Travelling in Eastern Europe takes a little longer...

Travelling in Eastern Europe takes a little longer than in the west. Leaving Kromlov to reach Zilina, Slovakia was always going to take a while....

We made the connections from Kromlov to Budejovice, from Budejovice to Telc - time for some sightseeing.

Telc is a pretty little town with a square, a castle and a tower. We considered staying, but i was keen to push on to Brno, besides, an hour or two was enough to see the sights and chat with a lovely czech waiter. A worthwhile stop.

We boarded the train to Kotelec (i have no idea where it is either), then made our connnection to Jihlava - but the trains were running late. On arriving in Jihlava, our connecting train to Brno had just left! It was around 7:30pm by this stage in regional Czech.... the train conductor just shrugged his shoulders. Looking at one another (and admittedly, me a little grumpy because i had somehow pulled some leg muscles the night before in Kromlov and didn't want to limp around anymore), we headed to look for the centre.... nup. No sign of anything from the train station - except local buses. Looking at the public transport map we figured the 'centrum' would be the best place to head. Got there okay - even dropped us off in the square:). It is now 8:30 and starting to rain. Looking around we see no hotels or maps.... Backpacks loaded, we start walking.... and walking.... now dark and getting a little worried, i asked an ice-cream man (literally) if there was a hotel. He pointed around a corner and we headed off, thankful that this little town in the middle of no-where did have a hotel afterall.

Feeling hopeful we headed in the direction given... then we realised we were meandering - no sign of a hotel. Seeing a local walking her dog, Dean enlisted her help and she showed us the way (love the Czechs). Arriving at Hotel Grand, we knew we were going to break the budget, but it was the only hotel we had seen. Speaking with the receptionist, she informed us they were full ("Schizer"). Thankfully, she directed us to another Hotel, conspicuously in the square about 10 metres from where the bus had dropped us off - Doh. Oh well, we were just relieved to have somewhere to stay.

A little wary the next morning we headed to Brno. Dean was instantly on pocket-watch. The station area oozes dodginess. Not much to report on Brno - only stopped there briefly afterall that. We got the next bus to Zilina, Slovakia. On the border, the guard took our passports and the bus driver started his engine (yes Dean and I shared an 'urghh' moment). The guard then thought it would be wise to let the driver know he should wait (whew).

At long last, we arrived in Zilina. It was dark and the town was beautifully lit, there was some dance presentation happening in the square, and Dean and myself instantly liked Zilina. The old buildings were gorgeous lit up at night and the food was delicious.

Why are we here? Because it is where Julia and many of our Dublin-based Slovakian friends are from. Yep, that was the only reason for the trek:) We've enjoyed our stay and this little taste of Slovakia. We'll be back in Slovakia next week to check out the rest of it. Tomorrow we're off to Krakow, Poland...

Ceske Kromlov - At Last

I had heard good things about this town so i had to come and check it out. Kromlov has a reputation for being a good place to hang out and chill so we were prepared to stay a little while.

Kromlov is a little town built around the massive Zamek Castle. The town itself has narrow streets, little shops and cobblestones. So there's not a lot to do but chill. We stayed in a cosy hostel where we met more Australians in the one night than we had met in the last year and a half! Was very strange to hear the accents all at once. We all enjoyed a big night.

Now when you have this many Aussies in one spot you're bound to find some degrees of separation. One of the most ironic was that one of the girls owns, and lived in the same block of flats as I did in 2004. Hehe.

After 2 nights, and some not so great weather, Dean and I were chilled enough and were keen to head to the little town of Zilina....

Which is better, Pilsner or Budvar? We went to find out in Ceske Budejovice

Ceske Budejovice is a small town SW of Prague. It is known for being the home of the Original Budweisser Budvar. Arriving a day before we could do the brewery tour, we checked out the town. Lovely square, lots of pretty houses and a wonderful restaurant called Cafe de Columbia. The food was wonderful and for a vegie, brilliant:)

Another meal of duck. So good...

The main square, one of the biggest in Europe apparently

Budvar; Now we've done quite a lot of Brewery tours, and didn't really feel like we could learn much more from another one, but, it had to be done. We heard the usual about mashing and brewing and then we got to the best bit. You see, none of the other Breweries had allowed us into the bottling plant. Dean would always be disappointed, but not this time. Why is a factory interesting - because, we got to see them sort the old bottles - which were budvar, and which were not (cool flicking machine) and then the bottles travelling along. Okay i haven't made it sound brilliant, but it was interesting to see. Dean loved it - I think he was filming his own 'How it's made'.

Bottles, bottles, bottles...

So now we have done our breweries, including Guinness, Brugge Zot, Pilsner Urquell and Budweisser Budvar, you may be wondering which was the best? Well, personally, the best for me still remains Heinekin in Amsterdam (yes from my previous trip). I include this one because for interactive fun, this one gets it, trumps. Taste? I believe Pilsner has it. This of course is from someone who does not like Guinness, so Dean may disagree, and i'm sure the Irish will too.

Carly & Wojtek's Flat - Nurnberg

On hearing that my old friend from Adelaide, Carly, had moved to Nurnberg to live with her boyfriend, I decided to pay them a visit - and take Dean along of course. We spent a week driving the guys mad whilst we were busy catching up. We let them off the hook occasionally and went visiting a couple of near-by towns.

Nordlingen is a circular city that is in a 100km wide crater where a meteor once hit. The impact of the meteor was the equivalent to 250 nuclear bombs leaving Nordlingen with some unique geological rocks. (can you tell i'm no geologist??). This all of course happened long before Nordlingen was even thought of.

Now Nordlingen is a quaint little town with medieval town walls and a mini-golf course. Why should you care about a mini-golf course?? Because I won bragging rights when i beat Carly after she was killing me up till the 9th. All the sweeter when the come-back was led with a hole-in-one:) [Sorry Carly. Carly was the Fussball champ though].

Dragging Dean away from work (yes he works whilst on holidays!!), Carly, Dean and myself also checked out Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber. This little town was really nice. It is on the Romantic Road in Germany and again it has town walls, lots of nice old buildings and some gorgeous views of the Tauber Valley.

We also managed to see more of Nurnberg including massive podium Hitler had built for rallies and some local fans before a football match. Let's just say, they were singing, jumping on tables, and singing to hard rock... this is of course before the match! Was awesome.

Thanks to Carly and Woj for an awesome week.

Plzen - Home of Pilsner Urquell & Eba & Irena

We're not ones for religious pilgrimages, but beer pilgrimages are a bit of a requirement when in the Czech republic, but a little on Plzen first.

We know two crazy Czech girls, now in Dublin, who come from this little town Plzen, a couple of hours west of Prague. And just like Eba and Irena, the locals were friendly, especially our lovely barman.

However, a group of girls, who we now believe were having a bit of a muck-up day, reminded us of the cheeky side. After we didn't give them money on demand (we had no idea what they were saying), we were squirted with vinegar!!!! Luckily, Dean got most of it and we learnt our lesson. When you see people in costume talking to you in Czech, give them money. Nothing worse than smelling of vinegar all day! Since then, we have off-loaded our change happily and avoided groups of celebrating students. I'm just grateful they didn't use fish-oil like in Rowville.

Now, back to beer. Apparently, the first filtered Pils was brewed in Plzen. This happened after 36 barrels of local beer was poared in the square to emphasise how bad the local beer was. After this, the locals combined their resources to create pilsner urquell. This, is the the best Czech beer i have tasted! Now whilst on tour of the brewery, we also got a taste of unfiltered Pilsner from one of the barrels in the 9km of cellars under the brewery. Yep, they needed all this space to store enough of the beer.

Nice big vats full of beer!

Tasting unfiltered beer, straight from the barrels. Lovely.

Btw, there are also more tunnels in Plzen where they would bring up water and have stores. Doning hard hats, we were led through some of these tunnels by the tallest Czech i have ever seen!!! And what did we see in these tunnels, lots and lots of Pottery. The local archeologists had found lots of it, many in tact in the wells in the tunnels.

Czech Republic - Prague

So... after getting back into the German beer swing of things, it was time to move into slightly different territory - the Czech Republic!

I actually didn't know very much about Czech... except not to call it Czechslovakia! Some of our Dublin friends are from there, and it is the home of Pilsner Urquell, but that was about it.

So, we arrived in Prague, and found ourselves a hostel. Then we walked to the main square and had a nice relaxing beer, along with the hundreds of other tourists, and dodgy locals trying to sell me drugs the whole time. Dunno what they saw in me.
We also tried a cheese platter, which to tell the truth was pretty disgusting. I'm not a big fan of the softer cheeses (can handle a little bit of Camembert, but anything stronger and no thanks) so it was a bit of a disaster, but you've gotta try these things.



The next morning, we went sightseeing. Ally had already been to Prague before, so it was all for my benefit, but she was happy to come along with me to the castle. You catch a tram up the hill to where the castle looks out over the river and the old town over the river - there are some impressive views. Inside, you pay your money (and a bit extra if you want to take photos - typical...) and go walking all over the complex. Into the towers, up the cathedral, into the crypts, through the museum and along a laneway of old villager-houses (well, soldier houses initially i think - now just a row of shops).

The climb up the cathedral tower was one of many we've done along the way - to us, anything under 200 steps is a bit of a girly tower, 300 and you're in the big league. Some great views over the whole castle and the surrounding city and countryside.



A nice Bohemian meal of duck and dumplings later, we settled into a cozy local bar down through a maze of cellars and passageways for a few very cheap, and VERY nice, Pilsners.

Not far from the base of the castle, you can catch a funicular up a hill, right to where a huge radio tower sits, which (ally wasn't happy to know) you can also climb. So while she sat at the bottom and had a beer I climbed the (forget how many) steps and got an even better view of the whole area. Luckily it was a great day and you could see for miles. Hopefully I can get a nice panoramic photo out of it.

We also went into (another) torture museum. This one took the cake though. I think Ally wasn't feeling the best afterwards. It's amazing how ingenous evil people can be when they are thinking up new ways of making people confess to stuff they didn't do...

Prague is a cool city, everything within walking distance and heaps to see - we could have stayed much longer - but it was time to move on. Time to find a brewery or two and see where the magic happens.

Dresden... Bombings to Beers

After Berlin we needed somewhere a little smaller to rest our feet and Dresden was on the way to our next port of call. We were pleasently surprised...

Dresden is built on two sides of the Elbe river. It was bombed to bits during the war but they have rebuilt the wonderful baroque buildings and now it's a great place to wonder around in, listen to quartets play, sit back a have a stein and watch people and dogs play in a water fountain, providing hours of amusement.

One poor lass...

'Our Lady' church. The black bricks are the original pre-war stones, the lighter
are the new stones needed to rebuild it.

A wall fresco of the Saxon kings - Dresden used to be the capital.

We can also recommend the 'new town' for some good dinner and bars. A fun stop-over enroute to Praha...

Big Berlin

Big Big Big.

Requirements for Berlin;
Spare feet
Extra days
Camera

Excellent tour guide to show you where to start...

Brandenberg Tor (Gate)

This gate has so much to tell. Built as a victory gate, it instantly became
the pride of Berlin. The stick the lady on top is holding was added only after
the French stole her and her horses because the French liked them so much. The
Berliners added it to show the French they weren't push-overs after they went to
France and got their lady back.

1961-1989, this gate was in the middle of the Berlin wall. The Berlin wall was in fact two walls that separated east and west berlin.
History lession - post 1945, the allies divided germany between the French, Americans, British and the Russians. However, the Americans, British and French (the west) did not want the Russians to have all of Berlin, so they divided Berlin into 4 also. Thus, East Berlin was russia's part.
This gate sat between the two borders. How does it look so good after all that? Refurb! The gate really is impressive. We were standing on the east side taking this shot. In the photo you see the tiergarten (animal garden) to the west.

Looking closely you might also see a giant silver car - it is a sculpture.
Berlin has giant replicas of things Germany has made. They have put them up for
the world cup. The car wasn't so impressive, the aspirin was very dull, but the
giant books, placed where the first WWII book burning happened, was impressive
and very symbolic.

Victory Lady - nice camera work Dean!

Hopefully you're starting to get the impression that Dean and I learnt a
little in Berlin. As i hinted at earlier, we had an excellent tour guide.

Now a look at the east...

The East Side Gallery

There was a lot of talk regarding the wall after 1989, should they destroy any trace of it or should they keep some of it as a memorial. Thankfully they went with the memorial option. Because there was a space between the two walls, Berlin was left with miles of open space. They have decided that this space will become a green strip where people can walk and ride where the old 'death strip' used to stand. They are also putting a walk/bike track around the whole route of the wall.

There is also room for impressive memorials.

Jewish Memorial

After 15 years of debate as to where to have a memorial for the jewish victims of the holocaust, they finally decided on central berlin. It's simple, no symbolism. The ground waves at different heights so it can be disorientating walking through. Ultimately, it's impressive. Underneath it has a museum documenting victims including a tape saying the name of each victim and a brief biography. They predict it will run for over 6 years. Memorials for other victims are in the works, hopefully they won't take so long to make.

Topograpy of Terror

This is a memorial that details the resistance and perpertrators of the war. It was wordy but gave us a lot of insight. What i like more about this picture is the building on right. Now the tax office, this building is still standing because pre-1945, the allies knew their new borders of Berlin. This particular building was on the Russian sector. Being massive (and symmetrical and blocky, like many communist buildings), the Russians thought it would be a useful administrative building and so they kept thier bombs clear of it in the later bombing raids of the war. Surviving as it did, it was also the site where thousands of East Berliners protested in the early days of the division. 300 were shot dead and fired on from the building. It was a long time until the East Berliners protested again. Instead, they came up with very imaginative ways to go under and over the wall. Some even managed to go through it... but they are some other stories for another time.

After two world wars and a cold war, the government was starting to get a little worried about the dropping of a nuclear bomb on them. Being worried, they offered funds to builders to include bomb shelters when building new buildings. The one that Dean and I saw would fit 3,500 people in it - first come first served. There are air filters and safe water from underground. It would accomodate these people for two weeks - apparently long enough for radiation levels to be low enough for people to quickly get out of Berlin. Your food for your stay is canned bread and water.The temperature will be above 30 degrees with 90% humidity, and you will only have enough energy to lay on the bunks and be in a drowsy sleep because of the heat. Oh, and because you have to shower before entering if exposed to radiation, you may also be naked with no spare clothes. Hope you're not claustrophobic...

Bomb Bunker

There are 27,000 places available in Bunkers in Berlin, all on a first come first serve basis. Good luck finding them. Btw, for those wondering how much was funded, it works out to around 1000 euro per person ($1600). I recommended heading to Switzerland, apparently they had enough bunker built so their whole population would fit. 1) no wonder Switzerland is so expensive, 2)aren't they neutral?

Moving on... Since re-unification Berlin is being rebuilt in a big way. This means lots of patching up of buildings (apparently you can tell the new from the old buildings because the new buildings don't have any bullet holes!), lots of new development, and a recession...

But back to the architechure - the Reichstag. So many stories - a dodgy burning that gave Hitler the excuse he was looking for to gain power is just one, but this blog is getting long and you should all get back to work soon (besides we are so far behind in our blogs we'll be home before Prague is written).

The Reichstag - great new roof top dome

The roof of the Sony centre - a place that feels like you are in the future
of Demolition Man, all looks a little perfect. I swore to test it though and no
sign of a fine yet:)

As you can see, we loved Berlin. We've tried to show you a little bit of it, just remember there is so much more!

There will be more about Germany in other blogs - no room here. Let's just say, they're pretty excited about the world cup, if only we could get tickets...

Orange everywhere.... Must be the Netherlands

Sinking much?

Next stop - Den Haag, Netherlands.

We have a friend here, Vinny, who lives in Den Haag, so we decided to pay him a visit. Dean had also never been to NL so we explored the little country from here.

We checked out Den Haag with Vinny when we arrived, including Vinny's local market, which is HUGE! and CHEAP! Then we checked out the town of Den Haag, which on this particular day was celebrating Queen's Day. The Queen of NL had been in town earlier and had since left but everyone else was still around dressed in Orange and having a bit of a party. [Historical note - the Royal family of NL is the family of Orange, hence the national colour i guess].

That night we headed to Vinny's parents and had a beautiful home-cooked dinner (thanks Janet) and heard lots more about NL from Vinny's dad, who i'm pretty sure knows everything about NL.

We spent Sunday (the next day) checking out Delft, a cool little town with lots of canals and numerous tilted buildings which is what happens when you build on water i guess. It also had an awesome museum where Dean and I actually learnt something about the histoy of NL and a cafe with yummy cakes.

Delft entrance gate... pretty nice

Vinny had to head to work on Monday (awh) so Dean and I headed to Amsterdam for the day - it poured!!!!! We both cued in museum lines for ages getting soaked. Dean headed to the Van Gogh museum (i went there a few years ago) and 'found it interesting reading about his whole life', and i went to newly re-opened Rijksmuseum. Thankfully, this museum had english info everywhere which is always helpful and many masterpieces as well. Lots of Rembrandt. I followed this up with a visit to Rembradt's house, now a fan.

We headed to Amsterdam the following day as well and thankfully the rain had finished. Much nicer! We wondered around the usual haunts and by Irish luck bumped into Evelyn (a friend from work in Galway) and her beau John! How's that?

Crazy buggers Bungy jumping at the beach. Dean was contemplating it, i
definately wasn't!

There are tulips everywhere too. The train between Den Haag and Amsterdam went past lots of fields of tulips of every colour. Loved it!

Many thanks to Vinny for looking after us, hope to see you back in Aus soon.xx

Belgium, Brussels, Brugge, Beautiful....

I'd been waiting for this country for a very long time (no prizes for guessing why) and at last I hit it for my 21st... country. Sadly the 21st birthday was a little too long ago, anyways...

Chocolate chocolate chocolate. Taking the advice of Narelle, my experienced traveller bud, we would pass by a chocolate shop and pick a couple of chocolates to taste, and then continue this through belgium to enjoy the experience. This, of course also means that you are walking off the chocolate as you go (or so you tell yourself) which minimises guilt. Some interesting chocolates to try - with cumin, with cinamin, with chilli, with pepper, orange and coconut, rum balls, pralines, the list goes on...

So many choices... How much for the shop?

But to be true connoisseurs, we also visited the chocolate museum to find out all about this yummy stuff. Much more interesting than the butter museum of Cork. We had also fluked arriving in Brugge a day or two before the chocolate festival (nice one us), so we stayed in town rather than go for a day trip, and lucky we did because we also got a free demonstration by a local chocolatier, furthering our all important chocolate education. Speaking of which, the museum did have an educational section and a FAQ section, although Dean and i were a little skeptical, tell us what you think...
FAQ
Q. Does chocolate make you fat?
A. If you are thin it does not make you fat. If you are fat, lose weight then you can eat chocolate.

hmmm

Big bloody egg...

Now to celebrate my 21st, beer also had to be explored. So after a long day of climbing viewing towers and wandering around chocolate shops we would do some beer tasting. Now we all know that Dean would be better at writing this section than me, but his Grandpa is starting to get concerned about his beer drinking so it is up to me - full reports by Dean when we get back.

We tried as many different ones as possible - Dean was in charge of the Dunkel (dark) and Weiss Beers, the Pils and Blondes were left to me. Unfortunately, the blondes and Pils had a higher percentage so pints were limited. Many pubs had over 300 to offer, but we found a cozy one with a friendly barman with 70 to offer - that seemed to be enough. Dean also loved it because of the sausages hanging over the bar... he was pretty happy.

Here is Dean's perfect chocolate shop - meat!

Someone had too much beer...

The last treat of Belgium is of course the waffel. A little disappointing i'm afraid - we found it really hard to find any that were freshly cooked. If you wanted it warm they would put in a microwave!!! Hence, my waffle munching will have to wait for Zakepane, Poland yumyumyum.

Sightseeing wise, we checked out the big square in Brussels which was very impressive and it's brewery museum. We climbed the Belfry (356 steps) in Brugge and watched it's cool bell music machine thingy, checked out some windmills and saw lots and lots of tulips (yep still in Belgium, NL next).

The 'notes' on the bell thingo...

But really, Belgium is about Chocolate and Beer, and we did them both very well:)

Luxembourg - Echternach

Instead of hurrying in and out of this little country, we decided to head out to the country for a while. So, for no particular reason, we jumped on a bus for a town called Echternach. This place is right up near the German border. (I forgot to say in my Lux City post, these guys are cool... they ALL speak - German, French, English and their native Luxembourgish, amazing...)

We had heard about a new hostel, and eventually we found it, nestled nicely next to a big artificial lake. The whole area is well known for its hiking and walking trails - in fact, for such a small country, they apparently have about 5000 km of walking trails - but we really couldn't be bothered. Well, we were going to, but found a beer or two instead.

After doing a walk around town (Echternach is actually the oldest town in Luxembourg) we just relaxed back at the lake and that night went to see a movie (actually found one in English).
The next day we got the bus up-river and hired a canoe to spend a couple of hours paddling back down to the town, which was a bit of fun, and a nice way of sight-seeing!

Center of town, can't remember what the building on the left is, but the main cathedral is there in the background

However, 2 nights was enough, so we headed back to Luxembourg City to continue our pilgrimage to the land of beer - Belgium!

Luxembourg - Luxembourg City

From Paris we jumped on a train and headed for Luxembourg. No real reason... we hadn't really read much about it, only heard a little bit about it, but why not go visit it on our way to Belgium.

We arrived at the capital, Luxembourg City, and found a hostel for a few days.
Lux City is an old medieval city that was founded as far back as the 10th century. It is situated on and around a hill which is surrounded by a valley (used to be rivers around it i think) and has great views all the way around.

View over valley towards one of the huge bridges

One of the roads leading into the city travels up over a narrow ridge, in which a number of casemates were built hundreds of years ago. These are tunnels built into the rock, and there are over 20km of tunnels going right up to the city apparently. They were used at various times as cellars, storage, cannon placements and shelter. You can take a tour through the main bits, quite interesting.

Walking through part of the casemates

The nicest part of the city however is just walking around. As I said, there is a valley around most of the city, which these days has a number of villages along it. Great scenery, great walks, just a nice place to spend a couple of days.

View towards the city from the Grund village

A lazy lunch in the main square in the middle of the city. Busy restaurants

Another view towards the valley from over another part of the casemates

Another view over the Grund, you can see some of the casemates in the rock on the left