Trip Pictures and Information

Hi Y'all! Finally got my pictures all in and wanted to share.

The rest of my trip pictures, for anyone interested!
Prague:http://goo.gl/0Yqyeq
Chesky Krumlov: http://goo.gl/zNrin3
Vienna: http://goo.gl/Ru5m16
Budapest: http://goo.gl/zKpt2M

Some recommendations:

Prague

• Prague Castle
• Vysherad
• Jewish Museum
• Prague Square and old market
• Petrin Hill had some nice views and was a healthy walk :)
• Charles bridge and the area
• Maximilian Hotel was an amazing boutique hotel in the center of the old town. Great staff, nice room and though not really inexpensive, was a great value.

Chesky Krumlov

• Worth seeing! Walk around this cute little town
• CK Castle
• Hotel Konvice was in the center of the old town. Basic but very comfortable. The restaurant staff and food were excellent!

Vienna

• Belvedere Museum (and grounds)
• Hotel Beethoven was wonderful! Great part of town, and a block from the market (which is also worth seeing)
• The Royal Palace was excellent, and the Sissi exhibit was incredibly done, as well as touring the royal rooms
• Pastries and Gruner Veltliner (wine). Yum.
• Naschmarkt

Budapest

• We loved the Casati hotel. the rooms are fun and huge by European standards, staff amazing and great, safe part of town easily walkable to the sites
• Buda Castle and the area
• Szechenyi Bath House
• Heroes Square
• Varhegy
• Chain Bridge
• Gellert Hill
• Market

Budapest days 3&4

Hello from London Heathrow airport! Well, I was too busy gallivanting to keep up in my last two amazing days.. Unfortunately I am on my ipad with no keypad, so this will be brief and I'll try to add in some of what we did as I remember. That's what I get for taking no notes and not keeping up!

We sure fell in love with Budapest. It's a creeper; I didn't fall in love instantly as I did in Prague, though really enjoyed it. It's much bigger than Prague by 50 percent and feels it. Regardless, it's a wonderful place that I'd recommend.

We were decided to do a walking tour (self guided) of the Buda Castle area on the other side of the bridge in Buda. Budapest is actually comprised of two cities, Buda and pest. We stayed on the pest side but wanted to explore a bit. We walked through pest towards the Danube River and toured St Stephens Basilica before heading out. There was a funicular that led up the hill, and we decided on that. After crossing the famous chain bridge into Buda, we rode thr funicular up, enjoying the views. The area was on the top of a large hill and very quaint. There is a large church called Matthias church with a gorgeous brightly tiled roof. We walked around the fishermans bastion and through the area.

Under part of the area were some caves used during WWII. We did climb down but decided against the tour. The same went for the hospital on the rock as we weren't all that interested and felt we still had a ton to see. We saw the old castle ruins and walked around the grounds housing several museums.

We were hungry and found a cute little Italian place by the river, back in pest. The food was really good and we rolled out of there. I did get a lemonade, which turned out tone orange juice with cut up citrus fruit. It was good though not what was expected.

Kim decided to go other company's office in Budapest to make contacts and had a great time. She took a team to a bus- what an adventurous spirit! She became friendly with toe folks so Michael and I met them for drinks by st Stephens basilica. They were both from Australia and great fun.

We wandered looking for a place for dinner and came across a place called Bouchon which surprisingly had Hungarian food. It also was very highly rated in tripadvisor's top ten, so quite a find. The meal was really great. I tried another dessert wine similar to the one we had last night and Kim and Michael tried palinka, a local drink. Wow. It made the schnapps I had the other day taste like water!

Yesterday was our last day so we tried to pack a lot in. First we took a cab around thirty minutes to Memento Park to see the communist statues and learn more of the history. It was really interesting,and we had some gum mimicking the statues and taking pictures. We got back to Buda, over the bridge to climb gellert hill, where one of the statues used to reside. It was a hell of a climb but offered spectacular views of Buda and Pest.

The citadel is right behind it, built by the hapsburgs around 1850 to keep watch over the city and was later used in WWII as a bunker. We climbed down and crossed the bridge to go to the market. It was really crowded. We bought some souvenirs of paprika, salt and others and headed out to find a lunch spot. We ended up at the same place Kim and I got a drink at the first night when we got in,and it was great. The food on this trip has been really wonderful.

We then raced to the museum of terror just before it closed. It was a well done museum touring the history of the communist regime in Hungary, post WWII. It was quite artistic and hard to view in parts. We decided a drink was in order and headed out. But first tried to find the one(yes,one) pharmacy open in the city on a sat night as I developed a bit of a cold. Lovely. After an hour of false starts, we found it then very much needed that drink!

We got dinner at a place the hotel recommended and it was excellent. When we left, we were going to go to Parkin pub, which completely escapes me at the moment as to what they are, but it was raining so heavily that we headed back. I seconds we were soaked, and Kim again noted that the city was crying since we were leaving.

Kim and I had early flights. I'm heading back to the states soon. We were tempted to (try to)miss our flights but decided not to. What a truly amazing trip! I'd so recommend it as it's a really great mix of cities. I'm really sad to leave but thrilled to travel with them again.. And hopefully soon!

Budapest Day 2

We woke up late since it was pretty noisy last night, between the street noise (we are on the first floor, and had the windows open) and the opera music blaring next door. Not sure what that’s about but not going there.

Internet is down so unfortunately I can’t research the things we saw today.. we got breakfast which was great. There was actually champagne for mimosa, though we didn’t partake. We headed out down Adrassy, the “Rodeo Drive” of Budapest, and walked around 30 minutes to Heroes Square, an areas with a bunch of statues of the different heroes for the various wars fought here. We then walked to a castle, which was a replication built to celebrate the 1,000 years of this city over a hundred years ago. There was a beautiful and very simple church, and the buildings were stunning. It was worth walking through.

Then we hit our destination: the Szechenyi baths. After 8 days of walking the cities non-stop, we were ready for some R&R. It didn’t disappoint. We got our ticket at the hotel which we turned in for a watch that operates the entrance and the lockers. There are something like 15 baths inside and several outside. It was magnificent. They range in temperate from 19 degrees celcius to 38 degrees  and also have saunas as well. We bounced between them heating up and cooling off. We rented a towel which took some work, finding where to go.

In the large outdoor pool, there is a table with three chess boards set up. Over a dozen old men were clustered around them playing chess, which was fun to see. We stayed for close to two hours then decided to get going to grab lunch. We found a cute little Turkish place called Café Kara and enjoyed our meal. We got a salad with herbs, chicken, red peppers and cucumbers, and a plate of cold dips including a chilli, hummus, eggplant and tzaziki. I got a Turkish milk drink which was sweet and interesting.

We walked back to the room and rested a bit, then got ready and went to the bar in the hotel to meet the manager, a local Hungarian guy who was very nice. A little later, a friend of mine joined us and we headed out on the town. We grabbed a drink at a place Kim’s friend recommended, then found a cute little restaurant called Bouchon. Louis took great care of us, and we had a really great meal. Pretty “happy” on wine/alcohol, we made our way back. What a fun day!!

We’ll have a busy day tomorrow so today was a nice departure and relaxing. 

Budapest day 1

We had a fabulous last dinner in Vienna at a place our hotel recommended. They sent us across the Nachtmarkt to a small restaurant that was adorable called Cafe Amacord. We got a cheese and fruit plate, olives and some parmesan and chantarelle risoto. Yum!

We enjoyed our last breakfast, took a few pictures, including the beautiful old opera house that you could see from the lounge area. We went to the market to grab a snack for the train of olives (some italian red olives-- yum!) and the date, prociutto and walnuts. Double yum. Got a taxi and headed to the train station.

Taking trains is such a great and cost-effective way to get around Europe. It took just under three hours and we were in a new country: Hungary! The countryside was beautiful and littered with farms. We arranged a car to pick us up at the station as we'd read that taxis are notorious here for ripping off tourists, and the man was adorable. He carried both of our suitcases, which was impressive as he wasn't young! The ride took around 15 minutes to our hotel, which is a cute little boutique hotel renovated last year. It's really cute and is a perfect area, just off a main drag and near several sights including St Stephen's Church and the Opera House. We checked in and got settled then rushed out to see this city.

Budapest is much bigger than I expected, and seems to be in size between vienna and Prague. The architecture seems similar to Prague, however, many of the buildings are a stone facade that has darkened and not the colors of Prague. It's beautiful though in an understated way and very easy to get around.

We decided to walk around a bit to orient ourselves, then went to the Synagogue for a tour. We bought a ticket, took a quick spin through the museum then met up for the tour with a guide named Ruben from New York. He speaks fluent hebrew, but then when he started speaking English, he sounded very, very New York. He was sarcastic and hilarious. He's been here for eight years.

The temple was built between 1854 and 1859 by Ludvig. It's the largest in Europe, and the second largest in the world, behind one in New York City.  It includes many very unusual features for a temple including two pulpits (as it seats 3500, they had two additional pulpits for the cantors so the people in the back could hear), an organ, and an area on the bemah/stage for a female chorus. In most temples, women aren't allowed on the stage, and especially not to sing! What Ruben shared was that the bible says you "cannot follow the voice of a woman." Well, the Neulog Jews at this temple believe that the interpretation is that since the choir is of many womEn, it's ok. They have an interesting way of interpreting the traditional rules that goes beyond this. Many orthodox temples have women sit on a level above the men, and this temple actually has three levels. In this temple, the men sit in the center and the women on the outside rows. He had several interesting stories of a similar nature.

Ruben kept calling the synagogue 'The House' and kept saying 'when in the House.' In was really funny! Now over 11,500 people attend, spilling out onto the street for the high holidays and in the square. This temple is all about making people feel comfortable to practice. The benches have been there since 1857. The chandeliers were stolen by the Nazis and recently replicated, and the building actually served as a German command center and the site of Adolph Eichmann's offices.

there were 1.8 million jews in Austria-Hungary in 1848, and now there are 100,000 in Hungary, of which 80k are in Budapest.  The area was under communist control for many years and no religion was allowed. The building fell to partial ruin, and in 1999 a new roof was put on and it was reopened. It's an interesting mix of styles of spanish, christian, turkish among others. There is a cemetery with 19 plots containing the remains of over 2,000 people from WWII and a beautiful Tree of Life memorial with names etches into the leaves of some who died.

The temple was one of the most gorgeous buildings I've seen and really impressive in it's size, architecture and beauty.

We walked around for a bit and made our way to the market, but first got distracted by one of the Budapest bridges that crosses the Danube. We took some pictures and by the time we made it to the market, it was closing. We took a quick stroll through and may go back. It's similar to the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia-- an indoor market with mostly food.

We decided to stop for a drink on a cute little pedestrian street and enjoyed a local red wine, then wandered back to the hotel, changed into warmer jackets, got a dinner recommendation from the hotel and walked around 10 minutes to get there. The place was adorable! We sat outside under heaters and enjoyed the best meal we've had! I got duck with a sour cherry sauce, and Kim got shrimp. We heard Hungarian music floating from inside the restaurant. We tried an incredible dessert white and found out where we can get some to bring home. yum!

Tomorrow we're going to check out the baths, which is something we were both told we have to try. From what I read, it's old-style Roman hot springs. A friend of mine is coming in from Amsterdam in the late afternoon so we're holding back on things he may want to do but I'm sure we'll find something fun for the day!

have a great day!!
s

Vienna Tage Zwei (2)

We woke and enjoyed the extensive buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was actually quite impressive. After leading up with several espressos we were ready to roll!

We headed out past the Opera and down a Main Street which is a shopping mecca with tons of stores. We then stopped to gawk at St. Stephens Church which was amazing. Encased partially in scaffolding, as everything I've ever admired in Europe is, it was intricately detailed and stunning. Inside was just as beautiful, though we're starting to get churched out.

We wandered over towards the Hofburg Imperial Palace and stopped for a cup of tea to enjoy the view of the palace. Built in 1279 and the seat of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg dynasty, it's truly a masterpiece and worth taking time to take in. We took a tour and learned about Kaiserin Elizabeth that was really interesting. She married at the age of 15 but suffered tremendously, as she was so unhappy for giving up her freedom for the crown. She had three children who survived to adulthood and traveled extensively through europe to get away from her duties that weighed so heavily on her.

She was killed at around the age of 60, by someone who actually intended to kill someone else but unfortunately she happened to be in the area and convenient. Awful timing for her, though her life was shrowded in such depression that I expected she had taken her own life. She was stunningly beautiful and tiny-- 5 feet 9 inches and supposidely around 100 lbs. While her waist is tiny in all of the images, she didn't seem quite that thin. Anyways, she scandalized her staff by exercising to maintain her figure.

The rooms at the palace are stunning, with tapestries, fabric lining the walls and many gilded rooms and furniture. It rivaled any other castle I've seen. The royal collection of silver and porcelain plates as well as gilded pieces were gorgeous. Most of the Crown Jewels were sold and much of the plates melted down to support wars of the eras.

The tour was incredibly well done and an audio tour, and we spent a couple of hours there. We left and made our way to the Belvediere Museum as Kim wanted to see the Klimpt exhibit and this museum is known for an extensive collection boasting "The Kiss," his most famous painting. We decided to stop for a late lunch before heading in at a place across the street. I tried sturm, which the lady that we met in Prague and then again in the opera house mentioned to me. Apparently it's freshly-crushed grapes slightly fermented so they have some bubbles. I tasted the red and white, and settled on the white. I don't think it's alcoholic and tasted good.

We let the waiter talk us into a salad and fish which apparently is the special of the place. Oh my goodness.. there was a large greek salad accompanied by 8 other plates with bread, beans, chili, hummis, tzatziki and other  things. Then they brought a plate of several kinds of fish that could have fed a small army. Had we known, we would have ordered a half order as more than half went to waste. It was really good though as we'd been craving fish, and thankfully I knew how to say 'with no head' in German! lol.

The Belvediere museum was amazing and the grounds beautiful. We enjoyed them for a bit then headed in to view the three floors of amazing art. There are actually two buildings on the old palace grounds, but we only had time for one. The museum was nicely laid out and really beautiful as some rooms were really ornately detailed.

We walked around a bit on the grounds and sat outside to enjoy the view of the sun partially setting over Vienna. We could see St. Stephens in the background. We headed back on the tram, very excited that we conquered the tram in Vienna, unlike in Prague!

One thing I forgot to mention in Prague that a friend warned me about was the pickpockets-- but what they do here and in Prague is ask for you to make change for them. The other thing in Vienna is the plethora of people dressed like Mozart trying to sell concert tickets! It's intense in tourist areas and really funny as they all beeline over to Kim. teehee!

We went back towards our hotel and stopped in a cute little wine bar we've passed several times. We both have been really enjoying white wine, which is so interesting as we both prefer red. But this region is known for their whites. Kim got another gruner weltliner and I tried a (dry) riesling. We were served by a great gal from Australia who spoke impeccable German. She moved here with her boyfriend after school. They traveled europe for six months and decided to land in Vienna for a while. How fun!

We headed back to our hotel and grabbed some tea in the cute little lounge area, booked our train tickets to Budapest and rested up a bit. We're heading out shortly to check out the nightlife-- grab some wine (go figure!) and a snack and see what fun we have!

Gute nacht, mein freunden! Tomorrow we head to Budapest for the last leg of our journey. We have already started discussing what might happen if we miss our flight though... :)

Vienna Austria, Day 1

Hello from the lovely and HUGE city of Vienna! A far cry from where we've been.

We woke up this morning and got ready, planning to enjoy some breakfast and coffee in our hotel before the shuttle van picked us up 9. Well, make that 8. We got a call a minute past 8 that the van was downstairs waiting for us. Whoops.

We rushed to finish getting ready and raced downstairs, checking out and rushing to the very full van.
No coffee. Sigh. It was around a three hour drive and would have been gorgeous though it was really foggy and it obscured the views. We drove through the countryside and made our way to the city. Though it's only a couple hundred thousand more people than Prague, it feels so much larger and you notice you're there well before nearing the center city.

Our hotel is really well situated right in the downtown area near the Museum district and a block from the Naschmarkt-- a large open air market that's two city blocked and three rows. There's a lot of shops there from restaurants, bread and wine stores, pharmacy, meat markets, fish stands, candy, and all sorts of amazing treats. We were really hungry from the trip and no breakfast and grabbed sandwiches-- disappointed we didn't hold out as we saw so many great things after we got them! There's a lot of spice stands as well with some incredibly-smelling things as well. We wandered down to the museums and found the Museum of Fine Arts (Kunsthistorisches Museum). Unfortunately it was closed! Just our luck.

We walked around for a bit and a guy stopped us who was selling tickets to a Beethoven show. I was reluctant to buy as I prefer to go direct to avoid scams. We decided to make our way to the Opera House to see if we could get tickets for a show. We decided to take a tour of this impressive building. It's huge-- at least a couple of city blocks in each direction and really gorgeous on the outside with lots of carvings and pillars. Inside is impressive with marble and gold plating. Apparently 80% of the building was destroyed during World War II and was rebuit. You can see a difference in the ornateness of the rooms. One had a bust carved in the wall of every man who ever wrote an opera. The room was the most ornate. As we were standing waiting for our tour, I recognized a couple near us--turns out it was the couple from CT we met at the old town market in Prague two days earlier! How funny. We exchanged emails figuring there's a reason in a city of over a million, we ran into each other randomly again.

We decided to stop for a snack in the market and got a bunch of little bites including a stuffed zuccini, olives, and this incredible date stuffed with walnuts and prociutto. yum. Double yum. We grabbed a bottle of dry austrian wine and it was really great! Called Gruner Veltliner, which I heard of from a friend who went to Austria two years ago.

The tour was around an hour and we decided to look for tickets. There is a Puccini opera tomorrow, which we were told is very rare to see as the range required for the parts is so great that few people can play them. Unfortunately there were only two returned tickets left for the equivalent of $200. Instead we got ballet tickets for tonight to a show called Manon. It was a high-drama ballet, so similar in feel to many of the operas I've seen, which was surprising. It was well done and beautiful and the set was gorgeous. We sat next to a gal from Charlotte named Lisa who was really great. We enjoyed talking with her, so much in fact, that we grabbed dinner with her after the show and exchanged information! I love traveling and the amazing people you meet along the way.

Our hotel is Hotel Beethoven Wein and is really cute. There's a great sitting area with coffee and tea and a lovely view of an old opera house in the neighborhood. It's right off two busy streets but a block back so pretty quiet.

We walked home and got in late, but it was a really great day and we can sleep in a bit. Well, if I can, I suppose. Damn my being a morning person! Tomorrow should be a fun day.

Ceske Krumlov

My alarm never went off (well, it would have, had it been Saturday.. Oops!) I bolted awake with Kim's alarm and raced to get ready. Thankfully I had packed last night.

One hotel car picked us up promptly at 6:15 am and we checked out and were on our way to the student agency bus to Ceske Krumlov. The bus is huge and bright yellowing was surprisingly full for leaving at 7 am! We made two stops ans got into town just under three hours.

We dragged our suitcases over the cobblestone street, thankful it was after ten am. We weren't sure where to go:there was a sign that said Centro which we figured would take us in the right direction, but we asked once we got in to be sure we were headed in the right direction. It was only a couple hundred meters ahead. We checked in and surprisingly our room was ready at Hotel Konvice, a very cute place in the center of the tiny town. The lays spoke a little English and some German, so we got settled in up a narrow flight of stairs.

The room is adorable and feels almost like you are visiting your old grandparents' place. It has parquet wood floors and a large wood armoire. Nothing really fancy, but all cozy.

 We headed out to explore. This town is breath-takingly beautiful and so quaint, with mostly white, but some colored homes all lining cobblestone streets and orange terra cotta roves. The streets all wind around each other. Most bottom floors are storefronts of some kind, with coffee shops, souvenirs, restaurants and other stores. Just like in prague, dogs seem to go with their owners everywhere.

We crossed the river and went directly to the castle,which dominates the landscape of the town. We got tickets for a tour, the only way to visit the castle, and stopped for a cup of coffee with a piece of cake. It was kind of a cherry coffee cake of sorts and surprisingly good. We met up with the tour,which was well worth it.

The castle interestingly is painted on almost the entire external surface to look of stone and pillars. It's quite a sight. It started to drizzle when we got to the castle and began to pour right before our tour started, thankfully it just drizzled after. This castle is the second largest in the Czech Republic. It was only owned by four families before it became public. In 1753, the formerly gothic-style castle was updated during the Renaissance in the Baroque architecture and made into a residence. The Rosenbergs owned it, and were the richest family in Bohemia and head of the Catholic party during the Hussite War.

In 1602 it was sold to the Viennese Emperor Ferdinand II, and was then given to an Austrian Family. The Schwartzenbergs were the last owners. We toured the Chapel of St. George, used for residents for religious services from 1334 on. There is a believed tie to the Orsini family in Italy, and the RosenberGs decided to bring in bears to live in the moat area of the castle (Orsa means female bear in Italian.) When we walked to the castle and crossed the moat, we saw a pile of fruit and bread, which is to feed the bears. Many of the rooms had bear pelt rugs, as a reminder of the former furry residences of the castle.

We decided to go on search of a nice warm boul of soup and found a really cute place with an even more adorable waiter. I think Kim wanted to wrap him up and take him home. We both got goulash, Kim in a bread bowl with a side of sauerkraut, and I got it with bohemian dumplings and a salad. Yum! Very different than the goulash I has at the base of the Charles bridge, this was thicker and richer with chunks of meat. Yum!

We walked around for a while, toured a church, and made our way through the beautifully picturesque streets. We went to the eggenberg brewery, which was unfortunately closed. We peeked through the large wooden doors to see large tents set up with a lot of seating, assumedly for Oktoberfest festivities.

This city is incredibly beautiful and I can see why it's a unesco world heritage sight. People were riding boats down the river, laughing, talking, eating. Garnets and amber shops are everywhere and coffee shops too. We stopped to get a snack of a pastry we've been seeing everywhere. It's a thin dough woven around a wide round metal, pushed off and rolled in cinnamon sugar. It's maybe six inches wide, less than half an inch thick. It was warm and tasty.

We were both quite tired from going to bed late and our early wake up call, so we took a nap, then decided to head out. We went downstairs first to have a gluwein (warm mulled wine) and ponder our dining options. A couple we met in the castle raved about an italian place, though we couldn't remember the name. After a quick tour of the tiny town we learned that very little was still open and few people milled around, so we headed back to Hotel Konvice to eat and were glad we did.

We got glasses of wine, salad, and Kim got pesto pasta, while I got pork schnitzen and potato salad. We split a dessert recommended by our adorable and flirty waiter called livanze, which is pancakes, blueberry sauce, and curd. It was an interesting dish with two doughy small circles with blueberries surrounding, and a bland cheese sprinkled on top. We have been seeing honey cake around and it looked really good, but Alex said this was better. I got some apricot schnapps that they home make in some beakers that were as you entered the restaurant. Alex recommended the apricot, and the decanter said "42%" on it and wow, it was strong! Interesting, and I'm glad he gave me a small drink in a cordial glass. It was fun to try but man, I wouldn't be having more than one!

We met two women who were great: one was from Virginia and the other, her cousin, from Austria. They rotated between German and English and we got to talking with them. It is always so wonderful to connect with people on adventures like this as you meet so many really lovely people that you might not otherwise meet.

We walked for a little bit, took some night pictures in the cute little town square, then headed back. Another fairly early morning headed to Vienna and we wanted to catch up on our reading and connecting with people.

This city is incredibly picturesque and well worth the trip. Prague was SO crowded yesterday, on Saturday, that the change of pace was really nice too. It was well worth coming and we were both really glad to be here.

Tomorrow in Vienna...:)
s