Day 7 Parlo Eastern Europe Tour - Donovaly, Slovakia

Good morning Krakow. Today seemed to be a rest day for us as most of our time would be used to travel south from Krakow, Poland to Budapest, Hungary covering 398km. It is actually not entirely a bad thing as I can catch up with some sleep and for the first time for our trip, the day itinerary was not the same ie there was no old town, church or palace to visit.

Our view from Galaxy Hotel Krakow

Surprisingly after breakfast there was a heavy snowfall. I got excited again like a kid and can't resist to put hands outside the window to have a feel of the snowflakes :). Wifey on the other hand did not seem to be bothered much though.....

In fact, I spent so much time admiring our view outside the hotel window that we were almost late to get to the tour bus at stipulated time.

After two hours travelling on the highway we got down at a rest stop.

Everywhere seems to be covered by snow...yup this is exactly the environment that I was looking for in a trip to Europe during winter. Soon the bus journey took us through Tatra Mountain in Slovakia. Though Slovakia is not really explicitly mentioned in our tour itinerary, it has the most breathtaking scenery. For better or for worse, our bus was caught in a traffic jam due to an accident and was crawling very slowly for about 90 mins...

The slow traffic allowed us to take very nice shots of the beautiful scenery worthy to be a postcard.

We stopped by at a restaurant located nearby a ski resort in Donovaly for lunch.

It is called Koliba Goral which apparently is one of the best restaurant in town. For better or worse again...we were late for lunch hence there were less patrons in the restaurant. I learned from the comments in TripAdvisor that the restaurant could be pretty packed at times.

With a fire place and a view outside of the window covered by snow, I felt like it is Christmas but it was actually Chinese New Year...:)

Lunch was on our own hence we are free to order whatever we felt like eating. Though we have to pay for ourselves for this meal, I think it was a good arrangement to have freedom to choose at times.

Intending lunch to be light, we ordered mushroom soup, chicken snitzel, salad and coffee. The food turned out to be pretty good...in fact I think it was one of the best throughout the trip.

Although this day was meant to be a travelling day, it turned out to be our most memorable one.

After lunch, we had some time to play with snow and grab some nice shots before continuing our journey to Budapest.

The view just outside our restauant which id just mesmerizing....

There is also a ski resort located right opposite of the restaurant...

Four hours later we reached Budapest, Hungary. Since Budapest is really comprised of two cities namely Buda and Pest, we actually arrive at Pest first to be exact. By the time we were there it was already dark and we are just in time for dinner.

We were brought to a restaurant located at a quiet neighbourhood of Marvany Street. It is quite surprising to me to find such a busy restaurant there which caters for both tour groups and local patrons. There were also performance by a lively gypsy band who will sing and dance...in return for tips of course. I don't really mind because they really lighthen up the mood of the day.