Days 43 and 44 - Vienna & Rome

DAY 43 – VIENNA 30/01/2009

Our last day in Vienna was still quite relaxed, as we only really wanted to see a few things before we left. We attempted to search for an 'amazing' Holocaust museum, only to discover it was a rather underwhelming concrete block monument, at which point Keeley remembered the museum was in Berlin, not Vienna. Undeterred, we got on a city circle tram, which was in fact not the city circle tram. We realised this and got off before we got too far from the city centre. We were actually pretty close to the Praterpark so we had a look at that, but it was all shut down for the winter. Apparently rollercoasters and wet/icy tracks don't mix. We paid a quick visit to the Stadtpark in the hope of seeing some ice-skating that had been mentioned in the hostel, but alas, nothing. From there we went to the Haus der Musik, by far the best thing in Vienna. For 8.50 € we experienced five floors of interactive exhibits, including learning about how our bodies process sound, tested our hearing threshold (mine was just shy of 17kHz), made some 'synthetic' notes, saw a couple of cool animated symphonies, warped our voices (and other sounds) and saw some very detailed exhibits on Mozart and other famous (and forgettable) Austrian composers. It was really good.

From there we saw the impressive Hofburg palace (?), although we're not really sure what it is, printed some postcards and sat in a brilliant pub/brewery called 1516 (the year it was founded) and tasted excellent beer and wrote postcards. A rather satisfying end to the day was the HUGE platter of Turkish food we had for dinner, which sated us before our 15-hour bus ride to Rome.

DAY 44 – ROME 31/01/2009

The bus ride to Rome was surprisingly entertaining, mainly because the bus driver got lost three times in the Austrian town of Graz and we did "three point" turns that a bus was never designed to do. Nonetheless, we did make it alive and even managed to sleep quite well despite the lady in front of me reclining her seat the whole way back yet not actually sitting in it for most of the trip. The countryside in Italy is much prettier than the views of Eastern Europe we have become accustomed to, with forested mountains and lots of small villas and townships nestled amongst it. I also saw a couple of ruins, but I have no idea how old they were. By virtue of our excellent organisation, finding the hostel from the train station where we were dropped off was a breeze. It's in an inner-suburban area, with pretty good access to trains and a couple of supermarkets. It has everything we need, really, a bed, a bathroom, a kitchen and free brekky in the morning. It's nothing stunning, but the staff seem friendly enough.

The rest of the day was slower than I would have liked, so I did some planning while Keeley watched a movie. Rome is packed full of ancient and Renaissance buildings, so there's plenty to see, but we're really only interested in the main sights – the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Roman Forum, etc. We did try to see the Pantheon, but it turned out it was closed for mass. This is disappointing, but at least we saw some of the city. Most of the buildings are pretty run down, and the sandy coloured paint doesn't help. The attractions themselves are in pretty good condition for their age though. It does feel like there's so much happening here that nobody can really be bothered with the upkeep of the buildings, which makes it feel tired. The weather is the exact opposite – practically balmy compared to the cold of Austria. Today I only had to wear a t-shirt and jumper and was very comfortable. It's nice to see proper sunshine again too.

One other thing caught our attention – they really do ride Vespas in Rome. Lots of them. And we've never seen so many Smart cars. It must be because they're easier to park, because Romans just park wherever it suits them – on footpaths, across pedestrian crossings, on funny angles. It's a free for all.

Big day of sightseeing tomorrow, so I should get some sleep.

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Day 42 - Vienna

We were bad and had a big sleep-in this morning – we got out of bed at 12:30pm. It seems travelling had taken more out of me than I had thought. We didn't really do much in what was left of the day; we visited the Naschmarkt just outside the city and Schonbrunn Palace. The market was, again, a good experience (we have decided we need to get more into markets when we go home) with a staggering array of food on show. Apparently on Saturdays it's even bigger, with clothes etc. There was some pretty cool stuff, and lots of vegetables (including stuff we hadn't seen so far, like pumpkins!). One stall had two big barrels of sauerkraut (maybe 60cm diameter and 120cm high). There were also lots of olives, cheese, dips, salads and very cheap bread. It would have been easy to buy all sorts of great food.

We also headed over to Schonbrunn Palace and, skipping the expensive tour of the interior because Keeley remembered it being pretty boring, we explored the gardens. The size of the gardens is staggering, and really indescribable in words. It would be a dream of a landscape architect to get a project of that size and budget! There is a hill at the back of the palace grounds with a pretty special view of the palace and city, but it was barricaded off. We could see plenty of people walking around on it, so we just jumped the barricades like they did and weren't disappointed. It was very impressive.

It snowed all day again today, which is annoying to walk in but it didn't feel as cold and the snow at the castle was nice to walk through (like in Zakopane). It will be about 1°C tomorrow, and we're planning to do a whirlwind tour of Vienna before our overnight bus trip to Rome.

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Day 41 - Vienna

We arrived early this morning to a very wintry Vienna. There was a wind-chill factor that we hadn't really felt up until now but despite the broken sleep on the bus overnight and the 5:30am arrival, we were in good spirits. We had done the right thing and got a map of the city before we left, but the SMS telling us the address of the hostel never came so we still had no idea where to go! Fortunately, Vienna is a 21^st Century city and there was a public internet kiosk next to the public payphone where we could get the address. We picked up an unlimited 48-hour U-Bahn (metro train) ticket and headed onward. The hostel is very modern, clean and has a decent kitchen, but it is a little out of the way. It is about 10 minutes walk to the nearest U-Bahn station and that is about another 5 minutes to the city centre (yep, that's "out of the way" compared to the good locations we've had so far). A three-hour nap got us re-energised for exploring, but the weather quickly sapped that. It snowed all day here and will continue to for the next few days, which in itself is quite nice (the snow here is much heavier than in Poland and with much larger flakes) but the breeze makes spending too much time outside unbearable. The 48-hour ticket has already been a good investment. We did go and visit Stephansdom, the massive Gothic cathedral in the centre of the city, which was very impressive. The interior was quite dark, and there were a lot of people inside praying amongst the tourists. We also went in search of a t-shirt and badge shop so that Keeley could add to her badge collection, but it was closed for winter holidays. Other than that we just went food shopping and planned our next two weeks. It was a frustrating process because a couple of the bus companies don't have fully functional websites, but we did it in the end and have accommodation almost fully booked for the next fortnight. It is a very organised state of affairs for us to be in considering we've been almost winging it up to now. In a snapshot, the plan is to go from here to Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Innsbruck, Frankfurt (to watch hockey), Berlin and Munich.

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Days 39 & 40 - Prague and Cesky Krumlov

DAY 39 – PRAGUE 26/01/2009

We checked out of our hostel this morning, and were very pleased when they agreed to look after our big bags for a couple of days while we're in Cesky Krumlov. It has saved us a lot of effort to just be able to take our daypacks with food and a change of clothes in them. This morning we went, again, in search of the Prague City Museum. To my extreme disappointment, it proved elusive for the second time. I'm still pretty bitter about it, as I was really looking forward to seeing the city model and an architecture exhibition about Adolf Loos (a modernist architect). On the upside, the day improved dramatically when we went to the Prague City Zoo. It seems strange for a couple of 20-year-olds to spend time at the zoo, but the reviews on the internet told us that this is one of the best in Europe. We weren't disappointed. It is a massive park, and would require a whole day to see everything. As it was we only saw maybe 40% of it in the three or so hours we were there. Some highlights were the birds of prey (although some looked too big for any cage) and the squirrel monkeys that were very cute and extremely active as we saw them just after their food had been put out. They had very short attention spans and never finished a piece of food before moving on to the next – one monkey spat out some bread or something and another picked it up and started eating the half-chewed food. I naturally liked the big cats enclosure, although they seemed frustrated at their captivity, and the gorillas were very active as well and were wrestling with each other. The best exhibit was clearly the Indonesian jungle though, which was a large temperature- and humidity-controlled dome with, literally, a jungle recreated in it. A section of the dome was darkened (the twilight zone) and there were bats flying around our heads. It was amazing. Keeley was doubly impressed because it was Indonesian. We had a pretty decent lunch experience- Keeley had a potato pancake with a cabbage and sausage stuffing and I had a really nice Greek pita sandwich with marinated chicken, salad and yoghurt. Both meals were really nice and really filling.

The remainder of the day was pretty uneventful, as we caught a bus to Cesky Krumlov where we will spend tomorrow. The hostel is really well located within a couple of minutes walk of the bus stop, although we did head in the wrong direction initially as we had no map and no idea where we were. Hopefully the weather will be nice again tomorrow for some exploration.

KB's NB: Scott hasn't mentioned yet, but hasn't stopped talking about the perfect chilli that he made- only because the stove was ridiculously high. He reckons it was the perfect chilli to sauce ratio.

DAY 40 – CESKY KRUMLOV 27/01/009

Cesky Krumlov isn't a very big town – there is one main road that runs through the middle of it, and it is surrounded by a river. It is a very pretty medieval town with cobblestone streets everywhere and a nice pedestrian feel to it. Unfortunately, we were faced with the prospect of filling a whole day because our bus didn't leave until 7pm, and there didn't really feel like much going on, After familiarising ourselves with the town, we bought a combined ticket to the torture museum and wax museum for €2.50 each. The torture museum was small but interesting, with various thumbscrews, nail chairs, shackles and other torture instruments. Most interesting and disturbing were the illustrations on the wall of the various ways they would kill people in the Middle Ages. One that stands out in my memory was stripping someone naked, hanging them upside down and cutting them with a saw vertically in half between the legs. We were glad, however, that we bought the combined ticket because the museum was short and left us wanting more. The wax museum was a completely different kettle of fish, though, and was quite large (a couple of storeys) and had an interesting range of generic medieval settings, famous Czechs and famous people in general (Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, Albert Einstein, Pope John Paul II, etc). The wax figures were quite good, but obviously not quite up to Madame Tussaud's standards, and the costumes and settings were quite detailed and well done.

The biggest attraction in Cesky Krumlov is undoubtedly the castle. Set on a natural hill overlooking the town its size is imposing from the outside but quite charming on the inside. The rooms were all closed until April, although I'm not convinced we would have paid the entry price, but most devastating was the closure of the gardens. After seeing so many brilliant photos of when Grandma and Grandpa were here I was really looking forward to it, even though it wasn't going to be in bloom. It was really disappointing that we couldn't even experience the landscaping. The remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering around souvenir shops and generally not doing much. A couple of memorable incidents did occur though… Keeley found a frozen icy path down a hill and decided to walk on it, inevitably falling over. With our rule, she then had to re-enact it for the camera. We also went in search of Tesco (a supermarket chain) to buy snacks for the bus ride. Alas, we took a wrong turn and ended up circumnavigating the town, stopping in three other Czech supermarkets along the way. We did score some chocolate for Keeley on special and a cool lamington-type bar for me, except the cake part was orange and very dense. It was still really nice. We also waited a LONG time for tea at the hostel bar, but when it arrived it was very good – salmon grilled and then baked in foil with herb butter etc.

Impressions of the Czech Republic – very beautiful old buildings, and lots of them. Not my personal taste as most of them are Baroque but nonetheless nice to experience. Crap roads – the highways are bumpy, lumpy and worse than the Monash and the cobblestone streets would be tiresome to drive on. Lots and lots of wooden toys and marionettes, as it seems that they have a proud history of children's entertainment. Finally, almost all the people spoke excellent English and were very helpful and friendly.

Right now we're on an overnight bus to Vienna, where we will arrive at 6am. The bus company is called Student Agency, and for a very low cost you get free coffee or hot chocolate and a movie on the bus, which is better than we could expect from Eurolines. Also, distressingly, we laid eyes on the Prague City Museum that has eluded us twice before. One day I will return to see it…

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Day 38 - Prague

To Keeley's delight there was chocolate drink (a la Milo) at breakfast this morning, meaning she could not only have a coffee-mocha but also fill up our dwindling supplies of the precious powder. Also a simultaneous bonus and curse was the hostel staff member just hanging around, who was very pleased to wash our dishes for us but made stealing bread for lunch impossible. We walked to the free tour of Prague with an English guy, Antony, we met last night and although we were ten minutes late (Keeley had to do her hair) we caught the tour and spent the next three hours wandering the streets of the city in the now-familiar fashion. The guide was quite informative and I got used to her broken English quite quickly, although Keeley said she struggled a bit to concentrate on it. We saw a few of the major buildings in the old town, like the Charles University (the oldest university in central Europe, founded in 1347). A student from here burnt himself to death as a protest against the Communist government in the 1950s. It seems that King Charles IV was quite an impressive man, founding the university, leading not only Bohemia but also the Holy Roman Empire, and building Prague to be one of the richest and most powerful cities in Europe. This legacy is repeated all over the city, and the Charles Bridge is named after him (for around 600 years it was the only crossing over the river in Prague to the castle). The city itself is quite impressive, and a lot has been done to rebuild and repair the Communist neglect since it fell in 1989. Prague Castle is particularly nice with a spot on the hill overlooking the city and a very large grounds, being the biggest 'ancient' castle in the world (whatever that means). The gothic cathedral, St Vitus, in the centre of the Castle is very impressive, and despite being started in the 1300s it wasn't completed until the 1920s. The stained glass windows are amazing.

 

Our tour ended at the castle, and we were a little disappointed with it, but it was a good way to explore the city. We sampled some amazing Czech food – sweet bread-on-a-stick with caramel, vanilla, and almond in it, and some traditional Czech food at a cute little restaurant near the bridge. I had some amazing sausage and mustard and Keeley had pork in a paprika sauce. It was really nice, although soured a bit by the added extras on the bill (like a service charge that was 30% of the rest of the bill). Fortunately it was still dirt-cheap. We also went in search of the city museum because it apparently has a pretty amazing model of the city, but we couldn't find it so we went to a lolly shop instead. This shop had a demonstration of the process for making layered boiled-lolly-type candy, which was very interesting. They worked the sugar sheets into a roll maybe 15cm in diameter, but eventually got it down to around 1cm diameter, with a little picture of a fruit in the middle. The same shop also had a 112kg gorilla made out of chocolate and lots and lots of other chocolate goodness. We bought the off-cuts from the lolly-making process for cheap, and now can't wait until we get to Switzerland or Belgium for the chocolate there.

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Day 37 - Prague

A very early morning this morning got us to the bus station in time for our bus to Prague. The guy on duty at the hostel was really nice and got breakfast organised for us even though it was an hour and a half before breakfast officially started. This put us in a good mood for the day, especially considering the early start, and between that and our naps on the bus the five-hour trip went quickly. First impressions of Prague were not good, as we drove through a few very run-down suburbs. It felt like the relic of Communism that I had expected Poland to be. The other thing that takes some time to get used to is the currency; it is 25-30 Czech Krony to €1. This meant that we could justify getting a subway train to our hostel rather than walking. The hostel (U Melounu) is clean and friendly, but the kitchen is very small and lacks an oven. It is also a good 10-15 minute walk from the city centre. Once in the city centre, though, you get a feel for why everyone loves Prague so much. With the sun out, it really did look magical. I think one of the reasons it is so good is the consistency of old buildings – unlike a lot of places, every single building here is (or looks to be) of the same era, giving the Old Town a really brilliant atmosphere.

 

Exploring a bit, we saw the astronomical clock do its chime on the hour (a very underwhelming experience) but did climb to the top of said clock tower. The view was incredible, no doubt helped by the excellent weather. We found a little market and just generally got accustomed to the city. The real excitement happened tonight though. We went to the Image Theatre just off the Old Town Square. It is a pantomime show for around €18 with the majority of it under UV light (or 'black' light). The room is darkened to pitch black and the stage and background are all black, and under black light anyone wearing black can't be seen against this background. This allows the performers to use big pieces of fluorescent material, fluoro props and costumes to perform without being able to make out the dancers. It's a difficult thing to describe in words, but very cool to watch. They were very clever with their use of screens and movement, so things would just 'disappear' off the stage and 'reappear' later on. Likewise the dancers could interact with props so that only parts of their bodies were visible, for instance there was a caterpillar costume with three dancers standing in it but we could only see their legs because they were wearing black tops. My personal favourite was a dance with these spherical props with pieces cut out of them, so they looked like four broken hula hoops put together, and the spheres would be suspended with rods or something so they would fly around the stage. Likewise, there was another dance with glowing spheres that seemed to levitate as the people behind them moved them around. The highlight, however, wasn't a black light act at all but the slapstick antics of a couple of 'maintenance crew' who mimed things like stealing aeroplanes, falling off scaffolding, ten pin bowling and my favourite, opening up the heads of audience members to reveal what was going on inside. For example, one guy was 'thinking' computer sounds, one was 'thinking' about a football match (cheering), and one lady had water on her mind (at this point they sprayed the audience with sprinklers). It was really enjoyable and the best part was it was something we just stumbled onto in our travels.

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Day 36 - Wroclaw

We didn't expect much of Wroclaw; after all, it was only the place where we had to catch the bus to Prague from. However, we have been pleasantly surprised. Things like the free laundry service at the hostel have been a godsend, as our jeans have been in serious need of cleaning. Things like the lack of milk at breakfast, however, are not so good. The hostel has a number of signs telling us that milk is available to buy from reception, and now we know why. Keeley was very unimpressed at the lack of milk for cereal. Despite this, the rest of brekky was good (with about four different varieties of bread) and we decided to wander the streets to experience the town. The town square is nice, and although large pales in comparison to Krakow's gigantic version. We went to a market in an amazing church-like place, and saw the greatest variety of vegetables so far on the entire trip. There was also a significant number of flowers and confectionary. In stark contrast to the markets, we found the major, modern shopping centre only a couple of blocks away. This marked an important milestone in our trip: Keeley found some new boots to replace her old ones that she unsuccessfully tried to fix with duct tape. After lunch, we explored a bit more and found a cool little street that has been restored to its medieval state, complete with (statues of) farm animals. We split up for a bit and I went to the Panorama Raclawicka, a 15m high x 120m circumference painting on the inside of a spherical building. The entry fee was a little steep, but it was very cool because the foreground of the painting had been 'extended' into a three-dimensional model. This filled in the five-ish metre space between the viewing platform and the painting, and in the foreground it was genuinely difficult to tell where the 'real' stuff stopped and the painting started. It was very detailed and the presentation about the history of the battle (where the eventually ill-fated Polish resistance against the Russians in the 1800s began) was good.

The beauty of this place seems to be in the details, just like the Panorama. There is a collection of fifteen gnome sculptures scattered around the city, hanging off lamp-posts, sitting on stairs, guarding postboxes, etc. Every now and again you'll stumble across one without even trying. It's very cute. There is also a very interesting sculpture at a major intersection called "The Anonymous Pedestrians" and shows commuters sinking into the pavement on one side of the road and climbing out on the other. It's quirky and different.

We went out for dinner tonight to a traditional Polish restaurant. Ordering almost blind (we knew the words for 'chicken', 'beef' and 'pork') we ended up with some very nice meals for a very good price. Keeley had basically crumbed chicken, which although not 'traditional' was very nice, and I had pork medallions with a spinach and cheese sauce on top. It was delectable. Both meals came with sauerkraut, sweet grated carrot and a coleslaw sort of thing. To finish off our excellent day we had excellent ice creams, which were massive and had three big scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, topping and fruit. I'm a bit sad we're leaving tomorrow, but on the flip side I'm not sure there'd be much more to do around here. It was nice to have a relaxing day though.

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