Travel With Cynthia

As you might know in Malta I enjoy the game of Bowling. I together with four other ladies was invited to go for a tournament in Belgium to represent Malta for the European Women's Championship held in Brussels. Belgium is part of the Western Europe and find different people speaking different languages from French, German and some Italian. One thing I noticed around Belgium is that there was practically no signs in English, all was in French, even round the train stations and bus nothing was easy to understand. This for me was a let down since Brussels is the city of Europe. Belgium shows a relative flat topology, with not so many high points. Brussels city center is not as green as one would think but from the outskirts of Brussels, there is plenty of open spaces filled with cows, horses and others animals. Beautiful horse in beautiful Brugge Since Belgium forms part of the European Union, the Euro currency is used. Something I noticed is that Brussels is slightly...

Hungary  offers a lot, apart from the ongoing and busy Budapest city it also offers some  nice and calm scenery and a small skiing resort.  Hungary is considered to be a flat country with not a lot of  high mountains. As far as I know there is only one skiing resort which isn't really  big and has very limited amount of slopes.  However there are some really nice places which one can visit to enjoy a lot of greenery.  One of the nicest places very close to Budapest is Normafa. Normafa is a woodland place on  the top of a hilltop. To get here is relativity easy with the public transport.I went here with a friend and we only just  needed to get one tram and one bus and made it there in just 30 minutes.  Up in Normafa you can find a lot of walking trails, in fact it is very popular for hiking. In the  woodland area there is also several picnic areas. There is one particular path which is the main one, this leads to a hill ca...

In my previous post I have covered the Pest area of Budapest, since Pest is very vast and unique to not bore you with a long post I am dedicating this post solely for ruin pubs and Hungarian cuisine. Szimpla Kert  Ruin pubs are simply bar sitting inside a remains of an old building. Ruin pubs started around 2001. These pubs are mostly known for all the junk the place is decorated with, apart from the unique decoration, ruin pubs usually sell alcohol slightly cheaper then other normal bars.  The first time I enterd in Szimpla was truley amazing.. So many  things from old CTR monitors hanging down from the ceiling, to blow dryers. Most of the  things which Ruinpubs are decorated with are now adays considered as vintage things. Not even one single chair will be matching nor you will find one table which is the same as another. The first established ruin pub was Szimpla Kert, it was placed in several different areas for some time until they found itsself ...

Following my previous blog post ( Budapest... Charming Buda ) I spoke about the charm Buda has and how  quiet it is. During this post I shall take you on a tour of Pest, the other side of Budapest.  Pest is the place which is constantly ongoing. What to visit in Pest? Parliament St' Stephens Basilica Heros Square Margaret Island Ruin pub Gozsdu Udva On Chain Bridge The Hungarian Parliament Each time I go to Budapest, this is the place I always have to visit (at least from the outside). There isn't any word big enough to explain how beautiful this place is. Magnificent doesn't  even justify it. The building is  a Neo-Gothic architecture  with a hints of Renaissance too. It is found in the Lajos Kossuth Square and lying on the bank of the Danube river.  Until now the Parliament is the largest building in Hungary and the third largest in the Europe. To my knowledge to this date it is also the tallest  one.  The building ...

In my previous post ( Hungary...Budapest....The unexpected surprise ) I have described a generic walk- through of Budapest  in general.  The Danube river splits Budapest in two very different sides. The Buda and Pest side. During this blog I will be talking about the Buda side. Buda sits on the west side of the Danube. I hope the below would be a good temptation for you to go and see Budapest Buda. So how do you get to Buda? From Pest side, you need to get to Chain bridge, this spans across the Danube river. The chain bridge was the first bridge built across the river and opened in 1849. After crossing the Danube river you will find yourself in Adam Clark Square. From there you can get the funicular which stops you exactly  near Buda Castle. The fee for the funicular is around Eur6 (including a return ticket) How is Buda different to Pest?  For starters Buda is definitely quieter than Pest and also greener. In Buda one finds more families living there. L...

Budapest…The city that surprised me the most. First time I went to Budapest was around three years ago, back in 2015. Since then I travelled there around nine other times.    My main job in Malta currently is that of a product owner, where the team I work with is based in Budapest, Hungary. This allowed me to travel often back and forth. When I had some time off there, I tried to visit most districts in Budapest and also had some time to visit some other places outside of Budapest like Budakeszi and Solymár in Hungary. In this blog I will be sharing my experience about Budapest in general like; transport, people and food and when to visit Budapest. At first I was sceptical about going to Hungary, for some weird reason I always thought about it differently. It did not take long after I arrived for me to discover the gem that this country is. Budapest in General Snowy Budapest I visited Budapest in all sort of seasons and can say that it is quite balanced when ...

The country with 360 degree views and mountains I was always interested in travelling to Slovenia, while researching about this country the pictures where always so picturesque and beautiful, mountains everywhere  and so my trip planning began. I visited Slovenia together with my husband, sister and her husband. We traveled there at the end of October till the beginning of November. I planned a good 11 day trip from nature trips, adventures and a trip down to the beautiful city Ljubljana. From Malta currently there are no direct flights to Ljubljana or any other airports in Slovenia. We flew to Treviso (Italy) and from there drove through Italy, Austria and Slovenia. The drive took around three hours. Driving in Slovenia is not a big deal, actually drivers are rather calm and patient.  Driving there is on the right-hand side like most countries, but for us Maltese it was the opposite side. It is also very important that one obtains what is called a 'Vignetta'.  T...