Today I have some more photographs of Bruges for you. This is the second edition of „Through The Lens: Bruges Impressions“, if you have not seen the first part of this small photography series, click here.
I hope you enjoy the photographs!
Thanks for „reading“!
xx, Sophie
Today I will be sharing with you my favourite food places in Budapest and tell you about traditional foods you need to try. As I’ve been vegetarian for six years, and mainly eat plant based if I have the choice (I know, you always have a choice, but this post is not supposed to debate the pros and cons of different diets or lifestyles), these recommendations are especially suitable for people who prefer a plant based, or vegetarian diet.
Las Vegan’s is a vegan Burger/Fast Food place. They offer a variety of burgers, vegan nuggets, smoothies, potatoes and more. It was really delicious! You will get a burger for around 2000 HUF!
Karaván Budapest is a small Street Food Market in the former jewish quarter of Pest, right in front of the Las Vegan’s restaurant and the Szimpla Kert Ruin Bar. They have different food trucks offering Langós, Chimney Cake, Asian dishes and there is also a Las Vegan’s burger truck. Great thing if you are travelling in a group, I am sure everyone will find something delicious to eat at Karaván!
Chimney Cake is a must-try when you visit Budapest. You can get it on the Christmas markets or go to a Chimney Cake Café. I decided to get one with salted caramel ice cream in it and enjoyed a nice black coffee with it. I am actually pretty glad that I sat down while eating this, since I am really bad at eating on the go and it is not particularly easy to eat (-to my mind…maybe I am just bad at multi-tasking!).
Langós is another thing you need to try when you are going to visit Hungary. You probably know it from your local Christmas market, since it is already well known, at least in Germany. If you have not heard of Langós yet, it is a fried dough that is usually topped with sour cream and grated cheese. However, there are multiple other versions available, I got one with Nutella for example, which was super delicious!
Have you ever heard of Sajtos Pogácsa? It is something like a cheese scone and – oh my goodness – it is so good! I went to the Central Market to try them and got a whole bag for only one or two euros. If you want to eat on a budget, the Central Market is the right place for you!
As you can see, Budapest has many great restaurants and cafés for the vegan and vegetarian gourmet and I will not lie – I spent most of my money in Budapest (besides from the flight and the accommodation) on food. 😀
Thank you for reading and let me know if you have more food recommendations for this beautiful city!
xx, Sophie
Last December I decided to go on two solo trips, the first one was a 72-hour trip to Lisbon and the second one was to Budapest. I spent four days in Hungary’s capital in stayed in a Hostel at Oktogon, which is one of the major intersections in Budapest. From there, I was able to catch metros to different districts of the city and if you are into walking like I am, you can also go to many places by foot.
Budapest first became „Budapest“ in 1873 when the three parts of the city, Buda, Óbuda and Pest united. The city has many Museums, great places to eat, shop and drink and a lot of history to offer. As I already said, I spent four complete days in this beautiful city, however, there are many things that I still want to see when it comes to Museums and historical places. In this post I will share with you what I did on my first day in Budapest.
From Oktogon, I walked up Andrássy út (street) and it took me around twenty minutes to get to my first stop, Heroe’s Square. It is located next to the City Park and is one of the major squares in Budapest. In the middle of the square, you will find the Millennium Memorial, which was built for the thousandth birthday of the Hungarian land-taking in 1896. On top of the memorial rises the angel Gabriel. To the left and to the right of the Millennium Memorial, there are statues of the Seven chieftains of the Magyars and other Hungarian national leaders. The history of the Heroe’s Square is very interesting to my mind, I can highly recommend reading about it. As I source I used a wikipedia article which I will link you here. At this point I need to say, that I really like using our well-known encyclopedia to learn something about the cities I visit, I feel like sightseeing is so much more interesting when you have some background information and are actually able to recognise sculptures or people in paintings.
Passing the Heroe’s Square, you will find Budapest’s City Park. Part of it is turned into a City Park Ice Rink during winter, which was actually a highlight for me since I love ice skating! I linked you a website that I used to learn about the opening hours and the entry and rental fees. It was such an amazing experience since you are skating in front of the beautiful Vajdahunyad Castle. It was magical! I paid around 11,90 EUR (13,12 USD – 10,05 GBP) for the entry and the skate rental, but it was totally worth it! (1000-1500 HUF entry fee, depending on the weekday and 2500 HUF Skate rental, you also need to bring a deposit of 2000 HUF for the skates)
Heading a little bit further into the City Park, you will find a huge building in the Neo-Baroque style, which is Europe’s largest medicinal bath. The also called – Széchenyi Medicinal Bath – gets its water from two thermal springs and is, according to many travellers, a must-do. Too bad I did not bring any bathing suits … next time!
The Margaret Bridge connects Margaret Island with Pest and Buda across the Danube. Margaret Island is a 2.5 km long island in the middle of the Danube River and is famous for its recreational area. I really liked the bridge because of its colour, plus- you have a great view on the Danube and the Parliament building (which I will tackle in another post).
Another well-known bridge connecting Buda and Pest is the Chain Bridge, which is at the same pitch as the St. Stephen’s Basilica (Szent István-bazilika).
Liberty bridge is to my mind, the most beautiful bridge in Budapest. I was told that it is a famous gathering place for young people during the warm summer months. You will probably see some more pictures of this „instagram-worthy“ bridge in the upcoming posts.
The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial that was created in 2005 on the east bank of the Danube. It reminds us of the Jews who were killed during World War II by the Arrow Cross Party, which was a right-wing extremist party in Hungary. This party was in power from October 1944 to March 1945 and during this short period, tens of thousands of people were killed, most of them Jews and Romani. The memorial is very impressive and should serve as a warning for future generations.
I travelled with carry-on only, but still had some space left for my climbing shoes. The evening I arrived, I went to the biggest climbing gym in Budapest, called Monkey Boulder (The website is in Hungarian, but Google Translate did a good-enough job for me :D)
It was really cool to boulder with locals and at least five people talked to me in Hungarian which was super funny. No, I do not speak Hungarian, but they were fortunately fluent in English. Bouldering in Germany is pretty expensive, but I only paid 2100 HUF (6,25 EUR – 6,89 USD – 5,28 GBP) which is super cheap. I really loved getting in touch with locals and just chilling out after my flight from Germany.
I hope you enjoyed the first part of my Budapest series, let me know if you have ever been to Budapest and what you liked most about the city!
Thanks for reading, Sophie
Bruges (Flemish: Brugge; German: Brügge) is a beautiful city in Belgium near the dutch border. Its historic city centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and this beautiful city is home to almost 120K people. This post is more about the pictures, which is why I decided to choose the title „Through The Lens“. My friend and I only spend two hours in Bruges but we loved wandering through the beautiful streets and enjoyed the architecture of the buildings.
Ending this post with „Thanks for reading“ is not really appropriate I guess – therefore: Thanks for having a look at my Bruges-Photographs, I hope you enjoyed them!
xx, Sophie
If you have no clue what I’m talking about, make sure to check out the first post of this series where we took the ferry to Dover and started our road trip (click here).
After we had left Folkestone, we headed towards our next destination:
The Seven Sisters are a series of chalk cliffs, situated in the South Downs National Park between the two coastal towns, Seaford and Eastbourne.
We parked our car in a car park in a street called Crowlink Lane. From there we took a twenty minute walk to the cliffs across the meadows of the national park which are home to sheep and cattle since the area is used as a farm.
The view from the cliffs is simply stunning. However, be careful and stay away from the edge- as solid as they may seem, these cliffs are naturally unstable and cliff falls happen.
If you need a break from hiking, you can enjoy a coffee or tea, as well as other foods and drinks at the Birling Gap Café next to the National Trust Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters.
On our hike we haven’t seen too many people, only at the Tourist center that I’ve just mentioned. As far as I can tell, many people just like to park their car near the cliffs and enjoy the view, only some people actually like to hike the cliffs.
After a quick coffee break, we went back to the car and enjoyed the walk being surrounded by baby sheep with their mothers and curious calfs observing us through the fence of their meadows.
I loved hiking the Seven Sisters and I will definitely come back (with better footwear)!
Thanks for reading.
xx, Sophie
I can’t believe it’s been already two years since I went to Fraser Island and did a Four Wheel Drive Tour exploring the island with other travellers.
We’ve seen so many great things around the island, bathed in so called „Champagne Pools“, did some skin care in a Tea Tree Oil lake and hiked up a hill and stood at a cliff’s edge. Standing there on top of the rock, I was so grateful for all the things I had seen on my journey so far.
My trip to South East Asia and Australia was my first, for me „real“ travel experience. The first time I did my own thing, went to the places I wanted to see.
I fell in love with Fraser Island because to me it seemed like at least 80% of the island was „untouched“ and in general it was „well preserved“ even though it is a tourist attraction. However, I haven’t seen any people besides my own travel group and some other travel groups at the Champagne Pool.
If you have a look at the following pictures, you will see that there is not a single body in these pictures, besides a sting ray swimming in the sea.
I loved Fraser Island and I am deeply grateful for this amazing experience!
Thanks for reading.
Sophie
Today I will be sharing with you kind of a summary of my Lisbon-Posts (click here for day one, here for day two and here for day three), I’ll call it a Travel Guide to Portugal’s capital. I hope you enjoy reading this and if you have any tips and experiences to add, feel free to comment down below!
I know it is controversial, but I booked my flights with Ryan Air, since they provide cheap flights from, in my case, Luxemburg to Lisbon. I arrived on a Sunday and departed the following Wednesday. For two direct flights, travelling with a small bag (not the usual carry-on size, you need to pay extra if you want to take a normal carry-on-sized backpack on board), I only paid around 30€. By the way, I travelled with my Fjallraven Backpack as you can see in the following picture and it provided me with enough space for my clothes, a book, my hygiene stuff AAAAND my Nikon reflex camera.
I stayed at the HUB New Lisbon Hostel which is located in the Bairro Alto. I was really pleased with this hostel, they have a great breakfast buffet with fruit, cereal, bread, coffee, even cake etc. and a kitchen where you can cook. The room I stayed in offered enough space for the travellers, I stayed in an eight bed dorm room, however, since it was off-season when I went to Lisbon, I shared the room only with two other guys. The curtains at the bunkbeds offer you a bit more privacy and there are big drawers under the beds where you can store your backpack in (you should bring a pad lock though). Additionally, the location is good and it is just a fifteen minute walk to Cais do Sodré.
Getting from the airport to the city center is pretty easy if you take the metro. You take the red line to Alameda and transfer to the green line and get off at Cais do Sodré. From there you can easily walk around or take the famous trams to get around.
I bought a VIVA-Card at the metro station that costs 0,50€ and you can load money on it. It therefore costed me only 1,33€ to get from the airport to the city center. However, if you want to reload it, you will have to put at least another 3€ on it, just keep that in mind if you don’t want to buy a new card. I will link you the website of VIVA here.
Lisbon is a little bit cheaper than Germany, however you will still pay around 10-15€ in an average, nice restaurant. There are many great restaurants and small cafés, make sure to check everything out that appeals to you, I’ve seen so many nice places! I will now provide you with a list of restaurants and cafés that I enjoyed.
Noods – Asian cuisine, great bowls, noodle dishes and more!
PARK – A rooftop bar on top of a parking lot, nice atmosphere but the walk upstairs is a bit scary.
Basilio Café – they offer juices, bowls and have a great variety of vegetable packed dishes. Plus, the atmosphere is just great!
Go natural – I went to a café/Grab and go place but they also have supermarkets and restaurants. You will be able to get Smoothie Bowls, juices, lunch and more there for a convenient price.
Time Out Market – Absolutely fell in love with this place, they have almost every kind of cuisine you can imagine!
Jamie’s Pizza – A Pizza place by Jamie Oliver, I really enjoyed a Pizza Funghi there!
Manteigaria – A food chain where you can get the famous Pastéis de Nata! People usually get one or two pieces of the Portuguese speciality and order a coffee and enjoy their snack next to the counter.
A Cultura do Hambúrguer – A bar located in the Bairro alto with an amazing interior design, they offer very fancy cocktails. The drinks aren’t as cheap as in the other, smaller and local bar, but still affordable.
If you like to drink beer, make sure to order Super Bock, Sagres or Imperial. Those are the Portuguese beer brands.
In and around the city center:
Belém:
These are the things I did in Lisbon, if I came back, I would definitely go to Sintra, a small city in the west of Lisbon. It is known for its beautiful castles and a stunning view on the Atlantic Ocean.
I’ve seen many cute little shops in Lisbon where people sold Portuguese jewelry, bags, clothes and more. If you visit the LX Factory, you will find loads of them, but I also loved a small store called „Hoiko“ where they sell handmade jewelry.
Also make sure to go to one of the many sardine stores. I don’t eat fish but these stores look so nice and colourful. They even sell sardine cans from 1927! (Even though I’m not entirely sure if those sardines are actually from the nineteen-twenties…)
Another store I really loved was Organii at the LX Factory. They sell organic cosmetics and you will find anything from skin care to dry shampoo and conditioner bars.
Security: Personally, I felt really save in Lisbon, even though I was travelling by myself. However, I’ve heard from many people that they often got asked wether they wanted to buy drugs. It only happened to me once when I had company. However, as far as I can tell, just saying „No thank you“ (don’t let it sound too polite) will get you out of the situation.
Don’t buy tiles (Azulejos): You will probably fall in love with the beautiful houses in Lisbon covered in colourful tiles and maybe consider buying one as a souvenir in one of the small gift shops. However, it is often the case that people steal them from the houses in order to sell them, so just don’t buy tiles and just enjoy a picture of them.
Wear proper shoes: Lisbon’s streets and sidewalks are not made for high-heels, you will be likely to get stuck wearing heels. Do yourself a favour and pack some comfortable sneakers!
Thanks for reading and feel free to tell me about your Lisbon experience!
xx, Sophie
