon my summer and the imminent escapades with which i would embark upon, albeit on a budget. since my pockets were not heavily lined with an abundance of cash i turned to the good old reliable low cost airline that is ryanair. a vast amount of people complain about ryanair, and i at times am one such person, but, at the end of the day we shouldn’t complain too much. fair enough they will be charging us for the air we breathe next but in all fairness they are/can be ridiculously cheap.

and so i sat down at my computer and looked up flights, cheap flights. you see my destination was budapest, since i was planning on meeting friends there to go to the sziget festival. only over there did i do my research to find out that 'sziget' is hungarian for island, which makes an awful lot of sense considering the week long festival is on an island. so, i scanned through the ryanair site to see what my options were. it wasn’t looking very promising since there were no direct flights to budapest. just then i had remembered a brilliant website which i was told about by a barman whilst on a trip in vienna. he had told me how he had very little money and needed to get home to ireland for very cheap. the site in question was that of 'skyscanner.net'. a brilliant site which does all the hard work for you. simply type in where you are flying to and from and it gives all direct and indirect flights in order of price in a matter of seconds. definitely a site to remember.

with this in mind i checked up flights to budapest, indirect flights should i say. the resulting search was as follows: dublin to brussels €6, then brussels to bratislava €23, both in the same day. so, basically up and out of bed at approximately 2.30 am to leave for the bus at 3.30 am from my home town here in ireland for the one hour journey to dublin airport. this was the only bus i could get as the next one would have left me missing my flight. not a bad thing considering i am always late and rushing for such deadlines so it is always nice to be on time in an airport, nothing worse than rushing and panicing and running for your plane like your life depended on it. so i arrive in good time at dublin airport and check in for my flight with time to kill. i head for the bar and muse to myself as i look at planes take off and land. i'm excited now as the sun is rising beyond the planes on the horizon.

i've had a drink and read my book and so my nerves are somewhat calm. i usen't to be a weary or nervy flyer but for some reason, as i progress through the years of my ever diminishing youth i seem to becoming more and more of the aforementioned flyer. oh well, what can one do! besides the obvious answer, that of dropping a valium or having a drink or three, i am a firm believer that such a fear should not stop oneself from the thrills of travel. the adrenaline rush of taking off and landing is something everyone should experience on more than one occasion. it is always worth it when you set foot in another country, to experience new cultures, meet new people and expand your mind, your horizons so to speak.

the flight to brussels is a short one from dublin and i even manage to fit in about a half hour of sleep. we touch down and the sun is shining. the airport is quite small and in no time i am out the other side. i collect a map of brussels from the information desk and i’m hopping on a bus to kill the few hours that i have before i jet off again to bratislava. it is my first time in brussels and so i head straight for the centre of the city, or at least what i perceive to be the centre. i purchase a cold bottle of beer and continue to stroll around the streets to take in as many sites as possible in the very limited time i have here. i find a very attractive looking building and sit myself in front of it and soak up the sun and think. i want to take photos but i don’t have my camera on me so i am subjected to the use of my camera phone which really does not do what i am seeing justice. i gather my thoughts, collect myself and stroll back to bus station. as i am doing so a group of buddhists stroll by me with smiles as big as the moon. this puts a smile on my face. yes, smiles are contagious, so it seems.

back in brussels airport i board my flight to bratislava, slightly tiring at this stage. i have passed through bratislava before but only en route to or from vienna, so, this will be somewhat of an adventure seeing as i am on my own and it is getting dark and i have no hostel booked. oh yes, i forgot to mention that i will have to stay the night in bratislava and depart for budapest via train at some relatively early time tomorrow. this is also a good time to mention that me being the over excited idiot that i am, changed pretty much all my euro to hungarian forints in dublin airport completely forgetting that i have yet to pay for accommodation in bratislava, and since my euro is dwindling away like there is no tomorrow, it bodes for an adventure in bratislava.

i touch down in bratislava and it is near full darkness. this airport is even smaller than that of brussels and in this lighting with pretty much only the moon, it looks more like a long narrow old galvanised garden shed. i stroll over to the bus across the road and hop on. the good thing about transport here is that it is so cheap. the bad thing is that the ticket machines are so hard to understand, in that there is little to no indication as to where or how much your ticket is. this brings me to a humouring story of three of my friends who were to arrive a day after me. they also travelled through bratislava, and also stumbled upon the lack of information on the bus ticket machines. so, with a good few beers in them they cleverly decided to throw caution to the wind and jump on the bus from the airport into bratislava and hope no ticket inspector would confront them. low and behold their worst nightmare was realised and they get fined on the spot. no leniency or pity was experienced and each of the guys had to cough up i think €40 or so on the spot. what’s even funnier is that, having had this experience, the next time they made it their business to make sure they purchased a bus ticket. so, as i was saying earlier about the lack of information on these machines with just buttons running down them, the lads put money into what they thought was a bus ticket machine. before they know it a polystyrene coffee cup drops down from the machine only to dispense coffee. all the lads could do was laugh their heads off. i can only imagine that they were drunk at this stage.

i am walking through the outskirts of bratislava and it is now fast approaching 11pm and people are beginning to fade into the night and their homes. i, on the otherhand, am pretty much homeless and fast running out of my remaining euro. going with my instincts i cannot help but feel i am walking away from the city centre. bratislava is not the most beautiful city by any stretch of the imagination. from what i have seen of it it is quite industrial, except of course for the old town square, where i need to get to quick. i hop on a bus, again, and this time get chatting to what looks like a backpacker but turns out to be a local. he is friendly, gives me directions and even a bus ticket to get back into town. this restores my overall view of bratislava, i was starting to get restless. i reach the centre and stroll around looking for a hostel. that’s another thing, nothing is signposted here, well, at least not until you reach the tourist area that is the town square. i cannot even find an internet cafe and the bars are barely even visible. with the predicament i am in i see a group of approximately ten backpackers walking into and out of a hotel reception area. i take it they were asking directions to a hostel. so, i follow them down and around a few backstreets until i see them walking towards a hostel. i sneekily overtake just at the door and it turns out i got the last room. i could have kissed the girl at reception. what a relief.

the room, costing €30, is lovely, considering it is a hostel. it has two single beds pushed together, en-suite, tv with cable and overlooking a lovely courtyard. this is perfect. i lie down for a few minutes to gather my thoughts and plan my trip to budapest tomorrow. i have the train timetable to budapest and a map. it turns out i am approximately half an hour walk from the train station and i will be leaving for Budapest on the 1.15pm train.

to be continued...