Jan 2008

A day in bed after her little slip and I finally talked Rach into getting up and see some sights. So that night go the tube to the square (which I wont attempt to spell) where the astronomical clock is. The actual clock itself is pretty lame, just a skeleton which pops out and rings a bell on the hour like a big morbid cuckoo clock. But lucky for us the square was also the site for the cities big Christmas markets. Kinda the same as the ones in Austria but with the grandness that Prague brings. But we couldn’t stay too long as I had to get the sick one back to bed and the chill was getting set.

Next and final day of our trip before heading home, so we headed out to see what Prague was really about (we had a few places to tick off). So back to the astro clock square to start the walk, from there we walked through the old town to Charles bridge. There’s like 30 odd statues lining the bridge and it makes for a pretty (and I mean prissy pretty) view of the old and new sides to Prague.

Next on the list was Prague castle, so passing the St Nicolas church we made our way up to the entrance.

Rach needed a bit of a break but we made it eventually

It not so much of a Castle but a massive palace type building that surrounds a mini old town contains a cathedral, basilica, convent and various museums, including a toy museum (but skip it, it’s not worth the stair climb). But all that site seeing really builds up an appetite and I was hankering for a pilsner.

And I can’t say enough about the beer, in most pubs (unless your in the tourist quarter) a pint will cost about 25 crown (or 75p) you’ll get what I say is the best beer you’ve ever had. Mmmm mmm I was loving that Pilsner Urquell., I could even have it on my weetbix for breakfast. I didn’t want to leave just for that reason.

The last thing we did before leaving was going to one of the many black light shows that are permanently playing in the city. And it was kinda odd, if you don’t know what a black light is (you obviously missed the 70’s) it’s a light that will only show up incandescent, floresant materials. And the show was a mix between a slapstick comedy cutting in-between serious/modern/contemporary dance performed by a trop all dancing all smiling dancers. Don’t get me wrong some of it was pretty cool and the black light effects got a thumbs up, but even though rach really like it I was a bit weirded out.

That’s it then, our tour of Italy / Croatia / Slovenia / Austria / Czech Rep all done. Time to plan the next trip. We’ll be going to Paris for our 1st wedding anniversary (ohh nice) and after the freezing temps we encountered in central Europe we’re planning a few weeks in Greece and Turkey this summer (the other extreme).

So until next time this is us singing out.
Chur bro’s

We got into Prague and straight of the train we noticed the drop in temperature. It wasn’t snowing like Austria but so so much colder, about -5 but bright and sunny. After a quick tube to our stop and then a 10 min walk (on which I’m sure that I contracted some sort of frostbite in my fingers) we arrived at our accommodation. Again we’d booked on laterooms the night before and when we arrived we were a bit dubious as the area wasn’t really the type you’d bring your mum to impresses her (if ya know what I mean). But this was the piece de resistance as far as late rooms went. For mere pennies we had landed a apartment that was better than our place at home, full kitchen, big king sized bedroom, living room, massive shower and all the mod cons.

Sweet right, well kinda. Rach was getting pretty sick and skipped on going out the first night and just sat and watched Czech Cable TV (a mix of French news, Algezera and some more dubious channels). I was going to go for a wee night walk but turned around within five minutes before I turned into a popsicle.

That night as we (well I) slept and enjoyed the balmy 23 degrees of our room, Rach woke up in a bit of a sweat and did a midnight run to the bathroom. A few minutes later I woke with a crash bang, then silence. Jumping from bed and running to the bathroom I came in and saw Rach sprawled on the ground, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling not moving. Within a few scary minutes she came around and there was nothing broken but a big bump on her head. We worked out that the temperature in the apartment had rising to 26 degrees in the night and as Rach rose from her business she had a head rush and fainted, crashing into the shower door and slumping to the floor with her head resting on the shower curb. Ever seen that add where the guy slips in the shower and cracks his head, well it was like that.

Obviously I didn’t get any pictures of that little encounter (I was too busy making sure my wife wasn’t dead or paralyzed). But that day I did get some images of a TV tower that was round the corner from where we were staying. Not so interesting right but look there’s baby statues climbing it????

I didn’t get it either. But there they are just climbing up and down. Hmmm…..

We only had 2 nights in Vienna and the only thing I really knew I wanted to do was go to the museum of modern art. But before we got there we had to brave the snowstorm that was going on when we arrived. If we thought that it was snowing in Salzburg then we were amazed with the amount of snow falling here. It made for some pretty good snowball fights, it ended with tears, mine. As rach got me right in the face.

The musemquartaire area of Vienna is a pretty cool place, 4 big museums (including MUMOK) and lots happening in the areas out side the museums.

if you hadn't noticed the main installation was modern chinese art

On our full day we took the underground out to the Hapsburgs palace (massive palace where the Austrian royalty ruled) and had a walk around the gardens and maze. Well rach walked I had a bit of a spill. On one of that paths up led up to a lookout it had ‘danger use at your own risk’ signs, but pah…. It was easy. The way down maybe not so easy, we decided to take the route less traveled down through the trees and I did the classic ‘slip on a banana’ feet above my head fall, landing on my butt and sliding down the hill. Rach just laughed.

The actual city itself was packed with people and the Christmas markets were in full swing. Mulled wine, massive sausages and big pretzels.

As we’d been on the road for the best part of a month we really needed to just be entertained without the walking and looking and touristing, so we went and saw a movie. The Golden Compass, not very good, but a bit of mind numbing entertainment and respite from the cold.

Anyway if we'd had more time we could have easily stayed in vienna for a few more days. Even though it was the first hostel we'd stayed in for the whole trip. really nice hostel (wombats) and one night when we were talking to an aussie couple this American guys came up and forced his way into our conversation. He was texan and in the army (sorry cousins but not to reinforce any sterotypes) and got his laptop out to show us endless photos of him and his various guns...hmmmmm.

Our train ride from bled to Salzburg was probably the most scenic of the whole trip. Leaving the Julian Alps and heading into the Austrian Alps. We also started to see the first signs of heavy snow.

Because we were on an ‘international’ train once we got into Austrian land our carriage was decoupled and added to another train, what we didn’t know was that our carriage (normal class in Slovenia) was the first class cabin in Austria. In one of the ski towns that the train stopped in 4 American guys got on and as we were sitting at the only 4 person table started to make comments like ‘that couple should let us have the table’ and ‘man there’s 4 of us, where should we sit’ just a bit too loudly, if they had just asked we probably would have moved. Anyway, turns out they only had economy tickets and we ushered out of the cabin and wernt to happy about it (hahahahaha, a bit petty but revenge is sweet). Then the conductor went on a mini rampage and started kicking everyone out, old guys, pregnant women …..everyone, until there was just us and two other people in the cabin. Good to be first class.

rach really starting to feel the cold

Enough of that who-ha, we arrived in Salzburg and it was proper snowing and proper cold. And since our camera had seen the bright light of electronic heaven our first point of call was the high street so we could get a new one (so sorry if the pictures aren’t up to standard, we were still getting used to the new settings). We also had dinner out at a real traditional place, greeted by waiters in om-pah (that’s what I ended up calling them anyway) costumes and big hearty meals of meat and sauerkraut, mmmm mm mmmm.

Our only tourist day in Salzburg was spent as usual, walking round the old town (in the baroque style, see I did learn stuff) and exploring the Christmas markets that were to pop up everywhere for the rest of our trip. We also went up to the fort which dominates the skyline above the old town, just another fort (although a massive one) with a few museums inside. The highlight for me was gong up to the highest point a looking out over the city, the highlight for Rach was having a bit of respite for the cold.

That night we were keen to head out to a beer hall and the only one we could find was a bit of a walk and it sounded a bit touristy. But when we got there it was the Austrian Equivalent of the RSA, with the average age being about 60 and a real relaxed atmosphere. The halls were under a monastery and the beer (which was pretty awesome) was brewed by the monks.

Now if Italy could convince Rach to drink red wine then this must be the place where I could get her to drink some beer. And I got her a far as raddlers, half beer half fizzy (basically a shandy). We ended up making friends with the only other young people in the hall, a couple from Essex. The girl (I forget her name) had probably had one to many raddlers herself and by the end of the night was speaking some pretty incoherent stories, I guess it just tasted too good.

Awsome pic that a guy from essex took for us, cheers mate

Besides the ferry from Italy to Croatia we only had one really long travel to do, this was between Dubrovnik (at the bottom of Croatia) and Slovenia. At first we weren’t going to stop in Slovenia, the rough plan was to train straight through to Austria. But we decided we had a few extra days to kill and we were knida sick of cities and keen to spend a few days in a laid back little town. So a quick look in our lonely planet and we found a little passage on a place called Bled. It fit all the critera; on the train line to Austria, small town, by a lake and near some mountains.

But to get there we first had to do a 4 hr bus ride from Dubrovnik to Split (where the train lines started), skewing into Bosnia for a quick stop to by some buns. We had 6 hrs to kill in Split before our night train to Zagreeb so we had a look round the city, not really expecting much. Splits a pretty cool place, another Venetian old town with the ruins of a Roman palace that one of the Cesar’s had built as a retirement home.

There seemed to be a real mix of old and new design styles here with the modern costal boulevard melding into the Venetian old town and Roman ruins. This was also shown in the catacombs of the Roman Palace (which we got into for free after a quick chat with the guy on the door) where a modern sculpture exhibition was.

Eventually we got on our night train to Zagreeb (7hrs), had a quick kip and woke up in northern Croatia. Not much to say about Zagreeb as we hopped on the first train to Ljubljana (Slovenia’s capital), arriving in a little over 2 hrs. Another 2 hr layover in Ljubljana, which was taken up by talking, or being talked to by one of the local drunks. Everything with him was very ‘comprehensive’ (his favorite word which he would add in anywhere he could), and after repeated attempts to explain Slovenia national pride, philosophy and convince us we were yuppies we had to leave to get on the train (what a shame).

Anyway we finally arrived at our destination, Bled. And it was a pretty impressive place, reminded us a bit of the Queenstown / Wanaka areas. Really nice lake with an island monastery in the middle, cliffs on one side with a castle precariously perched on the top and ringed by the julian alps.

This is supposed to be Europe’s answer to the NZ adventure scene and in the summer you can do everything from caving, canyoning, mtb and white water rafting to skiing in the winter. We were in between seasons (just as well as rach was starting to get pretty sick) so had no temptation to partake in any of the sports. Although the Biathlon (cross country skiing and shooting) World Cup was on while we were there, lot of athletes doing training runs round the lake in lycra………. brrrrrrr.

We spent our time relaxing and walking round the lake, eating out (what no pizza, we’re not in Italy anymore) and just taking time to soak up the mountain atmosphere. This is also where the trip started to take a nose dive in temperature, if you weren’t in the sun then it was freezing (not helping with rach’s cold). So on our last night we went to one of the lake side resorts and spent a good few hours soaking in their spas and hot pools.

pam, you should never come here the swans are massive, you'd just freak out

This was also where our camera finally gave up the ghost (hence the lack of photos). It’d been going for a good 5 years and we were wanting it to last the trip but secretly hopping it’d break so we could get a new fancy one.

So Bled……… fairytale castles, resort hotels and awesome scenery.
Onto Austria to find a beer hall