Monday July 28, 2008
We have a young American friend who lived in Prague for a
couple of years working as a journalist for a local English language newspaper.
I want to ask him if he ever got over the magic spell of walking the streets of
Prague and was finally able to function as a resident. If I lived here, I would
take days and days and days to familiarize myself with the city. It is an easy
thing to wander the streets of Prague and allow oneself to become enchanted by
the wonderful architecture and history that is everywhere. We have been doing
it for seven days and I really was not ready to leave when Bruce said it was
time to move on.
I don’t know if Prague is more beautiful than Paris (or Vienna for that matter) but it surely is one of the most enticing cities we have ever seen.
We had daily itineraries that just couldn’t hold up to the delights of wandering around the various areas that make up historical Prague.
Our first day was to be spent in Josephov, the historical
Jewish ghetto. At one time Prague had the largest Jewish population in all of
Europe and the oldest synagogue in Europe, begun in 1279, still stands. In
fact, the Jewish quarter and many valuable Jewish artifacts survived primarily
because the Nazis wanted to use Prague’s synagogues as a “Museum of an Extinct
Race.” Before 1939 the Czech Jewish population was approximately 118,000; today
the number is closer to 3,000 with the larger part of 78,000 dying in
extermination camps. The Nazis were damn near successful in attaining their
goal, at least in Prague. The Pinkas synagogue has inscribed the names of every
Czech Jew who did not return from the camps.
Josephov also has the oldest Jewish cemetery – the earliest tombstone is dated 1439 and is one of over 12,000 tombstones, but some estimate 20,000 bodies interred there. Space was so limited in the cemetery that bodies were buried vertically to conserve the space.
We were supposed to see all of this on our Day One itinerary but when we got off the tram we were so intrigued by what was on “that corner” or “down that street” that we soon where off track, never to get back on it. Instead, we walked to Old Town Square and spent the next two hours gawking at all the sites that availed themselves to us: the Jan Hus memorial: the astronomical clock on the Town Hall Tower, the Church of Our Lady of Tyn and all the different architectural type buildings that surrounded the square: Art Deco, Renaissance and Gothic. Evidently there was a major reconstruction of Stare Mesto and Josephov (old town and Jewish quarter) around 100 years ago, right when Art Deco was the rage and the result is fabulous Art Deco buildings throughout the city.
Dragging ourselves away from the square we explored Stare Mesto out to the Powder Gate, border of the old walled city, and then back in via a different route. Everywhere we walked we found buildings with wonderful stuccoed detail, or frescoed art or sculpted base-reliefs. It was really amazing.
We were to find this sort of delightful detail everywhere we went in Prague.
The next day was a short one because thunderstorms began in the early afternoon and we scurried back to our camping lest we melt. We quickly realized this was a typical weather pattern for July, at least while we were here: thundershowers were a daily occurrence and we learned to prepare for them, umbrellas and raingear became de rigueur.
The next four days were marathons of sight-seeing. We finally did make it to the Jewish quarter and saw the Pinkas Synagogue with the recorded names and the old cemetery with old and crowded tombstones leaning into each other for support. The 78,000 names recorded on the synagogue walls brought home the reality that the Holocaust did happen to real live people - not just as an abstract, history lesson. The several museums were crowded with visiting Jewish tourists - I wondered if their families were originally from Czechoslovakia or perhaps they too just needed to see this.
During our six days in Prague we visited the Jewish Quarter,
the Stare Mesto (old town) the Nove Mesto (new town), Prague Castle and the
Lesser Quarter. We saw the National House, the National Theater, Prague Castle,
the Royal Gardens, the Golden Lane, St. Vitus Cathedral, Winceslas Square,
Vaclav Havel’s (first President of the newly freed from Communism state and
quite the hero) old haunts, the John Lennon Wall, an old water mill, the Fred
and Ginger building, Charles Bridge, the mini-Eiffel tower (1/5 scale) and always, always we saw beautiful art
buildings, churches and monuments to various persons and events in Prague
history.
It was wonderful to see a city held captive by the dark “communist experiment” for 40 years come out on the other side into light so successfully. It really was an amazing seven days, hampered only by our ongoing inability to speak with the “natives.”
We made up for that by partying with the international group of tourists we camped with: Italians, Swedes, Australian & English and Belgians – thank god they spoke English!
Quite like Paris, this is a hard city for us to leave but we have a couple of other stops in Czech Rep so today (Monday) will be our last day in Prague.
posted 7/28/08 - Prague, CZ
Cesky Krumlov and then...Bony Fingers
Friday morning (7/18/08) we left Gmund, AU, a town bordering the Czech Rep and following Sir Gar’s instructions to get to Cesky Krumlov, CZ – a medieval village everyone said we must visit – we drove along Austrian roads for 2 hours, slowly making our way west towards Czech Rep.
Sir Gar certainly gets us to our destination but at times the routes he chooses befuddles us. Our former traveling companion, Larry, helped me understand a lot better when he explained that Sir Gar will always calculate in a forward motion. But let’s be serious: we were 2km from the Czech border at Gmund with a decent sized road that would have taken us to our destination through CZ rather than the way we went. The only justification I can think of is this: Gar was smarter than us and wasn’t going to put us on toll roads. I’ll grant you, our drive was lovely but once – following his instructions – we got stuck in a Czech town with one-way roads that kept leading us back to the main square. We finally muted Gar’s voice and guessed our way back on track.
Cesky Krumlov, almost due south of Prague near the Austrian
border, was described to us as “simply ravishing” and without doubt it ranks up
there with Carcassone, Rothenburg ob Taber and Brugges.
Divided by the Vltava river which forms a double loop as it passes through town; on one side of the river the picturesque castle complex – with a beautifully ornate round tower, a bear in the moat and wonderful castle gardens –sits at the top of a fortified hill. The other side of the river contains the old medieval town. Buildings on both sides are richly adorned with tromp l’oeil paintings and have the required charm that is guaranteed to bring us tourists in hordes.
But for us the really neat thing about Cesky Krumlov was the
river. In summer several companies rent kayaks and canoes to “shoot” down the
river through town. The river was full of fun-loving water babies. We were
dying to do it but had not come prepared (e.g. get-wet-garb/gear). It made us miss
our time spent in Coeur d’Alene (which we already think of as home even though
we still live in Pahrump). We can’t wait to get back and take our kayak “Rosie”
out for a spin.
We must have been pretty impressed with Cesky Kurmlov – in
one day we shot over 200 photos and walked 20km/12.45miles/20,863 steps
(including our hike to/from the camping).
Can you tell we have a pedometer?
We did Cesky Krumlov on Saturday and Sunday we took off on another slow and scenic drive towards Kutna Hora. Our route purposefully took us to Ceske Budejovice where the original Czech beer Budweiser/Budvar is brewed. That’s right – Budweiser beer. The Anhauser-Busch Brewing company chose the name Budweiser for it’s American brew because the name Budweiser (the German name for the Czech beer) was synonymous with good beer. Evidently there is an ongoing legal battle over rights to the name. The town itself was quite charming but in truth we came for the beer. Or rather the brewery. We toured the brewery and its gift shop then got back on the road towards Tabor.
Tabor was the home base of the Hussite religious rebellion in the 14th century. Jan Hus, from whom the movement got its name, was a Czech monk who spoke against the Catholic church and was burned as a heretic. This sparked a rebellion that lasted for 30 years. To me it all rings of Martin Luther and the Protestant movement (except Martin only got excommunicated not burned at the stake.)
So Tabor became the third town we'd passed through with interesting history and charming appearance. Our route then took us down those small white roads you see on maps, across prosperous farmlands and through hamlets and small villages as we made our way toward Kutna Hora. The Czech countryside is almost as pretty as Slovenia and we enjoyed every kilometer of the 75km drive that turned into 100+km. (I won’t say anything about Sir Gar but re-read the above rant.)
In a continuation of our “bizarre sites” trip-within-a-trip
(Paris catacombs, Rome’s Capuchin chapel), we were visiting Kutna Hora solely
for the bone chapel that resides there. Imagine our delight to find our bone
chapel, along with the Kutna Hora town center and a second cathedral, joining
Cesky Krumlov on the Unesco World Heritage list – another of our sub-trip
goals.
The town center of Kutna Hora was not nearly as satisfying an excursion as Cesky Krumlov but it did have the amazing cathedral of Santa Barbara. Designed in the late 1300s at the peak of the Gothic period, it had the most unique and modernistic exterior architecture I’ve ever seen. While most churches we’ve seen of late have onion domed spires this church sported three soaring peaks reminiscent of modern day Cirque de Soleil circus tents (perhaps the tent designers had visited Kutna Hora?) as well as lots of flamboyant spires, flying buttresses, unique gargoyle gutters and great stone carvings.
It was really cool.
The bone chapel lived up to our bizarre site criteria. It’s kind of weird – on our first trip we were fascinated by the bits and pieces of saints and martyrs spread all over the Catholic churches (and we still are): this trip is seems bones are our thing. First the Paris Catacombs, then the Capuchin monks, now a chapel filled with the bones of plague victims. 40,000+ to be exact. It was almost as impressive (if that’s the word for it) as the million + bones in Paris. This chapel combined quantity with art (?).
About 500 years
ago they downsized the cemetery and a lot of bones got dug up and stacked
outside the chapel. Along came a half-blind monk who decided he’d like to stack
them inside (he probably kept tripping over them outside).
About 300 years later some other guy got the idea of using the bones to decorate the chapel interior, creating some pretty bizarre designs.
There is a chandelier made of all the bones in the human body and a coat of arms of the Shwartzenberger family who owned the chapel. And there some windchime-looking decorations too.
Yea, we’d say it was pretty bizarre.
But it was something we’d heard about years ago and always hoped to see.
posted July 22, 2008 - Prague, CZ
Vienna in 3 days, 45,536 steps and 36.42 km/22.63 miles
Saturday, July 12, 2008
After spending Berkeley’s Birthday in Bratslavia, Slovakia (we spent the night at a very busy, very basic camping that was on the property of another water park. These eastern countries are really into thermal baths/spas/public pools – I think in part because the Turks (Turkish Baths) conquered parts of eastern Europe and laid their culture over the top of the existing social structure, but of course for that to work there had to be thermal waters to exploit.) we left the Eastern Bloc behind with no regrets. As we drove through the Slovakian countryside, we thought it seemed a bit more prosperous than Hungary but that didn’t tempt us to change our escape plans.
Saturday morning found us crossing the border into Austria. The differences between west and east were immediate: well maintained roads, there were no old cars on the road, the denizens are well dressed and healthy looking, the towns are in good condition with fresh plaster and paint – it was like night and day.
By 11 am we arrived at our camping in Klosterneuburg- 10km NW of Vienna.
We are in the land of the Hapsburgs.
Unfortunately that doesn’t mean as much to me as it probably should.
The Austrian Empire (run by the Hapsburgs) pretty much dominated a large part of Europe for over 600 years, beginning in 1273 and relinquishing power only after being on the losing side of WWI. That means one family was running a huge Empire for longer than the Americas were even known of!
I had no idea of the time scale involved here. I remember learning that the Hapsburgs and Austro-Hungarian Empire was a big deal in European History but that about sums up my knowledge on the subject. I am way behind the learning curve.
Not only was Vienna the capital of the Hapsburg dynasty, it is also the city of waltzes, and great composers of music – Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler and the Strausses (of waltz fame) played their music here. While classical music reigns supreme here, contemporary music also has its role to play in Vienna.
Enough of what little background I know and on with the city:
Sunday, July 13, 2008
We walked Vienna today – at least parts of the inner city.
(Never has a Germanic language sounded so good to us. If you
will recall, only 2 months ago we were bitching about how we cannot speak
German and cannot understand it. Nothing has changed, but German is a lot more
familiar sounding to us than the Slavic or Hungarian languages, so perhaps you
can see what desperate straits we were in.)
From the first time I saw Paris, I thought it was the most beautiful city I had ever seen, but Vienna is a formidable competitor. Grand boulevards are lined with grander buildings; every street we walked had row upon row of magnificent palaces. Vienna seems to be an elegant and grand old world city.
Vienna, along with Berlin and (once upon a time) Venice, is
one of the very few great cities of Europe we have not visited. Had we not run
away from the east I doubt we ever would have visited Vienna and we would have
been the poorer for it.
We started our tour at Stephansdom – Vienna’s cathedral. A church has been at that site for over 800 years but after centuries of rebuilding and restorations little of the original church remains. Now is a huge and beautiful church with a towering Flamboyant spire that can been seen all over the city. The interior is a mass of carved columns that, standing at certain angles, makes you feel like you are in a stone forest.
A pulpit dating from the 1400s has some of the best and most interesting stonework in a church that is decorated with fabulous masonry. It is all very impressive.
Next we took the metro to the Hofburg - the Imperial Palace. The immense palace is the core of a complex of buildings containing museums and places like the Burgkapelle where the Vienna Boys Choir sings; the Winter Riding School, where those white Lipizzaner horses we originally saw in Slovenia are trained and perform. The architecture is on a grand scale and outshines all of the magnificent building elsewhere in the city.
We continued walking around the city and at the Rathaus Platz (city hall – and another unbelievable building) we came across some sort of celebration. It turned out to be the final day of the 60th annual Tour of Austria bicycle race. We took photos of the racers as they rode the course through the city. We kept on walking, stumbling upon one beautiful site after another: Karlskirche with two columns in the front modeled after Trajan’s column in Rome; the Staatsoper, Vienna’s opera house; Maria Theresa Platz with twin buildings containing two famous museums, facing each other across the square.
We walked for 6 ½ hours and finally – 11,327 steps and 9.06 km later – decided it was time to take the bus back to Lily.
I’ll tell you one thing – this ain’t no Budapest.
Monday and Tuesday, 7/14&15/ 2008): the Hofburg museums and Venus of Willendorf
After a late start we began our first of two museum days. We purchased a combo pack of tickets that got us into the Hofburg with tours of the Imperial Apartments, the Sisi museum and the royal silver collection; the Schonnbrun or Summer Palace and the Furniture Museum. We also visited the Natural History Museum, home of the Venus of Willendorf, a female figure and one of the earliest carvings made by man.
The Hofburg is an immense palace that is made up of over 2000 rooms that were added at different times over the 600 years of residency by the Imperial Family. Our tour took us through the apartments of the last emperor Franz Joseph, who reigned for 68 years – longer than England’s Queen Victoria.
There is another parallel between the Austrian and English ruling families. Our generation had Princess Diane – whose story has the makings of legendary tales. The Austrians have Empress Elisabeth or Sisi as she was known, the beautiful wife of the last Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph. She was married at the tender age 16 and thrust into the Imperial world immediately. She was unable to bear her imperial duties as wife of the Kaiser, feeling ill-prepared as well as put upon so she slowly withdrew from the public life and lived outside the public arena. She was considered the beauty of her day and felt under pressure to maintain that beauty to the degree that she refused to allow public images of her after the age of about 30. When she was 61 she was assassinated by an Italian anarchist.
The parallel being both women lived unhappily within the royal confines and both died tragically.
Marie Antoinette - the French queen whom we’ve all heard of - who lost her head after she suggested the rabble eat cake since they had no bread, was the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria and head of the Hapsburgs.
The Hapsburg Dynasty lived a very opulent lifestyle if their apartments, silver collections and furniture are any indication. They used to eat off of silver or gold plates. Not porcelain mind you but silver, and on a daily basis, not for state occasions. (I kept thinking of the poor servant who’s duty it was to polish that silver every day – not a job I would care for.) Porcelain wasn’t even produced in Europe until 1710 and then was only used for soup or dessert courses until the 19th century when it became the normal dinner service. (I think a war was going on and the family had to use some of the silver to finance the war so they began using porcelain.)
The Summer Palace, about 20 minutes (now) from city center was another opulent residence that we visited. It has beautiful gardens and reminded us a little of Versailles. And we mustn’t forget that it is on our World Heritage Site list (and the “1001 things to see before we die” list too).
I just can’t understand how, with all the history here, I missed out on all the connections between the Austrian Empire and the rest of Europe. And I don’t know why I have never taken such an elegant and historic city as Vienna a lot more seriously.
After all that royal treatment, we went to the Museum of Natural History – a right jolly museum with dinosaur skeletons and fossils dating back to the beginnings of life then following the evolution of life up to the present.
This type of museum has always been one of my favorites
(although I love almost all museums) and this particular one has the Venus of Willendorf.
One of my areas of interest is the development of early humankind (in fact,
Bruce and I are already planning our next trip to be based on cave paintings in
southern France and northern Spain); the Venus is one of the earliest
sculptures found and believed to be representative of an earth goddess. She has
been dated at about 25,000 years old and was found only 100 years ago in
Willendorf, Austria. She is included in any photo spread you have ever seen
regarding prehistoric art or religion – and we got to see her!!
We finished off our day stopping by Sigmund Freud’s home at
19 Berggasse – it doubles as a museum/research library. I wanted to go to pay
homage to my dad, a Freudian psychotherapist and to doff my hat to the man who
legitimized the whole touchy/feely movement which culminated in my generation
of the 60s. (I, on the other hand, always considered myself to be more of an
existentialist.)
And that pretty much sums up our visit to the grand city of Vienna. This is one city I would love to come back to – this is one city I need to research so I can understand all that I am seeing – because I didn’t know what there was to see, I saw only a small part of what Vienna has to offer.
posted Friday 7/18/08 - Cesky Krumlov, Czech Rep
Happy Birthday Berkeley!
Friday, July 11, 2008- Bratslavia, Slovakia
On Sunday, July 6 rather than spend another night at Lake Balaton, we decided to go to Budapest. Our destination was Camping Jumbo in Urom - a suburb slightly north of Budapest - recommended to us by a Dutch couple we met in Bled.
We only got off track a couple of times, but we got to see things we otherwise would have missed; small towns with interesting monuments and churches; several large, occupied stork nests looking like penthouses atop tall poles – with smaller birds renting out the lower portions.
After several misadventures driving through the numerous construction zones that seem to make up the streets of Budapest we finally got through the city to reach our peacefully quiet camping.
Budapest is actually two cities that grew on opposite sides of the Danube river, Buda on the western hilly side and Pest on the eastern flat side. Not until the first permanent bridge was built in 1896 did the cities merge into Budapest. (if you want to get technical we can add Obuda – or old Buda – to the mix and merge of three cities – but I don’t want to).
After buying a three day Budapest card (cost 8000 HUF each) which gave us use of all transportation and entry into most museums, we spent the next three days exploring the city.
We saw a lot of the sights that Budapest is famous for.
On the Pest side: The magnificent Parliament building built in 1902 and looking somewhat like London’s Westminster Abbey. It was there the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 took place and a touching monument to the fallen heroes against Soviet repression is at a side of the square. Across from Parliament was another incredible building which housed the Ethnographic Museum – a history of the Hungarian culture. This museum was the best. It had displays depicting rural life from birth to death, traditional clothing, farming equipment, housing, just everything needed to successfully survive in a rural society – and hardly anyone was there to see it.
We visited Hero’s Square, a mighty open-air square built in 1896 to commemorate the millennium celebration of the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin (the land that makes up today’s Hungary) and renamed by the Soviets. Hero’s Square fronted City Park – and a great big palace, the Vajdahunyad (pronounce that – I dare you) built for the 1896 millennium celebration and made up of 3-4 different architectural styles; Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. It sounds bizarre but is was very impressive. The Hungarians were so impressed with the building it was rebuilt in the park as a permanent structure. Inside was a museum with displays on the domestication of animals and agriculture (another good museum).
We walked Vaci Utca, the promenade street famous for its
bars, shops and architecure. At one end of Vaci Utca was the great indoor
market, the Nagycsarnok (can you get “market” out of that?) selling every food
item imaginable on the ground floor and snacks and souvenirs on the upper
level.
We visited the Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe, and a beauty, built in 1859 of brick. Somehow it survived the Nazi pogrom even when many of its worshippers did not. We realized we’ve have neglected Jewish synagogues in our pilgrimages to places of worship. The Synagogue has an interesting museum that portrays the Holocaust from the Hungarian POV.
In the back courtyard is a memorial to the martyred Jews of WWII, financed by the actor Tony Curtis, who is of Hungarian descent.
On the Buda side; Castle Hill, the original location for defense of the area and today a sightseer’s paradise. Originally fortified in 1297 by King Bela III, over the centuries it has been torn asunder by the Turks, the Austrians and WWII bombardments. What has survived today is only about 150 years old but still impressive. The bastions built over the original fortifications and Matyas Church look like fabulous sand castles – or would if most of Castle Hill wasn’t wrapped in scaffolding – with prime views of the Danube and the buildings along the banks. The Buda palace itself, rebuilt after 1945, today holds a museum of amazing works by Hungarian artists, none of whom, I’m ashamed to admit, I knew.
In two days we walked 31-1/2 km and 39,685 steps (we forgot the pedometer on our 3rd day but I’ll guess we came close to the second day of 12.26km/15,333 steps.)
As much as we saw, we missed an equal amount but after three days we were burned out and to tell the truth, we weren’t all that impressed with Budapest.
We had great expectations of the city and were rather disappointed. There are magnificent architectural wonders to be sure, but there are also great blocks of ugly soviet-era concrete housing. The people do not look prosperous and anyone over the age of 35 looks older and worn and certainly has no sense of style. The city, even including the World Heritage sites, is dirty and construction and reconstruction is going on everywhere, especially the roadways. I am sure Budapest was badly run down during the communist occupation and she really needs the facelift that she is undergoing but it didn’t make the city very attractive to us.
I cannot understand the great differences between Hungary and Slovenia. Both escaped from the Soviet yoke at the same time and yet Slovenia appears to have recovered far better than Hungary. Slovenia looks to be prospering in all areas – her cities, her countryside, her people, all had a positive and healthy feel to them. By contrast, Hungary still looks as I would imagine it looked under communist control. To be sure the euro dollars are hard at work, and they have to be - there is much work needed.
We decided Thursday would be our day of departure and we had one more place to see that was covered by our Budpest Pass: Szobor Park aka Statue Park, a historical park and dumping ground for many of the Soviet statues now deemed unsuitable. Gargantuan statues and bas-reliefs proclaiming the virtues of communist life and honoring various Hungarian leaders have been relocated here and they are very, very interesting. There is a building set aside telling the history of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, that noble attempt of the Hungarian people to regain their freedom. It reminds me of Tiannamon Square - and ended in the same way.
We are having a hell-of-a-time navigating around this country. I think Sir Gar’s maps can’t keep up with the changes that are being made in the country’s road system and we still don’t have adequate road maps of Hungary so we are getting lost a lot. It is exhausting. In attempting to avoid driving through the city again, it took us four very long, very tiring hours to drive 61 kilometers from the statue park to our camping in Visegrad, along the Danube Bend.
When we finally found the camping, all we wanted to do was crash – it was all of 4:30pm!
Friday morning we did another reevaluation of our trip. We are realizing we don’t want to be in Eastern Europe. It is just too different. Slovenia turned out to be great and we would return there but Hungary is altogether different. The language barrier is too great for us to cross – we speak only English and very few of the Hungarians do, even in the tourist areas – and the country itself has been badly maintained. We get it – the communist experiment didn’t work and these poor countries are the proof of that. They are valiantly working to recover - and they will - but we don’t want to spend the next two months in countries we may continue to be disappointed in.
We are going to bypass Poland, blow through Slovakia, and make our first visit to Vienna. We think we shall continue to Prague and from there we plan to head west.
I am disappointed in myself for not adapting better to the east, but beating myself over the head is not making me feel any better so Bruce is taking me outa here and returning me to the edge of the map we fell off of.
They’re gonna charge us What??
(I just found free wifi at McDonalds in Hungary - who'd a thunk it?)
Friday, July 4, 2008
Happy Birthday, America!!
In our never-ending quest to get over on “the man” (which is what we are all about – the 60s are alive and well in our household) we spent an amazing day traveling the back roads through countryside most tourists don’t get to see.
Let me explain…
The Solvenian government, in its exalted wisdom, has decided it needs extra monies to help pay for some of its EU supported infrastructure projects. To do so, a road tax of €35 for 6 months driving privilege was implemented beginning July 1, 2008.
You should hear the wails of protest from English and Dutch tourists (and probably others - we can understand the Dutch and Brits) who must drive through Slovenia for 2 hours on their way to Croatia. You should hear the Croatian Government’s wails of protest at the fear their tourist dollars may be tampered with. I heard all those wails on the internet as I tried to research the vignette (as the tax is called) to see if it was for all roads or only the major highways.
In brief I learned we could avoid the vignette if we kept
off the A &H road systems (toll highways) and stuck to the smaller national
and regional roads - our preference anyways. Our concern lay in the fact that
we didn’t have decent maps for Slovenia and Sir Gar at times tries to trick us
into driving on autostradas in order get to a destination quicker. With no
decent map we were more likely to fall for his ruse. To drive an A or H road
without a vignette was a hefty €300-600 fine, so getting lost posed a
substantial risk. But by god, we were not buying that vignette for a 2-day
visit.
Deciding to take the risk, we left Bled Thursday morning and began our drive along the black roads. First we had to get out of the mountains and the roads led us up and over lush green Highlands past tiny hamlets and little villages along hairpin turns. Wild flowers were in bloom delighting us with bursts of pinks, purples, yellows, blues and whites. It was fantastic.
Unique to our travels, Slovenia has churches poised all alone atop hills with villages far below – we don’t know if they are there for traditionally defensive purposes (normally we see fortresses, not churches) or pre-Christian worship spots (like druidic oak groves in Chartres), but you really have to want to go to church around here.
The alpine (damp) climate of Slovenia helped develop another country-specific item – the air-dried hayrack or kozolec. Tall wooden open aired racks with long cross beams are draped with hay and wheat after harvest season to help them dry without rotting on damp ground.
We drove along these lesser roads for hours passing through forested lands and into farmlands where hops and corn seemed the main crops (beer and grain alcohol – woo hoo!)
Driving through one town we stopped for lunch at a park near
an apartment complex that looked to be left over from the communist regime (or
designed by a communist architect who was striving for the functionality of a
kozolec.)
Who would ever have thought that falling off the face of the known world would be so inviting?
Eventually, after a few backtracks and harsh words, we made it to Ptuj (Ptooey – honest!) and a camping highly recommended to us by a Spanish couple back in Venice.
We were so disappointed. Instead of camping on the shore of a lake (a la Bled) as we imagined, we arrived at a sunny (hot) water-park camping quite like Ljubljana. There seems to be a spa culture in Slovenia; this is the second elaborate water park-cum-spa we’ve found and we’ve only camped in three places in Slovenia. The one here boasts thermal waters and it is very popular.
After getting settled, we went to the water park (price included with camping costs) and found several elaborate pools with lots of slides and indoor pools with Jacuzzis and saunas. It reminds me of the old municipal plunges of my childhood, only on steroids. We joined hundreds of waterbabies playing in the pools and rode down tubular slides (great fun!) before retreating back to Lily for a light dinner and early bed. The day’s drive - while lovely - was also long and exhausting, we needed to recharge.
We are quite disappointed in the camping so we don’t know if we will stay a second day to explore Ptooey (oh, sorry, Ptuj) or continue on toward Hungary. I’m thinking Ptuj, the oldest city in Slovenia (founded by the Romans), could be mighty interesting but we’ll have to wait and see.
Friday, July 4, 2008
We did stop to see Ptuj, parking at the base of the hill that makes up the old town and hiking up narrow streets to the town center and further up to the castle at the top. Looking down from the castle heights we saw a sea of red tile roofs making their way down the hill to the river below. There is archeological evidence of human occupation on the hilltop dating from 3000BC, so not only is Ptooey (sorry – I just find that spelling fun) the oldest recognized town in Slovenia, dating from Roman occupation in 69BC, it goes way further back in time. You should know by now that I really thrive on old stuff, so this made me happy to discover. We are really glad we made the decision to visit the town.
Studying our map supplied by the Ptuj Tourist Bureau we recognized we were in the very far eastern corner of Slovenia with little left of the country before entering Hungary. A border town displayed a camping sign on the map and we decided to make for it to spend our last night in Slovenia.
As it turned out, the map lied, or if there was a camping it was not advertised anywhere we could find, so we made the decision to cross the border into Hungary and begin that leg of our eastern Europe tour.
We knew we had to buy a vignette to drive Hungarian roads and Bruce dutifully stopped at the border to buy one. The vendor asked him how long a vignette he would like; the choices being 4 days, 8 days, 2 weeks or a month. Since we didn’t know how long we would stay and the month charge was only €18, he opted for that. A month would be too long, but we weren’t sure 2 weeks would be enough.
We saw immediately that Hungary is not as prosperous as Slovenia; the roads are not as well maintained, the towns and houses are not as clean or well kept; even the forests and farming fields do not look as healthy. The people are shorter and darker than the Slovenes and not nearly as handsome. What a difference in a few short kilometers!
The largest fresh water lake in Europe outside of Scandanavia, Lake Balaton, lies in southwestern Hungary; since we were only about 80 kilometers away, that became our destination. Our road continued along flat plains coupled with gentle hills; we passed farmers beginning their first season’s harvest of wheat, riding great harvesting machines that ate up the fields. The towns were tiny and sparse until we reached the outskirts of the lake and found civilization clustered all along the shore.
We made our way to Keszthely, a large town on the southwest shore, considered to be the “capital” of the tourist area. Lake Balaton is Hungary’s seaside with Hungarian and foreign tourists flocking to the resorts all over the shorelines.
After looking over two campings we chose the second, Camping Castrum because of the price –at $25US, about half that of Zalatour camping – the one in the Lonely Planet book.
We are dealing with a new currency, and if fact we believe we will be working with new currencies through Hungary, Slovokia, Czech Rep., and Poland, only returning to the Euro in Germany. The Forint (Ft)is a dismal 145Ft to the $1 – and dropping.
Gas (diesel) has gone back up – at $8.35/gal and neither food nor clothing is in our favor. We looked at a pair of Columbia men’s sandals and were shocked to find them 27,000Ft – which works out to $186 (unless we are doing something disastrously wrong in our computations). Those shoes would cost at most – at most! - $65.00 in the U.S.
We don’t think we will be staying in Hungary for long (Bruce wondered if he could get a rebate on the vignette!).
We have learned another lesson: Long ago I read that German was the language of tourism in Europe. I scoffed at that – I believed (and still do) French and English opened doors everywhere, both being the Lingua Franca of the continent. Not so in Hungary. Our English does us no good here – German is the language of the day and Hungarian is a tongue-twisting language that might as well be Chinese to us.
Once again, we are in serious trouble when it comes to communication. We are stuck with talking to our best friends and traveling companions – each other.
We walked through Keszthey (pronounced Kez-hey) on Satuday – finding a market with great looking fruit and veggies, then searched out the Festetics Castle (the Festetics were the ruling family in the 1700s), a 100-room white beauty that looked like the French architect Mansard might have had a hand in designing. It was surrounded by a 7.2 hectare English style park filled with fountains, great shade trees and floral rarities. It is the perfect picnic park.
Speaking of food (picnics) we had lunch at the Lonely Planet recommended Bacchus Hotel and Restaurant. I had the special – roasted duck with potatoes and Bruce had the bean and goulash soup-as recommended. Both were outstanding and at a reasonable price (even with our lousy exchange rate) of 990Ft and 800Ft respectively – that is $15US and well worth it.
Sunday we will leave Keszthey and continue along the shoreline of Lake Balaton – which is 77km long and reminds us of Flathead lake in Montana – similarly shaped and windblown.
Beautiful Bled
July, 2, 2008
We left Ljubljana on Sunday for Bled, an alpine lake in the Julian Alps (named after Julius Caesar). These Slovenian alps are a part of the Italian and Austrian Alps range and Bled is a picture postcard perfect destination only about 65km from Ljubljana. That makes it a very popular vacation spot for Slovenians so we expected to join a lot of fellow vacationers and upon arrival you can’t help but understand the allure.
Bled is one of the prettiest lakes we have ever seen. It is small – we circumnavigated it in 6.5km – and has the only natural island in the country; a tiny one in the center of the lake with a Christian church that supplanted a previously pagan temple worshipping a female fertility goddess.
There is tradition of rowing to the island, climbing the steps to reach the church and ringing the bell to make a wish come true. In truth, the ritual seems more pagan than Christian and perhaps it is a holdover from pre-christian days.
We stayed at the only campground in the area; on the southwest shore at top-notch Camping Bled (what an original name!). Excellent facilities: free wifi (!!), shaded grassy pitches, an international clientele – in fact we saw few Slovenians in comparison to Dutch, German, Scandanavians, Brits and even a (very) few Americans. It was so relaxing I had no desire to leave.
Our first day was spent walking around the lake and taking photos of the lake, the hilltop castle (dating from first millennium) and the island church from every angle of the walk. Each view was beautiful.
Our second day we rented bikes to ride into town and do some quick grocery shopping. The bikes were so ill-fitted to our size, the ride turned out to be functional rather than enjoyable. We spent the rest of the day at our pitch; washing clothes and making phone calls on Skype saying hello and taking care of business that needed attending. Then we napped.
Our third day we rented a skiff and rowed to the island where we climbed the stairs and rang the bell in the church (forgetting to make a wish but enjoying the view). Then we went swimming with all the other campers hanging out on the grassy shoreline.
We intend to leave Thursday but I could stay here indefinitely, it is so lovely and relaxing.
This lake thing has given us ideas though – our next destination is Ptuj (Ptooey) also on a small lake and then there is Lake Balaton in Hungary as we make our way to Budapest (which is on the Danube) – we think we’ll try and make this a waterways trip as much as possible – at least as long as it stays hot.
The new frontier…
Friday June 27, 2008
Our first day in Slovenia was a complete surprise. We drove through a luxuriously green, surprisingly clean countryside as we made our from Italy - and what we thought may be our last outpost of western civilization (sometimes we are shockingly naïve) - towards Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
Slovenia is small – only 20,000 sq. km (12,000 sq. miles) with a population of 2 million. It’s PR team advertises it, among other campaigns as “Europe in Miniature”, “The Sunny Side of the Alps”, or “The Green Piece of Europe”. With more than half the country covered in forests, it is one of the greenest countries in Europe and quite welcoming.
After centuries of occupation variously by Austrian Hapsburgs, Napoleon France, post WWI Italy and communist Yugoslavia, Slovenia only regained its independence in 1991 so as a modern nation, it is a youngster.
We drove along decent roads through villages with an obvious Austrian influence whose churches were always at the top of a forested hill (from a distance, only the spire was visible). The roadways have frequent turnouts that double as picnic areas, some with porta potties that were actually pumped out! The trash cans were not overflowing and the overall appearance is of a country whose citizens take pride in it. Plus the gas is cheaper! We can knock off $2.00 a gallon (converted to US$) for diesel and in this country at least, petrol (gas) is even a little cheaper.
Just barely into Slovenia we stopped at Lipica where
Austrian Archduke Charles established a stud farm in 1580 to breed the snow
white Lippizzaner horses of Vienna. We had lunch with a herd of the next
generation as they munched away in a paddock.
The drive to Ljubljana was only 95km from the Italian border and this time we had no nasty surprises, arriving at Camping Ljubljana, around 3pm.
The camping, on the banks of the Sava River, doubles as a resort with a
sophisticated water park, beach volleyball (in fact a tournament was in
progress as we arrived) and a fitness studio with a sauna. At €30/night it isn’t
cheap but it does have location advantage (5km from city center) and excellent
facilities – the sanitaries are top notch. We plan to stay for at least three
nights to give Ljubljana a good overview then on to Bled, a resort town in the
Julian Alps to the northwest.
This is only day one, but our great traveling flaw – the inability to speak any language but American English – has not hindered us in Slovenia. Their language is very foreign to our ears and eyes - we can find no common ground with any of the words - but here at the camping at least there are plenty of people who know English to some degree and are willing to speak it with us. The Slovenian youngsters, at least those at the volleyball tournament, are surprisingly tall and fair; I was expecting a short, swarthy population (dunno why).
I do think I am going to have some difficulties in Eastern
Europe though. The language barrier is bringing out the introvert in me (yes – I can
get very shy, believe it or not) which makes it even harder for me to strive to
communicate. That and my unfamiliarity with the history and culture of these
countries is going to make this phase of the trip much more challenging. I hope
I get over it or these last two months may not be much of a success for me.
Bruce on the other hand, is doing quite well – his outgoing personality does
not seem to be affected by our inability to converse easily.
Saturday we spent in Ljubljana proper. It is a clever little
town with lots of interesting architecture – a couple of intensely baroque
churches, excellent squares, a huge fresh produce market, the requisite castle
on a hill and lots of people enjoying the day. It was very pretty but it was a
one day event. Tomorrow we plan on leaving for Bled, the resort town 65km north
of Ljubljana.
Late Saturday afternoon was spent watching the finals of the volleyball tournament – the team Bruce backed won – first prize was a check for €800 and possibly a car – not sure since we aren’t getting the specifics due to language failure. Bruce was probably their most enthusiastic fan (we know how great his enthusiasm can be) and they came by after the tourney to thank him. He enjoyed it a lot.
At long last…Venice
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, Camping Misano, our home for 4 nights, began filling up with weekenders. After a quiet 4 days we had three families with young, young children move right next door and across from us. Of course the kids had tons of energy and were running and screaming, so we thought between them and the heat, we were outa there.
We spent Saturday night revaluating our trip. The cost of gas and the exchange rate is digging a deeper hole in our pockets faster than we anticipated so we decided we need to be a little more selective on what we shall spend our monies on. That meant we will not drive to Siena for the Palio – the oh-so-famous horse race around the piazza Il Campo that we’ve wanted to see since our last visit. That will just have to wait for another trip. Nor did we stop at Urbino, a hill town famous to me for the two portraits in the Uffizi Gallery of its ruler, Duke Federico da Montefeltro and his wife (who was considerate enough to pose for the portrait after her death). Urbino is also known for its Renaissance Palazzo, considered by some to be the most beautiful in Italy.
We did drive to San Marino, the tiny republic that has been such for 1700 years (that is sometime in 300AD mind you). It sits safely on top steep Mt. Titano with amazing 360* views of the countryside spread out below.
We left Camping Misano with the intention of taking two days to reach Venice but after a long day of false finds when we thought we had found a place to stay, we ended up at Camping Fusino right across the bay from Venezia.
Camping Fusino is on the western side of the Venetian lagoon and we have an incredible view of the city – and three monstrous cruise ships that almost dwarf the cityscape.
Finally we are back in an international community of campers – campers of all nationalities are set up here – and we are awfully pleased to see it. Camping Misano was a delight but 95% of the campers were Italian and only spoke Italian, 4% were other nationalities and we met up with only 2 other campers who spoke English. It was very lonely. We ran out of things to talk to each other about in the first…5 minutes! (just kidding.)
Bruce and I missed Venice on our last trip in 2000/2001 so this is all new to us. Right now I am sitting outside Lily under a huge shade tree looking across the lagoon at the incredible site of this floating sunlit city. In the distance I can see the Campanile in St. Mark’s Square; I cannot wait to see it up close, even if I have to dodge pigeons and tourists (after all, I’m one too; tourist that is).
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
I have joined the millions of secular pilgrims who have preceded me in the worship of La Serenissima (the most Serene Republic). We have spent three delirious days in ecstatic throws of adulation for this grand old dame.
I have fallen for two (and a half) cities in my life: San
Francisco, Paris (and Coeur d’Alene, ID); now I am adding a third – Venice.
Of the major cities of Italy, Venice was the one we kept missing and the one I knew least about. Friends who had visited Venice in the past sang its praises but I was a little afraid I would not be impressed. I need never have feared. Who would ever have thought a city well past it’s prime and slowly sinking into the sea could be so thoroughly captivating?
This beautiful city rests on 117 islands with some 150 canals and 409 bridges (but who’s counting?). For three days, we rode our ferry from Fusina to the Zattere station on the Canale della Giudecca and began a walking tour of the neighborhoods of Venice. We crossed little canals (called Rios) and watched gondoliers plying their trade. We snuck down back alleys hoping to get lost and battle our way back to familiarity but since Venice is an island, it is virtually impossible to get lost. We joined other tourists in Piazza San Marco and took in the size and magnificence of the plaza and the Basilica and Ducal Palace. We ducked into McDonalds, pretending to be customers so we could take advantage of their free WCs. We window shopped the designer brand stores (and marveled how anyone could - or would want - to afford €947 sunglasses).
But mostly we wandered the maze of streets, steadily
crossing canals and taking a total of 600+ photos in three days. On our third
and last day we took Vaporetto #1 (water bus) along the Grand Canal listening
to the Rick Steves audio tour on our iPods showing us the sights along the way.
I had been thoroughly enchanted with Venice before our Grand Canal tour – but
to see the three miles of 500-600 year old grand palaces that strove to outdo
each other was spectacular beyond my imagination. The Rialto Bridge (along with
the Bridge of Sighs and the gondolas, an iconic image of Venice) is so much
bigger than the photos indicate. And the traffic on the canal is unbelievable.
No cars are allowed in Venice – all movement is on foot or
by boat. Besides pleasure boats we saw water buses, water taxis, police boats,
ambulance boats, garbage boats, fire boats, boats doubling as trucks carrying
supplies of all sorts, from building materials to cases of water, wine and beer
kegs. Mr. Brown and his UPS boat was in evidence as was DHL. Once unloaded,
porters hauled the supplies by way of hand carts, up and over bridges to their
destinations. It takes a bit of time to realize but the absence of combustible
engine sounds is a pleasure.
Not only is she slowly sinking, the city is in serious decay – because of their historical value, no changes can be made to the buildings, yet the cost to maintain the houses is astronomical. A 1000 sq. ft. apartment costs in the range of €1 million and then city requirements for sustainability must be met. I suspect the takers are few and far between. The population keeps decreasing – only 60,000 full time residents and steadily declining. City officials fear that one day Venice may be reduced to a living museum: with 12 million visitors a year, that is almost what she is now.
And yet Venice is grand.
Over a century ago the author Henry James wrote: “Dear old Venice has lost her complexion, her figure, her reputation, her self-respect; and yet, with it all, has so puzzlingly not lost a shred of her distinction.” I can only imagine what this city looked like at the height of her wealth with her palaces brightly painted and gold-gilded, but in today’s faded glory she captured my heart.
I could continue in this rhapsodic vein for several more paragraphs, but rather than becoming boring I shall try and move on.
Tuesday, we rode another vaporetto (water bus) to Torcello and Burano – two islands in the lagoon. At one time, in the first millennium, Torcello rivaled Venice in importance. Today she contains the oldest building in the lagoon – the cathedral of Santa Maria dell Assunta, founded in 639 AD. Plague and silted canals depleted Torcello’s population from 20,000 in her heyday to today’s population of 80.
Borano, traditionally an island of lacemakers is known for its brightly colored buildings facing her canals. It is also a gauntlet of souvenir shops selling lace (not necessarily from Burano), Venetian glass, carnival masks and every kind of kitschy souvenir in existence.
Venetian glass is known the world over (at one time, in my more ignorant mode, Venetian glass was about all I knew of Venice) and that glass is made on the island of Murano. Glass making was exiled there in 1291 for fear of fire and toxic smoke in Venice proper. The 15th & 16th centuries found Murano to be to the principal glass-producing center in all of Europe.
Tuesday was also our day to tour Basilica San Marco, the
elegant church purportedly containing the body of the evangelist St. Mark (of
Mathew, Mark, Luke and John), stolen (some say rescued) from Alexandria in the
9th century. It would appear the Venetians were world-class thieves
– they sacked their sister Christian city, Constantinople, in 1204 bringing
home all sorts of delectable prizes that they adorned the basilica and the city
with. Among the many treasures from Constantinople are the four famous 2000
year-old bronze horses of St. Mark, coveted by all who saw them and stolen by
Napoleon to be placed on a triumphal arch in Paris. When his republic failed,
the horses were returned to Venice.
Mosaics from Constantinople decorate the interior of the basilica and the architecture of the church is a blend of east meets west. In 1079 AD a law was passed requiring all returning merchants to bring a precious gift to adorn the “House of St. Mark.” Between this law and the looting of Constantinople the consequences were an incredible wealth of gifts. The floors of the basilica are so ornately decorated they look like Persian rugs. The mosaics that decorate the interior cover 45,677 sq ft including the flooring and the five onion domes. The mosaics are made of marble and glass pieces that would have sparkled in the lantern-lit church. Artists such as Titian and Tintoretto contributed to the treasures of the basilica.
The Basilica, the Doges Palace and St. Marks Square are among the most well known buildings in all of Europe.
I haven’t yet mentioned the weather – in mid-June we are experiencing the weather I expected for August: very high temperatures – 90s – with a high humidity index. These two California-raised tourists are sweltering. Looking at a weather map in the USA Today European edition we see that the coolest spot in Europe is Sweden in the 60s; everywhere else is high 70s to 90s. We hadn’t expected that so early – our plan is to be further north later in summer for a delicious mid-to-high 70s climate but we may have underestimated the weather systems. If so, we are screwed – we did not bring cool enough clothing for this type of heat.
After four glorious days in Venice, we were chased out by the common mosquito. Our campground is infested with them – in fact you can pick out the campers on the ferry by the mosquito bites on their arms and legs. Between the hot, highly humid temperatures and the mosquitoes, we slept poorly each night and the final straw was Lily getting invaded by ants: we’d had enough.
It was almost painful to leave Venice – under better weather conditions the lovely sense of simpatico we felt could have led us to stay for much, much longer: we had barely touched on the areas of the city to explore.
Another reason for leaving: we were out of food. It was time to find a supermercato and stock up. We left Camping Fusino Thursday morning intent on finding the Auchan and Lidl supermarkets in Mestre, a town 7 km away and the main supply access point for Venice.
Got lost.
Never found Auchan but fortunately we did find the Lidl and were able to resupply.
Then we got lost again getting out of Mestre. A lot of construction work and detours where going on and Sir Gar (our GPS) got very confused trying to get us east towards Trieste, our tentative destination. It took us almost 1.5 hours to work our past Venice – what should have been at most 40 km was twice that.
Finally having gotten past the Venetian mainland congestion we headed towards Trieste at the border of Italy and Slovenia.
The drive was uneventful but hot (Lily does not have air conditioning so all windows were open and our 12 volt fan running at high speed); we did find a Carrefour supermarket and stopped to look for lighter clothing: not much luck.
Our camping book showed us two campings in Trieste but Sir Gar didn’t recognize the street addresses so once again we were led on a wild goose chase.
This time it got very eventful: Trieste is on the Adriatic at the base of a quite high plateau. In order to reach the address of our camping, we were taken down a long, steep, narrow, windy, very-nerve-wracking-for-the-driver road only to be told at the bottom that we were in the wrong place and to get to the right place we would have to back up the hill.
Oh no, says Bruce – I ain’t driving that road again.
That’s Ok, says Peggy, You don’t have to; it’s a different road.
The different road was worse. Ever driven up a 25% grade incline? Neither had we until then. The street was so steep they couldn’t even pave it. It was cobblestone: and narrow, windy, long…the reverse of the one we just came down. As we were steeply ascending, the two completely full storage boxes on the top bunk came crashing down onto Lily’s floor creating quite a racket and mess as dried foods and clothes scattered everywhere.
Lily and Bruce handled it like pros. I kept laughing (a little hysterically I suspect) but Bruce was grim-faced the whole way. (We remember losing an engine in Queenie on trip #1 in a similar but not nearly so severe situation in the Black Forest in Germany.)
At last, back at the top of the plateau (with magnificent views of Trieste and the Adriatic) we still couldn’t find the damn camping.
We had been done with driving before the up-and-down goose-chase so by this time we were really tired of it all and yet we were not at our pitch yet. A last look at instructions in the camping book gave us a small hint how to find the campground and we pursued accordingly. Along that route we stumbled across another camping and pulled in immediately, thankful to finally get to stop.
The camping Pian del Grisa also seemed to double as a sports complex – there is a pool with lots of children playing, tennis courts and bike paths nearby. The “sanitaries” are a little more primitive than in tourist areas (all toilets but one are squatters) and I am wondering if this is a preview of what to expect in Eastern Europe: Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Rep and Poland.
We are only about 6km from the Slovenian border and today (Friday) we shall begin the phase of our journey that shall be very different for us: new countries and languages.