Fast forward

Right, first up, apologies for the tardiness of our recent blog frequency. I blame three things - weak internet, extreme cold and, um, something else. I don't think that Jo's previous post really impressed upon you, the reader, how gosh darned chilly it has been. Budapest was very cold, Vienna was quite cold and Krakow was bloody freezing. Ice everywhere and it didn't get above 0 degrees all week. It snowed a bit most days and gave yours truly a very cold nose.

 

A meeting of minds at The Wall

Anyhoo... We left krakow (which was a super ace place) and trained it up to Warsaw and then across to Berlin. Berlin was also cold, but in a grey sort of way. Not quite as invigorating as Polish cold. So we stayed there for three nights and left. It wasn't as exciting as we'd hoped. Some cool buildings, excellent public transport and a lovely Good Friday procession was about it. And the beer was disappointing too. Although now I think about it the wall was pretty interesting, although they seem quite keen to get rid of it. We nearly made the news again cos they were demolishing it as we walked past. Silly people.

 

 

Now I need to explain the photo below. We were "quite surprised" to see this on the side of an apartment building in Berlin. But here's the story - the editor of Bild magazine, (a massive newspaper that is rather sensationalist, likes having topless girls on the front and, well, you get the idea) evidently had a penis enlargement that was reported on by a rival paper. Well of course he tried to sue them for this that and the other but the judge ruled that basically reporting on other people's private lives was how he made millions so it was fair enough that others could report on him. Case dismissed. So this artist put up this work on an apartment building wall that faces Bild's head office. Sticking it to the man! I'm glad I don't live there though.

Right, move on.

 

 

Stained glass in St Vitus' cathedral

 

Now we're in Prague! And it is as beautiful as they say. And the beer... Pilsner Urquell, fresh as a daisy on tap everywhere, for cheap as. I'd never really taken to it before, considering it just another lager beer. But by golly its a whole different thing here. I love it. And at about $1.75 Australian for half a litre, well, you'd be silly not to drink it. (Speaking of bargain beer, is 30 cents too little to pay for 500ml of some sort of beer in the supermarket? It just might be...)

The aforementioned cathedral

So yeah, we're in Prague and I've eaten more meat in the last three days than I have in a long time, which is a lot considering that's all one eats in Eastern Europe. And it has been delicious.

 

Very nice people, very good food and drink, wonderful streets and buildings and generally just a very beautiful place.

Busy as too.

We explored the Jewish quarter today which was kept intact during the war by the Nazis because Hitler wanted to keep it as an "Exotic Museum to an Extinct Race".

 

Yup.

 

Charles bridge. Chockas.

 

One more day here, then heading into western Czech Republic before heading down to see cousin Chris in Munich which will excellent. As, I'm sure, will be the beer.

 

Krakow, cracking.

We arrived in Krakow on a wet and snowy evening after 10 hours of travelling on three trains and two buses, the last of which was a total fiasco at the bus stop, with far more people wanting to get on than were seats. I don't know how we managed to get the last two seats but we did and we were very thankful. Others not so lucky had to stand in the aisle for an hour. We wandered through the rainy and snowy streets of Krakow for a bit then finally found our home for the next four days. It was magnificent, a seperate kitchen, bathroom and living room and then a bedroom! We have been a bit deprived of spaces that are designated, so this was quite exciting. It was clean and bright and very comfortable. Shopping for dinner was also quite exciting as there were new things to eat such as pierogi, new beers and a ginger ale that will be a favourite of mine for a while. Home with our new found goods to a plate of Russian pierogi, fried of course with sour cream and spring onions and beers YUM!

 

Our apartment is in the Jewish quarter called Kazimierz after the King who allowed the Jewish people to live in this area about the 13 th century but as we found out the people were then all moved out during the Second World War and sent over the river to the Jewish ghetto. It has only been in last twenty years or so that this precinct is being revived. It is now quite arty, and there are lots of cafes and the Jewish people have regained their status again here to some level.

 

Just in case you might not know Krakow is a beautiful little city, it has a lovely old part and a lively new part, with a huge shopping mall in it. It is good to know that shopping malls are the same the world over and just as the doors can open to let you in you can leave just as quickly, they suit their purpose but the old town will always win us to stay. We wandered around the old town and got our travel cards which I would recommend in Krakow because then most of the museums etc and all travel in the city area is free. We went to the Cloth hall which was once one of the biggest trading rooms in Europe, they used to trade fabrics there, hence the name, it now houses a gallery of artworks by Polish artists, many possibly from the Krakow area. Some of the works stood out over others but what we noticed more than anything was the optimism and brightness of these pictures in contrast to pictures else where of the same period. I am not sure if the artists had travelled but the influence of western art was evident or possibly western artists has seen these paintings.

 

We walked around the market square whis is said to be the largest in open square in Europe, maybe it is, it was quite large. Paul bought himself a local favourite food - a huge slab of bread covered in lard - delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

We went to Auchwitz on the Sunday it was cold but sunny. I expected it to be quite gruelling and sad and many more adjectives that I thought I would expeience but I didn't really. Just felt numb and detached and I wanted to get out... Away from all the people taking photo's as if they were at some theme park, away from the stupidity of people, away from the one place that exemplifies the existence of bullies, bigots and all the destruction that can result when you put a bunch of useless people in charge. I went and stood at the bus stop for two hours in the cold- yes Paul had to come as well- and waited for the next bus out. I knew from our last experience that the bus was going to be full and people would push on to get a seat. I was not going to miss this bus. About 10 minutes before it arrived all the people came and started to crowd around I kept our place where I though the door would be. The bus came... The door travelled past... I held my place...5 huge German guys had pushed their way to the door and tried to push me and all the others that had waited for ages out the way. I was not going to pushed aside so I just tucked in and did the best hip and shoulder, I have ever done. They were quite surprised really. I got onto the bus first, to the taunts of the German guys laughing at the 'Oldie' . I Got quite lippy for a bit and sat down to cool off and wait for Paul to untangle himself froml the mess left behind. Auchwitz, arseholes and attitude - that was my day and I was glad to get out of there. Oh! And thanks to all the Italians who trained me in bus warfare.

 

 

We went to the Emalia factory (Oscar Schindler's place) in Krakow the day before going to Auchwitz and it also was quite a gruelling experience. Again quite sanitised which is possibly good . It is hard to say anything about the holocaust sites as it is all just too much, too amazingly terrible to even begin to comprehend and I get too angry thinking about it all. So I will try not to think too much.

 

Paul being quite irreverent on Mount Kosiousko

We walked up mound Kosiosko one day it was a lovely walk through the snow covered streets of Krakow past the hill top cemetery with flower stalls - all the flowers were fake or handmade out of material. Straw or wood shaving flowers - they were quite beautiful. And there were glass lamp jars shaped in different styles, Easter eggs, Christmas trees etc with tea light candles.

The Wawclo Castle was quite a beautiful place, we really only went into the Cathedral though. This was enough. There are a lot of kings, queens and other royalty buried there as were as Thaddeuas Kosiousko. The bell tower is amazing and intersting to see the size of the bells and also the sizes of the huge timbers that were used to create the structure of the tower.

We were meant to be leaving on the Monday but we couldn't work out the best route to get to Berlin - via warsaw? Via Posnan? Or Wracloc? finally after a great deal of time we found a direct train to Berlin that left at 6.30 in the morning YIKES! So we found accommodation closer to the station - note, accommodation near stations is often pretty run down, it served its purpose though. Anyway, while we were researching places I thought to ask my sister, Jacquie, what was the name of our relation who came from these parts. We had learnt about him through a bit of a family history search. As it turned out we actually went past the area that he came from in between Warsaw and Poznan. I don't think it has changed much in that area since he left as a very young man in the mid 18 hundreds. His story is worth a read. If you are interested google 'Solomon Nashelski' there is a NZ connection as well.

Go north about 20 klms from here and there will be Lubranz. It figure it would look mush the same as this.

Krakow had great food in cosy interesting places some of our favourites were hot chocolate so thick you had to eat it with a spoon - it was really hot chocolate pudding in a bowl, with apple shortcake YUM! Cabbage rolls YUM! Pirogi YUM! another local favourite YUM!

Bread with lard. Disgusting.

The very best experience we had in Krakow was on the last day when we went to the salt mine. I can't believe I spent four hours under the ground sometimes as far down as 135 metres gasp, gasp. But it was amazing, unbelievable! It is always so difficult to comprehend the terrible things that mankind can do but then there are the fantastic achievements the beauty and the incredible feats of human indurance. This mine was possibly the best testament to everything mankind could achieve and I am very glad we got to see it. This Cathedral was carved out of the rock salt by three men over 69 years, even the floor is carved rock salt. All of the three were miners not artists or engineers. The chandelier crystals are made out of salt from the crystal caves - we didn't see these caves unfortunately.

 

Of all the caves and tunnels we saw less than 1% and only 4 of a possible 9 floors.

 

 

Just to give you an idea of size . We couldn't see the end of these Pillar and this was only one cavern.

 

Smitten

You may wish to listen to this first, just to add to the experience.

Oh Vienna. How lovely you are. So many grand buildings, all gleaming and glorious. Clean, wide streets and pretty narrow lanes. Delicious sausages, good beer and wonderful cakes. Parks, bike lanes, fantastic public transport and amazing art. A rich history (seriously rich by the looks of the buildings), multi-cultural population and helpful service. Palaces, galleries, more palaces, more parks, more cakes. Wunderbar!

Alley-ey

Lovely

 

Grand-y

 

Happy

 

 

Yup, it's a winner.

And, to top it off, it's the home of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Seriously.

They develop protocols for meeting aliens and stuff, what to say, where to take them etc. Pretty useful stuff. Who knew the UN did that? Have a read here.

Also, the lady in charge of it went to Otago University, just like Ernest Rutherford. Their physics department must be pretty hot.

 

Bruegel-y

Skippy

We only stayed a short time (it's not the cheapest place) but I'd come back for sure. It would be super fun in summer.

We saw some great art, especially Bruegels work. And lots of stupid intricate gold shiny fancy pointless decorative things that rich folks collected back in the 16 and 1700's.

We reckon all the galleries and museums that have work made of ivory should make massive donations to save the elephant organisations, because there were clearly an awful lot of elephants killed just to make pretty things.

 

Easter-y

In general it seems that Vienna is a very good city for living. There were cool Easter markets, lots of events advertised, quite a push for 'green' products, and they say that the public transport system is the second most used per capita in the world. It certainly is efficient. Even out in the suburbs the streets were clean and well kept, and there were lots of cyclists and runners and the such. I'd live there.

.......Oh Vienna.

 

 

p.s. if you did take the time (well spent you'll agree) to listen to Ultravox's great song you would have seen a big cathedral about half way through - that's St Stephens cathedral in the heart of Vienna. We went into the underground crypts there are saw lots and lots and lots of bones. Cool.

 

Still testing

Or maybe it's links to the net? Try this link to the cricket.

Hmmm....

Maybe it's photos that are the problem, cos I still couldn't post my real one.

 

Frustration.

 

East again

First of all, I've been trying to post about Vienna, which was fabulous, but it won't let me which is annoying. But now we are in Krakow and its excellent too, and even colder than Budapest!

 

So really I'm just testing to see if I can post at all or if everything has gone pear-shaped...

 

 

B..B..Budapest

At the moment we are sitting in a Scottish restaurant having a coffee and I had a chocolate biscuit which was very rich and now I have sugar overload, it should make for a fun 3 hour train trip to Vienna. So we wanted to come to Budapest because we knew it would snow while we were here, and it did. The weather forecast was exact. It snowed on the Thursday and was sunny for the rest of the time.

On the train near the Hungary-Croatia border stop. Sometimes trains are boring...

We booked an apartment here which was right in the centre of town and we were able to walk everywhere. Sometimes the walks were quite long, that was okay though because we got to see lots of fun things and walk through snow.

Happy food!

It begins...

Budapest is a wonderful old city, the buildings are interesting because they have such a architectural range from Roman ruins to stark grey Soviet monstrosities. The food is filling and warming. The drinks plentiful. The people are friendly and happy on the whole.

Double glove, it's that cold.

Buda castle complex, super views

We saw many homeless people who are living really rough, it must be so hard in these wintery countries to have to sleep on the street. I find it very difficult to see this daily, the old people in particular are heartbreaking to see.

More super snowy views

Us, obviously, in the snow

They call it chimney cake, I call it delicious

A(thens) to Z(agreb)

Well Zagreb turned out to be quite the fun city, we liked it a lot. For a start it was sunny when we got there and it looked sparkling and clean, second it was very cheap and third they have a pretty wacky sense of humour. We're not seeing any more of Croatia on this trip (unless we can sneak back for some summer action) cos we are keen to get up to Budapest (on our way there now by train - just got over the border onto Hungary) and probably then further east, but we certainly liked what we saw.

 

Perhaps the best thing was the museums, especially the Museum of Broken Relationships. It's a collection of objects and stories that people have donated that represent the end of some relationship, perhaps through a break up, death or political disillusionment. It was quite profound in a way, and certainly more immediate and meaningful than the usual museum stuff. Some stories were funny, some very sad, some weird, others quite happy and optimistic, in a now-I'm-single-and-that's-good kind of way.

 

 

At the Art and Craft museum, which was basically your normal paintings, furniture, statues type deal, they had clearly become very bored with it all. So they added props to give you a better feel for what the object's original purpose was, or how the object would be used in the modern world.... Hilarity ensued.

 

It was only some of the objects that had been given the treatment, and you often had to look carefully to see what was going on. Shit it was funny. In the antique ceramic doll collection there was a mass produced in China doll, perhaps a commentary on how we've regressed artistically...?

 

This was the best one below - ashtray, radio going, half eaten sandwich - on a French 17th century table.

Spot the differences... A far more fun way of looking at paintings.

 

So yeah, those Croatians are a pretty funny lot. The beer was a bit average, and the food not as good as Slovenia, but they had some cool stuff. And our room was super nice too. Now it's 5 days in Budapest which will be awesome. We've just finished our talking book murder mystery which was excellent, and I'm trying learn some Hungarian. It's going to take a while I suspect, some of the train station names are about 20 letters long.

 

Heading east.

The dragon on the dragon bridge

After all the issues of trying to find a way out of Venice to Slovenia it was in reality remarkably easy. I say this because we usually have to research the transport we are going to take quite solidly as there are so many transport routes that are no longer running. This was a particular problem in Greece and it seems Eastern Europe, as many transport businesses have shut up shop due to the economic downturn. Our research had given us a few options but in the end we just went to Venice station and caught a train to Trieste and then a bus to Ljubljana. We then did then manage to get a bit lost and some very nice people tried to help us but really we were so far off course that helping us would almost be impossible. We finally found our home for three nights and were immediately offered coffees and some delicious cake. is everybody so friendly here? Our little room is quite good except it is full of stinky smell nice things that give me asthma( I have bagged them all up and hidden them outside the room now.

Next time you are in ljubiljana eat here

On our first night we went out to a great restaurant called six I can't write it in Slovenian because we don't have their letters on our key boards. Wow the food was fantastic I had goulash and polenta and Paul had sausages and sauerkraut and potatoes. beer, wine and a fantastic desert of what looked like brownie almost all made out of chocolate with plums in it followed by a gratis spiced plum aperitif which was so delicious.

Beautiful lake Bled

We took the train out to a place called Radovljica the next day to meet my friend Petra. Then she drove us to lake Bled and we walked around it. Everything was so beautiful, a still clear lake surrounded by snow capped mountains just poking out of the clouds. Castles and churches sitting quietly under the mist. Although it was raining our walk was lovely and was followed by a local delicacy. A vanilla slice on steroids. We then went to Petras house and spent the afternoon being very well looked after by Petras parents. So much delicious food and drink. It was very nice to be in a warm comfortable home for a change, just talking and watching the skiing on TV.

Greetings from me...

And Goodbye Petra from me.

Today we went out for breakfast It is Mother's Day here so it was quite busy. Cake is quite good for breakfast as Paul found out. Then we walked up to the castle. Then off to the museums - natural and history. We saw a woolly mammoth skeleton and a whale skeleton that the Slovenians are very proud of. And they should be because their coast line in only about 45 klms long and the chance of a dead fin whale washing up there has to be close to winning tattslotto. It is time to go and to try to find some food which might be interesting as most places seem to be shut....

Yes everything was shut except for the Scottish restaurant! But we found a super market and got 1 can of sausages and sauerkraut and one of sausages and beans- haha we might need to put the stinky things back in the room tonight. We plan to leave for Zagreb in the morning...

Spooky castle

 

Ice skating, don't try this at home

 

 

Ljubljana in the rain