Flagging Hunger.

I found E.T.

Bratislava, Slovakia – It’s my last full day.

Naturally, I've decided to tack on even more international travel. 

Bratislava is only an hour away and, unlike earlier in the journey, the train clearly indicates where you are and where you’re going – in German and in English. Even better, a roundtrip ticket includes municipal transport upon my arrival.

Remnants of the communist era are immediately evident. Bland concrete boxes and stone statues with rugged chins are contrasted by narrow Medieval alleys etched into the old town and by a wide, leafy promenade along the Danube. The city is beautiful, interesting and different.

In addition to wandering through the old town, I’ve visited the Art Nouveau Blue Church, Bratislava Castle, UFO Bridge and Slovak Radio, an inverted pyramid often named one of the world’s ugliest buildings. The city is a patchwork of styles.

End of the line.

Having worked up a hunger, I've escaped the wind and rain by stepping into Bratislava Flagship, a former monastery built in 1672. It would eventually become a cinema and is now one of Europe's largest restaurants. From tiny doors to religious iconography, though, the building’s past is never far from sight.

Aromas of roasting meat waft through the air as house remixes of Cher and Elton John thump over endless wood and marble. An ornately carved fireplace sits incongruously against the wall, but no more so than the clay Bethlehem that fills the stage – it's reputed to be the country's largest.

Bratislava Flagship is a feast for the eyes and for the stomach.

A din rises from below as crowds finally pull up to the long tables. The restaurant, which holds 500, has just begun filling up. Sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with "Bar Tislava," my server delivers a dark, house-made monastic beer and a plate of slow-roasted pork, dumplings and sauerkraut. I'm told it's traditional.

And it's delicious.

What a cool experience – I’m really glad I’ve made the trip.

No Words.

A Central Experience.

A rarity: Café Central with no line.

Vienna, Austria – Café Central’s not the sort of place I typically visit.

Too many tourists gawking at overpriced pastries and vaulted ceilings, wanting to be part of an approximated history that’s been written here. Or nearly here.

But the traditional Viennese café is such an important part of the city’s mystique that I’ve been the tourist I am and come for breakfast and a Melange. In a nod to traditional etiquette, a spoon is placed upside down atop the glass of water set alongside my coffee.

While the café is in a different part of the building than when it opened in 1876, it maintains a sense of charm and gravitas. Gone is the thinker’s salon known for epic battles of chess and heated discussions of the day’s politics.

Instead, social media influencers pose in front of glass cases filled with ornately decorated patisseries.

At one time, you’d have found the psychologist Freud, the artist Klimt, the architect Loos and countless writers spread across the café, poring over newspapers and writing their next oeuvres.

You may have also shared a table with Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin or Hitler.

They’re obviously name-dropped less.

History is fluid. A cultural touchstone like Café Central still sets the scene, allowing you to connect to a different time and to imagine the electricity of thought that filled the hall.

The reality that it was originally located a few feet away changes little.

Habs(burgs) and Hab Nots.

Life's a ball in Kugelmugel.

Vienna, Austria – Scale.

It’s the first word that comes to mind to describe Vienna.

Not necessarily the size of the city itself – although my legs may argue after another 30-kilometre day – but everything feels massive. The Hofburg Imperial Palace, St. Stephen's Cathedral and Vienna State Opera may not be the world's largest on their own, but taken collectively, they lend the city a certain weight.

It pays to have a dynasty – and a sense of self-importance. 

There remains a symbolic and very real presence of the Habsburg monarchy, even today. Marble. Spires. Fountains. Sculptures. Blocks of perfectly shaped buildings in neutral tones, like delicately piped cakes.

As important to Viennese culture as opera.

Horse-drawn carriages clop through Michaelerplatz, the centre of city life since 1 AD. There’s so much history sculpted into these buildings and fountains, each of which burbles with its own stories.

I've spent the day wandering through and around the old town, gawking at the views, each of which seemed to surpass the last.

(And sipped Viennese coffee on Stephanplatz, as people have for centuries.)

Across the city: the opposite end of the spectrum. An orange sphere is tucked behind an eight-foot-tall barbed wire fence in the Prater amusement park. It appears to make an surprised face. Welcome to the Republic of Kugelmugel, a self-described 'micronation' built in the 1970s as a piece of protest art.

It's a far cry from the types of pageantry you'd see at balls elsewhere in Vienna.

The Golden Hour.

A golden kiss.

Vienna, Austria – Centuries-old gardens are finely trimmed into pointy finials.

A robot mows the lawn in zig-zags.

The anachronism momentarily breaks my reverie about how generations of royalty lived at Belvedere Palace. I’ve sat here an hour, absorbing the sun, the largesse, the detail.

Nearly a kilometre long, the Baroque gardens slope toward the old town, connecting Upper and Lower Belvedere. Spray from tiers of fountains sparkles like diamonds, falling into the outstretched hands of ornately carved marble cherubs.

It’s refreshing in the heat.

Historically, people cooled off in the towering, reddish-brown – and aptly named – Marble Hall, found inside Upper Belvedere. Topped by a massive fresco painted in 1721, it's also where the Austrian State Treaty was signed in 1955, re-establishing the country's sovereignty.

The remaining rooms are filled with priceless masterworks – it has been a day of art. Rodin. van Gogh. Munch. Schiele. And the world’s largest collection of Klimt.

As I make my way through the crowd, newlyweds and lovers cluster, arm-in-arm, in front of his most famous.

The Kiss.

A Mini Adventure.

Tribute to Jewish war hero, Hanna Szenes.

Budapest, Hungary – My train leaves in three hours.

As ever, I’m ready painfully early.

There's no point pacing around a hotel room, so I've set out to find some of the more than 30 mini statues artist Mykhailo Kolodko has scattered across the city.

For the most part, they're unsanctioned guerrilla art, but when you find one, you want to find others. Like Pokémon: gotta catch 'em all. 

Some teach history; others make a political point – sometimes pointedly. Seeing one of a Russian hat protesting the country's influence in Hungary, a far-right politician destroyed it with an axe.

Kodolko replaced it with a mini statue of an axe.

Today, someone has tied a pink knit scarf around the neck of a bronze aviatrix soaring from a rock in a park. A small plant has been tucked into a diver's hand outside New York Café. 

The other holds a symbolic key to the landmark institution.

Farther along, a roadster rounds a planter. An orange Garfield has replaced a dog on an old chipped fence. Winnie the Pooh hangs from a honey pot. Noah's Ark is set with different colours of glass, shedding rainbows. It pays to look up. And to look down.

I partly wish I had known about these statues sooner.

But surprises like these are a part of the fun and whimsy of travel.

Agog.

Out from the darkness.

Budapest, Hungary – I'm welcomed by Jewish wedding music. 

Joyous. Upbeat.

It's soon replaced by marching boots.

A single heartbeat.

Hallways alternate between light and shadow as old reels unfurl with stories that fall softly from downcast eyes. By numbers, one in 10 Holocaust victims was Hungarian.

Silence.

Faintly, another wedding. You leave with a whisper of hope.

Budapest's Holocaust Memorial Center does a fantastic job of storytelling through sound.

And it opens into the most beautiful synagogue I've seen.