Prague, Like Disneyland but without the rides
A magnificent day in Prague, both weatherwise and travellingwise. It was the first day of our trip that the sun came out with enough strength to make us want to actually sit down and feel the warmth. Of course, we still had our thermal underwear on, and it probably never got above 7 degrees, but it still felt wonderful.
Prague is a tourist operators dream coming to life. Astounding sights and vistas around every corner, all clumped together in a 4 square kilometre block, so there’s no real travelling time between them. And then when you get to where you’re going, wow.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon from Vienna, and after a few trifling issues with the hotel/guest house we managed to settle in. A quick trip around Prague to get our bearings and it was time for dinner. We stopped in a traditional Czech beer hall, about three rooms each of which sat about 15 people around sparse wooden benches and tables. Then they just start bringing the beer. Budweiser, which is originally a Czech beer, and has no shared characteristics with the American version. The main difference being that this one has taste and appeal. So a couple of downed pints and it was time for dinner. We both decided to give the traditional goulash and potato dumplings a go, mainly because it was only about $4. The goulash was wonderful, but we aren’t sure if they made a mistake and served us window putty instead of the dumplngs. Whoah. Talk about stick to your ribs. Yikes. So we had to wash that down with more beer.
Up relatively early this morning, primarily to see some of the sights in the early morning sun, but also to beat the crowds (which are pretty bad now, I dread to think what they will be like in the middle of summer.) We made it to Old Town Square, which is postcard city. A large square, surrounded on all sides by huge churches, town halls, splendid old buildings etc etc. Lots of photos, lots of people taking photos. A quick breakfast and we were off again. This time we crossed the river and headed towards the castle.
We’re not sure if this castle is less impressive than some of the other ones that we’ve seen, or if we are just castled out for the time being, but we were a little jaded as we wandered around. That said, the main cathedral in the castle was absolutely stunning, and definately bigger than Notre Dame. More gothic gargoyles and intricate carvings abound. Also some pretty impressive Stained Glass windows, one of which would have easily had 10 000 pieces of glass in it.
A quick refreshing nap back at the hotel (after walking up 10 flights of stairs …. no lift thank you very much) and it was off for dinner. There is a Beer Hall that everyone seems to talk about when they talk about Prague. It was famous 10 years ago when we were hostelling. A huge beer hall (it seats about 1200 people), and the beer used to cost a British penny a pint. There must have been some serious inflation in Czech over the past few years because it now cost about AUD$3 a pint. But it was still pretty impressive. And intoxicating.
A couple more days here, and then it’s onto the planes for the loooong flight home. We are kind of looking forward to it. Living out of a suitcase tends to wear thin after a while, but that is a nice problem to have at the moment. No doubt this time next week we will wish we were back here.
Weiner Schnitzels and Beer
Two fantastic, if very wind chilled and slightly expensive days in Vienna. After five days in Budapest, it was something of a relief to find ourselves in a city that, barring the language, at least resembled a western city (good shops, lots of advertising to make you feel at home etc etc). But as far as the appearance of the city goes, very little prepares you for Vienna.
After the massive buildings in Budapest, we thought that seen a fair bit, but man, they know how to build things big in Vienna. We arrived in town around lunchtime and walked into the centre of town, and area defined by a ring road where the city walls used to stand. And every corner was dominated by a humungous imperial looking building. Museums, opera houses, castles, palaces, parliament buildings, libraries, the lot. Astoundingly impressive. And worthy of spending many hours admiring, except for the fact that it was blisteringly cold. And snowing.
Even though we had been above the Artic Circle, and seen more snow than you could want, we had only ever seen some really light, weak attempts at snowing. But Vienna turned it on. Nothing too serious, and nothing really settled on the ground, but it was still quite spectacular. For five minutes at least, then you wished it would all just bugger off and let you walk to the next sight without developing a case of frost bite.
To escape the cold we went to St Stephans Cathedral, a magnificent gothic church with uneven towers. (There is apparently a good reason why one of the towers is shorter than the other, but do you think we could find it?) Bigger than what I remember Notre Dame, we went up on of the towers for a look around. While Caren was having a panic attack (very high up, very windy, with open steel grating underfoot), I managed to have a look around at Vienna. At least until I froze into a solid block from the wind and had to be brought inside to thaw out.
The next morning we went out to the Palace where the Austrian Imperial Family lived. And if ever you needed any reason as to why revolutions took place then just come here. (Of course, the Austrians didn’t have a revolution to get rid of their royal family, they just sat down and signed a treaty. Very civilised and efficient of them.) Opulence is too light a word for this place. Gilding everywhere. 1500 rooms. Huge gardens. Different rooms depending on what time of day it was and what meal you were eating. Truly astounding.
Of course, knowing how all of the rest of the people in Austria would have been living makes you just that much happier that the system has been replaced. Kind of makes me wish that Lizzie would wake up and smell the coffee.
We then trammed it back into the city, had a coffee at a wonderful coffee house (with smoke stained walls, chandeliers and green velvet lounges), and went to the State Opera House. It was built in the mid 1800’s, and was appropriately stunning for the time, but was seriously damaged in WWII, which meant that about 80% of it has been rebuilt. And because they had no money after the war, they had to skimp a bit. Not that it makes it any less grand, just not quite as much ornate sculpturing and gilt edging.
After that it was a quick nap back at the hostel, and then off to a pub that allegedly sold beer by the centimeter. Not that we saw any evidence of that. Just a lot of Pint mugs. We had some Austrian and Czech beers, and an enormous Schnitzel for dinner. And then it was back to bed, so that we can get up in time for our train ride to Prague.
More Golden Buildings
We are sitting (in a first class cabin that we can get into this time) on a train bound for Vienna (no Ultravox singalongs please). The Hungarian countryside is flying along around us, fairly grey and lifeless, just getting ready to burst into springly greenness. I think if we had been two weeks later we would have seen a completely different Europe.
Yesterday was another day composed mainly of walking around, seeing a few sights and having coffees and lunch. We started off with a brisk walk into Pest, to go on a tour of the parliament building (which is huuuuuuuge.) There is a chain fence around the whole thing, with guards posted everywhere. We eventually got to a gate, and we worked out (without any real help from people or signage) that you had to get permission to go buy a ticket, then come back out and wait for the tour to start, and only one of us was allowed to go into the ticket office. They’re paranoid about security for some reason. Once we were on the tour, we had two security guards walking around with our tour group, in addition to the guide.
So, you might think that there are some impressive parliament buildings around the world. I’ve been in a few. But they all suck badly in comparison to the Hungarian one. It could be a palace. 40 kilos of 24 Karat gold was used for the gilding, and trust me, it’s everywhere. An astoundingly impressive entry hall/staircase with frescoes, columns, statues and 4 kilometres of red carpet. Really knock you around the head kind of stuff.
Then we went into the Members Lounge, where they basically get to sit around and stuff. Very plush, more gilt edging, more red carpet, more statues. The next room was the cigar room, where members can sit around talking, smoking cigars. If they have to rush into the house for a vote, then they have numbered cigar holders.
The actual house itself isn’t as impressive as the entrance, but still way too austere for someone like little Johnny Howard. It was apparently the first air conditioned building in the world, with a massive pit that they used to fill with ice and pump the air into the building.
After Parliament we wandered around relatively aimlessly, looking at some shops, but not really finding anything too interesting (or too cheap for that matter.) We have been quite good about not eating fast food on this trip (except for Sweden where it was the cheapest by far), but we succumbed to the Colonel today. Boy, was that the mistake of a lifetime. The worst, and I mean worst Zinger burger you could ever hope for. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bread had been made, near Chernobyl, in the time of Stalin. As soon as I touched it, it started to disintegrate. Serves us right I suppose. The chips were good but.
One thing about Hungarians, and in particular Hungarians in restaurants is the amount they smoke. Crazy. Non-stop. I know the frech have a reputation for burning it up big, but they are cigarette wimps in comparison. And they have non-smoking sections in restaurants, but it’s generally only 2 tables in the corner of the room, surrounded by smoking tables, so it doesnt make a lick of difference.
We wandered up to the Palace to have a look around the History Museum, because we had picked up tidbits about Hungarian History, but wanted to try and work out a cohesive idea of what had happened to the place. Well, let me tell you that the history museum is not the place to go to do this. Wonderful exhibits, lots of information, but we came away far more confused than when we went in.
As far as we can tell, Hungarian history is basically a litany of people coming in and either taking control of the Budapest or destroying it totally. There must be about 10 instances in the past 1000 years of a complete devastation of the city, followed by a frenzied period of rebuilding. And a succession of revolutions, some successful, some short lived and some failed. There’s been 3 revolutionary wars that we can work out, but possibly more.
It’s a great city, and will probably be great to come back to in 10 years or so when they’ve had a chance to sort out a few things (public transport tickets for example … you need different tickets for buses, trains, trams etc and you can’t buy any of them from on the bus. You need to go to a newsagent!), but once they’ve done that, it will be truly magnificent.
Big Steel Lenin
Today started with a walk around the Buda Palace and Castle District. There’s a photo on the site of the Palace, but in reality that’s only about half of the whole thing. There’s an entire town next to the Palace, made up of old buildings, churches, museums and fairly ugly buildings that went up during the communist times. It’s quite a contrast to the huge and magnificent Palace, a collection of buildings on windy cobbled streets that open into a series of town squares.
The Matthias Church is another example of money being spent on building rather than to support the populace, but at least it looks good. In fact, good is a bit of an understatement. Stupendous and astounding are more apt words. Not as much gold as the Basilica that we visited yesterday, but soaring ceilings with intricate hand painted designs. Huge altars, little chapels off to the side, enormous stained glassed windows depicting various saints being saintly and a few religious souls braving the constant stream of awestruck tourists.
Just next to the church is the Fishermans Bastion, which is supposedly built where the people from the area we visited yesterday helped defend the palace hundreds of years ago. However, the structure that’s there now is mainly ornamental, and was never used in battle. Try to imagine an Escher carving brought to life. Stairways, arches within arches, paths crossing over the top of each other. Maybe it was intended to confuse any attackers.
We then wandered across the Danube into Pest, looking for somewhere to eat. Restaurants are quite cheap in Budapest; slightly cheaper than Australia, but of course if you go to one in a tourist area you run the risk of a bigger than expected bill. Horror stories abound of people eating in restaurants without published prices being presented with bills in the region of US$6000, the waiters backed up by large burly goons to ensure payment. Speaking of waiters, they are a slightly surly bunch here. Fairly decent service, but it’s rarely with a smile (except for in the restaurant in our hotel) and they can disappear for quite a long time, particularly when you want something.
Eventually we found one that our guidebook said was moderately expensive, but we’re not sure how this is because we had a two course lunch with two pints of Czech beer for $17! It was a restaurant built in and on a series of little tunnels under a building. Very atmospheric, complete with non communicative and grumpy waiter. We both had Borscht (Beetroot Soup) and I had some Lamb Dumplings while Caren had that Hungarian staple, Chicken Curry.
Properly sated (and a little tipsy after finishing of Carens enormous beer), we headed off to Statue Park. In 1990, freed from communism, there was no need to keep the huge statues that had been put up during the regime: Lenin, Stalin, Monuments to Workers Power and Glory etc. Quite a few were destroyed until someone decided that they should at least keep them for histories sake. He stuck them in a park on the outskirts of the city, which has slowly grown into one of the biggest tourist attractions in Budapest. And weird too.
There’s something disquieting walking around a park with all of these statues that only 15 years ago signified a strong and powerful regime, that kept people under control and denied them freedoms etc, but are now stuck in a park next to a building supplies depot. Weird. I suppose it would be fitting if there was a fully stocked supermarket or clothes store next to the park, but no doubt that will come.
Gilded Churches and Drowning People
Another day, more sore feet.
Up at a very leisurely 9 AM, an average breakfast buffet in the restaurant downstairs and off we went. One of our guidebooks had a walking tour through what is known as the Vizivaros (Waterfront) area of Buda, an old area that used to be full of fishermen and other people who worked on the river. It was apparently razed in the early 1900’s for “sanitary reasons”, so there’s not too many of the old buildings left, but a fair few of them remain.
One of the problems of using guidebooks is that they can be out of date, even if it’s only a year old. A couple of times we climbed innumerable stairs to look at something to find that it had been knocked down, something had been built in front of it or that it was being renovated. But isn’t that all part of the fun?
We had a coffee in a Kafehaz (Coffee House) that is in a building next to a two hundred year old church. Unfortunately, due to the fact that everyone in Budapest seems to do nothing other than smoke nonstop while in restaurants, it was quite difficult to hang around and enjoy the building.
The church is on the banks of the Danube, which is all very pleasant, except for a small note in the guidebook. Apparently, during the last winter of WWII, the Nazis threw large groups of Jews, who had been tied together, into the freezing river. Not the nicest thing to do to someone.
We wandered into Pest (trying every bank along the way to change some travellers cheques … something they don’t seem to be too keen to do), and had some lunch. Our guidebooks mentioned a Statue Park on the outskirts of town where they carted all the old communist statues and we thought that it sounded good. We had to hurry to get to the bus stop, and waited under the sign that said “Bus for Statue Park”. Nothing came. We wandered off, not really knowing what to do and saw another sign around the corner which also said “Bus for Statue Park” with an arrow, pointing away from where we were standing. So, no statue park today.
St Stephens Basilica was just over the road so we popped in for a quick look. A fairly impressive building on the outside, but a truly magnificent one on the inside. Currently being restored, the main areas of the church had been completed and were truly breathtaking. Gilding, paintings, frescoes, statues. Astounding. Of course, quite sickening when you realise how much money went into the construction of it and not towards helping stricken citizens, but I suppose you can’t help that.
We are probably going to go to the parliament building (which puts Westminster to shame) tomorrow, but all of our books have conflicting reports as to when it is actually open. Failing that, it’s off to look at old communist cronies in stone form (and to probably by a CD “The Songs of the Workers”).