Krakow - Slovakia - Budapest 21 June 2011

The plan for today would be to take an optional tour to Wieliczka Salt Mine and then continue our road trip into Budapest via Slovakia. Since this was a optional tour, there were few of us who opted out and go for shopping instead (it will cost you 45Euro with and 40 Euro without elevator ride). From the beginning of our trip, both of us had decided since we had already paid close to RM 16,000.00 for this trip, why bother to save a few hundred bucks just to waste our previous time in a foreign land to go walking around in some hypermarkets and not fully appreciate the place and its surrounding? Out of three of the optional tours in the entire trip, we only opted out of one, the Mozart and Johann Strauss Concert in Vienna since both of us are not classical music fans. 

There's a beautiful park situated on top of Wieliczka Salt Mine, which is a underground mine. There are plenty of beautiful sculptures, halls and even hosted a Cathedral. The mine is very well preserved, and is listed under the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The beautiful park on the surface of the mine

The Last Supper sculpture on the wall

After the Wieliczka Salt Mine tour, we continue with our road trip to Budapest via Slovakia. We were told we will only reach Budapest by sunset, however, due to road closure in parts of our original road, the bus driver had to detoured and subsequently get himself and all of us lost somewhere in the middle of no where. But, somehow, we ended up in a beautiful resort/ cafe around the highlands in Slovakia which is usually packed with people during winter but well, since we were there during spring, it was mostly empty and and serene. After the stop at the resort for our lunch, we continue our journey and we took another two more stops, one for afternoon tea and another to the wash room visit before finally arrived in Budapest some time after 8 pm. We went straight to the restaurant for our Hungarian folklore dinner and then check in into our hotel. For the first time during this trip, we had to sleep on two single size beds and the hotel is just decent, nothing to shout about and it actually looks old. Anyway, too tired to even think about it, just shower, watched the news on tv and then bedtime for us. 

Below are some photos taking while the bus was travelling to Budapest and also the beautiful resort we stop by for our lunch. 

When was the last time you see a clean and crystal clear river flowing in our country?

During winter, the mountains will be covered with snow and people will be flocking into this area for skiing and other snow related activities

Our tea break

Beautiful rainbow greeting us while on the way to Budapest