Lipizzaners and More!

Today begins with a walk back to the Hofburg Royal Palace in central Vienna to see the world famous Lipizanner Stallions, the performing horses at the Spanish Riding School that is celebrating its 450th anniversary this year.  As noted before, the stallions only perform on weekends, and we will not be here on a weekend.  But you can buy a ticket to their morning practice sessions each day (except Monday).  We arrive early, about 9:30am, and there is already a long line to get in.  No worries, they sell plenty of tickets.  Soon we are in and find a seat on the second level.  I initially thought it would be okay to stand on the first level.  An American woman next to where I was standing (she was seated) overheard me say that Rob and I could stand.  When I commented that it was unlikely that we would stay the entire two hours, she told me, "I am!"  My reply to her was, "You must be a big fan!"  I said it nicely, though.

When the practice begins, we learn that there is to be no photography, which disappoints me greatly, since I really wanted a picture.  However, the horses might be spooked if everyone's flashes were going off.  I did take a picture of the arena before the practice started.  This is what it looked like:

As it turns out, the practice is not a rehearsal for the show, but just horses (four or five at a time) trotting around in circles (with music, though).  The music is actually the best part, because watching the horses is a little bit boring.  We leave after one half hour (others do, too).  It seems that taking money for these practice session is kind of taking advantage of us tourists.

Our next activity is to go to the grand art museum of Vienna, the Kuntshistorisches Museum.  We had walked past on a previous day to admire the outside, now we can admire the inside.  It is truly beautiful!  Here are a few pictures:

For the most part, the art is okay, not really to my taste.  A lot of old Italian paintings like Caravaggio that all start to look alike to me.  I do like a few Velasquez portraits of little Spanish princesses, though. The real highlight is in the Flemish paintings, particularly one room, which displayed a rather large collection of paintings by Peter Bruegel the Elder, truly beautiful, including his masterpiece, "The Tower of Babel."  Here is an image of the painting that I found online:

The museum is also known for having one of the world's best coin collections, but we passed on that.

We had thought we might try to tour Vienna's State Opera House today, so we walked to the Opera House to check on the schedule.  Unfortunately, there are no tours offered today, but tomorrow's schedule had tours offered in English at 2 and 3pm.  We will come back tomorrow.  Across the street, however, is another treat that is available.  We decide to have lunch at the Cafe Sacher (in the Hotel Sacher), which is the home of the Sacher Torte!  It is an old style Viennese cafe that is very charming.  We are seated, and we each start with a toasted ham and cheese sandwich that is very good and surprisingly not outrageously expensive.  Then for dessert, Viennese coffee and the famous torte, first created in 1832.  It is essentially a dense, chocolate layer cake with apricot jam between the rich layers (but not too much apricot, just enough to give a hint of flavor).  We share one, but really, I could have eaten a whole piece on my own -- really, really, really good!  We each had a Viennese coffee which was filled with whipped cream (of course Rob needed to take most of the cream out given his lactose issues).  Here is what it looked like:

After our late lunch, we strolled to the Austrian National Library, which is home to a grand room called the Prunksaal.  This library room is the largest Baroque library in Europe and features walls of bookshelves holding thousands of old books, plus statuary, and a globe collection.  It is spectular.  Here is a photo:

We spend a fair amount of time here just looking around.  There is also an exhibit about the history of the city of Vienna that is very interesting.  We are surprised to see information about the Palais Epstein in one display case.  It turns out that it was one of the impressive palaces built along the Ringstrasse.  The Epstein family was well known for their appreciation of the art.  Here are two photos I took:

This was a very pleasant surprise.  It is now later in the afternoon, and we have completed our touring for the day.  We do a little shopping to try to find Rob a new pair of shoes, but were unsuccessful.

Dinner tonight will be a return to the seafood restaurant, Merlo, where we'll eat the mixed grilled seafood plate that we had also eaten on Monday.  It was that good!

Vienna's Schonbrunn Palace

Today, we are in for a treat:  Schonbrunn Palace.  This is Europe's most lavish royal palace after Versailles in France.  Fortunately, it is not too far away and can be reached via a short subway ("U Bahn") ride, so that is what we do.  Having been warned that the crowds can be massive here, we had purchased our tickets in advance to avoid the ticket line.  However, when we arrive at about 9:30am, the line is not too bad (this would change later, Rob observed).  Our ticket entitles us to enter the royal palace for a tour of the royal apartments between 11 and 11:30am.  This leaves us plenty of time to explore the enormous gardens first.  Here is the sight that greeted us at the front of the palace:

We walk to the right side of the palace to begin exploring.  The first garden is a formal garden with fragrant roses and wisteria.  This is the Empress Elizabeth's garden (yes, we are referring yet again to "Sisi" -- yuk).  It is lovely, but we don't tarry; we make our way to the other side of the palace where we can admire the expansive gardens.  Here is this spectular view:

That is the Neptune Fountain straight ahead with a building called the "Glorette" on top of the hill.  The Gloriette is what the British would call a whimsy.  An attractive structure with no real purpose except to look good.  What a place to be!  We walk ahead for a better view of the Neptune Fountain:

From here we have a little time to burn so we wander around a bit, admiring the Obelisk fountain as well, then we return to the palace and enter another formal garden on the other side called the Orangery, probably because it is full of citris trees.  Here is a view of the side of the palace with the Orangery garden.  We are a little too far away to make out the citris in this picture, but they are there.

Now, it is nearly 11am, so we make our way to the tour.  There is not much of a line outside, but once inside it is slow going.  It takes everyone a while to get their audioguide devices and then up the staircase to begin the visit.  Boy, is it crowded inside!  We are shoulder to shoulder, and this is not even the busy season.  The information in the audioguide is somewhat informative, but it is really just the basic facts ... "This is where the emporer worked, this is where he slept, and so on."  All of the rooms have gold baroque styling and some are even more decorated, crossing into the rococo, heavily ornate style.  We are not permitted to take any pictures, which is a good thing.  If photos were permitted, the tour would slow down so much that we would never get through this!  The main hall is interesting in that Kennedy and Kruschev met here once, in June 1961.  Another room was were Mozart first performed for the royalty at age six; it"s said that once he finished he ran into the open arms of Empress Maria Teresa.  The room that impressed us the most was the one in which giant paintings depicting the wedding of Empress Maria Teresa's son, Joseph II are displayed.  They are very factual and were painted to document all of the attendees of the wedding.  The only item that played with the truth was in the inclusion of Mozart at the wedding.  In real life, he was too young to attend the wedding (only four).

After the tour inside, we stop at the cafe for lunch.  We each order a vegetable burger.  It was not what we expected.  It was a layer of sweet cole slaw (with kind of an orange flavor in the dressing), topped by a grilled slice of eggplant, kind of strange, but okay, we guess.  Then we walk through the gardens in another direction (past a rose garden that hasn't bloomed yet) and up the length of the gardens behind the palace to the Gloriette to admire the view of the palace.  The following photo shows this view:

We also pass a maze, which we photograph, but do not enter:

Then, we have seen pretty much all that there is to see, so we walk back to the U Bahn to return to central Vienna.  We get off the train at Karlsplatz to visit a few sights there that we have not yet seen.

First, we return to the Secession Building to see the famous Gustav Klimt mural/frieze for Beethoven.  It is quite lovely in describing visually what Klimt thought Beethoven was trying to convey musically in his ninth symphony.  No pictures were permitted here either.  Then we crossed the street to walk throught the Naschmarkt (open air food market).  It is actually more restaurants than I had imagined, though it is not someplace where I would necessarily choose to eat.

Finally, we walk to the nearby Karlskirche.  It is huge and features two large columns in front.  Very unusual for a Christian church, we think:

Inside is a little unusual as well.  It is a beautiful Baroque interior in pretty good shape  What is different is that a platform has been erected in the middle of the church that allows visitors to ride an elevator into the middle of the dome -- seeing the paintings up close that would normally only be visible from below.  Then you can walk up several flights of stair back and forth to get all the up into the tip top of the dome and look out the windows.  I got a little nervous being up so high on what kind of looks to be a temporary platform, although it seems to be permanent.  I kept thinking the whole thing was going to collapse in a pile in the middle of the church.  As soon as I get to the top, I am ready to come down.  

Our touring for today is now complete, so we walk along the Ringstrasse to our hotel, passing the City Park which is nice but a little small for a city park in my opinion.

Dinner tonight is back to Pfudl's near to our hotel.  This is where we had lunch on our first day here -- traditional Austrian food.  We each have the veal goulash with spaetzel with side salads, which turn out to be pickled cabbage, sweet potato salad and some greens.  It is good paired with an Austrian cabernet sauvignon (the most expensive wine on the menu).

The day ends with the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest on TV.  Of course, the show starts with last year's winner, Conchita Wurst, singing last year's winning song, "Rise Like a Phoenix."  She is fabulous!  The contestants in this year's contest, no so much.  All the songs are the same: power ballads, some better than others, but none that memorable (except maybe Greece).  Neither of us stays up to watch the entire show, however.

Tackling Vienna: There's a Lot to See!

Whenever we come to a new place or city, it is always intimidating.  That is because you are leaving an environment where we have become comfortable (even in Bratislava, we became comfortable in only two days) to an unknown environment.  Are we going to be able to see everything we want?  Can we find our way around?  Well, the answer is nearly always yes, but still, there is a nervousness at first.  A way to overcome that nervousness is simply to dive in and see as much as you can.  However, first things first; we call up housekeeping to take away our dirty laundry so that we can have enough clean clothes to make it through the rest of this trip.  Then, it is time to hit the road!

We proceed directly to the Royal Hofburg palace area in Vienna to see as many sights as we can.  Our first stop was to the Spanish Riding School, which is home to the world famous Lipizanner stallions, essentially dancing horses who perform choreographed routines.  Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to see a show -- they are only on weekends, but each morning they rehearse from 10am until noon, so we are hoping to buy a ticket to watch the rehearsal.  No such luck today, the horses get Monday off.  Oh well, we can do this another day.  We cross the street and enter the Royal Palace to buy tickets to the tour.  It is about 9:15am, and I had expected that it would be a mob house here, but there are surprisingly few people, which is nice.  We buy our tickets which gain us entry to three exhibits: (1) the royal silver and dinner service pieces, (2) the royal apartments, and (3) a museum dedicated to the Empress Elizabeth, better known as Sisi, who was the wife of Franz Joseph, one of Austria's most memorable rulers, and the next to the last emporer (he died in 1916).  The first exhibition features lovely pieces, but royal silverware and dishes can only be so interesting.  The most beautiful dishes in my opinion were those that featured beautifully colored flower paintings.  The royal apartments were of course very grand.  There was an audioguide that told us information about each room.

The museum dedicated to the Empress Elizabeth was the most interesting, but probably not in the way they intended.  Sisi was 15 years old when she was promised in marriage to Franz Joseph and 16 when they married.  Immediately, she was not happy in her life, complaining that she was like a performing animal to be trotted out on state occasions.  She said that she had no freedom to do what she wanted.  She also said that it was not fair to promise a 15 year old girl to a lifetime marriage commitment.  To us, this sounded a little like sour grapes.  Are we really expected to feel sorry that she has been put in the position of being the most powerful and wealthy woman in the world?  Oh, boo hoo!  She grew her hair to ankle length, and it required one full day to wash in with eggs and cognac.  She had the best dentist for state of the art oral care.  Exactly who would she have wanted to trade places with?  The maid?  I don't think so!  She had four children: one son and three daughters.  The son, Rudolf committed suicide, which was certainly a blow.  Later in life, she did achieve the freedom that she wanted.  She negotiated a separate life for herself from her husband and traveled extensively.  She actually spent very little time in Vienna in the latter stages of her life.  She was assassinated in 1898 at age 61 in Switzerland by an Italian anarchist.  At the time, there was no great sadness in Austria at her loss, but rather sympathy for her husband, having lost a wife.  The Austrians barely knew her, so why would they grieve?  Fast forward one hundred years, and now she is the toast of the town!  Everywhere you go, there are pictures of Sisi!  Part of the reason for this is because many movies were made about her.  The most well-known from Hollywood (although I have never heard of it before) was "Mayerling."  It starred James Mason as Franz Joseph, Ava Gardner as Sisi, Omar Sharif as their son, Crown Prince Rudolf, and Catherine Deneuve as Rudolf's mistress.  Should be a hoot!  Anyway, enough about Sisi (for now, unfortunately).

Through the arch in the photo, the Lipizanner stallions are to the left and the royal tours are to the right.

The next stop in the palace area is the Augustiner Kirche, where the royals worshipped, I guess.  It is not too large and gothic in style, simply decorated.  The most distinctive feature is a sculpture by Italian artist Canova dedicated to Empress Maria Theresa's favorite daughter, Maria Christine.  It looks like a grave, but she is not buried here.  Here is a photo of the interior:

However, that is where we are headed next -- the Kaisergruft, located within the Kapuzinerkirche (Capuchin Church).  Oh my, is this impressive.  It is one metal (copper?) coffin after another, all Habsburg royalty, down to the very last emporer.  Of course, the biggest coffin of all is the shared one for Maria Theresa and her husband, Franz Stephan.  Wow, I don't expect I will ever see another coffin as large as this.  Fortunately, for 50 cents, you can also buy a map which tells you who is buried where and also has a family tree of the Hapsburgs on the back.  Maria Theresa's gigantic coffin:

Since it is right here, we go next the the art museum called the Albertina, named for Albert and Maria Christine (mentioned above).  Obviously, merging names happened a long time before anyone evered utted the words "Brangelina" of "Kimye."  This is a small museum in the royal complex for more modern art.  The main exhibition that we enjoy is called "Monet to Picasso."  It has a wide selection of newer art that was permanently gifted to the museum by the Batliner family, sometime in the past ten years, I think.  Boy, is it good and very varied!  In addition to the headliners, there are Marc Chagalls, Joan Miros, plus more.  These people had easily a billion dollar art collection.  

Now, it is time for lunch, which will likely present a problem.  Most of the restaurants have only one menu, which we call dinner:  wienerschnitzel, goulash, and other big plates.  This is too much for lunch.  Where can we find lighter fare.  Believe it or not, we find a cafe that meets our needs in the number one tourist spot on the Michaelplatz, directly in front of the entrance to the royal palace.  It is called Cafe Griensteidl and seems to be old school Vienna.  Inside, most of the diners seem NOT to be tourists.  We have a charming waitress, and each have grilled chicken breast with vegetable salad -- perrfect with a glass of Gruner Veltliner, Austria's best known white wine.  We are enjoying ourselves so much, we even have an apple strudel for dessert -- delicious (so much for our light lunch)!

Our afternoon plan is to do a lot of walking with a few side trips inside a few sights.  We walk to the Secession Building to the south, which is the home of a very famous mural/frieze by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt -- turns out it closed today.  We see the open air food market across the street called the Naschmarkt, but we decide we will check it out when we return to see the Klimt.  Next, we walk past the twin museums, which face each other accross Maria Theresa Platz -- they are also closed today, but we knew that already (we'll be back another day), but we wanted to see their magnificent exteriors.  They have been recently cleaned and look spectacular.  Here is the art museum:

Our next stop is a very special one:  the Palais Epstein (Rob's mother's maiden name).  Rob had seen a reference to this on the news this morning, so we had to check it out.  It is a nice building, so I take a picture of Rob in front of it.  

It is also next to the Austrian parliament building, which we walk past next.  This is an impressive building, but not historically significant like the Parliament in Budapest, Hungary.  The next sight is the Rathaus (town hall), which still has a Eurovision party going, kind of like a street fair, but no celebrities here today.  We are not sure if we are able to go inside, but we do (we are the only people inside it seems -- except for perhaps the people cleaning up from the big party last night).  We are able to see the large hall in the Rathaus.  Finally, admire the Burg Theater across the street.  Here is the Rathaus:

Time to turn east and head back through the old town to our hotel.  We pass through the Freyung Square and enjoy walking through the Fristel passage (shopping arcade).  We continue through another square called Am Hof that I particularly love with all of its grand buildings and churches.  Then we stroll through the Judenplatz, which has a Holocaust memorial.  One large block that is to resemble a library that you cannot enter, and all the books are turned backwards.  Then we enter the Peterskirche, a Baroque church with a notable sculpture of St. John of Nepomuk being thrown into the river in Prague (discerning readers of this blog will recall that this is the guy buried in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague whose tongue was still pumping blood after a hundred years or so ...).   

Then we pass through the pedestrian shopping area to return to St. Stephen's Cathedral.  

Since it Monday, we can go in -- kind of.  Apparently, most of the church is still off limits, plus we have seen better (also suffering from old church fatigue ...).  We do go up the north tower, which it turns out is the short tower with views that aren't so great, but anyway, we did it.  Now it is time to rest, so we return to the hotel.

Dinner tonight is at a restaurant called "Merlo."  We had passed it on our way back.  The menu looked interesting (seafood), so we will take a chance.  We had asked the concierge for a recommendation, but he did not impress us.  Unlike our experiences at the hotels where we have stayed on this trip, this Hilton seems too busy to be bothered with us.  So, we are on our own.  The restauant, as it turns out, is fantastic!  We order way too much food, starting with tapas of cheese sausage, sauerkraut, and lentils on one plate and codfish pate with toast on another.  Then we each have a plate of grilled seafood, which included pieces of sea bass, monkfish, calimari, and prawns -- wow, super good -- wish we could eat it all.  This is a restaurant run by a Croatian family.  Our waiter is also Croatian, probably a family member.  There are hardly any other customers, which is a shame.  Our waiter tells us that it has only been open one year and is a sister restaurant to another further north in town called Kornat.  We would be happy to eat here again!

Vienna, Here We Come!

We have a Sunday morning train to Vienna from Bratislava, and we have no regrets about coming here.  It was really enjoyable and scenic -- thank goodness we had nice weather to help give a good impression.  Our train is at 10:30am out of the Petrzalka station across the river, still only about a fifteen minute cab ride away.  Of course, we get there ridiculously early at 9:30am.  The train station here is pretty empty, but that's okay.  The train ride is relatively uneventful -- it is only one hour to Vienna -- but there is one odd thing to note:  no one ever checks to see that we have a ticket.  I guess we are on the honor system.  When we arrive at Vienna's modern new train station, we have a short cab ride to our hotel, the Hilton.  

We probably got to the hotel at 11:45am, which is way to early to check in.  We are told to come back in about an hour, so we drop our bags and head out for a walk in the old town.  Today is overcast, which does not create a good impression; plus, since this is Sunday everything is pretty dead, and nearly everything is closed.  Still, we walk around and take in a few sights:  we see the Mozarthaus (a place where Mozart lived, I suppose) and the St. Stephen's Cathedral.  We can enter the cathedral, but only in the back, since a Sunday service is underway.  Best to exit quickly; we'll be back another day.  A fair amount of time has passed, so we decide to go back and check on our room, but it is also lunch-time.  We think is is best to have some lunch.  We see a restaurant on a side street called Pfudl's that seems to have a traditional Austrian menu, so we give it a try.  They have an outside eating area, so that is where we sit.  Our lunch is filling and very good.  Rob has veal in a goulash sauce with spaetzel (like fresh mini-dumplings), and I have wienersnitzel -- super good!  A few drops threaten while we eat, but do not amount to anything.  We get back to the hotel, and it is bad news:  our room is still not ready, so we wait.  We go upstairs to the Executive Lounge and are forced to listen to one set of Texans tell another set of all the places that have traveled -- painful to listen to all this bragging.  One funny note, though:  they can't seem to pronounce Schonbrunn Palace, the Royal summer home in a suburb here in Vienna.  She just calls it, "Shamburg Palace."  Long story short, our room is not ready until 4:15pm, nearly five hours after our arrival.  Since the weather is not so good, we guess that is okay to have so much wasted time, but really not ideal, of course.

We go to our room and decide to head out for a walk.  While we were waiting, the weather cleared, and now it is sunny.  We walk along the Ringstrasse (large boulevard around central Vienna that is actually more of a horseshoe shape than a ring) admiring the beautiful, very grand buildings.  All of Vienna seems so GRAND; I can think of no better word -- mostly neo-Renaissance architecture that makes every building seem like a palace -- what a place!  We see the State Opera House, the Neue Berg (where Hitler declared "Anschluss" -- the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938), and the Royal Palace.  However, we hear music ... so we follow it to Vienna's town hall (rathaus).  What do we find?  

This week, Vienna will be the focal point of all of Europe as it is this year's host of the one week Eurovision song contest.  Eurovision, although little known in the United States, is a BIG DEAL in Europe.  Think American Idol on steroids.  Each country gets one entry and the whole contest takes one week and is, of course, televised.  The finalists and winner are all chosen by popular vote with one twist.  You are not allowed to vote for your own country's entrant.  Tonight is the opening night party at the town hall complete with a red carpet, large screen TVs, and huge crowds. Just as we arrive, the 2014 winner of Eurovision arrived on the red carpet:  Austria's own Conchita Wurst.  She is a pretty girl(?), who just happens to need a shave!  Well, now I've seen everything (not really but close)!  Later on, we researched Conchita and found that he identifies as a man when he's not in drag and identifies as a woman when he is.  We guess he/she is a big star here (back at the hotel later on, we watch his/her winning performance last year on YouTube; it is sorta good).  Judge for yourself ... Here is a photo from Sunday night posted on the internet (Audrey Hepburn inspired?):

 

Oh well, we can't really get close to the action here, so we leave.  We walk back a different route back to the hotel to try to get our bearings in Vienna -- coming to a new city is always so disorienting and daunting.  It is important to try to get familiar quickly so that you can overcome your intimidation and find/see all that you want to see.

We don't want much food for dinner, and we are surprisingly tired, so we just go to the hotel restaurant called S'parks for chicken caesar salads, then it is time for bed!

Touring Bratislava

Today, we woke to a perfectly blue sky; it will be wonderful weather for exploring Bratislava.  We proceed to the Old Town (a nice walk along the river), and walk through the Old Town to the north end, where we find St. Michael's Gate.  

This is the only surviving gate from the city's old wall, and the starting point for the recommended walking tour in our guide book.  However, before we begin, we pay the fee for climbing the gate's tower, which is also a museum for old armaments, something of no interest to us, actually, but two euros per person is not an excessive price for climbing the tower.  The views are nice; the view of Bratislava Castle is particularly good from this vantage point.  Here it is:

We climb back down, but there is yet one more detail before we begin our official walking tour.  We walk a bit north to the Grassalkovich Palace, which is the home of the Slovak President.  It looks good, but there is no option to go inside.

Back at St. Michael's Gate, we head south through the charming narrow pedestrian streets of the old town.  Almost the entire old town, which is a fairly large area, is pedestrian only.  Our guidebook directs us to look for a Napolean era cannonball embedded in a wall, but we can't find it.  Apparently, Napolean did more damage to Bratislava (then called Pressburg), than what happened in World War II. We emerge in the Old Town Square, which is overwhelmed by a set-up for a road race today.  According to the sign, there is a women's relay race at 11am, a children's race at 1pm, and a men's relay race at 3pm.  The main square is the endpoint for all of the races.  Combined with all of the tour groups here on a Saturday, it is a bit of a zoo.  Unfortunately, a good picture of the Old Town Hall is not going to be possible today.  Here is the best one I got:

We next pay to enter the city's history museum which is housed in the Old Town Hall, but this is also really just an excuse to climb a tower, this time we will climb the Town Hall tower.  We do spend a little time looking at the exhibits, but they are not that interesting.  The tower is nice, though:  good views of the square and the lovely architecture that surrounds it, many different styles and colors.  The colors of the buildings were painstakingly researched when they were restored to try to match the original colors as best as possible.

Another feature of the old town are the amusing statues that can be found.  In the square itself, there is a bronze statue of a tired Napolean era French soldier looking tired (in front of the French embassy).  Then there is  silver statue of a local legend who always dressed up in a top hat and went around calling the girls "pretty."  That's a little creepy.  Then there is another bronze of a worker climbing out of a manhole.  We try to find the statue of a paparazzo, but cannot.  Our recommended walking tour then takes us to a larger square, called Hviezdoslav Square, named after a beloved Slovak poet.  It is long and wide, with the lovely Slovak National Theater at one end.  Just off the main square is another performing space called the Reduta, where the Slovak Philharmonic orchestra performs.  It is very Baroque.  We stroll doen the square and stop to have lunch at an outdoor cafe called Slang.  They have kind of a club sandwich on the menu, which we each enjoyed with a glass of Gruner Veltliner.  This square had many nice cafes with outdoor seating areas.  Here is a photo of the National Theater:

After lunch, we continue west along the square, passing the US embassy which is a complete eyesore on the square, since they have erected a giant chain link fence around it.  Further down, we see a statue of Hans Christian Anderson, who apparently had a nice visit to Bratislava at some point.  Then around the corner, there is a Holocaust memorial.  This sits at the base to St. Martin's Cathedral, whose most notable feature is a green roofed tower.  Neither yesterday nor today are we able to enter, because weddings are happening inside.  This is the official end of the guidebook's walking tour.  We actually did more walking/roaming the old town yesterday.  You can just wander and wander along the cobblestone streets, enjoying the ambience.  We will do more walking today, but first:  the castle.

We cross under the highway underpass (a big highway leading to Bratislava's UFO bridge separates the old town from the castle), and then we begin our climb up the stairs to the castle.  It doesn't take too long, and soon we are enjoying views of the Danube River, the Novy Most (New) Bridge (also called the UFO bridge as noted above) and the Soviet built suburb of Petrzalka.  The Soviet era "panel" buildings are fairly uniform, but have been made more attractive in recent years, by painting them in more pleasant colors than gray.  Believe it or not, this is apparently a popular place to live for young adults as it is kind of affordable, and the buildings have been upgraded since the Soviet time.  There is actually a magazine you can subscribe to in Slovakia that is all about how to decorate/remodel your "panel" apartment.  Seeing how many there are (a hundred buildings?), this is probably a popular magazine.  Here is the view of the New Bridge we enjoyed with the panel buildings in the background:

The castle is white with four towers on each corner.  The local nickname for the castle is "the upside down table."  It looks very new with good reason.  The original castle, which Empress Maria Theresa remodeled into a royal residence, burned down in 1811.  The current castle was a Soviet era reconstruction completed in 1953.  Here is a closer view of the castle entrance:

Our guidebook recommends skipping the museum in the interior, so we do.  We just enjoy the views.  We make our way back to the old town, delayed a little bit as the competitors in the men's race pass us by (including some women -- maybe I read the sign wrong).  It is nearly 4pm, and I think we have pretty much seen all that is worth seeing, so we return to the hotel.  We'll be back in the old town later for dinner -- lots of walking today.  Here is the view of the old town from the castle with St. Martin's cathedral in the foreground:

After a nice rest, we walk back to the old town a little before six.  Our dinner reservatione were for 7pm, and we decide it will be nice to sit in the Hvliezdoslav Square and enjoy a glass of wine before dinner, watching the locals stroll by on a beautiful Saturday evening.  We stop at the same place where we had lunch.  Dinner is at the restaurant Modra Hviezda.  The concierge at our hotel made the reservation for us, since we had inquired about a recommendation for a good Slovak restaurant in the old town.  This place is not in the town center (no shortage of restaurants there!), but about halfway up the steps to the castle.  It is a good choice.  It seems like it is built into the castle walls with stone and brick vaulting.  We have a lovely waitress who helps us make excellent choices.  I start with the vegetable soup, simple but very good, then have beef filet with grilled vegetables and corn -- perfect!  Rob starts with smoked trout -- really good, not too fishy, not too smoky -- and then has a pork cutlet butternut squash puree and roasted chestnuts.  Rob enjoyed this very much as well.  Normally, we do not order dessert, but our waitress insisted, so we got a confection of chocolate and almonds, kind of a flourless cake, also very good.  Our wine was a local red (called Alibernet?), that we enjoyed, but was different, almost like a tempranillo?

The entertainment for the evening was an Austrian "hen party," occurring in the next room of the restaurant.  I had thought hen parties were mostly a British thing, but I guess they do them all over Europe now.  The young women (totalling 14) were all dressed in shades of black and white wearing costume cat ears.  The bride-to-be had a sash and of course a cheap veil.  Halfway through dinner, our waitress came to us with an unusual request: could we (individually) go into the men's bathroom, take some of the flowers in the vase and then present them to the bride-to-be?  We were the only men in the restaurant not accompanied by women.  Well, we couldn't say no, so we did as suggested.  I don't know why, but we each received an enthusiastic (loud) reception.  I went one step further and kissed the bride-to-be on each cheek!

Time to return to the hotel and retire for the night.

Welcome to Slovakia!

Here is a place that I probably never thought I would visit, yet here we are in Bratislava, Slovakia.  Today was a gray day on the train, and when the train pulled into the Bratislava station (nothing to write home about), the weather was unchanged.  At least it wasn't raining.  Here, we had no prior arrangements for transportation to the hotel, so we are reliant on the honesty of cab drivers.  We proceed to the head of the line, and I asked the driver how much to the hotel, and he answered twenty euros.  This seems a little high, but what can you do?  The cab ride turns out to be only five or ten minutes, so the fare seems especially wrong, but we pay.  When we checked into the hotel, they confirm that yes, indeed, we were ripped off; it should be no more than twelve or thirteen, but they told us it could have been much worse, so we don't feel too bad.

Our room is not quite ready (it is 12:30pm), so we drop our bags and head out for lunch.  A note on the Sheraton, where we are staying:  first, it is really nice, and second, it is part of a large, modern complex on the river called Eurovea.  Eurovea consists of a huge, multi-story mall that is very open.  It also has a ton of restaurants overlooking the river, movie theaters, a grocery store, a casino, and across the street is the modern center for the arts, kind of a Slovak Kennedy Center.  Its location is good for tourists, too, as it is not too far to walk to the historic city center.  Bratislava' historic center, ignored for many decades, was only renovated within the past ten years.  Today, it is a lively place. 

We have lunch at an Italian restaurant called Primi.  Rob had a salad Nicoise, and I had a chicken ceasar salad.  We stroll through the mall -- it's nice and new -- then back to the hotel to check in.  After check-in, we make our way to the old town to stroll around.  We are not planning on any sights today, just to get a feel for the place.  Tomorrow, we will pay more attention to what we are seeing and take a more planned self-guided walking tour as recommended in our guide book.  Today, however, it appears a special event is occurring.  There are roving bands of high school students dressed up in suit and nice dresses marching around town with noisemakers (think New Year's Eve) and shouting.  Rob asked one young man what the occasion was.  He informed Rob that they were graduating high school and raising money to pay for the graduation party, so of course we contribute what coins we have -- nearly three euros, actually.

We stop at the main square for a beer (Czech Budweiser -- nothing like ours) at the Roland Cafe, then back to the restaurant Primi on the river for dinner.  Rob had spaghetti and meat sauce and I eat a pizza!  A glass of wine at the hotel bar completes our day.

More on Bratislava in the next post ...

Final, Relaxing Day in Budapest

It is always nice to plan your trip to a foreign city, or any place for that matter, and not be too pressed for time.  At this point, we have seen most of the "must see" sights in Budapest, so we can take it a little easy and not have a crammed full day of sightseeing.  Our first destination is Hungary's National Museum, which is devoted to the history of the country.  It is a long walk to the southern part of Pest, but the the weather today is absolutely perfect.  While we have been enjoying many sunny days, there has been a little humidity, but after it rained overnight, the air is clear and fresh.  We take an indirect path down the Vaci Utna pedestrian shopping area, then turn left on an broad avenue that leads (to the right) to the Elizabeth Bridge.  This seems like more of where the local people shop, not too many tourists.  Then a right turn on another broad avenue to the Museum, which is large, impressive building.  Here is a photo:

The museum itself, which has signage in both Hungarian and English, is good.  Each room is focused on a different era in Hungarian history, starting with the Stone Age, no less.  Each room also has a nice description of what was going on in that era.  The "stars" of the museum are (1) the Hungarian royal coronation cape, which dates back to the time of St. Stephen, (2) a piano that belonged to Beethoven, which he gifted to Hungarian composer, Franz Liszt, and (3) a clavichord, which belonged to Mozart.  A clavichord was kind of a mobile piano.  Mozart would not have used this to perform, but it would have been portable enough to take with him to use while composing.

The final two rooms are devoted to World War II and the Soviet Era.  The World War II room kind of glosses over the whole issue.  The summary on the wall states that Hungary had no choice to ally with Nazi Germany, because it was either them or the communists/Soviets (heaven forbid!).  Well, I'm sure there is an element of truth to that, but it doesn't really excuse their actions.  There should be a little remorse, right?  It also states that while actions were implemented against the Jewish population, they did not include violence.  Technically speaking, the Hungarian government did not kill Jewish people, I suppose, but after 1944, a whole lot did get killed ("It wasn't us -- the Nazis did it!").  This shirking of responsibility for what happened is shameful, I think.

We leave the museum and walk in a roundabout fashion towards Andrassy Ut, which, we discover when we get there, is the avenue in Budapest that has all the high end fashion design stores like Burberry, etc.  We came here to see the Budapest State Opera House.  It is very impressive, but hemmed in on all sides by other buildings.  It is about 2pm (lunch was a takeaway sandwich from the grocery store SPAR today), and we see that English and other language tours are being offered today at 3 and 4pm.  We decide we will hang about until 3pm and take the tour.  This tour is large -- seems everyone wants to take it -- and the English speakers are divided into three groups.  This tour is much more informational than the Parliament tour.  A very nice young man with exceptional English (it is clear he has spent a lot of time in the USA) is our guide.  We see all the main rooms, and they are beautiful.  The opera underwent a complete renovation in 1984, and it shows.  It looks brand new with its very detailed neo-Renaissance style -- super colorful with so many painted scenes on the walls.  This tour was a very good idea.  For an extra 600 forints (about $2), you could stay a short while and hear a brief opera performance -- seems like a good idea, right?  Well, you get what you pay for.  The performance is not in the opera house, it is in the cocktail lounge, essentially.  A singer, who was very good, by the way, came out and sang three short opera pieces to a recorded accompaniment.  This was a little cheesy, but again, at least it didn't cost much.  Here are some photos from outside and inside the opera house:

After the tour, we only have walking planned.  We continue north in Pest along more broad avenues, which will eventually take us to the Margaret Bridge which obviously connects Pest to Buda but with a connection in the middle to Margaret Island, which is a large public park.  I wish we had had the time to depart the bridge and explore the park, but it is too late in the afternoon, and the weather seems to be threatening a sudden storm.  The wind is really blowing while we are on the bridge, but fortunately the storm blows over to the north.  We cross over to Buda and ascend the hill from the north, stopping to admire the Hungarian National Archive Building with it colorful roof, and the Buda Lutheran Church across the street.

Dinner tonight is at Alabordelo (check spelling), a Hungarian restaurant only about two blocks from our hotel up on Buda.  By the way, we are really happy to be staying up on Buda, even though it means going up and down the hill every day, usually more than once.  Buda is the most charming area with narrow streets and lovely old buildings; nearly all of them have a plaque that states, "Muemlek," which Google Translate tells us means "monument."  Plus, it is nice to have the gorgeous view of the Parliament, St. Stephen's Basilica, and the Chain Bridge.  Our dinner is very formal, but not stuffy; the service is very friendly.  For dinner we have a fixed price, four course menu.  The starter is sauted duck liver, delicious.  Our second course is a cream of asparagus soup, which is very light, not too over-creamed, also wonderful.  The main is beef in a paprika sauce, which we also enjoyed.  Dessert was a type of strawberry yogurt paired with strawberry sorbet.  Our wine was exceptional, best we had in Hungary.  It was salled Sauska, Cuvee 7, a blend of 41% Merlot and 59% cabernet, as good as anything you can get in California, I'd say.

Time for an early night, we have to get up early for our train to Bratislava tomorrow.