A DAY IN BUDAPEST

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 – BECOMING BUDAPEST

Unlike Prague or Vienna, Budapest seems more like a city in the process of defining itself. This is hardly surprising, since it has been at the center of so many storms of war over the centuries. During the Second World War, it was badly damaged by allied bombers, and for years afterward, it languished under Soviet occupation. 

On our long—too long—walk today from our hotel to the city's major fine arts museum (which was open!), we saw many buildings that must have survived the ravages of war, but there were many more being restored. There were others that our shipboard friends, Will and Linda, would

have loved to have acquired as fixer-uppers—but that so far, others have shunned as impossible to repair. The main boulevard was as wide as those in Barcelona, but the trees were mere saplings in comparison.

The museum was what I'd expected—a reasonably sized building right by Hero's Square—that housed a mediocre collection. Oh sure, there was one modest Raphael, a collection of 17^th Century Dutch paintings, and several early El Grecos, but nothing to draw me back. It was partly my problem, I suspect, because by then we were both worn out by our long trek to the museum and by the pilgrimage through all of its the galleries. We opted to take the metro back to the hotel, but even that was in need of repair and upgrading to come anywhere near the modern ones in Prague and Vienna.

Still, the city has lots of charm, and its streets are full of young and energetic people ready to create the future that it deserves—if only the rest of the world would leave it alone long enough.

FROM VIENNA TO BUDAPEST

TUESDAY, APRIL 29 – BUDAPEST MAY BE THE BEST

Train from Vienna to Budapest went very smoothly. Once here, we decided to hoof it from the train station to our hotel, The Hotel Palazzo Zichy. Walk was leisurely and interesting. Whole walk was about 30 minutes. People at the hotel seemed amazed that we walked it!

Hotel is really nice. We 'upgraded' for our final city visit. We felt we deserved it!

It's too early to judge the city, since we just arrived, but so far, we've been impressed with its beauty, friendliness, and vibrancy. Right across the street from our hotel is a beautiful church, and a short walk down a street shaded by trees is another beautiful building, one that had been on my destination list. It's a huge indoor market, like Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, with booth after booth of fresh vegetables, meats, cheeses, spices (paprika especially), wine, and almost everything except kitsch. I suspect that the whole city shops here. Otherwise, how could so many shops selling similar produce continue in business?

Dinner last night was at the Fiktiv Pub...a local pub/eatery. It is just across a small square and beside the church pictured above. It wasn't anything special, but it was fun. Hungarian wine is pretty good!

OUR LAST DAY IN VIENNA

MONDAY, APRIL 28 – THERE'S MORE TO VIENNA THAN SISI

A day without Sisi is like a day full of sunshine, which we had

lots of today. But it got off to a bad start. I know I checked—I MUST have checked—but in any case, The Museum of Fine Art, the city's world class art museum, the one with three Caravaggios, at least one Velazquez, and who knows what other treasures, the one I was really, really looking forward to visiting, was . . . CLOSED. Here's a picture of it.

So, with all my best laid plans gone awry, we opted to go to the Leopold Museum, which was right next door. I'm not all that into 20^th Century art and knew nothing about modern Austrian art, but as it turned out, we learned a lot. Above all, we were introduced to Egon Schiele, a protege of Gustav Klimt, whom we planned to see in the afternoon.

After, we stopped at a stand for a hot dog, which in Austria

means one of a variety of sausages which can be eaten in a roll or plain. We opted for the roll, and with ketchup and mustard, it was wonderful.

Happily, the afternoon worked out as planned. Last evening, we had met my

nephew, Joe, Jr., who lives in Oslo with his family. He's in town for a conference and made time to see us then and to meet us again this afternoon at the Upper Belvedere Museum, an 18^th Century palace built by the Prince of Savoy as a summer get-away. In addition to its extensive gardens, it has a diverse collection of art on exhibit including a room full of Gustav Klimt paintings. His best know work, The Kiss, is there, but all three of us found it disappointing. I much prefer his portrait of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer, which recently sold for a reported $135 million.

SCHONBRUNN PALACE & GARDEN

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 – ANOTHER TASTE OF VIENNA

The local tourist industry pushes what it calls “the Sisi Card,”

which gives you admission to the royal apartments at the Hofburg Palace and the Emperor's summer place (Schonbrunn) plus a museum of furniture. We bought ours yesterday, and since today was sunny and warm, we opted to take the underground to Schonbrunn, which is on the outskirts of the city and has a huge park that is open to the public.

The palace tour came with a cassette narrative that was almost word-for-word the same as the one for the Hofburg Palace—how Franz Joseph put in 16-hour work days while his wife went off doing her thing. (It didn't mention that she could be gone months or even years at a time in Corfu, where she had a villa built for herself, or in Venice, where she had her own apartment.) It hardly mattered what the narrative said, however, since we were crushed into groups of tourist and tours with jabbering guides that periodically blocked the flow of traffic as successfully as a diet of Sacher Torte could block an artery. (“And here on your left is the lavatory that the Emperor used. Notice that blah, blah, blah.”) Only in the park, which was large enough to accommodate thousands of people, did we have room to breathe.

We had intended to check out the furniture museum, but after Schonbrunn, we headed straight back to the hotel for a nap.  

VIENNA, SISI & DINNER

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 – WELCOME TO AUSTRIA

Our first day in Vienna began with a walk in cold drizzle to the Hapsburg Palace, an enormous place with who knows how many rooms? The line of tourists eager to find out wasn't too long, but that was because most of them were in tour groups. Our goal was to visit the royal apartments of the next-to-last Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph II and his wife, the Empress Elizabeth, commonly known as “Sissi.”

The Emperor, who reigned an astonishing 68 years, and apparently worked hard at doing his duty, died in 1916, as World War One raged around him. Our tour of the palace barely mentioned him, however. Almost everything was about his wife: how tiny her waist was, how long it took to wash and prepare her long hair (a full day), the dresses she wore (lots in display cases), and how tragic her life was (son committed suicide, she assassinated at 60).

What we saw on the tour was room after room after room of dishes and tableware, the room where Sissi slept, the room where her husband (remember him?) slept, the dining room they used for intimate dinners (about 30 people with 13 courses served in 45 minutes), and Sissi's bathtub. In between these sections of the tour were lugubrious narratives about Sissi's life. On the combo “Sissi ticket” are Sissi's summer palace (Who doesn't have one?) and a museum of imperial furniture.

Next, we went to the “Museum Cafe” (It's on the map!),

where I followed Karin's explicit instruction to have Sacha Torte “mit schlag” (with whipped cream, one euro extra), a famous chocolate cake invented in 1862 by a 16-year-old chef's assistant chef for Prince Wenzel von Metternich when his regular chef fell ill before an all-important dinner party. Sacher did all right for himself thereafter, as well he should have. The cake was delicious.

We ended the day's activities by wandering through Naschmarkt, a street market selling everything from kitsch to twenty-pound slabs of wonderful-looking cheeses. I wonder what Sissi or what's-his-name, her husband, would have thought of such a wonderfully common place.

For dinner we went back to our Italian place, Il Sestante. We went there last night and walked in without a reservation and a great waiter found us a table. That was a Friday. Tonight was Saturday, and who greeted us but the same waiter. He said, "Let me guess. A table for two, no reservation!" What followed was a lengthy conversation with another man and our waiter finally said, "We have a 'make-shift' table." We took it. It was not the usual wooden tale and chairs but a lawn table and chair set up. More comfortable than the usual. It was wonderful. We had a fabulous meal. Bruschetta, pesto pasta, lasagne and panna cotta. Oh yeah, a bottle of  Bodolino and then a 1/2 carafe of merlot. And an double espresso! Crowded, noisy and wonderful.

A TRAVEL DAY

Friday, April 25th - PRAGUE TO VIENNA

No real blog entry as Friday was a travel day. We were picked up by a car service at 9 am and headed to the train station. Huge and confusing, but expected.

Caught the 10:39 train which arrived in Vienna at 3:24. Long trip but pleasant enough. More confusion but we managed to get out tickets for the 29th to Budapest, get some money from an ATM and find out way onto the U6 metro, connect to the U3 and get off at the correct place! A taxi from the train station would have been 20-25 euros. The metro was 2.60 euro. You do the math!

Settled in at Hotel Pension Wild and ate locally at an Italian place. Both had a little too much wine, but we earned it.

Stew has come down with a cold. Hoping it doesn't last long.

This morning Vienna has overcast skies but there is talk of clearing. Stew would love to have the same prognosis!

THURSDAY, APRIL 23 – THE OLD AND THE NEW

We began our sight-seeing with a tour of Vysehrad, the oldest fortified area in the City, dating back to the 11^th Century. 

It is now a large park overlooking the river, and has great views in both directions including one of the Castle and the Charles

Bridge. There's a church there, of course, with a cemetery where many famous Czech people are buried. Since it was a warm spring day, lots of people were wandering about. 

After a leisurely lunch at a restaurant with an outdoor garden (and a chance to photograph Stew to show how well his wounds are healing!),we also wandered up-river past Frank Gehry's famous “Dancing House,” a fascinating modern statement of some sort. I sort of liked it, but Bob wasn't so sure. Because it was such a beautiful spring day with tulips and lilacs in bloom, we continued our wandering up our side of the river to our hotel. 

TOURISTS IN PRAGUE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 – PRAGUE PROBLEMS AND HAPPY ENDINGS

Yesterday's entry said that our trip had been a disappointment, but I didn't mean the whole trip, just the fact that the Palace itself had been closed, and the churches, which were open, had not topped my must-see list. So, when I say that we've had problems today, I don't mean to complain. If something doesn't work out on a trip, you adjust your plans and move on.

Today's problems had surfaced before, but never so consequentially. What I'm referring to is signage. Czech street names, if you're lucky enough to spot them on the sides of buildings, rarely have more than one vowel squirreled amongst a collection of consonants, and they bare only passing resemblance to those on our English-ized map. Thus, despite Bob's fabled map-reading skills, we ended up hiking all the way up to the Castle that was not open yesterday—no tram, no funicular: just huffing and puffing. When we finally

realized that we were nowhere near our destination, the Furstenberg Gardens, we decided to head back down a seemingly endless flight of stairs that led us to within a block of where we'd just started. Eventually, we did find the gardens, but to view them properly, we would have had to hike back up to the Castle area again to work our way down a series of landscaped terraces. So much for that plan.

We were rewarded, however, by two sights we might otherwise have missed. We walked across a bridge one up from the Charles Bridge, thus providing Bob a chance for a good photo of the latter. We also passed a striking memorial to those who

resisted the Nazi occupation during World War Two. The ordeals of this occupation and the following Soviet one must be vivid personal memories for many older adults.

On the other side of the bridge is the Jewish district, whose residents were almost totally exterminated during World War Two. We had planned to visit the old cemetery, but there was such a long line of people dying to get in—and paying to do so—that we skipped

that. We did discover a lovely concert hall right next to it, though—another benefit of getting lost. And we also scoped out our evening's restaurant and the Municipal House with its Art Deco Smetana Concert Hall, both of which were artfully concealed in the maze of tiny streets in the Old Town. Good thing we did too, because we

might still be looking for them instead of having an excellent Indian dinner at a restaurant called the Indian Jewel and hearing a concert by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra playing Gershwin, Mendoza (world premier), Charles Ives, and Leonard Bernstein. Due to the world premier of Mendoza's piece, "New York Stories, Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra, maestro Vince Mendoza conducted the whole evening himself!

(The following pictures of the Muncipial House and the Smetana Hall are taken from web images. I just cleaned them up!)

FIRST FULL DAY IN PRAGUE

TUESDAY, APRIL 22 – GOING WITH THE FLOW

(Sorry this posting is late. There was a thunder storm last night and all internet connections were lost until this morning!)

We bought day passes for the transportation system, zipped up to the Castle on the Old # 22, and arrived before 9:00 am to avoid the tour buses. Unfortunately, they were already there including a particularly loud collection of Asians.

However, the Castle was closed, so we headed straight to St. Vitus Cathedral, which looked remarkably similar to the last fifty cathedrals we've seen throughout Europe, the exception being some beautiful, modern

stained glass windows. We had the place pretty much to ourselves, since the tours only got to the free entry area where they bunched up like water about to burst a dam. After, we managed to find St. George Basilica, a beautifully simple Romanesque structure, and a street of tiny houses (The Golden Lane) that various people once lived in including Kafka back in 1917/8. The complex of buildings was so confusing, however, that only after Bob poured over the map were we able to find anything including our way out.

Thus far, the trip had been pretty much a disappointment, but then we found the Lobkowicz Palace, which had large collections of paintings including a Brueghel and a Cranach, and original signed manuscripts by Mozart and Beethoven. The audio guide, which was delightfully narrated by the current head of the family, traced his ancestors back five or six hundred years. Most recently, the family lost everything to the Nazis, regained it after the war, lost it again to the Soviets, and finally regained it under the current Republic. I know that our friend Karin would have loved to have seen the Delft display which is part of the largest antique service in the world—all in blue and white, of course!

 

After a genuine Czech lunch off the beaten path at a place Rick recommended, we returned to the hotel via a funicular ride where we fell into a sobering conversation with a young male clerk at our hotel who worried that Putin may have designs on the Czech Republic after he successfully “reclaims” the Ukraine. In this young man's opinion, Europeans are too comfortable and complacent to resist Putin's macho ambitions. Since the Republic is only fifteen or twenty years old, many are still alive to remember the Bad Old Days.

Dinner was at U Kokra. Highly recommended on TripAdvisor, we found it good, but not great. However, we shared yet another great bottle of Czech wine (and a bottle of sparking water of course!)

PRAGUE, THE CZECH REPUBLIC

MONDAY, APRIL 21 – PRAGUE

   We did not do much yesterday in Barcelona, having been there several times, and we had to be up at 4:45 am for our flight to Prague on Veuling Airline (Yes, Veuling Airline!). The trip was happily uneventful, and our first day in Prague was just a walk-about to become oriented.

   Our hotel is on the Castle side (East) of the Charles Bridge,

(see the small A in a red circle) so after exploring our local neighborhood including a small street fair with a band and a vendor selling a local specialty, a roll of cinnamon/sugar bread roasted over a wood fire (yum), we walked across the Charles Bridge. It was built in the middle of the 14^th
Century and somehow has managed to survive the wars and rebellions that have plagued this area for the past millennium. Now it must survive the hoards of tourists, even on the first day after Easter, and all the “artists” selling cartoons of people, vendors selling kitsch, and home-grown “musical groups” performing in front of cups for loose change. Perhaps the Bridge is best seen at night when it's nearly empty.

   The Bridge leads directly to the square of the Old Town, which has a centuries-old astrological clock, a couple of churches, and a full square full of tourists and tents of vendors hawking things to eat and buy for Uncle Jack and Aunt Alice back home.

Somehow, we tore ourselves away from all this for a much-needed 2-hour nap before a wonderful dinner at a local, non-touristy restaurant near our hotel. Called the BARBAR, it had both locals and tourists for customers. The 2008 Czech bottle of wine as unbelievably good! As was the double espresso!