Saturday May 10th
We are in Brussels at the end of the first day of our nine day “Silver Service” bus tour to the above cities.
So this how the great British public does its travelling to parts foreign.
Today has been like a combination of one of those old Ealing comedy films, and Coronation Street. I mean don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad experience, it’s just different from what we know. We did expect to meet all sorts on a bus tour and all sorts are what we got. To start with our two drivers do a routine like something from a northern English working men’s club.
(Steve the driver) Ëhhhyoop – ów are yer orrart?’
(Passengers ) Yeeees!
(Steve the driver) Bloody éck yer don’t sound it. We’re goin to ave a woonderful nine days together, I can joost tell!”
And that was just on the road from Oxford to Dover where we joined the cross channel ferry. The trip itself was great. The sea was flat calm and the sun was shining, so we could sit outside and get a bit of color.
Well we got colour in more ways than one.
There was a group of Yorkshire folk chatting away to anyone who’d listen.
“Where you from?”, asked one.
Öldham”, replied the other.
Öh aye”, says the first bloke. “Well Oldham; now thars talkin”!
Then the conversation turned to pies and black pudding.
“There’s no pies like Wigan pies.”
Änd Bury black pudding is best black pudding, I can tell thee!”
You’ll get nowt from people from Bolton” chimed in another for no apparent reason, and everybody laughed.
Ninety minutes later we’re back on the road and our coach heads for Brussels and more continuous patter from our drivers, Steve and Mike.
A long day’s driving is ahead tomorrow, then we get to Prague.
Eeeeee, I can ‘ardly wait!
Sunday May 11th
It has been a very long day in which we drove from Belgium, across a small bit of Holland, a large bit of Germany and finally into the Czech Republic.
Sitting in a bus for the best part of 13 hours isn’t fun at the best of times. We passed through some beautiful countryside in near perfect weather. Once away from the Belgian and Dutch lowlands, we climbed into more hilly and varied country. There were rolling hills and deep green forests dappled with sunlight filtered down through the trees. And every few kilometres we would pass typical German villages and towns, each one dominated by a church steeple, and in many cases by the huge towers of wind driven power generators.
But it was, nevertheless a very long drive, so it was with some relief that we checked into a fairly ordinary hotel in the city of Prague.
Monday May 12th.
Today we spent exploring this truly beautiful city. The first few hours we spent on a walking guided tour led by a bright young lady named Monica. She introduced to the delights of the öld town”, which is basically a network of winding little streets overhung by lovely baroque style buildings and leading to wide open squares and broad tree lined boulevards.
Of course there are many churches as well a government buildings and great houses built by the aristocracies of the past. Each steeple and tower is topped with glittering gold and decorated with
elaborate statuary dedicated to great Czech heroes of the past. As well we see busts and statues of cultural heroes such as Smetana, Mahler, Franz Kafka and others.
The city is divided by a broad river which on this day, sparkled in bright sunlight as we traversed one of the many grand bridges which span it.
Big tourist ferries as well as barges and smaller craft ply the river and later we would join a ferry for lunch and a cruise for two hours.
Before that we visited Wenceslas Square which is surrounded by many fashionable stores and banks as well as lots of sidewalk cafes. Barb and I enjoyed a coffee, or in my case a Pilsner (local chilled beer) and watched the world go by. And then on through lanes and winding streets and into the Old Town Square. There we saw a magnificent old church which features a huge astrological clock. In the square, open horse drawn carriages touted for tourist business and people with cameras, from a hundred different countries clicked away.
Then it was lunch time and we boarded a ferry for our river cruise on the Vltava River. We were welcomed aboard with a tiny drink of a potent brandy style drink made from herbs. It tasted to me of cloves and cinnamon and believe me, it packed a punch.
Lunch consisted of goulash and rice or chicken and dumplings, followed by a choice of yummy pastries. And that was followed by a cruise past elegant buildings and beneath statue topped bridges oc
casionally waving to a fisherman on the banks or to children playing in the riverside parks.
When the cruise ended Barbara and I walked through the sunny streets, eating ice-cream and looking at shop windows crammed with Bohemian crystal, colourful marionettes, tourist souvenirs, and religious icons, including a hundred different versions of the Infant of Prague from one centimetre to almost a metre high.
We went into a church of St Nicholas, one of those huge baroque edifices filled with gilt and marble statues and paintings on walls and ceilings. Then further up the cobbled street lea
ding to the top of a hill, we walked towards the Castle area. There is no castle, just a castle area.
At the top we could look back over the tiled roofs and green copper domes and steeples of the city. A magnificent vista greeted us as we looked down towards the river and the old part of Prague.
At the top of the hill there was a wide square with a big square block of government buildings with guards at the front in full ceremonial dress AND trendy sunglasses.
We walked across the yard of these buildings to discover the gothic front of the Cathedral of St Vitus. Inside this building the semi darkness if lit with the glow of huge stained glass windows, some modern and some very old.
As we headed back down towards the city again we stopped to read a plaque commemorating the deaths of some hundreds of students who had died in demonstrations against the communist regime in the old Czechoslovakia.
We bought a local delicacy from a street vendor, a sort of doughnut mix but flattened and pressed on a hotplate so you get a sugar covered coil of crusty warm pastry.
We continued back to our bus, dodging traffic, cars, taxis and red and cream double carriage trams. The cars and taxis are obliged to stop at zebra crossings but not the trams. They have priority, something to forget at your peril.
Our wonderful day in Prague is over, and we wish we could have spent a lot more time here, there is so much to see and enjoy. But the coach won’t wait and tomorrow we leave for Bratislava and Budapest.
BRATISLAVA
Tuesday May 13th
Another unforgettable day in coach tour land! We hit the road after an early breakfast and headed out for the Republic of Slovakia, the other half of the old Czechoslovakia. Beautiful weather again and lots to see as we rolled along. Forests, farms and towns and villages hour by hour until we reached the Czech-Slovak border. And if we didn’t like the scenery we could listen to corny jokes by our driver Steve and Mike, although their patter is so quick, and they bounce off each other so well, they’re really quite entertaining.
We can have coffee, tea or beer and wine if we wish.
Despite all this, it was something of a relief when we arrived in the city of Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. It is quite big, again astride a river with many modern buildings as well as those hideously dull concrete jungles of apartments which are a hangover from the Communist era. At least they have managed to add some bright colours to them, thus getting rid of the drab greyness.
But the old part of the city is another story. Broad sunlit squares with fountains, statues, and beautiful old buildings with white trimmed windows looking down on cobbled streets. Barbara and I wandered through these streets for a while before settling on an outdoor cafe which looked a likely lunch spot. On the way we met a couple of our fellow passengers (of the whingeing kind) who asked if we’d seen any nice places where they could eat. We were standing in the Lygon street of Bratislava, almost surrounded by cafes and restaurants, all of which looked inviting. “But we don’t know what to do”, says the lady.”Ï mean you don’t know what you’re eating do you?”
I said Öh well, when in Rome....”and we headed off to tuck into some foreign muck called gazpacho, followed by a mysterious thing called a ham and tomato baguette.
I should stress that not all of our fellow passengers are like this. Most of them are very nice but as usual in these situations, there are always one or two moaners.
We have one bloke in the bus who only looks through the window to check the road signs against a map he carries.
After lunch we had about an hour to kill so we wandered through more lanes and into an old cathedral called St Martin’s. This was a rather grim and gloomy place with statues of bishops dating back to the fourteenth century. And down in the crypt we met a couple of them, or at least what’s left of their skeletons.
With half an hour left before we had to rejoin the bus, we headed back and then began to panic. We kept finding ourselves back in the same square, nowhere near where we should have been. Put simply we were lost. And our time was up. We had no street name to which to refer and no way of contacting our bus.
We were now nearly fifteen minutes overdue and thinking they would go without us. We asked several people for help but no-one spoke English.
Then finally, much to our relief, I asked a cafe manager while Barbara asked a young man in the street and both had good English. They both gave us the same directions and within minutes we had met up with one of our drivers who’d come looking for us. The penalty for all this was to cop a lot of wisecracks and smart arse remarks as we finally got back on the road. And I think we’re going to have to put up with this leg pulling for the rest of the trip. For example, I was telling our driver about the skeletons in the crypt and he told us they were the remains of the last passengers who got lost in Bratislava.
We have now crossed another border, into Hungary and have just enjoyed a good dinner in the Hotel Budapest, in Budapest.
Tomorrow we explore the city, but very carefully and sticking close to our guide.
Wednesday May 14th
We arose to another beautiful sunny day and enjoyed breakfast on the hotel terrace, watching Budapest drive to work, and admitting the bright red geraniums in boxes all around.
Then we joined the traffic on our bus, driving firstly to the Buda side of the city, through lovely tree lined avenues of elegant 19th century buildings and emerging into Heroes Square, which is exactly what its name implies. Here is a vast open space with colonnades on two sides of enormous statues of Hungarian kings and Magyar heroes. Atop the colonna
des, statues signifying labour, warriors, peace and culture look down on the plaza.
At opposite ends of the square are two cultural centres, one a museum and the other a centre for the arts.
Our guide also reminded us that this where Soviet tanks beat down the student and people’s uprising in 1956.
As she put it, Hungarians were grateful to the Soviet soldiers who died liberating this city from the Nazis, but wished they hadn’t had to put up with the Russians for a further 40 years.
We drove on past beautiful public parks, looking up at the huge Citadel, a onetime Royal Palace in earlier times. And then up to a monument to liberation and peace which looks down to the whole city, Buda on one side of the Danube, and Pest on the other. We visited the site of the old castle, no longer there, but a beautiful area of medieval and later architecture, which still partly operates as a market area, with open air stalled selling souvenirs, traditional Hungarian peasant dolls, glassware, and embroidered linen. There are also many houses which once belonged to the aristocracy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
We visited a very old church of St Stephens Cathedral, most of which has been restored, but some parts dating back to the fourteenth century. Much of the interior has a Moorish feel about, a consequence of the time when this city was part of the Ottoman Empire.
In the afternoon we took another boat cruise down the Danube, sipping fruit juice and admi
tting the fine old buildings on either sire of the river. Our ferry boat took as past the Parliament House which was inspired by the Palace of Westminster, but has its own Hungarian flavour with many domes and turrets gracing its walls. Further downstream we circled Margaret Island, a large island parkland in the centre of the river.
By now the sky had darkened somewhat with impending rain, and once we had disembarked, Barbara and I went in search of food. We didn’t want to get lost again, but we found a long pedestrian walkway with lots of charming little shops and cafes. After boosting our dwindling supply of Hungarian Florints at an ATM, we then had to change them into Euros at a bank. But the lady in the bank said we’d get a better rate at the cafe next door. We took her advice and she was right. We still had a little time to kill and it was turning chilly, so we dropped into a charming little cafe for coffee, and a slice each of that Viennese chocolate concoction Sachertort. Yummy!
Tomorrow, as usual with regret, we have to leave this lovely city and head for Austria.
Thursday May 15th
Another beautifully warm and sunny day and we were en route to Austria but on the way we stopped for lunch in the Slovakian town of Gyor. This is a pretty spot on the banks of a river with more of those lovely winding streets and the usual broad square. We strolled around in
search of coffee and food. There were lots of shops, many of them offering tailor made dresses and suits, in a style of around thirty years ago. Quaint. We also went inside a very ornate church dedicated to St Ignatius, and next door what appeared to be a school which we think was run, or at least founded by the Jesuits. We found coffee, but missed the local bakery and had to settle for a McCafe salad roll, in lieu of food.
Then on towards Vienna along a ribbon of Autobahn through rolling green countryside, passing lots of towns and small villages with clusters of brightly tiled houses, each grouped around the village church.
We reached Vienna in mid afternoon and stopped firstly to visit the grand Schonbrunn Palace, a beautiful cream coloured edifice set in manicured gardens and shimmering lakes and fountains. It was built between 1692 and 1780, as a summer palace for the Empress Maria Teresa. (Among her eleven childr
en was the ill fated Marie Antoinette) . Barbara and I spent the next two hours exploring the staterooms and magnificent salons inside. There were rooms trimmed in white and gold, and hung with great tapestries and portraits of Emperors Franz Josef, and other Habsburg rulers.
We walked around acres of beautifully laid our patterned flower gardens, admiring the fountains which seemed to extend for miles up a long slope towards a great stone monument to the Imperial Army, called the Gloriette, which overlooked the scene.
By then it was getting late and we sat down under an awning and drank a long cold Austrian lager, along with a sample of Austrian cake.
Our bus then took us out of town and into the beautiful Vienna Woods, where our hotel awaited. After a very pleasant drive through the Viennese suburbs, past characteristically high gabled houses, we arrived at our hotel, or rather our chalet, one of those cuckoo clock styled places with window boxes filled with bright red geraniums, all along the balconies.
But our day wasn’t over yet. Once we had washed up and dined, we drove back into town to an i
mposing building called the Kursalon Vien, a popular concert venue, where the Waltz King himself once played. We were expecting this to be a bit touristy, and it certainly was aimed at visitors to the city. But the orchestra was first rate. Of course they played lots of popular waltzes by various Strausses as well the famous Radetzky March, (traditionally accompanied by the clapping of the audience) and many other pieces familiarly associated with Vienna, (even including the Harry Lime theme.) It was a delightful way to end our first day in Vienna.
Friday May 16th
On the following morning we spent two hours on an organised tour past monuments and beautiful hotels and apartments, the Ferris wheel famously associated with “The Third Man”, and the Belvedere Palace, built by Prince Eugen of Savoy to mark his victory at Blenheim, allied with the Duke of Marlborough, a neat tie in with an earlier visit of ours.
We saw monuments and statues to Mozart, Beethoven, Johann Straus and so many others, in this city with such a great musical heritage. We saw many of the beautiful Art Nouveau apartment buildings, with highly decorated facades.
On the more bizarre side, we visited a weird architectural oddity called the Hundertwasser Village. Friedensreich Hundertwasser was either an eccentric genius, or a man who believed that there’s a sucker born every minute. Certainly he died a millionaire (in New Zealand
apparently) all from clients for his unique style of wavy, lumpy and crazily shaped buildings.
We spent the afternoon gazing at more beautiful buildings and beautiful streets and squares, with open horse drawn carriages ferrying tourists about, and driven by Viennese cabbies in bowler hats. Feeling peckish, we visited the famous old Hotel Sacher where, a long time ago, they invented the de
cadent creation known as Sachertort. How could we resist?
We visited another St Stephen’s Cathedral, a beautiful gothic creation with sh
ining ceramic tiles on the roof, and inside, soaring ceilings and magnificent stained glass windows. Here there was much less emphasis on gold and glitter, and more on the spiritual purpose of the place. And we visited the Vienna State Opera House. Much of the inside has been rebuilt after WW2 but the auditorium was just as
it was when first built, utterly magnificent.
Back at our hotel in the Vienna Woods, another treat awaited. We spent an hour in a horse drawn cart, being driven through the forest and fields of waving wildflowers. One expected Julie Andrews to come over the hill and burst into “The Hills Are Alive...”
Then our last dinner, a very Austrian affair fortified by copious amounts of white wine, which lasted until quite late.
Saturday May 17th
Saturday was a bit of a bummer. We had to drive all the way back to Brussels, a very long drive indeed. Everyone was tired, although our two drivers, Steve and Mike did their best to entertain us. I must say my initial impressions of these guys, changed over the nine days of this tour. They were very professional. Good humoured, always helpful, informative and putting up with one or two people who never seemed to be satisfied with anything.
One of these people actually wanted to know why Australians thought that Brits were always whinging. We assured him we didn’t think ALL Brits were whingers, but thought it diplomatic NOT to tell him that he and his woman companion were perfect examples of “whingers” per definition. This was the bloke who announced at our table one night, when referring to the hotel staff, “They all talk like ‘ítler ‘ere don’t they.” We collapsed with laughter and I don’t think he had a clue what we were laughing at.
There were a couple of other people like that but mostly they were a great bunch of people and over those nine days we all had a great time. One couple in particular were great company. They’ve even invited us to stay with them near the New Forest and we hope to meet up again in July. Finally we reached Brussels and bed.
Sunday May 19th
The final day was made up of a drive from Brussels to Calais followed by a ferry channel crossing, then Dover to Oxford and then Ascott.
Fritha and Antony and their friends Dave and Karen were there to greet us, with a light meal.
We are knackered. Bed!
We are in Brussels at the end of the first day of our nine day “Silver Service” bus tour to the above cities.
So this how the great British public does its travelling to parts foreign.
Today has been like a combination of one of those old Ealing comedy films, and Coronation Street. I mean don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad experience, it’s just different from what we know. We did expect to meet all sorts on a bus tour and all sorts are what we got. To start with our two drivers do a routine like something from a northern English working men’s club.
(Steve the driver) Ëhhhyoop – ów are yer orrart?’
(Passengers ) Yeeees!
(Steve the driver) Bloody éck yer don’t sound it. We’re goin to ave a woonderful nine days together, I can joost tell!”
And that was just on the road from Oxford to Dover where we joined the cross channel ferry. The trip itself was great. The sea was flat calm and the sun was shining, so we could sit outside and get a bit of color.
Well we got colour in more ways than one.
There was a group of Yorkshire folk chatting away to anyone who’d listen.
“Where you from?”, asked one.
Öldham”, replied the other.
Öh aye”, says the first bloke. “Well Oldham; now thars talkin”!
Then the conversation turned to pies and black pudding.
“There’s no pies like Wigan pies.”
Änd Bury black pudding is best black pudding, I can tell thee!”
You’ll get nowt from people from Bolton” chimed in another for no apparent reason, and everybody laughed.
Ninety minutes later we’re back on the road and our coach heads for Brussels and more continuous patter from our drivers, Steve and Mike.
A long day’s driving is ahead tomorrow, then we get to Prague.
Eeeeee, I can ‘ardly wait!
Sunday May 11th
It has been a very long day in which we drove from Belgium, across a small bit of Holland, a large bit of Germany and finally into the Czech Republic.
Sitting in a bus for the best part of 13 hours isn’t fun at the best of times. We passed through some beautiful countryside in near perfect weather. Once away from the Belgian and Dutch lowlands, we climbed into more hilly and varied country. There were rolling hills and deep green forests dappled with sunlight filtered down through the trees. And every few kilometres we would pass typical German villages and towns, each one dominated by a church steeple, and in many cases by the huge towers of wind driven power generators.
But it was, nevertheless a very long drive, so it was with some relief that we checked into a fairly ordinary hotel in the city of Prague.
Monday May 12th.
Today we spent exploring this truly beautiful city. The first few hours we spent on a walking guided tour led by a bright young lady named Monica. She introduced to the delights of the öld town”, which is basically a network of winding little streets overhung by lovely baroque style buildings and leading to wide open squares and broad tree lined boulevards.
Of course there are many churches as well a government buildings and great houses built by the aristocracies of the past. Each steeple and tower is topped with glittering gold and decorated with
elaborate statuary dedicated to great Czech heroes of the past. As well we see busts and statues of cultural heroes such as Smetana, Mahler, Franz Kafka and others.The city is divided by a broad river which on this day, sparkled in bright sunlight as we traversed one of the many grand bridges which span it.
Big tourist ferries as well as barges and smaller craft ply the river and later we would join a ferry for lunch and a cruise for two hours.
Before that we visited Wenceslas Square which is surrounded by many fashionable stores and banks as well as lots of sidewalk cafes. Barb and I enjoyed a coffee, or in my case a Pilsner (local chilled beer) and watched the world go by. And then on through lanes and winding streets and into the Old Town Square. There we saw a magnificent old church which features a huge astrological clock. In the square, open horse drawn carriages touted for tourist business and people with cameras, from a hundred different countries clicked away.
Then it was lunch time and we boarded a ferry for our river cruise on the Vltava River. We were welcomed aboard with a tiny drink of a potent brandy style drink made from herbs. It tasted to me of cloves and cinnamon and believe me, it packed a punch.
Lunch consisted of goulash and rice or chicken and dumplings, followed by a choice of yummy pastries. And that was followed by a cruise past elegant buildings and beneath statue topped bridges oc
casionally waving to a fisherman on the banks or to children playing in the riverside parks.When the cruise ended Barbara and I walked through the sunny streets, eating ice-cream and looking at shop windows crammed with Bohemian crystal, colourful marionettes, tourist souvenirs, and religious icons, including a hundred different versions of the Infant of Prague from one centimetre to almost a metre high.
We went into a church of St Nicholas, one of those huge baroque edifices filled with gilt and marble statues and paintings on walls and ceilings. Then further up the cobbled street lea
ding to the top of a hill, we walked towards the Castle area. There is no castle, just a castle area.At the top we could look back over the tiled roofs and green copper domes and steeples of the city. A magnificent vista greeted us as we looked down towards the river and the old part of Prague.
At the top of the hill there was a wide square with a big square block of government buildings with guards at the front in full ceremonial dress AND trendy sunglasses.
We walked across the yard of these buildings to discover the gothic front of the Cathedral of St Vitus. Inside this building the semi darkness if lit with the glow of huge stained glass windows, some modern and some very old.
As we headed back down towards the city again we stopped to read a plaque commemorating the deaths of some hundreds of students who had died in demonstrations against the communist regime in the old Czechoslovakia.
We bought a local delicacy from a street vendor, a sort of doughnut mix but flattened and pressed on a hotplate so you get a sugar covered coil of crusty warm pastry.
We continued back to our bus, dodging traffic, cars, taxis and red and cream double carriage trams. The cars and taxis are obliged to stop at zebra crossings but not the trams. They have priority, something to forget at your peril.
Our wonderful day in Prague is over, and we wish we could have spent a lot more time here, there is so much to see and enjoy. But the coach won’t wait and tomorrow we leave for Bratislava and Budapest.
BRATISLAVA
Tuesday May 13th
Another unforgettable day in coach tour land! We hit the road after an early breakfast and headed out for the Republic of Slovakia, the other half of the old Czechoslovakia. Beautiful weather again and lots to see as we rolled along. Forests, farms and towns and villages hour by hour until we reached the Czech-Slovak border. And if we didn’t like the scenery we could listen to corny jokes by our driver Steve and Mike, although their patter is so quick, and they bounce off each other so well, they’re really quite entertaining.
We can have coffee, tea or beer and wine if we wish.
Despite all this, it was something of a relief when we arrived in the city of Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. It is quite big, again astride a river with many modern buildings as well as those hideously dull concrete jungles of apartments which are a hangover from the Communist era. At least they have managed to add some bright colours to them, thus getting rid of the drab greyness.
But the old part of the city is another story. Broad sunlit squares with fountains, statues, and beautiful old buildings with white trimmed windows looking down on cobbled streets. Barbara and I wandered through these streets for a while before settling on an outdoor cafe which looked a likely lunch spot. On the way we met a couple of our fellow passengers (of the whingeing kind) who asked if we’d seen any nice places where they could eat. We were standing in the Lygon street of Bratislava, almost surrounded by cafes and restaurants, all of which looked inviting. “But we don’t know what to do”, says the lady.”Ï mean you don’t know what you’re eating do you?”
I said Öh well, when in Rome....”and we headed off to tuck into some foreign muck called gazpacho, followed by a mysterious thing called a ham and tomato baguette.
I should stress that not all of our fellow passengers are like this. Most of them are very nice but as usual in these situations, there are always one or two moaners.
We have one bloke in the bus who only looks through the window to check the road signs against a map he carries.
After lunch we had about an hour to kill so we wandered through more lanes and into an old cathedral called St Martin’s. This was a rather grim and gloomy place with statues of bishops dating back to the fourteenth century. And down in the crypt we met a couple of them, or at least what’s left of their skeletons.
With half an hour left before we had to rejoin the bus, we headed back and then began to panic. We kept finding ourselves back in the same square, nowhere near where we should have been. Put simply we were lost. And our time was up. We had no street name to which to refer and no way of contacting our bus.
We were now nearly fifteen minutes overdue and thinking they would go without us. We asked several people for help but no-one spoke English.
Then finally, much to our relief, I asked a cafe manager while Barbara asked a young man in the street and both had good English. They both gave us the same directions and within minutes we had met up with one of our drivers who’d come looking for us. The penalty for all this was to cop a lot of wisecracks and smart arse remarks as we finally got back on the road. And I think we’re going to have to put up with this leg pulling for the rest of the trip. For example, I was telling our driver about the skeletons in the crypt and he told us they were the remains of the last passengers who got lost in Bratislava.
We have now crossed another border, into Hungary and have just enjoyed a good dinner in the Hotel Budapest, in Budapest.
Tomorrow we explore the city, but very carefully and sticking close to our guide.
Wednesday May 14th
We arose to another beautiful sunny day and enjoyed breakfast on the hotel terrace, watching Budapest drive to work, and admitting the bright red geraniums in boxes all around.
Then we joined the traffic on our bus, driving firstly to the Buda side of the city, through lovely tree lined avenues of elegant 19th century buildings and emerging into Heroes Square, which is exactly what its name implies. Here is a vast open space with colonnades on two sides of enormous statues of Hungarian kings and Magyar heroes. Atop the colonna
des, statues signifying labour, warriors, peace and culture look down on the plaza.At opposite ends of the square are two cultural centres, one a museum and the other a centre for the arts.
Our guide also reminded us that this where Soviet tanks beat down the student and people’s uprising in 1956.
As she put it, Hungarians were grateful to the Soviet soldiers who died liberating this city from the Nazis, but wished they hadn’t had to put up with the Russians for a further 40 years.
We drove on past beautiful public parks, looking up at the huge Citadel, a onetime Royal Palace in earlier times. And then up to a monument to liberation and peace which looks down to the whole city, Buda on one side of the Danube, and Pest on the other. We visited the site of the old castle, no longer there, but a beautiful area of medieval and later architecture, which still partly operates as a market area, with open air stalled selling souvenirs, traditional Hungarian peasant dolls, glassware, and embroidered linen. There are also many houses which once belonged to the aristocracy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
We visited a very old church of St Stephens Cathedral, most of which has been restored, but some parts dating back to the fourteenth century. Much of the interior has a Moorish feel about, a consequence of the time when this city was part of the Ottoman Empire.
In the afternoon we took another boat cruise down the Danube, sipping fruit juice and admi
tting the fine old buildings on either sire of the river. Our ferry boat took as past the Parliament House which was inspired by the Palace of Westminster, but has its own Hungarian flavour with many domes and turrets gracing its walls. Further downstream we circled Margaret Island, a large island parkland in the centre of the river.By now the sky had darkened somewhat with impending rain, and once we had disembarked, Barbara and I went in search of food. We didn’t want to get lost again, but we found a long pedestrian walkway with lots of charming little shops and cafes. After boosting our dwindling supply of Hungarian Florints at an ATM, we then had to change them into Euros at a bank. But the lady in the bank said we’d get a better rate at the cafe next door. We took her advice and she was right. We still had a little time to kill and it was turning chilly, so we dropped into a charming little cafe for coffee, and a slice each of that Viennese chocolate concoction Sachertort. Yummy!
Tomorrow, as usual with regret, we have to leave this lovely city and head for Austria.
Thursday May 15th
Another beautifully warm and sunny day and we were en route to Austria but on the way we stopped for lunch in the Slovakian town of Gyor. This is a pretty spot on the banks of a river with more of those lovely winding streets and the usual broad square. We strolled around in
search of coffee and food. There were lots of shops, many of them offering tailor made dresses and suits, in a style of around thirty years ago. Quaint. We also went inside a very ornate church dedicated to St Ignatius, and next door what appeared to be a school which we think was run, or at least founded by the Jesuits. We found coffee, but missed the local bakery and had to settle for a McCafe salad roll, in lieu of food.Then on towards Vienna along a ribbon of Autobahn through rolling green countryside, passing lots of towns and small villages with clusters of brightly tiled houses, each grouped around the village church.
We reached Vienna in mid afternoon and stopped firstly to visit the grand Schonbrunn Palace, a beautiful cream coloured edifice set in manicured gardens and shimmering lakes and fountains. It was built between 1692 and 1780, as a summer palace for the Empress Maria Teresa. (Among her eleven childr
en was the ill fated Marie Antoinette) . Barbara and I spent the next two hours exploring the staterooms and magnificent salons inside. There were rooms trimmed in white and gold, and hung with great tapestries and portraits of Emperors Franz Josef, and other Habsburg rulers.We walked around acres of beautifully laid our patterned flower gardens, admiring the fountains which seemed to extend for miles up a long slope towards a great stone monument to the Imperial Army, called the Gloriette, which overlooked the scene.
By then it was getting late and we sat down under an awning and drank a long cold Austrian lager, along with a sample of Austrian cake.
Our bus then took us out of town and into the beautiful Vienna Woods, where our hotel awaited. After a very pleasant drive through the Viennese suburbs, past characteristically high gabled houses, we arrived at our hotel, or rather our chalet, one of those cuckoo clock styled places with window boxes filled with bright red geraniums, all along the balconies.
But our day wasn’t over yet. Once we had washed up and dined, we drove back into town to an i
mposing building called the Kursalon Vien, a popular concert venue, where the Waltz King himself once played. We were expecting this to be a bit touristy, and it certainly was aimed at visitors to the city. But the orchestra was first rate. Of course they played lots of popular waltzes by various Strausses as well the famous Radetzky March, (traditionally accompanied by the clapping of the audience) and many other pieces familiarly associated with Vienna, (even including the Harry Lime theme.) It was a delightful way to end our first day in Vienna.Friday May 16th
On the following morning we spent two hours on an organised tour past monuments and beautiful hotels and apartments, the Ferris wheel famously associated with “The Third Man”, and the Belvedere Palace, built by Prince Eugen of Savoy to mark his victory at Blenheim, allied with the Duke of Marlborough, a neat tie in with an earlier visit of ours.
We saw monuments and statues to Mozart, Beethoven, Johann Straus and so many others, in this city with such a great musical heritage. We saw many of the beautiful Art Nouveau apartment buildings, with highly decorated facades.
On the more bizarre side, we visited a weird architectural oddity called the Hundertwasser Village. Friedensreich Hundertwasser was either an eccentric genius, or a man who believed that there’s a sucker born every minute. Certainly he died a millionaire (in New Zealand
apparently) all from clients for his unique style of wavy, lumpy and crazily shaped buildings.We spent the afternoon gazing at more beautiful buildings and beautiful streets and squares, with open horse drawn carriages ferrying tourists about, and driven by Viennese cabbies in bowler hats. Feeling peckish, we visited the famous old Hotel Sacher where, a long time ago, they invented the de
cadent creation known as Sachertort. How could we resist?We visited another St Stephen’s Cathedral, a beautiful gothic creation with sh
ining ceramic tiles on the roof, and inside, soaring ceilings and magnificent stained glass windows. Here there was much less emphasis on gold and glitter, and more on the spiritual purpose of the place. And we visited the Vienna State Opera House. Much of the inside has been rebuilt after WW2 but the auditorium was just as
it was when first built, utterly magnificent.Back at our hotel in the Vienna Woods, another treat awaited. We spent an hour in a horse drawn cart, being driven through the forest and fields of waving wildflowers. One expected Julie Andrews to come over the hill and burst into “The Hills Are Alive...”
Then our last dinner, a very Austrian affair fortified by copious amounts of white wine, which lasted until quite late.
Saturday May 17th
Saturday was a bit of a bummer. We had to drive all the way back to Brussels, a very long drive indeed. Everyone was tired, although our two drivers, Steve and Mike did their best to entertain us. I must say my initial impressions of these guys, changed over the nine days of this tour. They were very professional. Good humoured, always helpful, informative and putting up with one or two people who never seemed to be satisfied with anything.
One of these people actually wanted to know why Australians thought that Brits were always whinging. We assured him we didn’t think ALL Brits were whingers, but thought it diplomatic NOT to tell him that he and his woman companion were perfect examples of “whingers” per definition. This was the bloke who announced at our table one night, when referring to the hotel staff, “They all talk like ‘ítler ‘ere don’t they.” We collapsed with laughter and I don’t think he had a clue what we were laughing at.
There were a couple of other people like that but mostly they were a great bunch of people and over those nine days we all had a great time. One couple in particular were great company. They’ve even invited us to stay with them near the New Forest and we hope to meet up again in July. Finally we reached Brussels and bed.
Sunday May 19th
The final day was made up of a drive from Brussels to Calais followed by a ferry channel crossing, then Dover to Oxford and then Ascott.
Fritha and Antony and their friends Dave and Karen were there to greet us, with a light meal.
We are knackered. Bed!
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