We left Budapest via bus to Vienna and arrived last Saturday.. We arrived to a random shopping center just outside the city, and it was bedlam... Not fun with big backpacks. People were constantly bumping into us, and when I tried to get a ticket for the metro, a herd of people literally shoved their way in front of me. The leader of this mob had a crutch, as to make it "okay" for he and 20 of his friends to cut in line.. I stood there fuming for 20 minutes while they discussed which tickets to buy and figure out money, etc. After experiencing the weirdest "queuing system" I had ever witnessed at the metro ticket machine, we made our way to the apartment we were staying. We booked with a nice lady named Christy, whose apartment was in the neighborhood of Margarten. It was quiet area close enough to all the sights and markets, within walking distance.
The first day in Vienna we didn't really do much, we kept ourselves so busy in Budapest that we were kind of tired, and I finally broke down and started taking these antibiotics. We actually just ate dinner at a chinese restaurant nearby, watched the Walking Dead ( we are caught up to the mid-season finale! woohoo!) and went to bed pretty early... We knew the next day we'd be out all day, so we didn't really mind.
Sunday we walked all around Vienna and saw all the beautiful buildings... The Belvedere Palace was just down the street, so we walked around the gardens and took some pictures.. It was so nice there.
There was a museum you could go into, but, being back on the Euro, we decided to save our money for some Christmas Market fun.The palace dates back to the 18th century, and boasts some pretty baroque architecture... There are art exhibits inside too, if you are into that sort of thing. We just enjoyed being in temperatures over 32 degrees and walking around in the sunshine.
After visiting the Belvedere, we decided to walk and explore the city center, which was a short walk away. Vienna is nice by that it has all sorts of public transport, but it also has ring road that goes all the way around the city where you can walk. I think it's about a 2.5 mile walk to go the whole way around. We walked on different parts of it, and saw the museum district, lots of cool buildings, the Wein river, and walked past a lot of different shops. Unfortuantely, as it was Sunday, mostly everywhere was closed. We did manage to eat at an Australian restaurant for lunch an Paul had the biggest kangaroo burger I've ever seen.
Vienna is known as the City of Music. You can visit Beethoven and Mozart's graves in the graveyard, go to the opera, and there are tons of really good street performers. We were walking through the center and there was a girl belting out opera music... It was a very lively place that really respects the arts. The concert halls and theatres were so beautiful.. Maybe one day we will make it back and see it from the inside. :)
Sunday night we spent our time Christmas market hopping. Vienna has at least 12 Christmas markets scattered around the city.. We saw tons of tour buses lined up along the ring road dropping off and picking up tourists to visit... There were soo many people. I can see why, though.... Vienna is so beautiful as it is, so when you add all the holiday lights and decorations it seems magical.
A vendor selling christmas tree ornaments
A vendor selling christmas tree ornamentsThis is the major market, and it was so beautiful, but a mob scene. We opted to go to a different one to enjoy some local offerings.. It's fun to see all the different markets and try the local food.. The market we went to had huuuge baked potatoes with lots of different toppings. A yummy and cheap dinner indeed.
Vienna was a nice place to visit, and I wish we had more time to spend there. It is also an expensive place to visit, so in order to save our money we decided to get off the Euro and make our way toward Prague... The next logical place was Bratislava! Except when we got there, we realized they are also on the Euro... dangit.
Ahhh Slovakia. When I told my mom we were going there, she had to look it up on the map...part of former Czechoslovakia, and another former communist country in the Eastern block. A country I had never thought about visiting before... But, we found a way there, and a place to stay, and discovered what Bratislava had to offer. It. was. freezing.
We arrived to Bratislava on Monday and was met by a nice girl named Gabika who showed us to the apartment where we would spend 2 nights. I thought it was funny when Gabika asked "So, why exactly are you in Bratislava?".. Turns out there's not much going on. Nevertheless, it was a nice little apartment, close to a university and about a 15 minute walk to the Old Town. Our first night, we were so cold we hardly stayed out at all... We ended up just walking to the local Tesco and buying stuff to make soup... We are big babies, it turns out. I am just so sick of freezing all the time! I miss my Florida "winter"!
We woke up the next morning and ventured out to find the post office to send some things back Stateside.. It's crazy how little things accumulate and take up space.. You get tired of lugging thing around. Luckily, it only cost 13 euro to send a pretty decent sized package home.. I was impressed. Slovakia may be on the Euro, but it was way cheaper to eat and live there, from what I could tell.
After sending off some non-essentials, we went for a run on the Danube river... It was a short run, basically we got to a point away from town and then decided to run home because it was so cold...I am happy to say that, despite the strange looks I have gotten in some countries, I have kept up with practicing yoga and running in every city we go to... I think I got the funniest looks in Mostar. Turns out running isn't a very big "thing" there.
We spent the rest of the day seeing the major sights in Bratislava.. most of which, were closed. Par for the course. That's the only bad thing bout traveling in winter.. Everything is closed and people think you're weird for not coming in the summer.. Well soorrrrrr-y. We're here now. :)
Our host was nice enough to leave a basket of goodies at our apartment for us.. This appears to be some kind of candy bar that is the equivalent of marzipan.. I thought it was cookie dough based upon its texture and consistency. Interesting!
The blue church! It's blue inside and out.
Creepy communist statues!
"UFO" observatory, circa communist times
The US Embassy... with pretty heavy security around. All the other embassies had none..hmmmm..
Cool manhole statue!
After Bratislava we used this fine bus company and made our way to Brno, a medium sized city in the Czech Republic. We arrived in Brno at 9am on Wednesday... Our first 3 hours were awful. We decided to walk to meet our host at her office to get the key, rather than take the tram. Turns out Google Maps is evil. We walked around lost with all our bags, in below freezing weather, for hours. I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes. I wanted to cry. At one point I did.. Ahhh the joys of traveling. We finally found where we needed to go by asking some kind locals, who spoke no English, to point us in the right direction. They were so nice and even used a translator on their phone to tell us where to go.. We finally got to our host, Maria's, office, tired and frozen after walking in circles for EVER. Not one of our finest days. We were exhausted. It's crazy how much the cold and walking with huge backpacks can shatter you... The soul sucking antibiotics didn't help, either. haha.Needless to say we were SO GLAD to find our apartment.
Our host was nice enough to leave a basket of goodies at our apartment for us.. This appears to be some kind of candy bar that is the equivalent of marzipan.. I thought it was cookie dough based upon its texture and consistency. Interesting!The blue church! It's blue inside and out.Creepy old communist building!
Creepy communist statues!"UFO" observatory, circa communist timesThe US Embassy... with pretty heavy security around. All the other embassies had none..hmmmm..Cool manhole statue!Bratislava was a nice place and the people were extremely friendly... A nice stop on our Eastern European tour. Just. freaking. cold. brr.
We left Bratislava at 7:00 via bus to Brno.. The bus company we booked with was so nice. I am actually sitting on the same sort of bus right now. I was just given coffee by the bus attendant and Paul is currently watching "The Campaign" on his headrest entertainment system. I couldn't get both he and the movie in the photo so fear not that is another passenger, not Paul with long hair. The bus company is called "Student Agency", and it's the best company we have used so far with the best prices. They go all over Europe too!! I wish I had known about them before!
Pictured below is the Winter Hell we are enduring. Everything is frozen. My toes are still kind of numb from waiting for the bus.
We walked round Brno in a more civilized way later that day, and saw the holiday festivities. Like everywhere else we have been, the Christmas markets were in full swing. They all are starting to look the same, haha. In Brno, though, there was this stuff called Honey Wine.. it was nice and warm, and I'm sure it has some natural antibiotics in it. Honey, or "med", as it is called here, is used frequently and is revered for medicinal purposes.. They really love all kinds of teas and honey here in Eastern Europe. I love seeing all the natural remedies, its definitely not a pill popping society.
These are the "chimney cakes" we saw and tried in Budapest... It's like extreme and really delicious roller food... We didn't have another one here, but they smelled amazing.
Yesterday was the last day of our unplanned itinerary, and the last day in Brno. I started the day with a run around the city, and as usual, I was the only crazy person out running... It is funny because thinking back when I'd wake up at it said 30 something degrees on the weather, I'd go to the gym and hit the treadmill. Now look at me... I'm a "real" runner.
We went to an Indian restaurant for lunch (which came out to $5.00 per person) and it was yum.. I guess good preparation for a month of curries and rice? The nice thing about CZ is that there is wifi in abundance.. Theres even wifi on this bus. So while we were at the restaurant, I looked up places to visit in Brno. Turns out there is a huge catacomb there, so we decided to go check it out. For a small fee, you can see all these creepy bones that were put into the catacomb when parishes were moved around or they ran out of space in the cemeteries..
That's the remains of a lot of peeps..... Somewhere around 20,000 people were put in here, and when they discovered it beneath the St. Jabobs Church nave, it was piled from floor to ceiling with bones. Creepy!
Brno really has lots to offer to those who like to visit museums and enjoy the outdoors.. We didn't really have much time to visit all the things we wanted to, and while it would had been awesome to go hiking in the surrounding forests, we ended up just walking around the city because of the exhausting cold adventure we had the day prior.
We ended our stay in Brno by meeting our host, Maria, for dinner in town. We went to a place where we could try the local brews. Czechs are very proud of their beer.. Budweiser actually comes from the Czech Republic, in a city called Budweis... And if you try and compare it to our American one, you will probably get slapped. There's apparently a legal battle still ongoing between the Czech company and the American... It's a touchy subject. They do love their beer, and I will say, it is pretty good.. that's coming from a non beer drinker.
Maria was a lovely host who was originally from Romania and has lived in Brno for 5 years. We had a nice chat about traveling, being an expat, and her home in Romania. She also lived through communism, so it was interesting to hear her stories. We have learned so much about how people lived and what they had to go through.. It's very cool and interesting to hear different perspectives and ways of life.. We still have a long way to go and a lot to learn.
This morning we shoved all our stuff in our bags and headed to catch our bus. All I know is I will be looking forward to spending 7 days in one place, not worrying about where we need to go, what we need to do, etc. We will have ourselves a merry little Christmas during our stay here in Prague. I miss my family, but I know that we will get to spend many more holidays together. Maybe we can have "Christmas in July" when we get back. I am sure too that Prague will be beautiful and full of holiday celebrations to keep us occupied.. I also saw that it is almost 5 whole degrees warmerr than in Brno! Where's my bikini?!!!!
Until next time,
MC
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