Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey!

Beaches of Cascais.

Its about 4 weeks since I got away from 3 weeks away, and once again the drama started again at work.
I'm not kidding, I was still sitting in my seat in the plane when my phone started ringing!


 We have one moron who came 6 hours late for a shift! 6 H O U R S! And we had one of our most important events at work that day. I seriously work with imbeciles.

Anyways, lets get back to the good stuff. This time a few weeks ago I was on a plane heading to Lisbon. I loved Lisbon so much! I'm so glad I go to go this year, and with family there I got to see the local spots I would have otherwise missed. I then flew to Budapest, which has also become one of my favourite cities. I go there 2 days before the tour started so I got to explore on my own- all the while stuffing my face with gelato from Gelarto Rosa which has the BEST gelato I've had to date (sorry, Italy). Plus, they had interesting flavours like- sour cherry buckhorn, and lavender vanilla- which was swoon worthy.

With Ibo!

I met my G Adventures group the Saturday evening. This time I have to complain. I have LOVED every G tour I've taken to date. This one was something else, we had one of the most annoying person on tour who was not only self centered, but he refused to tip at any restaurant we went to. I heard he had gotten into a fight with his assigned roommate, then refused to share a room, so the other dude had to pay the single supplement. This particular trip was called "Budapest to Istanbul by Rail", but it was the second half of a much longer trip called 'London to Istanbul.' My condolences to those who had to spend practically a month with this guy.

Luckily my roommate- a lovely Aussie called Molly, got along really well, plus there were 5 other Canadians who were pretty good company. Plus, our guide- Ibo, who is Turkish, knew Murat who ran my trip last year.

The good points of this tour:

I got to see some places I would have never dreamed of, and loved: Sighisoara, Plovdiv, and Budapest. (Istanbul is on my top 3, and doesn't count since I was there last year.)

Our guide was a sweetheart. I haven't had a "bad" guide yet. Fingers crossed I never do.

Traveling by train through Eastern Europe was an adventure in itself, especially the over night train from Budapest to Sighisoara. With 6 of us crammed in a sleeper compartment, I drew the short straw, and was in the middle bunk facing the window which was opened all night - which is where I most probably caught one of the worst colds I have ever had. And  not forget the bathrooms- I  tried to hold it for the 16 hours but eventually had to pee. Not that it was *that* bad- though none of us slept- we spent the night giggling at the situation, and snacking.

The food! I ate, and ate, and ate! The street food in Romania, and Hungary were delicious! The rakia, and palinka weren't too bad either! ha!

The bad: The 16 hours of torture on that bloody train. 16 h o u r s. Then, at 3am we got woken up by Hungarian authorities to get our passports checked. And, again at 4am by the Romanians. So none of us got much sleep. Moreover, I felt during this trip,  necessary day time hours were wasted on trains.

The worst: one night in Istanbul. On what planet does 1 night in Istanbul make sense. Skip Bucharest, and Sofia, and spend 2 nights MINIMUM in Istanbul! So I paid $60 USD for a visa for less than 24 hours in Istanbul. (I never find I have enough time in that city.  Mum was slightly horrified that I want to go back in 2016.) If I do actually head back it would be a third year in a row.

Cities I did not like: Bucharest, half us spent our time there in the mall. No joke.

Would I recommend this tour? Probably not. I saw on the G website that they are not offering this trip anymore. Just the London to Budapest part of the trip. I'm wondering if the reviews we did, played a part.
Oh well! I am glad I went. Would I do it again? Nope.

After leaving rainy Istanbul :( I stayed another 3 days in Lisbon where I did 2 trips with- We Hate Tourism Tours. LOVED THEM! I did their X-Day trip, and Kings of the Hills.
I can go on about how much fun I had with them, but just head over to Trip Advisor, and see for yourself.

Sintra!

Having a drink after our ride!

We Hate Tourism Tours.

xoxo,
Savannah