Our last day in Europe

This has been our last day in Europe for this year and we fully intend to do it again next year. That’s twice now that I’ve been in Munich in the weeks prior to Oktoberfest and we will be at it next year.

We had a pretty mellow day for our last day in Munich and more or less just wandered around with some stops to eat. Our first stop of the day was at the Marienplatz as we had to see the glockenspiel do it’s little dance at least once while here. We made it just in time for the 11am and watched the whole thing, which was fairly long at 10 minutes. Ordinarily the glockenspiel only dances twice a day but they increase it to 4 times per day over the summer months for tourists.

From there we headed over the Frauenkirche church to take a look. This is another one of the landmark churches of Munich, being built from 1668-1688. Still got the new church smell to it, compared to some of the others that we have seen. We found that we could go up the south tower, which is several hundred meters high and see the view. I was a little dismayed as I eyeballed the spiral staircase going up, as thoughts of the Stephansdom in Vienna came back to me. Luckily for us, you only had to climb up a short ways, and then catch a lift to the the top. That was quite nice as I wasn’t too sure about the slog to the top.

Once up, though, the views were incredible. There were 12 viewing windows in the tower and you can could see all of Munich laid out below and even vaguely make out the Alps through the smog. We walked around from window to window and took many pictures. Like most towers, as well, there would be a little guide at each window that marked what each building or structure of significance was that one could see.

After heading down from the tower, we headed into the church itself. It was a bit of a surprise to see how spartan it was inside. Many of the churches that we have visited are very ornately decorated with many statues and paintings inside. This church had only a handful and the most colourful thing about it was the stained glass windows. There is a local legend that the devil tried to enter this church before it was consecrated and at the first entrance there is a black footprint burned into the floor, complete with the spur off the heel. From that spot, one cannot see any of the windows on the inside of the church, so the devil had laughed and thought the church was no good. He then proceeded to walk forward and suddenly he could see the windows and became angry and tried to blow the church down with a strong wind. That failed and to this day, a strong wind surrounds the church at all times. So the legends say.

It was time for some postcards and food at that point, so we made our way to the nearby Virkualien Markt. This is a large, open air market that sells pretty well everything and has a large number of restaurants as well. Raegan and I stopped at a place that looked like it had beer (important criteria for restaurant selection in Germany) and had a break. We filled out postcards, drank beer, and had some lunch before heading out to find some souvenirs.

Unlike Bucharest, there are souvenirs stands almost everywhere in Munich and prices can really vary. It pays to wander around a bit before buying anything as one can save more than a few dollars just by walking halfway down a block. We had it in mind to get some beer steins and we were able to grab some near the Hofbrauhaus. Now we were loaded down and headed back to our room to unload some things.

We took a brief break at our room and walked from there to the Residenz. The Residenz was the city home/palace of the Bavarian kings when they were in the city. We walked around a bit but didn’t do the tour as I had been inside before. We decided instead to head to the Englischer Garten, the English Garden, so called because of the style which was popular back in 1789 when it was built.

With so much time spent wandering around cities and such, it is always a nice break to wander some greenspace. We did the same back in Budapest and this was no different. The garden is really one massive city park that extends about 8 km and is up to 2km wide. There was a lot of people walking, biking, suntanning, you name it. We just walked aimlessly for some time until we had a plan. Along the way, we even got to see some people surfing the river; it was quite novel as well as some really large fish that hang around bridges waiting for food.

One very large beer garden is in the park that seats 8000 people, so we headed for it. We found it by following the sound of the Oompah band through the forest. It turns out the beer garden is located at the Chinese Tower and the band actually plays up in the tower. Rather interesting, I think. There are a few places to get food and beer and we decided to have dinner here. Once again, we had some good beer and some traditional German food. It was a great way to spend an evening and we hung out for awhile.

Our last stop of the night was at the Oktoberfest grounds on the way back to our room. Oktoberfest starts on September 19th, but most everything there is already setup and ready to go. It’s hard to believe the size and some of the tents house as many as 10,000 people. Now that’s a lot of beer and sausage. And over 6 million people will attend. It is definitely one massive event.

So comes the end of our trip. We just chilled out and packed for leaving and called it a night. Our bags have definitely gained some weight for the return trip.

This has been a great two weeks and we have thoroughly enjoyed everywhere we have been. I can’t really say I have a favourite location, as each city has something cool about it. As I have travelled to Germany a couple of times before, I always enjoy Munich and the surrounding areas. On the other hand, the wildness of Budapest and particularly Bucharest was a lot of fun. It was a bit more of an adventure in eastern Europe as those countries struggle to get everything together on par with Western Europe. I do much prefer the bathrooms of Germany and Austria though.

So thanks everyone who has been reading this and sending me comments and emails. This is my way of keeping the memories alive as much as the photos that I take along the way and I’m happy to share my experiences.

I’ll see everyone back in Canada.

Jeremy

Salt City, as known as Salzburg

We made the trip out to the city of Salzburg in Austria yesterday. For anyone who has seen it, Salzburg is the location where the movie ‘The Sound of Music’ was filmed. I haven’t seen the movie but it’s pretty obvious as there are numerous sound of music tours going on in the city as well as many souvenirs and the like.

I could really grow to like train travel, especially since we once again rode the Railjet to Salzburg. First class rocks and I wish airplanes could be this comfortable. It’s about 1.5 hours on the train, so Salzburg makes for a great day trip from Munich.

The first thing you really notice when you arrive is the massive Hohensalzburg Fortress. This fortress sits atop one of the biggest hills around and just dominates over the city. It was started in 1077 and continued to have walls, towers, and buildings added to it right up to 1810. Needless to say, it figures very much into mindset of Salzburg.

We began by wandering down to the old town area of the city as this is where most of the most elaborate churches and plazas reside. Along the way we passed throught Schloss Mirabell which as built in 1606 by a prince-archbishop for his mistress. Nice digs, to say the least. Although the building is an eye popping sight, after two weeks of seeing many, many ornate buildings, one can get a little blase about them. On the other hand, the fountain where a big dance in the Sound of Music takes places on the palace grounds, surrounded by some outstanding flower gardens, is definitely a sight to see. We spent a bit of time walking around the grounds with throngs of other tourists, even this late in the season, and even found an area ringed by some creepy dwarf statues. We’re not sure that they are meant to represent.

After crossing a nearby foot bridge over the river, we entered the old town. This is the area that is the original site of the city of Salzburg and it has loads of history. It’s tucked in at the base of some seriously large cliff faces and many of the buildings built near the cliff actually have rooms that are carved into the mountain. One note about Salzburg; it seems to have the most sites per square mile of all the cities we have travelled to. One would need days to see everything in the old town and the surrounding area. It seemed like around every corner, there was another cool church or other building to see.

We headed to what looked to be an elevator carved into the cliff face, an area called the Monchsberg. And we weren’t wrong. There was an entrance going right into the mountain that did house an elevator to the top, so we went up. Once at the top, we were greeted with some of the best views of the entire trip. We could see over the entire city and it was outstanding. On the map we had, there are also many hiking/walking trails on the mountain top as well and very few buildings. It remains for the most part old growth forest, so we had a hike of sort heading towards the fortress on the other mountain.

It seemed as if we took the easy way as when we came down from the mountain we were one, we were already most of the way to the top of the fortress. Which was a good thing. The road leading into the fortress was seriously steep and I think only a 4×4 could have driven up the road. It was in good shape but it was not paved, being gravel. Even so, it was a good climb to get to the fortress grounds.

It was only 7 euros to enter the fortress and that included a quick tour to the highest tour and rooms along the way, such as the torture chamber. Incidentally, no one where ever tortured in that chamber; the tools just happened to be stored there. Up on the highest tower, that was one hell of a view. Since part of the purpose of a fortress to see invading forces, it commands the best view in the area and you can see the entire city of Salzburg from it. After a quick visit to the gift shop, I had to buy some souvenirs, we headed to a nunnery that was nearby.

Strolling down from the fortress and around the mountain took us to the Shift Nonnberg. I don’t know the full history of this place, but there is a church on the site (surprise!) and the grounds were covered in graves. Somehow, though, after wandering through the church, we missed the nunnery and ended up at the bottom of the mountain. We decided we were not going to climb back up and headed back to the old town to see the church of St. Peter where there are catacombs.

The nice thing about Salzburg’s Old Town is that it is not very large, being only about a kilometer long and only a few hundred meters wide, so it easy to walk around. So within 20 minutes we had made our way over to St. Peters. Neat place; every open spot around the church had a grave and since many are fairly new, I suspect that parishioners of the church can choose to be buried here. As well, this church is shown in the Sound of Music. There was neat old church, in particular, that looked almost out of place, being very old and very plain on the outside. As many churches are very decorative, I’m guessing it’s been there for a long time. But we were not able to go inside as the doors were locked. Looking up to the cliff face right beside the graveyard, you would see doors and windows built right into the wall. It was neat to see.

Nearby we found the entrance to the catacombs and headed in. They are not very large and contain a few chapels and some room. I think that the members of the church or the nearby monks would use this as a refuge in case an invading army came to town. It also explained the doors and windows in the cliffs, as we could see right out of them.

And that was pretty well it for Salzburg. There were many other things to see but we did not have the time and had already walked a long ways for one day. We decided to hop on the 5pm train back to Munich and eat when we got there.

After a brief stop at our room to unload some stuff, mainly souvenirs, we decided to go the Hofbrauhaus for dinner. Now this is a Munich landmark and is probably the biggest beerhall in Bavaria. After a short trip on the U-bahn, we found it. This beerhall is 11,000 square meters in size and has three floors. The girl at the entrance told me that they usually seat about 3000 people for Oktoberfest. That’s a lot of drunk Germans.

The room we found ourselves in could only seat 600 but it was still very large. We ate buffet style, although they did have a menu, and let ourselves be entertained by the live music; a real Oompah band! Cool! They also had singers, dancers, and they even played those big Alpen(?) horns! At times the entire room would sing, clap, and wave to the music. I didn’t recognize any of the music but obviously many others did. Of course, being in a beer hall, there was plenty of beer. I laughed out loud when Raegan received the dark beer she ordered in a 1 litre mug. The had to use two hands to hold it up. For some reason, mine was a mere 1/2 liter.

And that ended our night. Once we had had our share of food and drink we called it a night. Since today is our last day in Munich, we’re going to try to cover as much as possible. I’ll post about it tonight.

A day out in the German countryside

This blog is coming from the train! Not actually posted but just composed until I had access to the internet. The place we’re staying for the next few days doesn’t have internet access so we’re buying wireless access at a coffee shop not far from the central station whenever we need it.

So we’re back in Munich again after arriving last night. Although we’re staying in the city, we’ve been out of it today checking out some cool castles to the south. We started at 7am today and had a great breakfast at the place we’re staying. It’s called a pension and is somewhat like a boarding house. We do have a double room, but unlike when we stayed here when we arrived in a Munich a couple of weeks ago, we do not have a bathroom in the room. We have to share bathroom and shower with other rooms this time. Thinking of bathrooms, they’re not called bathrooms in Europe; they’re called waterclosets. Hence the WC signs you see when you’ve looking for a can. And more often than not, they cost money to use. That’s why it’s important to ’save up’ your business and get your money’s worth. In the east, it usually cost around 75 cents and here in Germany we’re finding it costs about $1.25 or so. Enough about the bathroom. I’m just happy there’s no pits here in Germany. At least where I’m going.

We caught the train early today in order to head to the town of Fussen to see the castles that are in the area. The most famous one is the Schloss Neuschwanstein, which Walt Disney saw many years ago and modeled the Disneyland castle after. I visited this area in 2006 when I was last in Munich but didn’t do any of the tours.

So off we went on that most favourite of European means to travel; the train. I don’t remember it being as long as it was but it took us 2.5 hours and one transfer to get to the town. Now regarding train travel. We bought a 5 day Eurorail pass before we left that allows us 5 days of train travel in a 30 day period. Since we only used 3 days getting to Bucharest, we had two days left and figured we would use it for out of city excursions.

Fussen is a very charming little place of about 15000 people that almost typifies Bavarian architecture. For anyone who has ever been to Kimberly, and I hear Nelson, you get a taste in those towns of a real German town. This is also a nice time of the year to visit as it is not absolutely flooded with tourists. Just the late comers like us.

After a brief bus ride after leaving the train, we arrived at the base and decided we would walk up. But not before eating a lunch of that very typical food, currywurst. Yummy! It probably tastes just as good back in Canada but there’s something in the air here that makes it really special! Especially when it thoroughly slathered in some mystery sauce that is most likely BBQ sauce.

So after stuffing ourselves, we headed up the trail. The walk up is only 1 mile and is pretty easy; being paved all the way. But you do see more than a few people struggling up, so there are plenty of benches. For one who does not want to walk, you can take a bus or a horse drawn carriage up. It’s a pretty easy 20 minute walk and we had some time to kill before our tour. The last time I was up here was in the summer and there were some massive crowds, so I forwent the tour. This time around we decided to do it. It’s a 35 minute tour in English that runs every few minutes or so.

With some time to burn, we wandered on over to the bridge that crosses the canyon nearby. Now this is the place to get photos, as it offers pretty well the best view of the entire castle. Unfortunately, like many buildings we’ve seen in the last 2 weeks, it’s being cleaned. That meant that the entire one side was covered with scaffolding, which somewhat takes away from the view. Fortunately, I have photos from the last trip, and there were postcards if you really needed the pictures. Postcards varied wildly in price around the town, anywhere from 30 cents to 1 euro for the same card depending where you went. It really paid to look around first.

I have to say; the inside was just as impressive as the outside. I didn’t know that the castle was incomplete, as King Ludwig II died before it was completed. So the first and the third floor were finished while the second was not. As there were only a limited number of completed rooms, we got to see them all. We were not able to take photos but we were able to find postcards that had pictures of the interior. After what seemed to be a brief tour, we ended where all tours end; the giftshop. I don’t know the exact context but there is a Simpsons episode that makes fun of that fact that I think had to do with Krustyland or something. Someone can fill that in for me.

After we finished walking around the area, we headed back to Fussen for some dinner and drinks. I mean beer. This is Bavaria after all. We based our choice of place to eat on whether we could filch wireless internet or not. But in the end, we didn’t get any net. It seemed strange after coming from Budapest and Bucharest, where it seemed like every restaurant provided it as a competitive advantage over other restaurants nearby, for free.

We ended up in an Italian place and washed down pizza with a couple of beers. It should be noted that Bavaria is very influenced by Italy due to its close proximity; it’s only about 100 km away.

And that was our day; by the time we got back to Munich tonight, it’s 10.30. After a quick stop to get some wireless, it’s bedtime. Be well all.

Last day in Bucharest

Yesterday was our last day in Bucharest and mostly spent in the air or at the airports, as we were headed back to Munich for the last leg of our trip. We got up fairly early, even though after all the beer the night before I was feeling pretty inclined to sleep in, in order to spend a little more time roaming around. After another refreshing cold shower, we headed on our way. I gotta say, Bucharest is one hell of city. It by far the city which has the largest mix of old and new. There are quite a number of old buildings in the city but many of them were torn down during the Communist reign so a lot of the old now are just the beaten up Communist era buildings that have not be fixed up or repaired. Alongside those are many shiny, new steel and glass skyscrapers. It makes for a quite a contrast. There is also a large number of uncompleted buildings due to projects running out of money halfway through to completion. And it was enjoyably affordable. With our exchange rate, many times Raegan and I could eat and drink a meal for under $15 to $20 for the two of us. Local beer could sometimes come in at less than $2 for a sleeve.

One of the most noticeable things was a lack of souvenir shops. Especially compared to Budapest and western Europe. I actually wanted to buy some souvenirs but in the end had to settle for Romanian crafted items. We were able to find two places that had lots of those; the Peasant Museum gift shop and the one at the Village Museum. It was actually kind of nice not to see these tacky little souvenir shops lurking all over the city, looking to lure in tourists. I’m sure that in a few years once Bucharest becomes more of a tourist destination that there will be shops all over the places. For now, anyway, some of the old charm remains. We also wandered an open air market of a sort near Trixie’s place but being Sunday and somewhat early in the day, there were only a handful of shops open.

So by 1pm, we had to book for the airport. Since we were only flying within Europe, we flew out of the Beneasa airport. Now this was one old place and I almost expected to see people packing around chickens in coops on their shoulders. After the usual checkin chaos, we made it through passport control into the waiting room. I love these little places; seating for one plane worth of people and three planes worth of people waiting. Fabulous. Fortunately there were only three gates as our flight got moved to another gate; from gate 2 to gate 3 . As well, it was almost an hour late leaving. The airline blamed it on German air traffic control…. Thankfully we had 2.5 hours between flights as we arrived in Cologne an hour late.

Once in Cologne, we waited and then boarded for a one hour flight to Munich. There’s not much more to our night. We arrived safely, hopped on the train and headed to the city to our room. After dropping our stuff off, we went out for a quick sushi dinner at a nearby Japanese restaurant, which was a nice break from some of the large, meat heavy meals we had been eating in Hungary and Romania. After that, we called it a night. We don’t have a plan today as many sites and museums are closed on Monday’s, so we’re going to just figure it out as we go along.

A hot day in rhe city

We started of the day with cold showers, which was quite refreshing, as hot water in your home is not a guaranteed thing here. Being that the temperature has been in the mid 30’s for the last few days, it was nice, for about 30 seconds. Oh well. On the other hand, we were able to get bacon and eggs for breakfast. Almost like home except of course instead of hashbrowns, it’s served with french fries. Since most mornings begin with bread, cheeses, and other assorted items, it’s nice once in awhile to have something like that.

Once we had finished up with that, we went to an event I would have never thought to see outside of Canada; a Terry Fox run. I didn’t realize it was such an international event and takes place all over the world. The school that Trixie works at organizes it every year and there were about 400 runners. It was a big turnout and I felt for everyone running in the heat. In addition to the run, there was a large BBQ, bake sales, and a live band. I was somewhat wishing that I hadn’t had breakfast as there were some pretty good looking foods there. We met a lot of people in a whirlwind of names and faces; almost all are foreign workers working at the school, which is private .

Our big trip of the day was out to the town of Mogoşoaia to see the palace there. This was a palace built in the late 1600’s and is in quite good shape. It’s surrounded by some very nice gardens and mini hedges and sits on the edge of a lake. The lake very grungy but we could see locals out swimming, while carrying beer, so I guess the water wasn’t all bad. We did a quick tour inside which has been recently renovated. There were some great examples of craftman’s ship with hand made carpets and hand carved wooden doors. Very nice! I would have been happy with it as a summer home.

And surprisingly enough, there is a replica of the Arc de Triumphe here in Bucharest called the Arcul de Triumf , appropriately enough. It built to honour Romanian soldiers of WW2 and I guess the architect had been a Paris a few times, as it almost looks like an exact duplicate.

Nearby the Arc is a very large museum called the Village Museum. This is a place where hundreds of Romanian houses, churches, and other buildings have been moved to over the years. Some were moved to preserve them from destruction where they came from and others were moved solely to be displayed. There were some very interesting buildings and it was quite an insight into how many people in Romania lived for hundreds of years.

We wrapped up our day with plenty of food and drink. Trixie reserved a big table at a local place called Care cu bere, which is a very traditional Romanian restaurant. There ended up being 10 people coming for dinner with me being the only man at the table. Always fun. There was plenty of beer and the food was quite good. I might have overdone the meat by ordering a sausage platter which came with 4 kinds of sausage, sauerkraut, and hot peppers and pickles for garnish. It was a meat overload. But the beers along the way washed it all down quite nicely. As well, they had a variety of dancers, who danced both to traditional Romania folk music and modern music. It was quite a site and they were very good.

After finishing up there, we wrapped up the night with gelato and another trip to the pub called the Whitehorse. It was a small, smoky place which was modelled on an English pub, with bills from all over the world stapled to the walls. I didn’t have any Canadian cash to add to the collection though.

And that took us until midnight. As we needed to get up early today, we called it a night. This is our last day in Bucharest and we fly back to Munich this afternoon to wrap up our trip, so we want to get some last minute stops in today.

Roaming in Romania

Ah, it was nice to have an easy day today in which we didn’t do much. We’re staying at Raegan’s friend, Trixie, place until Sunday and we had a day to sleep in without interruption. It was nice to roll out of bed at 9am after days of 6am mornings and we sort of lazed around for a few hours, made some breakfast, and just generally mellowed out. The heat also kept us inside longer as it was 34 here today, which makes walking quite an exercise.

Once we got underway, we headed down the House of Parliament, once known as the House of the People. This is a building that was built at great expense (bankrupting the country) by Nicolae Ceauşescu in the 1980’s as a place for all the government branches as well as to be his personal residence. Now this building defines monstrosity. It’s the second largest administrative building in the world, after the Pentagon, and weighs in at 2.5 million cubic meters in size. It was mind blowing walking around inside and seeing such an incredible display of wealth; marble columns, hand woven rugs, massive crystal chandeliers, and gold woven into curtains. It’s even more shocking when considering it was built in a period when most of the population of Romania lived in abject poverty.

We did the 45 minute English tour, which was a whirlwind of rooms and halls, with a very fast talking guide. Several people who spoke English as a second language had to ask her to slow down at times. I don’t remember for sure but we saw about 12 rooms out of the 1400 that are in the palace and it seemed that each time we entered a new room, my jaw dropped further at the blatant display of extravagance.

As a stark contrast to that building, we headed to the Romanian peasant museum next. This is a museum that showcases many of day to day things that people in the country side used to use in the daily lives. There were a lot of examples of hand made clothing, tools, and church ornaments, as well as some buildings. The highlights of the museum include a full size peasant house as well as a village church. They were neat to see but I was quite surprised at the rough quality of the construction. And there was also a small windmill which was pretty impressive and some replicas of craftmen’s shops; blacksmith, potter, and carpenters.

While the museum itself was cheap to get into, about $3 each, one could only take pictures by purchasing a phototicket, which was $20. I forwent the photos in this case. Interestingly, this is about the 4th museum we’ve visited in Hungary and Romania that charges to take photos. The Parliament did as well, but it was only about $5 to do so. I guess they’re just looking for a little extra cash but it seems strange since museums in Western Europe don’t charge for this.

And that was our day, aside from going out for Lebanese for dinner, where I had my first experience with a shisha. You’ll have to google that one to find out what it is : )

Tomorrow Trixie is taking us out to the countryside to check a small village where this is a castle of some sort. It will be nice to get a little of the countryside and out of the city for a day.

Coming from the wild east

We were on the over night train last night, so I was not able to post due to no internet.

We wrapped up our last day in Budapest by really just wandering while we waited to catch an over night train to Bucharest. After checking out of the hotel, we were able to leave our luggage there, thankfully, as it would have been a pain in the ass to carry around. From there we headed to teh Budapest Central Market for some looking around and some lunch.

The guide book we have sorta got us there but not all the way. It was a bit misleading and we ended up going down an escalator that had the sign ‘Budapest Market’ but wasn’t really the market but a big tourist trap. After a bit more wandering around, we found it about 4 blocks from where we were.

The market was a very large iron building full of food shops and stores and kind of reminded me of Granville Island. Same sort of idea anyway, with many stores selling groceries from all over the country and Europe. There were also the usual souvenir shops as well as a lot of places selling carpets, curtains, and the like. It was a very colourful place. Funnily, the whole floor had a decided tilt to it like the building had begun to sink on one side and it was obvious as soon as you walked in the entrance. I took some pictures but I’m not sure if they’ll convey the floor tilt or not. While there we had lunch at the Hungarian equivalent of fast food restaurants, which was really quite good. I once again had something that I don’t even know the name of but was composed of lots of potatoes and beef in something like sweet tomato sauce. Very tasty.

Since we were so tired out from walking the day before, we decided just to grab some geocaches for something different, rather than wander around any museums or the like. The nice thing about geocaching is that a lot of the times the people who place them but them in locations of interest that people from out of the city are probably unaware of. The first one we went looking for was no exception, being located at a memorial dedicated to the Hungary winter olympics. Unfortuntaly, we were not able to actually get it as there were way too many people around for us to grab it. No big deal as the Parliament buildings were nearby so we walked and took a bunch of pictures.

Once finished with that, we headed to Budapest’s largest cemetary; 56 hectares. This cemetary was established in 1849, so there are some pretty old sections in it. This was a very neat place to explore as each time period puts it’s own signature on it. It is not homogenous like La Chaise cemetary in Paris but a hodgepodge of mausoleums, tombstones, and grave markers in no particular order, giving it a somewhat disorganized feeling. In some areas, as well,  the forest has been largely left to run wild and you would walk along old paths and pick out markers just sprouting out from the forest floor. It was pretty cool and a bit creepy. We were glad we didn’t come at night as we had first thought to do. We did find a geocache buried in an old section of the graveyard, which is probably one of the more exotic ones that we have located. I got loads of pictures from here as there were a lot of neat things to see.

Last stop of the day was at the Hungarian national museum. We only had about an hour before having to get luggage and to the train, so we made a whirlwind tour of the place. The funny thing about long trips is that one can get ‘museumed out’, so we didn’t really mind an abbreviated tour. Nonetheless, it was very informative about Hungary’s history throughout the last 1000 years. And some of the exhibits were in English, so we had some idea what was going on.

I would certainly like to visit Hungary again. Budapest was such a vibrant city with such a startling contrast between old and new. Western European cities seem to have lost some of that, whereas the east is experiencing a ‘rennaisance’ of sorts since the Communist governments collapsed in the 1990’s.

Being the hot day that it was, Raegan and I grabbed our luggage from the hotel and bolted to the train station. We arrived a bit too early and ended just having to hang around for an hour. Since it was 30 degrees out, we both couldn’t wait for our nice air-conditioned sleeper car.

When the train arrived, we were in for a bit of a surprise. As I walked along it to our car, my first impression was ‘ this is one old train’. And it was; it seemed like it had been built in the 1950’s. Having travelled from Munich to Budapest in the very modern “Railjet” trains in first class, where it’s air-conditioned, food is served at your seats, and there are colour displays showing your speed and time of arrivals, this was quite a contrast. And once inside, it was bloody hot. Our double room felt like it was 40 degrees and this was to be our home for the next 14 hours to Bucharest. After settling, in I asked the conductor where the dinner car was. In broken English, he replied ‘no dinner for you’. Awesome, it was time to take inventory of the snacks we had been carrying around since Munich. 1 apple, 1/2 bag of salted chips, 1 bag of mini pretzels, 2 cookies, and 4 litres of water. I was so glad that we had just bought lots of water. So that was dinner and breakfast along the way, although we were given ‘magic’ croissants for breakfast the next day as well as tea and coffee. I had no idea how to make the coffee as the sink in our room strongly stated not to drink the water, so where did the hot water come from??

In any case, I managed to sleep pretty well with two interuptions by passport control along the way was we crossed the border. I must say, it was a bit disorienting having someone knock on the door in the middle of the night and shine a light on you. Here I was in my underwear on the top bunk explaining the purpose of my visit to a woman who had way too much makeup on. With that out of the way, back to sleep I went, only to have to repeat the experience to a rather dodgy looking Romanian agent on the other side of the border. It was interuption free after that.

When we had arrived in Budapest a few days before, the train station gave the impression of chaos and confusion, so I was sorta of expecting that in Bucharest. And I wasn’t disappointed. The rail station in Bucharest felt like it had been standing for 100 years, which was entirely possible. And unfortunately, I had my first experience with the pit toilet. People who have travelled to China will understand, although the Romanian version had water, I’m told. I won’t go into details but I’d rather not see that again.

Aside from that, the station did have what we were looking for; information office, luggage storage, and food. Info provided us with a map, and McDonald’s provided the food. As we had six hours until we met with Raegan’s friend, Trixie who lives here, we needed to check our luggage. It was a relief that we could do so, although I had some concerns about the safety of the contents. It was all good though when we came back for our bags.

We had planned to shower on the train, but that didn’t happen, so we had thrown on new clothes and lots of deordorant and I felt kind of grungy as we wandered around. We decided to keep our walking down as it was very hot and we wanted to avoid large crowds.

With that, we once again negotiated our way onto the subway and headed to the downtown area of Bucharest. Now a note about the subways here; the stations are very dark and smell and are in really bad shape, unlike Budapest where the stations were in surprisingly good shape. One the other hand, though, the trains themselves were brand new, modern, airconditioned and big, unlike Budapest where they are old and rickety affairs.

After arriving and going to the surface, it was a bit of a shock to see. Our guide books had somewhat forewarned us what to expect but it was quite surprising to see just how bad of shape many of the buildings were in. Some sections look like they must have just after WW2 and you could still see bullet and shell damage. Another things to watch for are holes on the streets and sidewalks. You quickly learn not to lollygag and watch where you are walking or you might take a header in a hole along the way. And parking here is a whole new experience. Cars were parked everywhere there was enough space to fit a car; on the sidewalks, the median, crosswalks, even right in a lane on the street. And traffic was something to behold with cars just going everywhere. There may have been three lines on the street but there were usually 5 or 6 lanes of traffic. It made crossing the street and interesting affair. Another interesting thing to see was the power lines. Sometimes the lines would come down low enough that you could reach out and grab them while walking down the side walk. And at times, the lines were wrapped around trees and over branches along the streets. As well, on many poles, there would be dozens of coils of extra line just hanging off, sometimes right to the ground. It looked like an electrical nightmare.

We did manage to survive the walk and headed to a very small church which is supposed to house the remains of Vlad Tepes. The church has been declared a Unesco world heritage site and was one of the most ourstanding churches I have visited. Unlike the large stately cathedrals that are common, this church was almost homely until you walked inside and saw the fantastic frescos painted all over the interior. There was also a very elaborate series of paintings and carvings that covered the main wall that was amazing.

From here we decided to camp out at a cafe for a couple of hours and drink beer to avoid the heat of the day and wait for Trixie. We made one last stop at the Revolution Square where the Romanian Revolution began in 1989 before heading back to the train station to meet Trixie.

Once we had met her and grabbed our luggage, we decided to skip the subway rush hour and grab a taxi. Some perverse part of me always gets a thrill riding a taxi in foreign cities and this was no exception. It was complete madness blasting through traffic, intersections and anything else along the way and I wonder if I could ever be able to drive like that. In Canada, one would lose their license in no time but here it almost comes across as there are no laws aside from the ’suggestion’ to minimize collisions and pedestrian casualities.

So a new day has started here for us after sleeping in until 9, which was pretty sweet. I’ll try to post again tonight.

Observation of the day; Raegan and I are becoming fluent in Metro speak. Eingang, ausgang, kijarat, enjarat, eisire. Entrance and exit in german, hungarian, and romanian.

A big day in Budapest

This was our first full day here and, man, we walked a lot of miles. With the metro and tram rides today, we covered 35KM. That doesn’t include the miles that I don’t track when we’re inside of buildings and subway stations, and such. As I’m writing this, there are hundreds of people marching on the street outside our hotel room. Hopefully the second Hungarian revolution isn’t about to get underway. I don’t see any Molotov cocktails, so I think it’s good. I just wish they would march somewhere rather than just in circles that brings them back our way

After feeling like the jetlag just didn’t want to go away, I got a marathon 10 hours of sleep and woke up feeling great today. And the perfect way to get started is a fantastic European breakfast; various breads, cheeses, meats, eggs, and strong coffee. Wish I could start every morning that way.

Our first stop of the day was at the Castle Caves near our hotel. This is a series of catacombs/bunkers that were used in WW2 during air raids and Russian invasions by the locals. The whole cave is about 1.2 km long and is quite far underground. Definitely not for the claustrophobic. It smelled like a root cellar and was very cool and humid,  and at points, we could see our breath. The great thing was that we were the only ones there that early in the day and got to really enjoy the eeriness of it without any other people around. There were some dark rooms in which I could imagine scary faces looking back at us in the dark in a few places. At times, I had to use the light from my phone to be able to see where we were going. Hehe, I spooked Raegan a couple of times by hiding and making creepy noises.

Once we finished with the caves, we headed to the Hungarian Military Museum down the way. These sorts of museums can be neat places and this one was no exception, if you’re into this sort of thing. While many of the periods of Hungary’s history regarding warfare were covered, I noticed a decided lack of coverage about WW2. Curious. There were some exhibits but, compared to other wars, such as WW1, it was quite small. I’m guessing that Hungary would rather not remember that they sided with Germany in that war. Granted, Germany did ‘occupy’ Hungary near the end.

Continuing our museum tour for the day, we headed over to the Pest side of the river to grab some lunch and visit the Terror House. Using one of our guide books, we attempted to find a restaurant that was recommended. Curiously, the street on which the restaurant was supposed to be had a different name than the book. After a bried period of wandering, we just headed into a cafe that we passed. Now this was off the beaten tourist path and English was not an option. The waiter did speak English and just rapid fired ‘goulash’ at us. We nodded dumbly and asked for a coke as well. Coca-cola transcends language barriers. While I rarely drink the stuff at home, here I’m chugging it down faster than a Russian drinking vodka at a wedding. First came some sort of soup with bread in it. We think the bread were the local equivalent of croutons, and we think the soup was onion. It was pretty damned tasty though and we chowed it down. I noticed that a man had sat down at the same time as us and had also gotten soup, so while were still eating, we waited to see what he would get when he finished his soup. It was goulash. So when we finished our soup, we got goulash as well. It was nice not to be too surprised.

All the food was very good and I found it hard to believe that the two of us had had that much lunch, and a drink, for less than $10.

The Terror House is the former site of the Hungarian secret police, AVO. Don’t ask me what the initials mean as I’m sure I can’t pronounce it. This was a sobering tour of some pretty nasty pieces of Hungary’s history; both under the Hungarian Nazi Party, the Arrow Cross, and the Communist regime. Nasty pieces of work. It burns me that any government needs to maintain its legitimacy by terrorizing and executing its citizens. Walking through cells and torture chambers, I couldn’t imagine the kind of people who could run these sorts of places. Aside from the nasty aspects of things like that, there was an incredible amount of historical info that was quite interesting covering things like the German and Soviet occupations of Hungary in the 1940’s and 1950’s. I would recommend this to anyone coming here.

It was time for a geocache! We just so happened to be a few blocks from the Opera House and there just happened to be a cache there. Unfortunately, we didn’t find it. I really put on the tourist act so as to not draw suspicion on me as we poked and prodded statues and light posts looking for the damned thing. But it wasn’t to be so we headed to the Metro for a trip to Hosok tere (Heroes Square).

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t every former Communist country have a heroes square? And they’re always so damned big! The square in Budapest sits on the edge of a very large city park, though, and we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around in it. It was very nice and very peaceful in many areas and you could barely hear the traffic in many spots. We grabbed two geocaches and in the descriptions of one, the author really wanted to point out the park and have people enjoy it. We certainly did and probably would not have if not for the geocache bringing us that way.

Once we had walked enough and needed a break, we headed out for some dinner. Our guide had a recommended restaurant which we headed to, which was supposed to be just like the interior of a Hungarian farmhouse and offer many game meats for dinners. After a bit of a walk, we found it and stopped for some more great food and beer. The place was pretty cool inside and very cozy. I had my first experience with goose liver and steak and it was surprisingly good. The waitress had suggested it to me and I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical. After a few bites,I was convinced. It was even better washed downed with the Hofbrau wheat beer. Yum!

And another day comes to an end. We even feel that we’re getting the hang of this city now. We have now travelled the metro, the trams, and the buses and found it surprisingly easy to get around. This is a very interesting city and I’m finding the contrast between the old and the new quite startling at times. You can walk down the street and see an old communist building right beside a lingerie shop. Or see the old men and women, hunched over and grey from years of communist rule, riding the subway between the young and the bright; shining in their western clothing, with their ipods and their cell phones. It’s quite a contrast as this city transitions towards a brighter future.

Greetings from Budapest

Yesterday was our first day in Budapest after arriving here around 10am after wee got up pretty early and caught a train. A great way to travel.

This is the first city that I’ve arrived in since we got to Europe in which I felt I had no idea what to do next when we got off the train. When we got off the train, we were in an area that had nothing; no info, no bank machine, and no sense of direction. We tried to buy a map but they wouldn’t take Euro’s. Doh! It was time to get some local change and fortunately the lady at the magazine stand pointed us in the direction of the ATM.

Once we got onto the street and wandered around a bit, we found the main train station. Talk about a swirling mass of humanity and chaos. It felt so unlike western European cities’ train stations which are usually so well laid out and organized. In the Budapest train station, it still felt very communist era and disorganized and was pretty dingy. This also the land of smokers as every second person had a cigarette in their hand.

In any case, we found the ATM but it wouldn’t take Raegan or my bank cards. So much for local currency at this time. We did manage to find an info office which provided maps and a metro guide and were also able to buy Budapest 2009 cards, which gives 72 hours of transit and discounts to attractions. So far, so good but we had no idea where to go next. We had made a reservation at a hotel in Budapest but finding it on the map proved to be quite a challenge. If you get the chance to see the maps we have, you would understand. For one thing, the map is very busy and secondly, it’s in Magyar! A whole new challenge. Just trying to pronounce the street names mangled my tongue. We needed to find Szentháromság tér (Trinity Square). That was fun. Eventually I was able to find it on my iPhone GPS app since we knew the general location. I immediately bookmarked it and off we went to figure out the transit system.

Fortunately Budapest only has three lines so getting the one we needed was straight forward. We just picked a station close by and figured we would walk from there. Once we got there, I had to make a pit stop at a pharmacy to pick up some cream. Now that was experience trying to explain what I needed to three women who’s English would best be described as broken. But it all worked out and I got what I needed. As well, we needed a washroom, which, so far as we’ve seen, are all pay to use. 120 Florins ( about 75 cents) is common but I have seen them as much as 250 HUF. As I did not have any local cash, I had to give the lady 2 Euro’s. I don’t even know if she wanted to accept it; I just threw it at her and ran for the can. I was so glad I had tissue with me as the bathroom did not include toilet paper. That was a tip I read in a book; always pack tissue, cuz you never know and using one’s hand… I don’t even want to think about it.

Our hotel is located on Castle Hill, so the walk from the metro station was more like a climb. I was sure glad I’m using a backpack for my luggage and not some bag with wheels, which would have been painful. We made it in about 20 minutes and we got a sweet room. We’re right across the street from one of Budapest’s most famous churches, the Trinity Square. Unfortunately, the church is being cleaned and renovated, so it’s largely covered with scaffolding and cloth. We usually don’t stay in hotels like this, but I’m guessing the recession is really hammering the tourism industry in Europe and we got the room for just over 1/2 of its regular price. Hmm, TV, air conditioning, and wireless internet; althought the only English channel is CNN. It’s a double room but with two beds rather than one. I call it the chastity bed.

Once settled in we wandered around the area which has great view of the Pest side of the city on the east side of the Danube river. We also found a small little cafe and grabbed a light lunch.

Our first planned visit of the day was Szobor Park (Statue Park). This is where all the old Communist era statues go to die. We had three different sets of instructions on how to get there and just sort of figured it out as we went along. Since we were relatively near one of the tram stations, we just walked to it as our starting point. Funnily enough, we had to go to Clark Adam’s Square. Curious how it was named, we discovered that it was named in honour of the Scotsman who designed and built the Chain Bridge nearby, which is considered to be Budapest’s prettiest bridge. Particularly at night when it’s lit up.

Once on the tram, we spotted some Italian tourists. I don’t know how often I have followed other people around since you can usually guess that they’re going to the same place you are. It makes one feel better when you really have no idea where you’re going. This trip to the park was on the tram and the bus so we had to jump off at one point and wait for a bus. Raegan’s guide book said 15 minutes on the bus we it ended up being more than 30. Interesting ride; we went up and down the area in southwest Budapest through all manner of neighbourhoods on our way. After 25 minutes we were beginning to wonder if we would even get there.

I have noticed that I have eliminated some of the unknown and the adventure by having a GPS with me at all times. On other trips, there have been many occasions in which I just winged a trip and really had no idea where I was going or where I was. Now within a matter of minutes, I can find myself on a map.

The park itself was pretty cool. Many of the statues that were torn down in 1989-1990 are here now for tourists to gawk over. I can’t imagine having to see these every day as you grow up reminding you to be the perfect worker, the perfect soldier, and to honour Lenin. Yech! The guy was a freak. But at least there were no statues of Stalin. Unsurprisingly, the quality of the statues was awful. A grade 10 metal work student in Canada could have done a better job. I guess the Communists made statues that reflected the quality of their rule; utter shit.

Once done with that, he headed back to castle hill for some wandering. Since it was getting close to sundown at this time, it was very good for photos of the Pest side of the river with really long shadows. We ended up on an old wall that is being restored as it is a designated Unesco World Heritage Site. The view was outstanding and I was quite grateful we no longer have to use film cameras as I shot a pile of pictures.

Dinner was next on the plan and I was able to have some real Hungarian goulash, accompanied by real Hungarian beer of course. Since the only goulash I’ve ever had is what my dad made when I was growing up, I had no idea what to expect. It certainly wasn’t what I expected but it was damned tasty. Particularly spiced with the hot, paprika paste that Hungarian’s seem to thrive on. This hot sauce was some seriously good stuff; I’m thinking of bringing a bottle back with me.

And with that, the day came to an end. After dinner, I could barely keep my head up, which is why I’m writing this blog in the morning, rather than before bed.

For anyone who is interested, I have uploaded my GPS tracks of the last four days. These are GPX files that you can download and open in Google Earth. They will show you where we have been. Straight lines on the tracks usually mean that we were underground on the subway.

www.markelnet.com/Vienna20090828.gpx
www.markelnet.com/Vienna20090829.gpx
www.markelnet.com/Vienna20090830.gpx
www.markelnet.com/Budapest20090831.gpx

Keep well everyone.

Goodbye to Vienna

Sorry about the late post, but after many miles of walking, a late, very large Russian dinner, and several beers, I was done last night and crashed as soon as we got back to our room. So I’m composing this while riding first class on the train to Budapest. I wish flying could be this comfortable as there is plenty of room and, being in first class, we get complimentary drinks and cold towels. Sweet!

First stop of the day was breakfast and I was determined not to have chicken again. We hit a place by the name of Cafe Ritter which had a big menu, including a real Viennese breakfast; rolls, eggs, ham, juice, coffee, the works. It was fantastic but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the veal liver spread. Yuck! I think that must be an acquired taste.

Sunday was a day of checking out the big tourist sites, of which there are plenty. As Vienna was the heart of an empire for hundreds of years, there are royal palaces all over the place. We started at the Schloss Schonbrunn, which is where the Hapburgs ruled until Ferninand’s death in 1916. I think sometimes that the emperors of old must roll over in their graves with the hordes of tourists milling around in their palaces. I’m pretty sure that the common people 100 years ago never even came close to seeing what we can today as tourists within the palace walls. We took the self-guided audio tour in which you get a device that dictates the rooms to you as you move around. It’s a great way to get to know what each room is and that all the items in the rooms are. Although you only see about 40 rooms in the whole place, that includes bed chambers, war rooms, dining halls, and the like.

Like many of the European palaces that I’ve seen, this place is massive. There are more than 1400 rooms and the land around the palace is at least several square kilometers in size. It even includes a maze that one can wander around in but wouldn’t be much fun if you were more than 6 feet tall as you would be able to see right over the hedges. I’m guessing people were much shorter when it was built. It was neat but not very large but the children we saw were sure having a blast. I was imagining how much fun Siya and Daygen would have had in a place like this. As well, you could spend days wandering through the ‘forest’ on all the paths as well as checking out the tiergarten (zoo).

With our castle tour out of the way, I thought it would be a great idea to have lunch beside the Danube River and enjoy the views. So pulling out the handy map and metro guides, we chose a station that was beside the river. I have to admit, when I saw the river, I was less than impressed; I had imagined it would be far larger than it was but it was quite narrow. But in any case, we wandered along until we found a place to eat. I love the fact that in Europe there are always cafes and restaurants with lots of outdoor seating all over the place. It’s something that is so lacking in North America. Aside from Quebec perhaps but I have no experience there.

We were able to get English menus so we didn’t need to guess what lunch was going to be. I had some sort of traditional Austrian pork dish with peppers, onions, and potatoes are grilled up together in some sort of sauce. It was a heart attack on a plate! No wonder we saw so many Viennese jogging and running. Raegan’s lunch made me laugh out loud. She had ordered the ‘mixed grill’ plate and when it arrived on a plate almost 2 feet wide loaded with ribs, sausages, chicken breasts, salad, and french fries, I couldn’t believe the size of it. Three people could have eaten it. Or one big American

We also discovered that we were not in fact on the Danube River, we were sitting beside a canal. Hahaha, we hadn’t opened enough of our map and had ended up beside the Danube Canal. That explained why it wasn’t as large as I imagined.

After packing ourselves almost too full to walk, we headed back towards the Hofsburg palaces for some pictures. The rest of the day was just wandering around neat churches, the Austrian parliament buildings, and other palaces for lots of pictures. Being Sunday, there were a lot of people milling around and we didn’t do any other tours.

Beside our hostel there is a Russian restaurant that we decided to check out for dinner. We discovered that the menu was only available in German and Russian, so we had to rely on the waiter who spoke great english to translate for us. He asked us if we were from America and we replied Canada. He sounded happy as he then said ‘Vancouver?’. I think it’s the only place he knows in Canada and he was happy that Raegan was from there. And he was endlessly curious about fishing there and kept asking about it. I don’t think he knew anything about the city aside from the name. I had a BC postcard with me so I gave him one which made him really happy. He was a bit surprised when we told him that BC is a large as Germany and the pictures on the card were from several different areas of the province. We had to explain provinces as he didn’t know what they are.

For dinner he got us into rich, dark Russian bread and a salad for starters. The salad was unlike anything I had ever tried before. It was layered like a cake with beets, potatoes, onions, cabbage, and carrots all topped with some sort of beet glaze. But it was good. I felt bad that I couldn’t eat it all and he kept asking ‘you no like?’. Dinner was real Russian beef stroganof and I left there feeling like I had a weight in my belly. Slept came pretty quickly after that.

By 10pm, we were done and called it a night. The next post will be coming from Budapest.