Another day in Prague-adise

Prague really is a wonderful city, even with all the mountains of tourists (and yes I am aware of the irony of a tourist complaining about the amount of tourists. But as Tanya pointed out, we are travellers, not tourists. The weather was fantastic, around the 30 degree mark with no clouds. We met up with a German friend who lived in Adelaide for a while and we went on a walking tour of the city. It was really cool just to walk the sidewalks less travelled and witness the beauty of the city. We saw a Synagogue which looked both old and undamaged, both remarkable since Prague was occupied during the war. We tried aimlessly to find a small pub I visited 7 years ago, with endless cries from me of "this looks like it, no, its not" or "oh, I recognise this street, it must be just around the cor... no its not". In the end we didnt find it, which may have been a good thing since it is probably now overpriced like everything else in Prague (and maybe it painted its walls purple too). We found a traditional middle ages band complete with leather clothes and old wooden instruments. They had a big crowd around them and no wonder since they were excellent, playing music that would not be out of place in a Robin Hood film. To finish the afternoon we found ourselves sitting on the river banks, chilling out and contemplating having a go on one of the many paddle boats that were floating up and down stream. In the evening, after watching the sun go down behind the castle, we found a medieval type restaurant that was reasonably priced and had sensational food. The rooms were decorated with real suits of armour and it looked a little like a dungeon. A good end to a great day. Sometimes life is good.

Hiccup Count

And she hits the 400! It hasnt been updated in a bit but rest assured, the count goes on. 403.

Hiccup Count

41 in 2 days, both days she came iout of the blocks early but tapered off in the evening. Total 290/

I have a bone to pick with you

Just outside Prague, there is a church with a difference. It is in a place called Sedlec, just a small little village next to an old silver mining town called Kutna Hora (careful how you say that). Kutna Hora was important until the mid 18th century and at one time was probably Czech's second city, but now it is just a quaint little village, and Sedlec is a small offshoot of that. The Ossuary there is decorated with the bones of over 40000 people. The architect of the osuuary in the 1800's thought it would be a great idea to use all the bones they found lying in the crypt for decoration. People in the area now really want to be "buried" there too, its a bit of a fashion thing I suppose. The whole thing was a little odd, not really creapy but just odd. There is an old saying in Yorkshire, "there's nought as queer as folk" and I think that applies here.

Photos cost extra

After my little tirade on "the Little Versailles", a similar thing happened at the Prague Castle. Prague is a wonderful city but in the 7 years since I have been here it seems it has become quite the tourist attraction, and places are charging accordingly. Last time I was at Prague castle I saw most of it and dont remember having to pay to get in. This time you could get a 'long visit' or 'short visit' ticket, the difference being the number of things you can see. So we decided to get the short visit one, which cost 200K or about $11.50 AUD, not really a lot. That got us in to the cathedral which is inside the castle and a few surrounding churches. The cathedral is well worth a look with some spectacular stain glass windows. The rest however is a different story. It was almost like an after thought, "we have charged to get in so we should put some token extra things in". Unfortunately you cant just get a cathedral ticket though. If you do go to see the extra things like St someone (cant remember his name) Basilica, you are not allowed to take photos. Unlike the Little Versailles, you will not be shot, you just need to pay a little extra for a photo "licence", 50K or about $2.50. My thought is, let's not buy it and say we did. It seemed to work because there were people in all the buildings who I assume would be to check and make sure noone is taking 'illegal' photos, but noone stopped me. Then we tried to climb the tower of the cathedral because there is a great view from there, but no, that is extra, another 100K. If you want to go to see the "Story of Prague Castle" guess what, its extra. I think the castle authorities have seen tourists coming and are charging extra for everything now. Capitalist scum!

hiccup count

New count for the last two days. A few days with good results, today started very slowly but came home with a wet sail. 42 in two days for a total of 249.

Bratislava

The capital of Slovakia is our first stop on this trip that neither of us have been to before. The hotel is not bad (Hotel Turist) and it wasnt too hard to find. The room is a decent size but the whole place is undergoing construction, just like most of the city actually. The hotel has the feel of a student dorm and we think that is what it used to be. The construction isnt too much of a hassle reall, except when they insist on starting at 7am. Drill, hammer, repeat.
The city isnt too bad, it has more of a grandiose mediocrity feel about it. It is an eclectic mix of communist bloc type apartment buildings and new, modern towers and bank buildings. This is apparently the place where big business is setting up their central europe headquaters' and there is money coming in. Soon I think it there will signs of money, but for now it is a city in transition it feels. Although people all seem to look content, not overly happy or grumpy but simply content. One more observation about the people is that there dont seem to be any overweight people around.
About the only things of note to see are the castle, which seems very new and freshly built for a 14th century castle. The original one burnt down in 1811 and the only got around to rebuilding it in the 1950's, you can rush these things you know. When they did rebuild it, it ended up looking like how a communist would build it in the 14th century. An interesting thought, imagine the Tower of London built by Brezhnev, or Versailles built by Krushchev. The other thing to see is the old town, which is quaint. A typical old town with a square, a fountain and 50 restaurants and souvenir stalls.












In the evening we caught the 205 bus into the city and had dinner at the Slovak Pub, a very interesting building, set back from the street as most shops are on the Obchodna (the name of the street). You go through an entrance, usually an arch, and walk 15m through an arcade to the shop, in this case to a set of stairs going up or down. Up to the Slovak Pub and Down to the Europa Pub, which is more of a club. Up the stairs we go and it is an old looking house that just keeps going and going. From the street you wouldnt tell that it is so big, it seems to continue away from the street with hidden rooms. It is all mad with wood with interesting paintings on the walls, some portaits of Catholic Priests, Knights and and ordinary old man. The food was very typical Slovakian, self professed although how would someone like me tell. There was a page on the menu that says you must order one day in advance for these items, such as Roast Goose or a Roast Suckling pig which they say is 30kg and cost 318 Euro. Not a light snack. I had some small traditional pasty type things that were good, Tanya had a cordon bleu type chicken thing which was good and we shared a plate of halusky bryndzove, which is apparently the national dish and maybe rightly so since there were a lot of locals eating it. It is very small gnocchi like dumplings with a sheeps cheese sauce and topped with crispy cubes of bacon. It was really good but had a very strong flavour so I dont know how much you could eat in one sitting. We washed it down with some local beer and then a local digestive called Borovicka which is a spirit made from berries, kind of like a schnapps. Not a bad meal, especially since in total, for both of us it cost 20euro. We are definitely noticing that the further east we go, the cheaper it is getting.

The buses deserve a special mention here. I think they all have the last name of Schumacher, because they certainly drive like it. They have 3 types of transport in the city, normal buses, trams and electric trolley buses, which are the ones we have been taking. The fares are quite cheap at 50c to get into the city, a 15 min journey, but Im sure it should take about 20 mins. Lots of sharp corners and late breaking make each bus ride an adventure. At least there are lots of them and they run very often and on time, and so most people use them. The almost exact opposite of Adelaide really.
Prague tomorrow.

Hiccup Count

A new record today. 25 in one day. 207 total.

Hiccup count

Good day today, and Tanya had a lot of hiccups. Some thanks to Stefan and Christa who since they found out about the hiccup count, have alerted me to hiccups I might have otherwise missed. 182.

Beer and Wine and you’ll feel fine

What an amazing day. Second day in Vienna and we went out in to the countryside just around Vienna. When I say we it is Tanya and I plus Stefan and Christa, who are two Austrian friends that lived in Adelaide a while ago, plus their 3 month old daughter. We all went in the one car which was snug shall we say, but definitely not uncomfortable. We headed out to visit the wine region which has been around since Roman times. On the way there was the castle that Richard the Lionheart was taken hostage in the 12th century. It is now a ruin but the view above the Danube with the hills in the background was stunning. A little on from that we stopped at our first winery. As it was about 3pm we ordered what we thought would be a little plate of food, but I should know now that people in this part of the world don’t do small plates of food. It was only slices of meats and cheeses with bread but it was so good, and too much for Tanya to finish which is saying something. The surroundings were idyllic, sitting outside under a large tree with flower gardens only a few metres away, and rays of sunshine falling on a hedge and highlighting the fluffy white seeds flying through the air. It was like something out of a painting. The wine was ok, all white wine which I don’t usually like but these were fine, not awesome but drinkable and all local products. The next winery along the road was a little more up in elevation with a view to match. Walking through the little village that it was set in there was a middle aged man in lederhosen with the criss cross suspenders and the hat with the feather, walking his rather large dog. I tried very hard to get a photo of them but he was already ahead of me and walking at a rather brisk pace, just a man out walking his dog through his local village. The wines at this winery I think were better in particular a very nice Rose, perfect for the warm day that it was. By this time it was getting on in the evening, but not yet dark. Still, it was time to head back to Vienna for the little baby’s sake anyway. At least that’s what we thought, the baby, name Hedi, thought otherwise. For some reason she was not happy, not happy at all. We had to make a stop to calm her down, and by some bizarre coincidence the first park we found was right outside a beer garden. Who are we to argue with this sign? So we stopped and had a beer in another serene location. Fortunately, or unfortunately depends on which way you look at it, she calmed down after only one beer, another local product, so we could be on our way. When we arrived back in Vienna, one of the best days so far was topped off with a game of Settlers that Stefan and Christa just happen to enjoy also. Good wine, good beer, good food, good scenery, good company and good games. Sometimes life is good.

The Little Versailles

After the slight disappointment of not being able to get in to the Neuschwanstein, today we decided to head off earlier hopefully to beat the traffic. We were heading to a castle built on an island on a lake, built by the same king who built the Neuschwanstein. He was a little bit mad and built 3 really expensive castles in the 1800s and when it was discovered he had plans for more, it was apparently decided that the world would be better off without him around. He was ‘found’ dead supposedly of drowning, but since he was found in 1m of water and he was 1.91m tall, this was a little suspicious. To my mind, the big bullet sized hole in his head would have been more suspicious but the official cause of death was “accidental drowning”, or so the story goes. So, we arrived at this castle which was intended to be a tribute to the palace at Versailles in France. Since we were at the real Versailles just a week earlier, it was going to be interesting to see how similar they were. At Versailles, you enter and then you are free to wander all over the building, the gardens, take photos and generally do what you want. At the German Versailles, you can do no such thing, how dare you! There is a compulsory guided tour which lasts 25 minutes (it took over 3 hours just to walk around the chateau in Versailles) which consists of being informed “zis is a chair und zis is ein chandelier that when it has candles in it vill light up ze room”, most informative. The first piece of information we were given was that under no circumstances are photographs or filming to be done “or you vill be shot!” After being rushed through the first few rooms, always walking in a straight line or you villbe shot, we came to the ‘little’ hall of mirrors, which I think was impressive, if we could have had a look and gotten past the ropes I could say for sure. The whole 60m long room was roped off and you are not allowed to walk down it. We were, however, told that there is a very nice view from the window at the end of the hall that takes in the fountains in the gardens, but you are not permitted to see it, or you vill be shot. I actually think that the castle would be very impressive, if we were allowed to see it. I was amused that at the real Versailles photos are allowed and it is fine to see the whole building but at the Little Versailles in Germany (it is called Herrenchiemseein Bavaria by the way) the building is a bit more important so the strict no photos and no wandering policy is enforced. I was reminded of the saying, the tail wagging the dog. But in the end it was a minor nuisance and in fact the day was a good one. The gardens were quite nice and the fountains really cool, when they were on. My original thought was that they were turned off because someone took a photo of them, but it turns out they are on for 50 minutes, then off for 50 minutes and it was just me being cynical. The thing that really made the day a success was the little village we stopped in and the restaurant there. It was a traditional Bavarian place, complete with two old men playing piano accordion and guitar, wearing lederhosen and the hat with a feather in it. The deal is they play for the customers and in return they get all the food and beer they want, Im thinking the beer was more important for these guys. The waitresses had the traditional Bavarian dress on but it was all authentic since was definitely off the tourist track, so it was all local. The best part was the food. I had the pork knuckle, but when it arrived I thought maybe they made a mistake because they brought the whole pig out. Tanya had the schnitzel, which was the size of a small table. She only ate half and what was left was still the size of a schnitty from the pub in Adelaide. The pork was sensational. Sensational. It was undoubtedly the star of the day. Sometimes life is good.

Beware the matless bathroom.

When I was young I would often hear of an old lady who slipped and broke her hip getting out of the bath or shower and I always found it strange. How could you break something simply by stepping out of the shower? I guess this is because all the showers I ever had you would step into at the same level as the floor. This may also explain why I would flood the bathroom every time I had a shower, but that is beside the point. Since being in Europe this time I think I understand how it is possible to slip getting out of the shower. Almost all showers here are a combined shower/bath and even if they are not the shower has a basin in it about 50cm high. Without a handrail, stepping over the lip of the basin to reach the floor can be a little tricky, and if there is no bath mat on the tiles, which there often isn’t, then it can be heart in mouth stuff. If you add to this a little old lady then it is completely understandable how they can injure themselves, in fact I applaude those who don’t have shower injuries on a regular basis. I know I have a had a few slippery moments over the past week or so, and now step out of the shower very gingerly in case I become some 10 year old boys question, how is it possible to hurt yourself getting out of the shower.

Hiccup count

An update for the last few days, she is now up to 159. Not too bad.
By the way, when she cracked the ton she did raise the bat and received applause from the crowd.

The First Castle

Arrived in Munich no problem. We went through a few stau, German for traffic jam. These are quit common on the autobahn, unfortunately. On the first day in Munich we went to the countryside to visit the fairytale castle of Neushcwanstein. This is the castle that Walt Disney used as inspiration for his castle. When we arrived the traffic was amazing. If we had stayed in the queue on the road, it would have taken about 3 hours just to get to the car park. So we went to the next town and had a good lunch in the Biergarten. Obviously if you are in a Biergarten you need to drink beer and I didnt want to insult the natives, so I had a beer. After a while we headed back to the castle and were able to get a park. Then we needed to get in line to buy a ticket for the castle, with the mandatory guided tour. We were in line at about 4pm and were lining up for the next tour available at 6:30pm. I got about 30 people from the front when a sign went up saying all tours sold out. cool. So we walked the half an hour up the hill to see the castle from the outside and it was worth it for sure. Its an impressive castle just from the outside,a nd the view from there up to the top of the alps and the other way across the plain was pretty cool too. So all in all a success.

On the way back from the fairy tale castle we made a quick stop at a white church which is called, wait for it, the white church. It was a nice side detour but the thing that made it interesting were the random performing goats. Just outside the church was a small fenced off area that had two goats and a balance beam which the goats would stand on. There didn’t seem to be any reason for this but the goats apparently enjoyed the attention that random goats inevitably received, which was probably more than the church. Also, in Bavaria it seems that if there is a church, it is compulsory to have a restaurant right next to it, it’s like a rule. Even if the village has nothing else except 3 houses, if it has a church, there is a restaurant next door. The white church was no exception and we were treated to a Bavarian sweet, which turned out to be a large donut but instead of a hole it has a thin piece of dough and it is covered in cinnamon sugar. Not too bad.

Hiccup Count

She had a good one today, total hiccups 118

Hiccup count

Tanya has been very good today. Hiccup count is 89.

Freiburg to Munich

Just an ordinary day, driving 6 hours. I tell you what is not ordinary, the way Germans drive. We were sitting on about 120km/h (the limit is 130) and we were seriously being passed like we were going 60. We had several traffic jams on the freeways because of accidents and Im not surprised. Its not that they are bad drivers, on the contrary, I think they are good drivers. They just drive too fast for the conditions. People are constantly changing lanes becasue there are lots of trucks in the slow lane, and they immediately change back, which I think is good, better at least than sticking in the fast lane and not moving (like in Adelaide). But sometimes you need to brake pretty hard because there is nowhere to go since someone is coming very fast up behind you and there is a slow car in front of you. So, I brake. Some other people decide not to brake and just change lanes anyway and thats when the crazyness begins. Anyway, we arrived ok and will spend a few days in Munich.

Paris to Freiburg

We took delivery of a brand new Citroen DS3 which had 1.3 Km on the clock no less. Brand new indeed. It is a great little care, very much like the mini cooper. It didnt take long to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road again but I was glad to get out of Paris. The traffic and "road rules" that people "adhere" to are rather different than say to, the rest of the world. It was a pleasant 5 hour journey that only took 9 hours. After only 2 U turns and getting lost once, having an unexpectedly long lunch (the Cafe was closed for lunch??) we finally arrived in Freiburg. Or I should say near Freiburg since the GPS sent us to the wrong address. Who knew there were two Wirthstrasse's in Freiburg?
So, its off to Munich in the morning.

hiccup count

Hiccup count is now at 78. This is a cumulative count for the whole trip. It will continue while I am allowed to...

Hiccup count

Some of you may know that Tanya gets the hiccups. A lot. So I decided to make a count of her hiccups along the way. Since Wednesday the hiccup count is 55.

I'm in Paris still

Paris is a beautiful city and we have seen a lot of it now. If we keep going like this I think we will need new shoes in a month. It’s fair to say we have done a lot of walking. We have done most of the really touristy things like Versailles, Notre Dame (Quasimodo says hello), Champs Ellysees, Eiffel tower and the Louvre. When we arrived at the airport we bought the Museum Pass which gets you into all of these plus many more, but the big thing is it gets you past the huge lines. There are special lines for people with the Museum Pass and seriously it is worth buying just for that. At Versailles the line was at least 100m long, at the Louvre there was a separate entrance with only about 50 people waiting. Museum Pass = gold. We arrived at the Louvre just on opening time and as it turns out, that’s the thing to do, there was hardly anyone there. We went straight for the Mona Lisa, or La Jaconde as they call it in France, because we heard that there are big lines to see it. Apparently not at this time in the morning because we just strolled right up to the front. In fact we walked all over the Louvre in about 3 and a half hours and saw the important parts. Now obviously you can’t see all of the Louvre in that time but they say if you look at every piece of art for 3 seconds each, it will take over a year to see all of them. It is a huge place with so much to see, so if you are there I would say choose which bits you REALLY want to see and then just wander through the others. For us it was the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, some Egyptian exhibits and Hammurabi’s code of laws.



As big as the Louvre is, it is small compared to Versailles. That place is rather large. The building itself is impressive but it is the gardens that really make you say wow. It’s quite amazing to think that this was someone’s house. It is decadence at its best. There is a train that takes you to the furthest parts of the gardens, where Marie Antoinette had her little hideaway and if you don’t take it you can look forward to 30 minutes walk there, and 30 minutes back (uphill both ways).

Now we are spending a few days with some friends at their house and we are enjoying French hospitality. The food they are giving us is superb and every meal is an event. We needed a couple of days to chill and recover from hitting the pavement so hard in both Paris and Singapore. Tomorrow we get our car and we are off to Germany which is our gateway to Eastern Europe. At the moment it is time for another ridiculously good French meal so I will leave it there. Sometimes life is good.

Paris

Apologies for the delay in the next post, internet access has been surprisingly lacking so far, at least internet access which you do not need to promise your firstborn to use is lacking.
One of the cool things about travelling is that plans change. One of the not so cool things about travelling is that plans change. In this case they were changed for us by that most uncontrollable of variables, the weather. The plan was to wake up without an alarm (or to alarm not as I put it in the last instalment, humourously I might add but I have been told that I speak England real good so, correction made) and that is as far as the plans went. One look outside and it was definitely not pool weather. It was wet and actually a little chilly, not what you would think of for Singapore. So, we improvised, did a little shopping and stayed in the hotel room and enjoying not being at work. It turned out to be a good day, good food, good company, watching dvd’s on the new computer. Sometimes life is good.
The next day we were due to fly out at almost midnight so we had the whole day to wander, which, it turns out, is way too long. We did check out the Singapore Flyer which is a giant ferris wheel similar to the London Eye. Not bad, but nothing to write home about (with all the irony in the world intended). That took us to about 12 noon. With nothing really left to do in Singapore, we caught a movie at the cinema. Seriously, we almost watched 2 movies since for the cost of 2 tickets, it still didn’t come up to what we pay for one in Adelaide. So after one more sensational meal, we picked up the bags and started our 20 hour ‘journey’ to Paris.

After really looking forward to flying on the behemoth of a plane that is the A380, the reality of it didn’t live up to expectations. In the words of Homer, “it was good, but it wasn’t great”. Being on the second floor of a plane was an experience and the seats have a compartment under the window for storage. Im sure that it just gets full of garbage that someone has to clean up after the flight, but it was there. Most of all, it was a really, really, really uncomfortable 12 hour flight. Either that or I am just getting old because I don’t remember 12 hour flights being this bad. So, following about 3 hours sleep, our arrival in Paris was exiting, at least for us since we had not been there before (here is where the tense could get a little mixed up since we are still in Paris as I write this). It was exciting until we saw the line for immigration In very typical French style there were 8 people checking non-EU passports, of which Tanya is one, and there were 2 checking EU passport holders, of which I can be one. The amusing part is, once I got to the front of the line (about 20 minutes after saying goodbye to Tanya), the guy in the immigration booth was chatting up some girl, glanced at my passport for what seemed like 0.5 seconds, but Im sure it was at least a second, and waved me through. I don’t know where they get these stereotypes for these sex crazed, cheese eating, baguette carrying, beret wearing French people at all. This guy definitely did NOT have a beret. Now here comes a little part of the story that I am both embarrassed and proud of at the same time. I met Tanya at the baggage carousel and she had been there long enough to collect all but one of our bags, the one being my large, 90L backpack that someone once said is made for me and bodybuilders. It was taking its time coming so Tanya and I were engaging in what seemed to be a good conversation, as good as it can be after being awake for pretty much 30 hours, when I ‘heard’ my bag drop onto the carousel. That’s right I know my bag so well that I can tell which one is mine dropping onto the carousel just by the sound it makes, so there. Ok, we have our bags, now to get to our hotel, for which we need money. Go and stand in line to get money. Done. We need museum pass tickets. Go and stand in line for museum pass tickets. Done. We need Metro tickets. Go and stand in line to get Metro tickets. Finally done. We need the train. Go and sta…. you get the idea. There seem to be a lot of lines to stand in here, and we are not even out of the airport. We finally arrive at the hotel, very worn out and only wanting a shower and maybe a lie down, but check in is at 2pm and when they say 2pm they mean 2pm and not before even if the room is ready. We dumped our large bags and set off into gay Paris. The first thing we came across, after a 30 minute walk, was the Eiffel Tower. It is very impressive, and so was the line that went with it.

At what seemed to be the end of the line there was a sign saying “1 hour from here”. I reckon it was at least a 3hour line just to that point so we took a few photos and moved on. It is a very pretty city, and very quiet.
Our hotel is within sight of the tower (mind you, most of the city is) and there is no sound. So we wandered around some more, went back to hotel very weary and waited the hour or so it took for our room to be ‘ready’. Once we got the room, had a shower and felt human again, we decided on a ‘quick’ nap to recharge. This was at 3pm. At 5:30pm we woke up, looked at each other then fell asleep again. At 8:30pm we went out for dinner. At 10:30pm we went to bed and loved it.

As we were wandering around we began what turned out to be a major ordeal. While in Singapore we remembered we had not brought the adaptors for the different countries electrical outlets. No problem, you can find them anywhere. Well, how wrong were we. None at a pharmacy. None at a newsagent. None at a furniture store with an electrical department. We went to a shopping mall that had endless fashion shops but nothing we needed. In the end we had the hotel concierge let us know of a place that had them, but it was a fair way out of town. Guess what, they had every type of adaptor, from European to American, European to Australian, European to European but none the other way round. Finally we decided to head back to the airport. Surely a major international airport would have the adaptor we needed. Not only did it not have what we needed, it was closed. One lady at the information desk of the 3rd terminal we tried suggested the airport hotel. It was on the way back so why not. When we got there the guy at the desk gave a shrug, looked confused, checked a cupboard and came back with a box full of adaptors people had left behind. “Take what you want, free of charge”. Sometimes life is good.