In Prague!

Sept 29-30

A long, fairly boring bus ride (but on a rather fancy bus) took us to Prague in the afternoon. Our hotel room is wonderful! A suite with a nice living area, a Jacuzzi tub and a small kitchen area AND it's in a quiet but very central location right at the base of the Charles Bridge. The bridge is a pedestrian route across the Vltava River that was packed with tourists when we arrived. There are all kinds of street vendors and artists on the bridge making a total zoo on a sunny Sun. afternoon. We took a walk across the bridge to the Old Town Square where there is a clock tower that was built in the 14th century. it has an astronomical clock and on the hour little windows open and figures of the apostles walk by the open windows. The actual chiming is done by a skeleton figure demonstrating that death is coming! Unfortunately, I couldn't get pics of the skeleton or apostles but here are a couple of the clock.

On Mon, we had a walking tour from the town square to the castle and heard some of the history of the Charles Bridge and the statues on the bridge. The best story was of Jan Nepomuk, a priest that was drowned as punishment because he wouldn't reveal to the king what the queen had said in confession. When his body turned up 3 days later, there was a halo of stars around it. Apparently, this is a pretty popular legend in the Catholic church as a lesson to priests of the sanctity of the confessional. His statue was too surrounded to be able to get a pic of him but here's one of the towers of the bridge.

We walked the Royal Coronation Road from the Old Town Square to the castle which stands on a hill overlooking the city and is the largest palace complex in Europe. It was a LOOONG uphill slog. We were given a choice of getting on the tram or walking but it didn't look all that far so we walked....not a great decision. The picture shows the cathedral of the castle and all the buildings surrounding it are part of the palace.

Main entrance to castle

 The next 6 hours were spent at the palace. It is truly gigantic and is still the seat of the government with the parliament, the senate and the president, the ts palace. There are numerous other residences in the complex. In one of the palaces, we attended a concert for an hour or so and then saw the private art collection of that family, the Lobkowicz family. This family has been prominent since the middle ages and continues to be prominent despite having to emigrate to the US during both WWII and again during the communist era. They are now back in Prague. There are fabulous views of Prague from the castle.

We spent time also in the St. Vitus cathedral of the palace and also in the the old cathedral, the St. George, that was constructed in the 9th century and became a convent when the new cathedral was built. Really tired feet brought us back to our hotel.

Dinner was at a pub frequented by locals that is just around the corner from the hotel where we tried some really good sausages, house made, and local trout along with plenty of Czech beer then made it back to our hotel to call it a night and rest our feet.

And on to Cesky Krumlov

Sept 28-29 And on to Cesky Krumlov

We had an early morning departure from our Budapest hotel to the train station for our trip to Linz, Austria where we were met by a driver for the trip to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic.  We traveled through flat agricultural areas until we reached Vienna where the landscape changed to rolling hills. The drive to Cesky Krumlov was in a beautiful, more mountainous area on small local roads with views of the autumn foliage, a rushing river along the road, and forests interspersed with small farms.

Cesky Krumlov is a medieval town that has been continuously inhabited since the 13^th century. ^th century.

The Germans invaded the village as part of their invasion of the Sudentanland and used it as a headquarters for the area. Despite occupation, the town was unharmed. The buildings have been well maintained and the restorations that have been required have been careful and in keeping with the original design. Even during the communist era, there was ongoing maintenance of the original structures. The village is centered on the Vltava River and there is a huge castle dating to the early 13th century.

 It is FILLED with tourists and tourist shops and the original impression is that it is a hokey made up place but, in fact, it's totally real. We had a walking tour scheduled and our guide turned out to be a San Franciscan (actually from Castro Valley) who met a girl from Cesky Krumlov in San Francisco, married her and eventually they moved back to her home. He gave us a great perspective on the history of the town, the architecture and some interesting legends.


One convoluted legend involved the Orsini family in Italy. An early ruler in Cesky Krumlov claimed to be related to the family whose name contains the word for bear in Italian so bears became a symbol of Cesky Krumlov and bears were kept in the moat of the castle. They still are kept there. An early fresco on one of the buildings also shows a bear.

This weekend was a celebration of St.Wenceslas and there were all kinds of foods and products for sale in the square in addition to local entertainment. A vendor making potato chips caught our eye and Dick couldn't resist.

In the morning we walked the town again, went through the castle, and walked through the very elaborate gardens of the castle.

On to Prague by bus today.

Cesky Krumlov.....but first

Sept 26-28; Cesky Krumlov but first…

Our next to the last night in Budapest we decided Italian food was the right thing to do for dinner and we went to a recommended restaurant called "Il Terzo Cerchio" (the third circle) which apparently refers to Dante's Inferno. The third circle is gluttony ….sort of an unappetizing word to associate with a restaurant. We had some delicious pastas and were quite restrained as opposed to gluttonous and were totally unguilty for having had Italian food in Budapest.

Our last day in Budapest was public transportation day. Though the original metro line is the oldest in Europe, the more modern lines were built by the Russians and the escalators have the same dizzying height and frightening speed as the ones in Moscow.

We had numerous metro and tram rides all over the city beginning with a walk along the Pest side of the Danube. We could admire the view of Buda and the bridges across the river (all of which were destroyed during WWII and were reconstructed to their original design.) In addition, we visited the Shoe Memorial. During the war, the fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross party (allied with the Nazi's) lined Jews up along the riverbank, forced them to remove their shoes, then shot them so that they fell into the river. A memorial of 60 pairs shoes typical of the period were cast in bronze and placed along the bank, an incredibly poignant memorial. Some had flowers in them that had been left and many had stones in them left by visitors.

Next stop was the fancy bookstore/winestore in the old department store. We bought a bottle of wine and browsed the books then stopped in at the elegant café for a cup of coffee and a rest.

The bookstore is on the fancy shopping avenue of Budapest so we windowshopped all the expensive stores. Dick was dying to buy some designer duds but I restrained him. Also viewed a very weird statue of Liszt, one of Budapest's own.

The afternoon brought the tour of the opera house. When it was constructed it was said to have the 2^nd best acoustics in the world, 2^nd only to La Scala and now still ranks in the top 5. 

The opera house tour was followed by a bad dinner at a fancy Hungarian restaurant….should've stuck with Italian.

We actually WENT OUT in the evening! There was a concert at St. Stephen's basilica, an organ performance of Bach's Toccata and Fugue and then a performance of Mozart's Requiem.

 I loved it! Dick was tolerant if not completely enamored of it. The acoustics were wonderful. It was a great ending to Budapest.

And It Begins

Sept 24-26, 2013 Warning--long, possibly boring post

But first....Budapest. After a fairly uneventful, long but not particularly pleasant flight via Frankfurt, we arrived in Budapest in the late afternoon. We needed to stay awake so we explored our neighborhood a bit. We are in the Jewish quarter next door to the 2nd largest synagogue in the world, (The largest is Temple Emanuel in NYC.) We made the mistake of not visiting it then because now there is some Jewish holiday and it is closed for 2 days to tourists so we won't be able to see the inside...very disappointing. Outside, there is a sculpture called The Weeping Willow with each leaf inscribed with the name of a Jewish relative lost during WWII without knowing where they are buried. If the sculpture is turned upside down it looks like a menorah.

The day after we arrived, we had a half day walking tour. Budapest is a really attractive city with beautiful architecture. Most of the city was severely damaged during the war but the buildings were reconstructed or renovated to appear the same as before the damage. The walking tour included taking a city bus across the Chain Bridge over the Danube to Buda (the side of the city where we are staying is Pest.) The Buda side is more hilly so allows for some great views of Pest.. We saw the various sights including Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion from which you see Pest across the Danube . Here's a pic of the view that shows the parliament building.:

Now a trip on the ancient subway.....the oldest subway in Europe.... back to Pest and to the Szechenyi baths and Hero's Square. Mineral baths are quite the popular activity in Budapest and the Szechenyi are the largest in Budapest. They're fed by hot springs (hot enough that the water has to be cooled as it enters the hottest pool.) There's a big medical complex where people can see a doctor for their various ailments and have massage and hot spring  baths prescribed and have it covered by the national health insurance.  This is a gigantic place with multiple pools of different temperatures, facilities for massage, reflexology, fish pedicures (which I never quite understood) and various medical treatments.

After the baths, we went to Hero's Square where there is tomb of the unknown soldier and a wreath laying ceremony by the ambassador from India was happening with a military honor guard was presiding. We also visited a pavilion constructed for the millennium celebration of 1899. Various building were constructed in style typical of different eras. It's now used as an educational facility. An unusual place that we visited was a bookstore/winestore that had been converted from a department store. It's a gigantic bookstore with a beautiful cafe on an upper floor and a gallery on another floor that has art of various media including porcelain from Zsolnay, an old Hungarian family that manufactured colorful roof tiles similar to the type seen in Burgundy but also makes elegant dinnerware and artistic pieces of porcelain that look like glass. A separate room in the gallery has works of a young artist that were truly unique....when the lights are turned off and a black light turned on, the artwork reveals and entirely different subject. Take a look at these:

This is ONE painting seen under different lighting!
Then back to our hotel and lunch. We did some more exploring in the afternoon including checking out a long street of restaurants.

Re food: so far, so good. Goose is a popular meat here.The first night we wanted just a light dinner so we had soup. Goulash soup for Dick and clear goose soup with vegetables and a matzo ball for me. Both were really good! And we had some nice Hungarian wines to go with it. Last night, more on the goose theme with a roasted goose leg...again really good and for Dick, a beef goulash (but not soup) with spaetzle and, of course, some more Hungarian wine.

Today, we visited St. Stephen's Church, the largest church in Budapest. Pretty typical Catholic church with the right hand of St. Stephen the relic housed in the church. (I'm sorry but that's just plain weird!)

Then walked to Liberty Square, an area surrounded by lots of architecturally interesting buildings. The square itself has a statue of Ronald Reagan erected in some sort of political shenanigan so convoluted I can't quite understand it but apparently the Hungarians take it as a big joke.

An interesting fountain just outside the park senses something approaching it and turns sections of itself off in response.

In the afternoon, we walked a pedestrian shopping street that was too touristy for words in order to get to the Central Market, a gargantuan, several floor market selling every kind of foodstuff imaginable in addition to clothing and touristy stuff. It's frequented by locals and tourists alike.