Euro Trip Plan - Slovenia, Italy, Czech Rep., Austria and Hungary

Last week at this time, I was thinking if I should go travel in the Europe. One of my housemates went travelling with family and the other with her course mates around Ireland, Eastern and Western Europe. So that left me alone at home but I had a wonderful trip to Seven Sisters near Brighton but that was only for a night stay, though it was very fun.

So, back to the question of whether or not I should travel Europe. First question I asked to myself - Am I willing to spend some money for this trip. After much consideration, I decided to put a sum of budget and work things out from it. I started to look at the places around Europe especially Eastern Europe cause it's relatively cheaper in all aspect - currency, foods, accommodations, etc. After much of reading and research, I finally came out with a list of places that I will be visiting in my 13 days trip and can be illustrated below.

Euro Trip - 13 days

My first destination is Bled and Bohinj in Slovenia. These two places are very popular with their beautiful lakes and surrounding areas. I will be touching down at Trieste Airport at around 1435hr, which leaves with two options. First wait for 6 hours in Nova Gorica to board the train (Euro 5.00) to Bled-Jezero OR take a bus to Trieste then change to Ljubljana and take a train to Lesce-Bled which in total cost about 20 Euro. Obviously I am not going to just sit around and do nothing, so I've decided to take a longer route which will allow me to explore Trieste town before heading to Ljubljana. 3 nights will be dedicated these two places.

The next stop would be Venice, Italy. The accommodations here are expensive - as a backpacker, I always look for cheaper alternatives. Fortunately I found one but the location wasn't that great. It is called the Camping Jolly. This place will have facilities such as the swimming pool, open door gym great for relaxations.

The next day I will be travelling to Lake Como via Milan. From Venice to Milan, I booked a train which only cost me for 9 Euro under the Super Economy ticket category trenitalia.com . A regular ticket would have cost me 35 Euro. Lake Como is located near the Switzerland-Italy border. I am planning to rent a bike to tour around the lake and provided I have enough time, I will try to cross border to Switzerland and bike around Lake Lugano.

On the next day early in the morning, I will be heading to Bergamo by train and then transfer to the airport to catch my 1205hr flight to Brno. Upon arrival in Brno, I will be heading to Prague by bus. The bus that I am taking in no ordinary bus. It has very advanced entertainment system on the bus with free coffee and tea provided to all passengers. The company that owns this bus is called the Student Agency bus, first founded by students.

After Prague, I will be staying one night in Vienna, Austria and head to Budapest for the Saturday night thermal bath event before taking a train in the morning to Siofok, Hungary which is located near Lake Balaton. In Budapest, one of the most popular activity is spa and public bath. I am looking forward for a good experience in this. Also, they have quite good party locations around the town.

Until then...

Brighton and Seven Sisters

Over the past few months, life had been a little bit hectic with all the coursework and preparation for my final exam followed by the completion of my final year project report and presentation. I realised that after the exam and all the coursework will be a period of transition between the old and the new chapters of my life. But before that chapter arrives, I am planning to use the time wisely - treat myself something good after the 4 years of hardship in Imperial, hence decided to do a 1 night trip at the Seven Sisters with some of the Mech Engers. This is an all guys trip to Seven Sisters, located approximately 30 km from west from Brighton. The original plan was to catch some fish and BBQ them have a short nap in the car and camps before heading back to London. There were 7 of us headed for Brighton from London, took about 3 hours of slow drive (stopped by Croydon to buy a 4-men tent). One of us has his own car and we decided to rent another ZipCar from London. It was a fun journey on the way to our destination. We first head to do some fishing and catch as much mussels and crabs as possible for dinner. 

Fab the Pro

Unfortunately, I am not a pro in shore fishing, so as expected, we failed to catch any fish. But Fab, my Italian friend was very skilled in catching mussels and crabs, showing us the bunch of Asians on how to do it. We next drove to one of the national reserve - the Seven sisters. There is a reason why this place is called the Seven sisters. Look at the picture below. You can see 7 bumps at the cliffs in the picture shown below.

The Seven Sisters

Upon arrival we set up some of the cooking facilities for BBQ and tent. Weather on that day was wonderful and we did not face any problem cooking near the beach. It took us awhile before we could sleep at night. Looking up the sky and talking like we know how the future will be. At the same time, we competed on counting the shooting stars that entered in to the atmospheres and eventually slept without knowing. Next morning, I woke up at around 0500hrs, took a short walk around the area and decided to snap some photos of the morning scenery. That is me in the photo trying to be in the picture while setting the camera on timer.

The river and Me

City-Get-Away house

The river bank with man-made structure

River towards the sea

The path along the river

Around Seven Sisters

Where all the rabbits lives

Went fishing around 9 am. Super sunny. That my friend trying to fish.

 

Tired of fishing, we decided to take a break

We decided to stop by Brighton for lunch before our journey back to London

Most of us took the Harry's Challenge.

Our Winner of the Harry's Challenge

 

My checklist

Here are a few stuff that I have and haven't accomplished:

1. Final year examination = DONE
2. Final year report submission = DONE
3. Final year project presentation = DONE
4. Hangout with the Mech Enger's at BBQ = DONE
5. Mech Eng trip to 7 Sister's = DONE

So now, what is next before I start my busy working life back in Malaysia? More hanging out with friends before we part our ways in pursuing our new dream, which are making loads of money and building a happy family. What will things be after 10 or 20 years. I hope all of us will still be in touch with each other on facebook (if facebook still exists at that time). 

The morning of Advanced Stress Analysis Paper

Woke up in the morning, felt OK with a bit of confident

Walked to UNI, arrive chit chat with some friends feeling confident..

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Enter the exam Hall

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First Question!!!!!!

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By the end of the first Questions

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By The End of The PAPER!!!!!

New Obsessions

During the time approaching exam, I tend to have obsession on certain activities. An example from last year was “reading Bloomberg every day during meal time and before I sleep”. For my final year (which is this year) my obsession changed and expanded to a few activities. First is playing HON, also known as Heroes Of Newerth. This is a game similar to DoTA but I found it very interesting, mainly due to the new hero concepts that differentiate this game from DoTA. I tend of make excuses to myself that I am allowed to play 1 or 2 games every time I finish 3 chapters of revision. But to my surprise my obsession to this game has no limit. I always end up wasting 4 to 6 hours playing the game. I am going to delete the game for the time being and resume after exam -  that’s if i am still interested to play HON.

My second obsession is playing basketball. Early in this academic year,I started joining the Malaysia Society Basketball sessions. I realised that I knew nothing about basketball apart from throwing the ball into the basket. So I start to research on the fundamental on how to shoot the ball in a consistent manner, drills for ball handling, offence and defence strategies and learning some of the wonderful signature moves from popular basketball players such as Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. I have a lot more to learn but that will take time.

Alright enough of confessing my obsessions. It’s time for me to get serious on revision.. BACK to REVISION!!!!!

Bad Luck Again

Couple of months ago, I’ve encountered many strange and less fortunate events. For starter, I have my bike stolen and then returned the next day at the place I parked it. How strange was that? And on top of that, I bought a new bike for GBP36 before I recovered the stolen bike. Never mind that. Just a day ago, the first day of term in 2012, I was surprised to find that MY BIKE WAS GONEE!!! The bike lock was found with a clean cut. I really love that bike very much. There is nothing I can do about it but to grieve.. How sad.. I hope that this person (The Thief) who stole my bike will be punished and feel sorry for what he or she had done.

Annoyed

Today I felt so annoyed with everything and anything that’s around me. Woke up in the morning (oh well sort of in the afternoon) tried to use Skype to call the UK German Rail Agency to purchase the Inter-Rail Ticket but failed due to some stupid issues between skype and 0871 number. So then I use my mobile to call. Guess what, no one pick up my phone for almost 5 minutes and I tried calling again and again and eventually paying 6 pounds without gaining anything from it. That really took my mood off for the whole day while having to completed a few planned activities.

Lost and Found

It had been a busy week with all the research for my final year project, meetings, lectures and preparation of my project plan report. Just last Friday, I lost my bike but I found it a day later. This is what happened on that day, I woke up late and rushed off to Uni. Like every other day I cycled my 2 years old bike there and it literally took me about 5 minutes compared to 15 to 20 minutes of walking. So I parked my bike at my favourite spot in that particular morning. Things went well for the next 8 hours and when I was heading back home, I couldn’t locate my bike at the bicycle parking lot. First thing that struck my head was, “Shit I lost my bike”  and I came up with a few theories:

• I did not lock my bike properly in the morning.
• So then someone saw it unlocked and decided to get him or herself a free ride home
• OR Someone saw it unlocked and decided to hand it to the unversity security guard.

There was nothing I could do at that time so I decided to look for a new bike from EBay. I found one bike in good condition that cost me about GBP35. I was still hoping that someone was just putting a prank on me and gave me back the bike the day after. On Saturday, I walked to Uni in the morning to check on the same parking lot before head off for a group discussion in my department but my bike was nowhere to be seen. So I thought that it is time to just buy the bike I saw in the EBay. So I bought it for GBP 35 and it required me to collect the bike from Isleworth, some place west of London near Heathrow.

On my way back on Saturday, I decided to check on the same parking lot again. And to my surprise, I saw my bike parked there unlocked. I was very confused and mixed with a little bit of happiness because I found my bike back but also regret I spent the money for a new second hand bike. Question is, what happened to my bike? Till now I still cant solve this mystery.

Beautiful Sunday morning

Last Sunday, sawo and I decided to take some time off from doing work and head to the Malaysian Hall (a place you can find authentic Malaysia Food). We took a slow walk across Hyde Park passing by the Round Pond. I am still see the wonderful autumn trees..

A beautiful day in the town of Eel

Last week was beautiful. Sawo and I explored the Ely in Cambridgeshire UK. We had been planning for about 2 years before we finally managed to execute the plan. We took a train to Ely from Cambridge; 15 minutes journey through the national rail network (check it out in www.nationalrail.co.uk) which cost us about GBP 4 for a ‘day return’ ticket.

During the journey I took a picture of the tranquil scene of a beautiful blue sky and a dark landscape with my iPhone 3GS camera.

So we arrived in Ely and started to explore the town. At first I was thinking of taking a bus and get to the town centre (where the cathedral and the house of Oliver Cromwell located) but I came to think that having a slow walk there would be more rewarding.

I managed to do some research on the locations to be visited. First off, the Peacock Tearoom; we had some fantastic breakfast with the complement of a wide selection of tea. I started with the Sherlock Holmes (Earl Grey with Lapsang Souchong; our own mix: its elementary & good) and my Sawo start off with the Pleine Lune (Our favourite French tea; almonds, vanilla, honey etc; OTT & wonderful.).

 

After a great great morning breakfast, we head off towards the town centre directions. Stopped by an antique shop and a Saturday market I believe – near the Ely Cathedral and finally we arrived at the Apple Market of the year. This market is located very new to the cathedral. We were very lucky to have such unique chance to be part of the event.

Basically, the Apple Market will have some fun special events such as children apple and spoon race, longest apple peel and the apple shy. There will have food stalls selling sausage-like-burger served with apple sauce, story telling to the children of a story from long long time ago. I was amazed by the participant of the Apple Market and hope for it to go on for years to come.

We went to the Oliver Cromwell Museum (located not too far of the Apple Market).

Still full of energy, we decided to walk along the riverside, we managed to find a spot for fishing and also very calm for the both of us to rest our legs while enjoying the quietness of the river. We sat for at the river bank for a while before heading to get our second round of tea but this time with different type of tea.

My sawo chose the Marco Polo which she so fell in love with while I tried the Chocolate Imperial. Both were great but one thing about the Chocolate Imperial is that it is not very suitable to be taken with a sweet chocolate brownie. Cause then it can’t be appreciated as much as how it should be.

By the end of the day, due to our satisfaction on the tea from this shop, The Peacock Tearoom, we bought some of the tea for ourselves. So, Sawo chosen the Marco Polo (which cost quite a bit because it is rare) while I chose Sherlock Holmes. The day just passed by so swiftly that the day starts to get darker and darker. This trip has been very fun and I wish to visit another place in the land of England in the near future.