Royal Gazette reporter Robyn Skinner quit her job to go travelling around the world.

Here, in the second part of her reports, she visits Budapest and Zagreb, in Croatia – both a cold culture shock for a Bermudian

used to more tropical climates.

Alighting in the capital of Hungary after about four hours on the efficient Austrian trains, one quickly realises you are no longer in Western Europe. Train stations are never the centre of culture, however, there is a spark of uncertainty surrounding Budapest. I was getting cat-called and men were trying to sell everything including the kitchen sink outside the central train station.

Still I tried to give this 'energetic city', as the travel guide describes it, the benefit of the doubt, but the city did not make it easy.

A miscommunication or failure on the part of the youth hostel meant no-one answered the door. Sitting in a dark courtyard for half an hour sealed the fate of that hostel as we decided it was time to find anywhere we could sleep for the night and then figure out what to do the next day. Bad idea!

We randomly found a hostel which cost us more than $60 so I don't know what kind of budget hostel it was!

The five-star accommodation did however arrange early morning calls for you – whether you wanted one or not. Ours came at about 5 a.m. in the form of three drunken Frenchmen. We had multiple knocks on our door, and then just to be sure we were awake, one walked into our room.

Shock does not even describe our reaction nor does it explain what my travel buddy was thinking when he ran out of the room to be confronted by a 6ft 4in angry Frenchman.

After a few machismo yells it was back into the room. When the reception refused to do anything about it, we decided to call the Budapest Police.

Within 15 minutes they had arrived, took down our information and had gone up to the Frenchmen's room to intimidate them enough to leave us alone. What service!

When we finally awoke at a more reasonable hour we quickly found a more comfortable hostel where incense (amongst other things) was burning. It was clearly a backpackers paradise.

Budapest quickly redeemed itself with its amazing thermal baths! After the stress of the first hostel and the minus 11 degrees Celsius temperatures, the baths were a welcome relief even if it did mean a dead-sprint in a bathing suit from the comfort of the locker rooms outside to the baths! Yes, a Bermudian donned a bathing suit in negative temperatures for a bath.

It was amazing and after essentially being unable to feel our feet since Prague, the baths finally warmed us up. I can see why someone who lives in Budapest would be a year-long member.

Next to these boiling pots of Hungarians and tourists is the outdoor skating rink. Located in the shadows of one of City Park's palaces, it's a high school dance on ice!

Again beautiful scenery, but teenagers in any country are the same. Boys flying around the rink trying to tackle each other and the girls shakily hanging onto their friends!

There is more to Budapest than drunken Frenchmen and thermal baths (though the baths were my favourite part). The city gets its name from the Buda side on the Eastern bank of the Danube and the Pest side on the Western bank.

We stayed on the Buda side, which is generally the quieter area with parks and the Castle Hill (Varhegy). It was more than just a castle. It's an entire area that rises above the city and includes, once you hike up there, hotels, restaurants and, what many claimed to be the most photographed site in Budapest the Matthias church. Unfortunately, the church was being worked on so the scaffolding sort of hindered my photographic efforts.

One place to miss on Castle Hill is the labyrinths. So the guidebook raved about them, gave them a thumbs up and told us if there was one thing not to miss it was these. Well I'm not sure why the book raved about them so much, but these labyrinths were nothing more than some dark tunnels under the hill. There was no explanation of why they existed and the few explanations that were posted tried to make fun of contemporary life. Needless to say give them a miss if you go to Budapest!

The Pest side offered more city life with bars and shop-lined streets, the thermal baths (which are found in City Park), Heroes Square (which is south of City Park), the parliament (which is modelled on London's Parliament), the Great Synagogue, St. Stephen's Basilica and the Grand Market food hall.

We ended up spending five days in Budapest and I could have stayed for longer. It was an enchanting place that is difficult sum up. Like Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, Budapest also survived communism, but the rich architecture and shops that line the streets echo of a culture that never let their spirits be conquered.

For instance in 1001 AD the Pope sent Bishop Gellert to convert the Magyars to Christianity. In response they threw him off the main hill in Budapest. The hill has now been named Gellerthegy in his honour and it leads up to the Liberation Monument which pays tribute to Soviet soldiers who died running the Nazis out of Hungary.

The Russians decided to stay, imposing (or trying to impose) communism on the state. So we thought, let's stay one more day to go see the Memento Park dedicated to this period. What a waste of time! It cost more than $10 each to enter the park, which was more like an empty parking lot dotted with some communist statues. Oh, and there was an old Soviet-era car that you could take your photo in. We lasted there for all of 20 minutes ( it took five just to buy the tickets) and quickly caught a bus back into town.

So not the best way to end our stay in Budapest, but still a city that left a lasting impression and one that I would definitely return to. Then it was on to their southern neighbour, the capital of Croatia – Zagreb.

A 6.20 a.m. train got us an early start to the previously war-torn country. If I can make one suggestion to anyone deciding to travel here it would be – go in the SUMMER!!! I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life. It all started on the unheated train. Completely exhausted I still managed to fall asleep in sub-zero conditions. We quickly found out why our compartment's heat was not working…it was disconnected at the border!!!

Our trip to Zagreb almost ended on a small border town before we grabbed our bags through sleepy eyes and sprinted into a WARM compartment that was actually making its way to Zagreb.

It was the appropriate beginning to our visit of the Croatian capital. After booking our hostel and trying to be prepared, my brilliant travel companion promptly lost our directions. So two hours after our arrival in Zagreb and slogging through the cold we finally found our beds! Then trying to save money and really having no other way to get around the very small capital, we decided to do our own self-guided walking tour.

I actually enjoyed reading from the guide book and pretending I actually knew the various sites. After about 20 minutes, I couldn't feel my fingers; while my travel buddy couldn't feel his feet. We soldiered on (because I am stubborn like that and the self-guided tour in the book was not done) until we were both nearly hypothermic and jumped into an Italian restaurant. From our walk around the city there didn't seem to be too many Croatian restaurants. And I think, unfortunately we probably did not do the city justice (who can when they can't use their fingers?).

Zagreb left much to the imagination in the winter and as the largest city in Croatia I am sure the summer brings far more to life. It is called (on its tourist website anyway) the city of a million because it is the only one in Croatia to reach that population. According to one myth that was repeated in our guide book, Zagreb was named when a city ruler ordered a girl named Manda to 'Zagrabi, Mando' or scoop up water from the fountain in the centre. Besides a few myths there seemed to be a lot of parks (covered with snow), the beautiful and warm Zagreb Cathedral on top of a hill and the two neighbourhoods (Kaptol and Gradec) which competed for importance until 1850 and they were combined into the one city.

I think all of that would look a lot better in the summer. There is definitely something for this city to offer – just not in the winter. One night in Zagreb was enough for us and we boarded a train for Slovenia.

Have you been travelling to far-off or unusual places? E-mail us with your stories and pictures at news@royalgazette.bm