What a strange sense of displacement to travel back to your old home without feeling settled in a new one. Everything was so achingly easy, it was hard to imagine leaving yet again… But it’s not as if we came to Amsterdam because we thought it would be a piece of taart. I can’t count the number of times that other nomadic friends have lectured us about the ‘break-in period’, and that it took them at least a year or more to ground their feet (temporarily) in Europe. As frustrating as it is to hear this as someone only halfway through the aforementioned timeframe, I’m pretty sure it’s about right. Although having said that, it’s not as if the year passes, and suddenly – 365 days later, the clouds of difficulty pass and you’re left basking in a wave of serenity. Even now, after seven months in Amsterdam, things are getting somewhat easier and far more settled.

What didn’t help is that we arrived at the start of winter, and endured the cold, poorness and loneliness all in one swift hit. Summer in Amsterdam is a completely different city. I feel as if I’ve noticed the seasonal change far more intensely than back home. Like the trees, slowly dressing themselves in green, Amsterdammers transform for summer. The city is different. Places you never knew existed seem to crop up overnight, and bar doors open their floodgates, spilling outdoor furniture onto any available space. People actually smile. Flocking to the parks on Sundays, weekend life is more relaxed.

Our (not so) new house is perfect for summer, and we've welcomed the season with a few bbqs so far - back to the traditional coals, billowing infused smoke through the neighbourhood. The bike gang has taken to picnics in the parks, the forests... wherever we can rest on some grass and soak up some sun. And here I don't burn after 10 minutes like back home!

While I find that day-by-day my Dutch is improving, I’m also noticing a decline in my English abilities… Maybe (and hopefully) it’s just a temporary thing, and trying to switch your brain to think in another language is confusing the native tongue. The sentence structure is generally the opposite of English in Dutch, so I’m constantly trying to think backwards. Small achievements yes, but I have successfully held small conversations, and enjoy being able to understand comments being made in the street.

I had my first incident with a steep Dutch staircase (ironically, the translation for stairs is ‘trap’), and am still recovering from a nasty blow to the tailbone. It’s generally okay to walk around though, and Josh and I managed a day-trip to Haarlem the weekend after – our first Dutch expedition outside Amsterdam together, and we felt like travellers again, if only for a day. It’s a beautiful city, almost like a boutique Amsterdam (only 20 minutes on the train), and we soaked up the markets, design shops and savoured the first glass of wine we’d had with lunch in Holland.

The summer calendar is stacked with visitors, and we had Liv and Jenny here from Auckland last week, and what a fantastic week it was… I’m glad they arrived at a time when we knew the neighbourhood well enough to show people around, leading the way in the biking brigade to the best coffee spots, cafes, and even out of Amsterdam to the forest where we biked all day and devoured superb Dutch pancakes in the midst of it all.

The next few months hold many more visitors, a four-day music festival in Belgium, our birthdays, and hopefully a few little trips when we can… So much more to see…

The start of summer in Amsterdam remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Six months ago we arrived at the end of summer to live in a city we'd never seen, but already had begun to establish a life in. We had a flat waiting for us, flatmates to meet, friends of friends who already knew about us, yet we'd never set foot on one the Amsterdam's cobblestones. Arriving after a few months of travel, our packs full of dirty, fading clothes, we felt ready for a bit of stability. Looking back, it was a strange thing to do to decide to settle in a city we’d never seen before, but it also meant we had no preconceptions of Amsterdam life. You always hear the stereotypes… New Zealand, ahhh I’ve seen Lord of the Rings… and Amsterdam was no different. Liberal attitudes, armies of cyclists, canals, the red light district, cheese, olliebollen donuts, the coffee shops; we were about to start living in a transient, tourist highway.

We really knew not a lot about the country at all. My thoughts go back to the words of a couchsurfer in Prague, who lent me her descriptions of Dutch cuisine that amounted to not a lot more than biscuits, cheese, fried food and sandwiches. Oh, and lots of herring. For a girl who loves her veges, generally opposes fried foods, and has cut down on bread over the past year due to symptoms similar to gluten intolerance, this might not be easy. Perhaps we should have chosen Japan, and at least I could have lived off sushi??? Although the biscuits really are good.

Living in another city tests your comfort zone. And living in another country, where English isn’t the native language has certainly done that for me. For someone so pedantic about language and spelling (I was horrified to realise halfway through my blog posting that the automatic spellcheck wasn’t working as I’d thought, and that the fact that there was no little squiggly red lines on my page didn’t necessarily mean it was all as it should be…), it spins my head a little to think that now all of that doesn’t really matter, and sometimes it’s just a struggle to communicate, no matter how ‘incorrect’ that form of communication may be. We also become the sounding board for new words, forgotten words, mispronounced words… and you do start to look at your own language (and wish you’d learnt another one somewhere along the way). A child again, giving blank looks or confused smiles to strangers who assume you understand, and are perhaps just rude… or mute?? Sometimes I couldn’t even muster up the energy to reply ‘ik spreekt beeche Nederlands???’ (yes, I do know that’s not how you spell all of that, but at the time I didn’t) knowing you will never see them again. Just smile awkwardly and move on. For the first few months I was babysitting French children, who knew two more languages than me by the age of three… So when you can’t communicate with three-year olds… That’s when you really feel like an idiot.

My brain has tried to cram in more new things over the past six months than I can remember (and I probably can’t remember because those memories have been replaced with Dutch words). For me, my education has always been building on things slowly, grasping familiar threads and weaving them slowly together. Dutch has been an explosion of the unknown that has sent my brain into overdrive, constantly replaying sentences in my head until I can no longer stand the sound of the mystery voice on the audio tapes. I knew absolutely no Dutch before I arrived (actually, Sophie had taught me “kopje thee met suiker en melk”, a cup of tea with sugar and milk, during our flatting days drinking lots of tea…). Embarrassingly enough, I even had to look in the guidebook on the way here to find out what ‘hello’ was – and was relieved to find out that it was ‘hallo’… so this Dutch thing might be easy??! Well, not so much…

I’m grateful we decided to do a big European trip before settling somewhere, as it’s easy to get weighed down with the rhythms of every day life. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of having no job, no bills to pay, no home, and your life in your backpack. And you do get weighed down with the rest of it. Even with so much undiscovered terrain on our doorstep, it’s not as easy as we thought it would be to do a weekend in Spain here, a day or two in Italy here… Hopefully soon it might be, but this first six months has been all about finding our Dutch feet. And they’e not quite yet fitting into clogs.

The weather has been a struggle. I had to remind myself (when I realised how much more I’ve probably been eating), that this is the coldest winter in 24 years that our bodies have had to cope with. It’s also the coldest winter the Netherlands has seen in about ten years which doesn’t help. The canals froze over, as did our hands to our handlebars each time we ventured out in the sleety or snowy days to travel. I remember our eyes lighting up and our faces glowing with joy at the first sign of snow. I also remember my eyes stinging from having to bike in the driving snow… And also thinking how quickly these moments of magic become a mark of the ordinary. Sophie didn’t batter an eyelid after spending seasons working in snow towns… You also join the bike brigade like a local, cursing at people (generally on the token hired bikes) for getting in your way. Except the curses are under your breath since I can’t bear to translate some of the crude sayings that escape the lips of the liberal Dutch. Since sex is hardly taboo, disease becomes quite a topic of ‘vloekworden’ or curse words.

I guess it always takes longer than you think for things to fall into place the way you imagined they would (although friends of ours said they had found things here almost too easy – falling into a fantastic apartment, steady jobs and so on…), so is this where we thought we’d be after six months of European living…? Amongst the chaos, we quickly linked to those with a common thread. New Zealanders flock together, and have made some great friends, and not just New Zealanders! We finally have a fantastic apartment we feel at home in, and work is looking up (just as the weather will soon…). There were days early on, when I would trip over five cobblestones in one day and decide that this city may just be out to get me, but now it is starting to feel like a second home. And with our first trip back to New Zealand in three weeks after nearly ten months in Europe, it will certainly be a strange experience to leave and come back. Ten months of our old lives has been continuing without us and it’s a bit disjointing to live between two cities, which seem worlds away given that every photo update is clad with brown-skinned friends with glowing faces while I can’t feel my toes over here, and both of my sets of gloves have worn through the fingers from overuse. By the time we arrive back, Spring will be in the air, and hopefully some long-awaited sunshine will be setting in…

De eerst zes maanden... or the first six months remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

The rest of the morning was spent catching up on writing this thing, while Josh was content to nap. As we’d been so late the night before, lunch was a chance to share the delicious meal Hilde had prepared for us, and we were sighing with exuberant gratefulness at the effort they had gone to. It was the closest we’d come to feeling like home in a long time, and made us sigh with content. An entrée of salads and smoked meats was followed by a mouth-watering meal of German treats. When Hilde and Fritz wouldn’t take our full-faced no’s as an answer, we all devoured fresh fruit salad and delicious ice-cream until we couldn’t eat any more. It felt like a Christmas lunch.

We then drove to the centre of Biberach, a small, quaint area, perfectly maintained. After relaxing with a coffee in the square with the Gruners, we went our separate ways to wander the old town. The sun streamed around the white, bold buildings, contrasting with the red flowerpots suspended from their windows. We had decided that we would bake the Gruners some Anzac biscuits, and found all the ingredients we needed (even some form of golden syrup…), and then ended up strolling in and out of shops until we made our way home.

After our huge lunch, we had a small dinner, which I struggled with, as I was still so full! Afterwards, we gathered around to show them through some of our travel photos over the biscuits. Soon we were off to bed, knowing tomorrow was the day we were arriving in our new home city.

A relaxing day in Biberach, Germany remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We ate a last bite together of paninis and sweet treats, and bid farewell to Andy, off to catch a plane back to London. It was sad and strange to wave goodbye to our travelling companion of seven weeks. It felt like we were leaving something behind… Josh and I made our way to the train platform, Josh elated that he would finally get to ride a high-speed sparkling new ICE train. We were heading to southern Germany to stay with friends of Josh’s family, in a small town called Biberach. It would be a few days calm before the foreseeable storm of Amsterdam. Waiting at the platform, we were glad to see the train arrive on time, but it didn’t look like the ICE trains we’d seen before. Boarding the train through the old, tired doors, and glancing down a rundown passage with faded compartment seats, we were a bit confused.

Grasping our seat reservations, we entered what we thought was our cabin to see our seats occupied, and angry passengers saying that since the ICE train hadn’t turned up, everyone’s reservations were void. So much for paying for a reservation… We scrambled to the next available seat so at least we could sit down for the journey, which was with four middle-aged Germans. As all of the announcements were in German, and German only, the gentleman of the group became our translator. The story was that after problems with the ICE, a normal train was sent (the one we were enjoying the un-comfort of as they spoke), and since it couldn’t run at high-speed, we would be 90 minutes late. Josh and I were going to miss our connecting trains, and weren’t sure how we could make it to Biberach.

Everyone is the cabin was clearly peeved off, as we were. The ticket officer arrived at our cabin, and her explanation of what was going on was translated by our new-found train friends, and scribbling over our ticket, the officer rewrote our entire journey plan. We could still get to Biberach that night, although it would be a bit later than our original arrival of 7.30pm. Passing around our bags of lollies, we listened to German cursing about the way the day had turned out. Our hosts, Fritz and Hilde Gruner, didn’t have a cellphone number to reach them on, but we managed to contact their son, Patrick, who we’d visited in Munich. He passed on the message that at this rate, we would hopefully get there by 9.30pm.

Jumping on a different connection, we finally made it onto an ICE train in Ulm, which is incredibly fast to ride on. The train tilts as you speed around corners at almost 200km/h. We had beautiful seats in first class (thanking those winning train tickets again!), and it was surely a step up from the first part of the journey. I grabbed a bite to eat at the onboard café while Josh looked after our gear, and a lovely German woman struck up conversation about our travels and how far we’d come. I still couldn’t believe we were at the end of this phase as I rattled off country after country that we’d visited. The food was pretty good for a train meal as well…

Looking at the time now, it appeared that our new ICE train was running a bit slow. Typical. We still had one more connection to make in Ulm, about half an hour from Biberach. Josh hailed down one of the train staff to see whether we would get there on time, and after to-ing and fro-ing, and checking and re-checking, he informed us that no, the connection couldn’t wait, and we would have to wait another hour or so for the next train. Back on the phone to Patrick, and our hearts sunk as we arrived to hear the whistle of the conductors and our train pull out of the station. Another round of waiting… and finally, at 11pm, we pulled into Biberach station. Exhausted and red-eyed, we could see the Gruner’s waiting patiently with open arms. We drove back to their place, and were so grateful to be nearing a proper bed. After a quiet drink with them before bed, they insisted we sleep in as long as we liked the next morning, and that we would all share breakfast together when we rose. Basically already asleep at the table, we crawled into bed.

The battle to get to Biberach remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Zach and Jesse had never seen bubble and squeak before, and Zach decided ‘squiddly po’ was a much better name. We devoured the delicious brunch, and were introduced to a friend of theirs, as well as another couchsurfer, Kate, who had turned up to take our place. We were staying at a hostel that night, as my sister Sarah and her boyfriend Mike were due to arrive for the night the following day. The day passed very quickly, and before we knew it, it was time to move our gear and check into the hostel quite a way across town. We decided to go back to Zach and Jesse’s that night for drinks, as Kreuzberg was the place to go, and Josh and Andrew were very excited at the prospect of 50c swap-a-crate beer that was actually decent to drink.

We had a quick dinner at the Chinese restaurant by our hostel, and ventured back across the city to Zach’s. Many drinks followed, and the boys enjoyed some apple-flavoured tobacco from Zach’s Turkish pipe. Kate, the new couchsurfer, was studying to be a vet and introduced us to the pure magic of slug sex through the power of you tube, which has to be seen to be believed…

After a boogie and a sip of the Polish vodka we were still carting around with us, we made our way to a bar called ‘ä’ down the road from the flat. Kate had a 7am train the next morning, but with some not so gentle persuasion, we managed to drag her out, although she did manage a nap at the table… It was a great night out, followed by a very, very long metro ride home (thankfully they run all night), and we eventually crawled into bed.

After sleeping in, and waking feeling a little worse for wear, we made our way to the train station to book our tickets for the next day. Leaving Berlin for Biberach in southern Germany for two nights with Josh’s family friends. We thought we would check out the line again to climb the glass dome, but a standing queue was still winding its way beyond the doors and down the steps, so again, we moved on.

We asked for directions to a flea market, which we found a few metro stops away in Tiergarten. Hundreds of stalls filled with gems awaited, but most of the gems were sadly too difficult to relocate to Amsterdam! Old retro and antique furniture, books, jewellery, clothes, hats, old camera equipment… We managed to find a perfect hat for each of us, so we did get to take something away with us.

Very hungry by this stage, we weren’t sure which area to venture into for food, but saw a beer sign lit up on a lamppost, a sign that food may be near, but not appearing to lead anywhere. It turned out to be a restaurant in a boat on the river, hidden far from sight, but filled with what looked like many happy customers – always a good sign! We sat up on the deck, all of us choosing amazing fish dishes; something we hadn’t had in a while.

From there, we walked through the park to the Victory Tower Memorial, which we decided to conquer the steps of to get a great view. Our late night was creeping up on me, and with the prospect of another one ahead, we headed back to the hostel afterwards so I could attempt a nap before Sarah arrived. I think I managed a few winks before a phone call came to say that they sadly wouldn’t be making it…

We decided to go out for one last German meal as a party of three on our last night of travels together on the journey. A place around the corner from the hostel was recommended to us, but we arrived to find a private 50th birthday party well underway. The back up plan was one the beer garden by the zoo, so we jumped on the metro to make our way there. After a traditional German meal and a lovely beer, we ended up heading back to Zach and Jesse’s for one last night with these two seriously awesome dudes.

After a drink a their flat, we decided to check out another spot in the Kreuzberg bar scene. In the pouring rain. We had been amazingly lucky with weather on the trip, until we hit Berlin… Passing by so many little ‘hole in the wall’ bars jammed full of people, we found a spare booth in a retro bar. Fantastic music kept us bopping along all night with a drink or two. All pretty exhausted, it was actually nice to have a very low-key night to send us off. We loved that people off the street come around the bars selling bretzels and nice hot food…

When things wound down, we made our way home in the rain, kindly escorted to the metro station by a friendly Australian who had just moved to Berlin, and we met while walking in the wrong direction to the station… After a million changes to get across town and over an hour on the metro, we crawled into bed for our last night’s sleep in Berlin.

Berlin remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

The last morning in Dresden was spent packing up Christine’s flat and drowning ourselves in coffee before dropping our gear at the station. We had a few hours to spare before we were due for that day’s appointment – a tour of the VW Assembly Factory. Many of you may think that this would be one of the last things I would want to do, but the building itself, which we had driven past a few times, is absolutely incredible. So, the boys would get their technology fix, and I would get to see how it was all housed in an amazing glass structure.

We sat outside the Hygiene Museum (yes, Dresden has one, and it had been the subject of a running joke during our stay) for a coffee, and then we wandered through the extensive gardens by the factory before venturing in for our tour. Sheets of glass make up the exterior, so everything is visible and on display. Car frames are stacked up the height of the building, creating a curtain of glass and metal that is constantly being emptied and refilled. All the workmen wear white, emphasizing just how clean and pristine everything is. This is the site where they assemble their luxury Phaeton series to order. Customers come and watch their car being put together, and push buttons for some of the automated processes themselves. Amazing mechanical processes run through the building; magnetic floors guide man-less trolleys to their stations – all very high-tech. We got shown one of the assembled cars, feeling like we were at an open home for some luxury apartment we couldn’t afford, before taking a virtual test-drive. Josh picked a route through the Alps – a bad move, which left us queasy for the afternoon. It was then off to the station to catch our train to Berlin.

Our arrival at the brand new glass dome of the Berlin Hauptbanhof sheltered us from the heavy rain outside. This huge station covers three levels, and we arrived at the bottom floor, below a level of shopping, and more trains arriving on the top. A glorified shopping mall with a train station in there somewhere sits underneath 1.2 million kilograms of glass. Now there was yet another metro system to navigate, as well as Berlin’s S-Bahn inner city rail system. We had posted a message on the Berlin couchsurfing board as we’d had no luck finding a place, and were offered beds by Zach. He and his brother had moved to Berlin from California in the Kreuzberg area, which was filled with many of the great bars and places to go out in Berlin.

It was dark now, and we found our way to Zach’s just as the rain started to get heavier, and arrived to their fantastic place they had taken over from friends. Strangely enough, our last couch surfing experience for this trip had led us to our first couch surfing experience not staying with the country’s natives. It was our first experience of communicating with hosts in a European city that share our first language, although Jesse was doing pretty well with the German, and they had Spanish down, so we were a few behind… After a beer, we strolled down to their favourite neighbourhood Kebab store (and we had read in the Lonely Planet that Kebab’s are Berlin’s famous food, and the first Doner-style Kebab was from Kreuzberg itself…). We had to admit they were very tasty. It was getting quite late, and the rain wasn’t going anywhere, but Zach went out to meet a friend for a drink with Josh and Andrew in tow, while Jesse and I called it a night.

We awoke to a treat of fresh pancakes with Canadian maple syrup cooked by Zach (delish!) for breakfast, preparing us for a day of sightseeing. After a brief encounter with a handmade chocolate shop for coffees and tastings, we stepped into the lobby of a hotel on the same street, with a towering fish tank wrapped around a glass elevator of the entrance. Mesmerized, we watched guests descending though a translucent wall of fish before we decided we’d move on.

Now we were across from the book-burning memorial – a sealed room beneath the ground lined with empty bookshelves you view through a glass window from above. Discovering the area on foot, we made our way to the Brandenburg Gate, and our first glimpse of the outline of the Berlin wall marked on the roads throughout the city. Nearby, the Reichstag building with its unique climbable glass dome ceiling awaited, although after seeing the line, we decided that could wait for another day.

We walked through Tiergarten to the Soviet Statue, and then on to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, where thousands of concrete blocks of varying heights on undulating ground create a grey and harsh ‘cemetery’; rows and rows of endless ‘graves’ just waiting for you to get lost amongst. The museum lies beneath, and you have to enter from a certain point to even see it, but upon discovering the space, we decided to subject ourselves to more astonishingly devastating recounts of life during the Holocaust. Reading notes salvaged from the time were probably some of the most shocking things to read, the truth striking a real chord. It was exhausting to be down there, and a while later, we emerged from underground.

Surfacing in completely the wrong area for food, we paced the streets, back and forth, until we finally found a deli and ate sandwiches at a leaner outside, realising later we should have definitely sat down. More walking led us to Potsdamer Platz, where remnants of the wall remain, as the temperature really started to drop. We followed the footprint of the wall towards Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point from East to West Berlin during the war. Arriving via the temporary exhibition on the war being reconstructed to be permanent, by the time we got there we’d had a complete overload of information so late in the day. Checkpoint Charlie even had a place where you could get your passport stamped… come on…

Andrew and I decided that we had spent enough of our trip engrossed in the war and communism, and planned to avoid anything else related to either for the rest of our Berlin days. We were meeting Zach that night to go to the free Museum night, so we started to make our way towards the area, before discovering he was running late just as the cold rain began to pour. Taking shelter in a nearby café with a hot drink until Zach arrived, we then visited the Alte Gallery, housing 18th and 19th Century paintings (the boys were happy they had heard of some of the artists, including Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas…). We ended up heading back to Zach’s for an early night with a few quiet drinks.

Last stop with Andy... Berlin remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

After some breakfast from the bakery on the corner of Christine’s street, we ventured into Dresden under a coat of grey rainclouds. We started in the old town (which is actually newer than the ‘new town’ now that they’ve rebuilt it), and Josh and Andy were immediately taken with the 1-euro wurst stand, and after some awful coffees (Andy poured his town a drain in the town square), we decided to start our sightseeing.

We started outside the architecturally grand Opera House before entering the expansive grounds of the Zwinger, which housed an incredible sculptural fountain, and a porcelain glockenspiel that began to chime just as the rain began to fall. Ducking for cover, we took shelter in the Lady Church, which has only recently finished being reconstructed to the original style and plans. Remnants of the original building stand outside as a constant reminder of its bullet-riddled history. We wandered towards the river past a porcelain mural, over 50 metres in length.

Across the bridge was the ‘new town’ and we walked back towards Neustadt where we’d eaten the night before and found a café for lunch. The food was tasty, although over here they tend to drown everything in dressing… We trolled through second-hand stores; I was tempted by a hat, but held off for a better one. The plan was to meet Christine for a drink after her exam before she left for her parents, but when we didn’t hear from her, we eventually went back to her place. Sadly, we found a postcard saying she hadn’t heard from us, and she hadn’t received our messages and she’d had to leave. Such a pity, as that was the last we got to see of her. We ended up having a quiet night in from the rain, which suited me quite fine, as I wasn’t feeling that fantastic and wanted to be back on form for our upcoming trip to Berlin, the last destination before we parted ways!

The next morning I decided to catch up on sleep and have a day around the house, leaving Josh and Andrew to do a bit of exploring without me. Josh will have to fill you in on that day though...

A rainy day in Dresden remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Very tired by now, we found a café open on our way back to the hostel and had coffees and bakery delights before heading back to pack and check out. Leaving the hostel, our first stop was the train station to book tickets to our next destination (Dresden in Germany), and to check our luggage into lockers, and then we made our way back into town. Initially getting lost when we left the station in the wrong direction, we finally found the river to guide us back, and walked its length towards the metronome on the hill (although it wasn’t a very pleasant walk down the very dirty river). We passed through a beergarden and ended up at the huge, ticking, swaying contraption, which looked interesting from afar, but the area was so badly covered in graffiti, a wire strung with shoes swung above us, and sitting in the sparsely dry area, the metronome didn’t quite have the same effect from up close, where the loudly creaking mechanical noises filled the air.

From there we were due to meet Djali and take out a paddleboat on the river. We got some picnic supplies together and walked down to the river in the sun. Splaying ourselves out on the grass on one of the islands, we unpacked our goodies and picnicked until Djali arrived. We then jumped into a boat to take a spin around the bridges. It was such a warm and clear day, the sun danced across the water (as Frank Gehry’s ‘Dancing House’ appeared to mimic in the background. Birds ducked and dived around the boat, skidding into the water, and we spent an hour swapping over paddlers and passengers (and one stop up to a river-side dock to buy a beer for Djali and Andy to enjoy while it was our turn to paddle), before we had to leave for the station to catch our train.

Djali joined us for the ride to the station, and when we discovered the train was running late, we waited at the only dingy bar in the station, and got a bit ripped off by the owner for some Sprite since we couldn’t speak Czech… But hey, it was our last day in Czech and we had to use up the coins anyway… We made our departure, and were off to Germany again.

A short two-hour train ride to Dresden, and the boys took advantage of the first-class travel and ordered beers to their seats (not that it’s like first-class flights where you don’t have to pay). We arrived at a gleaming new train station, and an outlook onto a new city filled with glass structures. Dresden was almost completely destroyed during the war, and so much work has gone into building it back up. Even the trams were amazing, and the best we’d seen on the whole trip. We were staying with Christine from couchsurfing, who we’d met through our hosts Urs and Rahel in Zurich and had offered us a place to stay. She was in-between flatmates and had the place to herself, but was leaving to stay with her parents the following day to study for her exams, and offered us to stay on without her, which was incredibly generous.

We all jumped in the car to find some dinner, and Christine drove us to one of Dresden’s many castles. Deciding to ignore the cordoning-off tape, we ducked under and around the side of the building in the pitch-black night to the stunning balcony overlooking the river and fountains. After a quick view, we drove to Neustadt, the good place for bars and shopping, which almost had a Wellington vibe to it, and sat down at a beergarden for dinner and a drink (okay, maybe not quite Wellington…). A friend of Christine’s from Architecture school joined us, and we stayed eating wurst, potatoes, salad, and chatting over a drink before we called it a night as Christine had an exam early the next morning.

The last day in Prague, then off to Germany. Again. remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

The incredible St Vitus Cathedral was busier than Notre Dame, and you had to walk at a slow crawl to move through the space. Intricate sculptures filled the huge area, and light streamed through windows, hitting dust particles in the air. Besides the onslaught of tourists, it was quite a spectacular space. Golden Lane led us back out to the gates, and is a street of tiny houses built into the castle walls where people apparently still live, but is not much more than a line of tourist shops. After a brief visit to the towers filled with old torture devices, we decided it was time to leave for lunch.

After a nice healthy lunch we walked down the other side of the river, past the canals in a very beautiful area. We ended up at the John Lennon wall; a wall dedicated to peace and love, with a sculpture of John’s face, and wrote our names in the paint. After a coffee we climbed up the St. Nicholas Church tower, although we had to wait for a mother holding her kid over a drain to pee right in the entrance… It was a great view once we reached the top. Hundreds of spires throughout the city from the number of churches everywhere. We then visited the church itself, a baroque painted space, where you could visit the second level to an exhibition of painted scenes from the bible.

We left and conquered the hill that leads up to a huge tower you can climb, based on the Eiffel Tower, and given the hill that its standing on, its apparently as high as the Eiffel Tower itself from its peak. Hot and bothered, we snacked on icecreams on the way up, and then climbed to the top of the tower. Fantastic views, but it was so crowded at the top we couldn’t last long crammed into the enclosure. We were meeting Djali for dinner, and had an hour to spare, so quickly ran back to the hostel to change, and then met her back near the tower to try out a restaurant halfway up the hill. As we approached, the sound of a wedding band playing some atrocious music filled our ears, and we discovered the restaurant was booked out for the event. Back down the hill, we went to another of Djali’s recommendations, which was a Czech restaurant with delicious food and beer. All lovely slow-cooked meals…

Full and content, we made our way across one of the bridges, past beautifully lit buildings, and lights streaming across the river. Thousands of birds flew up over the museum lit from below, a breathtaking sight, and one we tried to capture on film unsuccessfully. We stood for a few minutes clapping and whistling, trying to recreate the moment, but gave up and headed for a few cocktails before leaving, as this time we WERE going to get up at 5.30am for Charles Bridge.

The 'Highest' Points of Prague remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We caught a tram towards Vysehrad, an ancient hilltop fortress that also serves as an escape from the crowds of central Prague. After walking in the wrong direction for awhile, and ending up at a whole different metro stop, we caught the metro back to where we started, and decided it wasn’t worth trying to find the castle again without a little coffee cure. We then climbed the hill to the fortress, which unlike Prague’s main castle (and main tourist attraction) is free to see. The southern side gave us great views of Prague, beyond the city centre and out to the blocks of communist apartments. It was a quiet and peaceful area, and a nice start to what we knew would be a very tourist-filled visit. An immaculate garden of sculptures was a cemetery, and home to famous Czechs. It lay beside yet another glorious church. After seeing so many, my memory is failing me in distinguishing one from another at times…

We strolled back down from the castle to walk along the riverside into Prague, passing by Frank Gehry’s ‘Fred and Ginger’ (now called ‘Dancing House’, which we took some great photos of later…), and onto one of the islands in the river with a great view of the crossing bridges. We thought we’d check out the paddleboat hire place on the Sunday. Eva had suggested a place she loved called Le Louvre for lunch, which was not far from the island. It turned out to be quite a fine dining place, but relatively inexpensive in Euros. The boys chose well and loved their chicken dishes, and while my vegetarian meal was sadly very bland, the place was great.

It was then time to be on our way to Djali’s, via a supermarket for some dinner goods, and to pick out a few bottles of Czech wine (a random choice, which ended up being pretty good). We bypassed Eva’s place to collect our gear, with flowers in hand, and waited in her neighbourhood until she could meet us. The boys decided to grab a quick beer at the local pub, which was a dark and dingy place, and Eva later told us it is open 24/7 and she usually steers clear of it. Cheap as chips, the tiny place was filled with workers and smoke and we took a seat outside in the sun. Eva joined us for a beer before leaving to catch her flight for work, and then we jumped on the bus to find our way to Djali’s.

We arrived to her area, which was a ‘tech-city’, and home to all of the offices of IBM etc. Greeted with a big smile, we shared some cheese and wine before dinner and enjoyed a delicious meal while we learnt of Djali’s travels. She studies in the UK, so is constantly travelling back and forth, and also lived in Amsterdam for a while as well. Almost ready for bed, but not quite, Djali told us about a beergarden in the forest by her place that we should visit. We grabbed some torches and trekked off into the night. A very strange place to have a beergarden, it seemed like we were walking for a long time, down a narrow path surrounded by forest, with only the light from our torches and not another soul in sight. We reached an enclosure with a family of deer, and then straight up ahead, the lights of the beergarden emerged. A few others were there, but the huge table-filled garden was basically empty. After one drink we headed back, the walk feeling a lot shorter on the way back, and off to bed.

After eggs for brekkie, we all got a little too comfy at Djali’s and we had a few things to sort out, so we didn’t end up leaving her place until lunchtime. Djali had invited us to stay for the weekend, but we had already booked a hostel that we couldn’t cancel, so agreed to meet up with her that night instead. We packed our gear up and headed for the hostel in the centre of the old town, dumped our gear, and then thought about lunch. A US cowboy (literally, he was a travelling rodeo cowboy) was staying at the hostel, and gave us some great advice on things to see and do, marking out a map for us.

We followed a recommendation for cheap authentic food, and retreated into a wee Czech place around the corner from our hostel, and ordered from the friendly waiter who suggested an apparent favourite of his for Josh’s meal. After forgetting our order and having to ask for them again, we ended up waiting for an hour, getting hungrier by the minute, and impatient, as we just wanted to get out and see the city. On the upside, we did miss most of the rainstorm tucked away inside. Our food finally arrived, and Josh’s was by far the most interesting you could say, and he was definitely the one who lost out on this occasion. His traditional Czech meal comprised of a dish of beef schnitzel cooked in a cranberry cream sauce, but garnished with a huge swirl of whipped cream. Of a canned variety. Hmmm…. My goulash with horseradish and salad was delish, and Andy’s smoked meats and dumplings was pretty good so he said…

We eventually got out of there and made a beeline for the old town. The place was jam-packed with people, and a lot of the tourist areas have become ridiculously commercialised. But behind all of that still lies a city filled with beautiful architecture and a lot of history. Passing by the powdertower by one of the architecturally stunning theatres, we ended up in the main square, which is dominated by the huge statue – Jan Hus monument, the Town Hall, Tyn Church (1365), and St Nicholas Church (1730s). A Salvidor Dali exhibition was on, but was mainly of his ceramic work and portraits of him, so we passed. A visit to Tyn Church was followed by a trip to the communist museum (recommended by the cowboy). Interestingly enough, it’s in the same building as McDonald’s and a casino… The place was an overload of information, and while incredibly interesting, I struggled to read the text and difficult translations, but realised just how much some of these countries have been through.

We were supposed to meet Djali and some of her couchsurfing friends for dinner, but it was quite far out from the centre and we were only halfway through the museum, so we decided to meet them for drinks instead. It meant grabbing some dinner from the dreaded tourist zone on the way to meet them, which tasted like dreaded tourist food too. Past the stunning museum, all lit up at night, through yet another underground tunnel worthy of breath-holding, before we emerged on the other side to climb the hill to meet the group at a beergarden. We arrived just before they did, and sat down for a drink before a swarm of people from every corner of the globe emerged. A few Prague locals, a few stopping by, and a few staying on a while. Everyone had stories to tell about places they’d been, including a guy from Australia who rattled on about his hatred for Amsterdam before discovering we were moving there. A wine expert from France who imported wine from all around the world, including New Zealand, and we suggested a few of our favourites that he should try. He said he would order some cases and host a New Zealand wine party if we go back to Prague.

Everyone was really lovely, but we decided to leave the group after drinks when they decided to go and hit some clubs, as we were planning to get up at 5am to visit Charles Bridge by the light of early morning and beat the unrelenting daytime crowds. Our walk home down the main street let us bear witness to some of the trashiest bars I’ve seen in a long time, including woman in leopard-print skin tight attire dancing to techno and flashing lights with ultra cool sunglasses on outside clubs trying to entice you in. Back to the hostel we thought…

The first few days in Prague remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We walked towards the river to a church with a very grand exterior (although the interior views were slightly disrupted by the loud vacuuming being undertaken). It was nearing midday, and we decided to make our way back towards the town square to see the 12pm viewing of the communist astronomical clock, where workers have replaced the original figures of saints. Reviews had told us it was very uninspiring, and it certainly lived up to its reputation, but had us laughing at the pathetic speed at which it turned, and the huge crowd it had drawn despite.

From there it was off to a café which was famous for its dark and white chocolate pies… so we tried them both… delicious. Chocolated up, we walked around some of the old fortifications down by the river, and across to the botanical gardens. They weren’t anything special, and seemed to be quite a random mix of different things, but we did have a peaceful walk amongst the greenery before ending up at another square in the old town. Sadly, a parking lot had been built around the beautiful statues. We found another church down an alleyway that looked very plain from the outside, but turned out to be one of the most stunning interiors we’d seen through Europe.

After a vegetarian lunch at a cafeteria-style eatery, we spent the rest of the afternoon lazing in a park (where Andy got to enjoy his favourite activity known as tops off time…) then we had to collect our bags before jumping in a taxi to the train station. Luckily the speed-racer taxi driver got us all there unharmed. After a bit of a delay our train arrived, and we were on the way to Prague.

We decided we couldn’t keep carting around the Eger wine (through yet another country), so shared it amongst us on the train. Yes, still out of the classy 2L container. Our train arrived just after 9pm in Prague, and we were staying that night with a couchsurfer, Eva, who had named a bar for us to meet her at by the train station. She was running a bit late, and we made our way there to what turned out to be the rowdiest sports bar on a touristy street filled with cabaret clubs and noisy blokes. A soccer match was playing on the big screen and the bar was filled with people; not really our kind of place. Deciding to wait outside turned out to be an interesting event in itself, as Andrew became a leaning post for an old drunk guy who desperately wanted a hug (and who we hoped was not a cleverly disguised pick-pocket).

Eva and a friend of hers arrived, and we all decided to skip the sports bar and headed to a strange wee bar down the road that looked like someone’s living room, and we were the only ones there. We stayed there for a while, the boys tried some Czech beer, and then we caught the last train back to Eva’s place. She lived a 15-minute metro ride away, then a 15-minute bus from there. Her place was an apartment in a communist-style apartment block, and was a really nice place she was renovating. Eva has travelled a lot, once lived in Kazakhstan for a while, and now works between Prague and Kazakhstan (hadn’t met anyone that had lived there before). We sat up and chatted for a while, were introduced to yet another gorgeous kitten, and then retreated to bed.

One day in Olomouc, Czech Republic remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We strolled around the large main square, and found a camping store along the way. The area is lined with colourful buildings, and a modern fountain in the centre. In need of food, we went to another cafeteria-style place recommended by Lonely Planet. It was near the university and a bit of a student haunt, but as it wasn’t study time, it was a bit quiet and we got in just before closing. It was a bit difficult to order as they didn’t speak much English, but our hand gestures were hopefully easy enough to understand! We did end up with three tasty cheap meals (even if some were positively drowned in sauce), but had to almost shovel them down as we soon became the only ones in the whole place and they were waiting to close.

We walked a few of the outer blocks and past the river, noticing the hundreds of bridges that cross it at various points. Back to the centre, and a guy at the information desk recommended a few places to go for a drink, so we went and sat down in one of the quieter bars to map out the next day. We needed to sort out what time we were leaving for Olomouc in the Czech Republic, which meant checking the train times online, so after one drink it was back to the hostel for some more planning. Now realising we should have really planned this part earlier, it was going to be more difficult to get there than we thought. Even though it was a short distance, the train route was going to take eight hours, and we would be cutting it fine on time to see both Wroclaw and Olomouc as the train only left a few times a day. After much debate about whether to just leave Wroclaw in the morning, go straight to Prague and miss Olomouc, have one less day in Prague, and so on, we came to a compromise. We would have to get up really early and do a half-day in Wroclaw, travel to Olomouc in the afternoon and have an early night there. Then we would do a day in Olomouc before leaving in the evening for Prague. Although the thought exhausted us somewhat, we were here now, and we needed to make the most of it. It was then off to bed for as much sleep as we could get before our 6.30am start.

Rising as early as we planned, Josh woke to some unwelcome visitors with his turn of a dose of bedbugs… After a quick breakfast at the hostel we made our way to the train station to book our tickets for Olomouc. From there, we were half running, half walking to see as much as we could before our train left at 1pm. Past the statues of the ‘anonymous pedestrians’, great photo-worthy statues of workers appearing to retreat underground on one side of an intersection and appear on the other.
We walked around the river to the Panorama of Raclawicka, which is a 360° painting of the 1794 battle of the Polish peasants against Russian forces. It is an impressive 114m length by 15m, made of canvas pieces sewn together, and is housed in a specially designed circular building so it wraps the walls. An incredibly detailed painting, it would have been better to admire it without the obligatory accompanied tour with audio guide… Our next destination was Ostrow Tumski (Cathedral Island), which is a peacefully serene place, scattered with churches and pristinely maintained buildings. We visited the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, and caught the lift (the first lift we’d seen in a church tower) to the top for a great view.

On our way to get food for lunch we ended up visiting a few more churches, and strolled through the city on our way back to the hostel to get our gear. After an hour stopover in Ostrava, a very industrial Czech city, and battling the woman in the train station to use the toilet with Euro coins since we had no Czech money yet, we were back on the train to Olomouc. Arriving at 9pm, we caught a taxi to our accommodation, which we finally made it to despite our taxi driver getting lost three times; lucky the fares are so cheap… We relaxed with a few glasses of our red wine from Eger in Hungary, and ended up getting enthralled in Shawshank Redemption, even though it was dubbed over in Czech. It seems we had all seen it so often we could follow it regardless…

From Krakow to Wroclaw remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We sat waiting for our guide, and an Australian guy sat next to us who joined us for the tour. The guide was a middle-aged man with a very dry sense of humour who gave us a few laughs along the way. We didn’t really know what to expect, but the experience ended up feeling like a theme park ride. Except there was no ride. After descending 120m by staircase, we were introduced to the story of the mines (and the princess who the chapel was built for) through a cheesy demonstration with flashing lights on carved statues. The tour was filled with more of the same staged exhibits (one of which the guide even mocked), but the chapel itself was quite incredible. They hold weddings from time to time in the high-ceilinged space filled with religious carvings, and everything down to the crystals on the chandeliers was carved from salt.

The (only) other interesting thing was the salt-water lakes, which are filled with so much salt a diver would need so many kilograms of weights to even break the surface. After our tour was over we joined our guide in the museum, which was actually another highlight, as it was far away from the cheesy touristy performance. We then caught a lift to the top and jumped back on a bus into Krakow. Andrew also mentioned that it had been bugging him that he’d seen the Australian guy on our tour somewhere before, and we realised it was the same guy who had been annoyingly chatting up girls in the Hungarian bar not long ago (well, we were pretty sure, but Josh was slightly sceptical)… small world though.

We had planned to meet Marcin and some of his friends for drinks that night (an introduction to Polish vodka), and so Josh, Andrew and I went to Kazimierz for dinner beforehand. This time I was the meal-loser, as the boys trout meals were very tasty, but my salmon dish was very average. We had a few drinks there before moving on to a bar called Singer, which we’d admired during the day before, as all the tables are old Singer sewing machine tables. Walking in to the vibrant jazz playing throughout the bar, we somehow managed to find a seat, which according to Marcin is apparently VERY difficult on a Friday night, but we were in the right place at the right time.

Our first introduction was to Zubrowka vodka with apple juice, which is a pretty standard drink and quite delicious. Then we moved onto the honey vodka we had tried the night before… By this stage Josh was pulling a repeat of my Valence performance from many weeks ago, and barely staying awake at the table. Deciding he desperately needed some sleep, he went to bed and Andrew and I powered on to entertain our host, or be entertained… moving on to cherry vodka. Then there was an awful shot Marcin made us try, that even he said was disgusting and must have been a bad brand… We spent the evening trying to brush up on our Polish language skills, and teaching the Poles some English tongue twisters and vice versa. As we were leaving, one of their friends invited us to a party, but scared that we wouldn’t know the way back to our hostel, we wisely decided to decline. Instead, we planned to meet Marcin again for a trip out to Nowa Huta – the communist ‘workers paradise’.

Andrew and I awoke to discover that Polish vodka definitely gives you a hangover. Due to visit Nowa Huta with Marcin, we stopped for another round of goulash and potato pancakes on the way to meet him, which helped a little. The idea behind the area was to build a ‘workers paradise’ for the employees of the nearby steel mill in the 1950s. The area was free from churches or religious icons, and instead a purely practical, functional, grey, typical communist style area. The entire area, which was like a large suburb, was built within five years, and most of the buildings still retained their original 50s décor, but the whole idea failed, and now it is almost a ghost town.

The ‘milk-bar’ cafeteria had a 1950s drab interior, and was a bit of a depressing place. We went for a coffee in a bar covered with frills and fake flowers in a very folky style, which was a snapshot of its original glory. There was also a small museum that displayed propaganda posters and photos of Nowa Huta in the 1950s, and put the hard workers on pedestals. The idea was that their work could be measured in percentages, and there is a famous image of workers wearing sashes showing their percentage worked – one worker displaying 110%. As the area was being built the workers had to install everything that they could as it arrived, so that nothing was sitting around waiting. There is another famous image of a toilet being installed on the second floor of a building before the floor is even there, and instead it is held up by scaffolding next to a part-wall with a sink in it. It was very interesting to see the place now, and what it had become. We also travelled a bit further down the road, and ended up at the gates of the steel mill, which used to be named after Lenin, but now bears its new name.

It was nearing evening, and Marcin had invited us to another barbecue at his place to celebrate his flatmate’s birthday. We decided to make them good old-fashioned corn fritters and zucchini fritters, which both went down a treat. We were planning to spend the next day climbing the Tatra mountains on the border, which meant a 5am start, so we skipped the drinks that night and left around 10.30pm, all a bit shattered.

It rained all night long, so we didn’t think the forecast would be good for climbing the Tatras. We woke up at 5am, and Marcin said the weather wasn’t looking great, so we had to cancel, and ended up going back to sleep (with earplugs in, since some incredibly raucous knobs had decided to make a racket coming home from town). We decided that we hadn’t actually had a day off from being tourists since we’d started the trip and were all a little tired. A restful day was much needed, so we began walking to Kazimierz for some brunch, via a great little coffee place on our block. The Sunday flea markets were in full swing in the square, so we strolled through, and then sat down for brunch at a café made from instruments – pieces of pianos and trumpets making up the bar. We realised it was time to plan some more of our trip, as we’d been in Krakow for quite a while (only compared to how long we’d spent anywhere else…), but had a few more places we definitely wanted to see before we arrived in Prague. We sadly wouldn’t make the Tatras this trip, and decided from here it was up to Wroclaw to see a different Polish city, and then down to the Czech Republic. On the way back to the hostel we stopped by an antique store, which had some really great stuff, and Andrew bought a brass mortar and pestal similar to one he’d been admiring at Marcin’s place. The rest of the afternoon was spent booking hostels and looking for couchsurfing hosts, which both take up so much time! Then we decided as it was truly our day off from sightseeing, it was time to do something mindless and relaxing, and ended up at the cinema to see the new Batman movie (which we all loved).

When we arrived back at the hostel, the lovely girl Mary that worked there and we’d had drinks with a few nights earlier had cooked us a traditional Polish meal, since she said that we hadn’t tried traditional Polish food unless we’d had it homemade for us. She generously whipped up some cottage cheese dumplings on the hostel stove while she was working, and it was a very tasty meal, and such a nice surprise! We finished our meal off with a few sips of cherry vodka, and then the boys played pool and had a drink down in the bar with Mary while I tried to catch up on some journal writing. Seeing as how far behind I am now, I’m not sure how far I actually caught up then. Some very drunk young Irish guys at the hostel caused a bit of a scene, and one got kicked out of the hostel bar and fell asleep in the movie room… after stumbling from group to group hurling slurred comments. It was rather embarrassing to watch really, and we weren’t surprised to hear they even got kicked out of an Irish bar in Prague a week earlier. Hmmmm…

The next few days in Poland remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Knowing we were about to embark on an incredibly low day with a visit to the Auschwitz extermination camps, we boarded a bus and settled in for the two-hour journey to the area. We decided to get a guided tour, and watched the introduction movie beforehand. An old black and white harrowing introduction, the film was filled with real-life images from the liberation of the camps, and the frail and starving bodies of those that somehow made it through. We met our guide outside, who had been working there for ten years, dedicated to telling the story of what happened in the area she grew up in. We wandered the first camp and the smaller of the two, Auschwitz I with our guide, and were led through some of the most significant places, although she said you could spend a whole two days there and still not see everything.

I don’t really know how to describe it, so I won’t try, but it was an emotionally exhausting day, and haunting to see the real possessions that remained behind, and the confinement they were forced to endure. We moved on to Auschwitz II Birkenau where after an introduction to the site we were left to wander freely. Our guide said that being there in the heat of summer is a bit of a toned-down tour, as the place has far more impact in the winter when it's darker earlier and covered in snow. You get the sense of how cold and horrible the conditions were. The most horrifying thing about the second site was the sheer scale of the area, and we walked the grounds until the last bus returned to the original site. With one hour to spare before it was time to return we visited some of the exhibitions about particular countries, including the Netherlands, and the Hungarian exhibition, which you entered to the sound of a beating heart.

After seven hours out there, we boarded a bus back to Krakow and arrived back around 9pm. Our late dinner was spent at a brightly coloured Polish place, where vegetables lined the walls and costumed hosts served the meals. Josh and Andrew got a little carried away ordering sides for their meals of turkey and pork and ended up with way too much food to handle, and I tried the traditional Polish dumplings, filled with mushrooms and sauerkraut, which were quite tasty once I’d added a bit of chilli to them. It was then back to the hostel, and Andrew dashed out to buy some of the traditional Polish honey liqueur vodka, which we sipped away quietly at in the hostel. We invited Mary, the lovely girl working behind the hostel desk that night, to join us for a drink and sat up chatting about travels for a while before bed.

A visit to Auschwitz remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Our hostel lay between the old town and the Jewish quarter, the latter home to the best bars in Krakow. We had an email full of recommendations from Brian, who we’d met in Lake Bled, which was incredibly helpful and gave us some tips on good cheap places to eat (which there are plenty of in Poland). We started at the Jewish Quarter ‘Kazimierz’, and visited the sombre ‘new’ cemetery once the guys had found things to cover their heads with. Filled with remains of headstones destroyed in the war, walls that bordered the graveyard had been created from pieces of broken headstones – a very moving sight. No one else was there, and we wandered the grounds in silence. The area has many synagogues, and we visited one that had another cemetery attached, and witnessed a Rabbi ceremonially adorning his robes.

We entered some churches along our way to Wawel castle, and walked around the grounds to enter Wawel cathedral – home to the burial tombs of Polish royalty. Feeling quite hungry by now, we found lunch at a typical Polish café, and filled ourselves up with soups, pastas and salad. Very fatigued from our non-existent sleep, we used our last ounces of energy to make it back to the train station to collect our gear so we could go back to the hostel for a nap. We had been in touch with a Krakow couchsurfer, Marcin, who had said that although he couldn’t host us as his house was already filled with guests, that we had organised a barbecue at his place for that night. We knew we couldn’t cope without sleep, so we managed a two-hour nap before picking up some goodies for the barbecue on our way to Marcin’s.

His house was a 15-minute bus ride away, and as we got further out of the city we started to panic that we were going the wrong way, but luckily we sat tight and were heading in the right direction. With the 2L of bull’s blood under our arms, we sat down outside with Marcin and his friends and enjoyed some food and drinks. A great bunch of people, they all gave us advice on what to do and what not to do in Poland, and warned us that visiting Krakow was not visiting the ‘real’ Poland, and there were certain communist areas that would give us a more accurate impression. We managed to make it to the bus stop in time for a night bus, and crawled into our hostel bunks for some much-needed sleep.

Struggling without sleep remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Eger’s highlight was said to be the wine region, and not too far a walk from the town centre lay ‘the valley of beautiful women’, which was where all the wine caves were, and is apparently regarded as an incredibly deceiving name for the area… We arrived to find a varied mixture of different caves, from branded boutiquey renovated caves to basic ‘holes in the ground’ with mould-lined ceilings and big barrels of booze in the back. The idea is that you buy wine by the 2L plastic jug to take away with you. We started in one of the nicer places and enjoyed a different red each inside - each delicious, and it was so lovely to sit in a cool cave during the intense heat of the day. It was then time to move on to some of the cheaper places for some more taste testing, and we were on a mission to find some more bull’s blood to take to Poland, and something else a bit different. We tried some very sweet reds, which were quite odd to us, and some very tasty ones that you could only buy by the bottle, but our testing paid off and we walked away with 2L of bull’s blood, 2L of a lovely cabernet sauvignon, and a small bottle of bull’s blood so that the boys could recreate the legend of the bull’s blood name now that their beards were coming in quite nicely. All very cheaply priced and delicious!

It was nearly time to leave Eger, and we headed back to our accommodation to collect our things before running to get some pizzas for a picnic in the park before boarding our train. Luckily no one was around to witness Josh and Andrew with their tops off, pouring red wine through their beards and playing up to the camera.

We made our way to the station prepared for a long journey ahead of us, as we were catching a night train to Krakow. We had a change to make to connect up to the Krakow train, and when we arrived at the station with 15 minutes to spare before our train arrived, Andrew went to check out which platform we were leaving from. While he was checking, a train pulled up for Krakow, and we checked with the conductor (who didn’t speak much English) what time it would leave to see if it was our train. We thought he told us it would leave in 15 minutes, but when the train took off as we were waiting for Andrew we hit panic mode. Josh found another conductor who said it wasn’t our one (whew!) and that ours was running 45 minutes late. Then he left. Now we were basically the only ones at the whole station, waiting on the platform in the darkness, hoping like hell that the train would arrive. It finally did, and we jumped onto the most rickety old carriage, not sure we would be able to sleep a wink before we arrived into Krakow around 6am.

Josh searched down the rest of the train, and found a slightly better carriage (with seat covers), but the only sleeper carts were getting released from the train halfway through our journey in Slovakia. Josh met a Slovakian family down the train while trying to charge his computer at a power point in the hallway, and made instant friends who bought him a beer when they found out he was from New Zealand, gave him a gift of Bulgarian alcohol they had bought on their family holiday, and warmed his heart a little! Especially as all he had to offer in return was a tacky New Zealand postcard, but they were just lovely.It was beginning to get late, and we contorted our bodies through the cabin, but none of us slept more than a few very broken hours, in the uncomfortable, noisy cabin which got colder and colder as the night went on. We arrived just before 6am to a chilly dawn at the station, all very drowsy, unsure how we could face the day ahead...

Eger, Hungary remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

One side provided great views of Buda, where large houses clung for their lives onto the cliffs. We arrived at Magdalen Tower, which at first looked like a tower in the middle of a square, but as we walked closer we saw the remains of the walls of a church destroyed in WWII, except for the tower, and one window, which stood like the memory of a soldier in the corner. Josh and Andrew visited Matthais church, but I had to skip that one as I had opted for shortish shorts that day, and they had a strict ‘no knees’ dress code. I did get to see the photos though, of a beautifuly painted pattern interior very different to the sculptural interiors we’d seen.

Crowds of people were in the area for a folk art festival, and we skipped part of the buildings on the hill to avoid both the swarms of folk enthusiasts and the entrance fee, and instead walked the bridge over the river where the festival continued with masses of food and art stores lining the sides from beginning to end. We were also tempted by the funnel cake at the end of the bridge, but instead kept our appetites hungry for dinner.

Deciding to try out a recommended Italian restaurant became a huge success, as we had one of the tastiest and most flavoursome meals we’d had in a long while. My Tuscan tomato soup was absolutely scrumptious, and the house-made pastas and risottos were delicious. Our very friendly waiter saw me looking at the wine list and recommended a perfect accompaniment – a red from the Eger wine region in Hungary we were due to visit the next day. Very full and satisfied, we made our way back to Krisztina’s (sadly she hadn’t been able to join us for dinner), and shared some of our travel photos with her over a glass of wine before we headed to bed for our last night in Budapest.

The following morning we left the house early when Krisztina left for work to book tickets for our next part of the journey after Eger, which was our trip to Krakow in Poland. We had failed to remember it was the day after the Sziget festival had ended, and swarms of tired and hungover backpacking campers had filled the station. After waiting an hour or so to get seen by a ticket issuer, Josh and Andrew received some truly surly service by an attendant, and had we not checked earlier online tht you could book the route we wanted, we would have ended up backtracking for a few hours to catch a train to our destination. Apparently we were a huge hassle…

Finally, with tickets in hand, we locked up our luggage at the station and caught a bus to the Gellat thermal baths for a few hours of relaxing before our train trip to Eger. These baths were a lot less like a family pool than some of the others, and we had a refreshing dip in a colder pool before soaking in the indoor and outdoor thermal spas and trying out the sauna. After a few hours we had to leave and grab a quick bite for lunch on the way to the station.

Enough time to get our bags out of storage and jump on the train… so we thought, until we saw the queue all the way ou the luggage line doors and almost reaching the train tracks. After waiting in line and realising how slow the queue was moving, someone kindly let us in to quickly pick our bags up, and we ran to the platform, making the train with five minutes to spare.
After our two-hour train ride we walked for quarter of an hour from the station to our accommodation. The lovely hosts couldn’t speak much English, but showed us to our huge spacious room with our own bathroom. A bit exhuasted, we relaxed and napped for an hour before deciding it was time to find some dinner. The famous wine of Eger is Bikaver - also known as ‘Bull’s Blood’, as legend had it warriors of the opposing side thought the Hungarian’s were drinking bull’s blood for strength when they saw their red wine-soaked beards. It was definitely going to be a must-try whilst there. The Lonely Planet also said that the region was known for trout, which we decided we all felt like and went of in search of a meal.

After walking through the small town centre and down the main street which was home to most of the restaurants (five or so…), we couldn’t see an ounce of trout on the menus, which all seemed to have most of the same things, so we settled at one. We immediatley ordered a bottle of bull’s blood, which was very very tasty, and definitely outshone the meals. The Lonely Planet had also recommended a place that was a must for dessert lovers by Eger’s castle, so we made it there only to find t was a list of branded icecream sundaes, but since we had psyched ourselves up for some sweety goodness we endulged in one anyway. We also bypassed a bottle store to pick up another bottle of bull’s blood (yes, it’s that good), but a different year to try and distinguish a difference, and had a few drinks in our room before turning in for the night.

The last days in Budapest and on to Eger remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We went back to Krisztina’s for a drink before the concert, and Josh was the only one game enough to share a glass of traditional Icelandic spirit with our host, who had brought it back from Iceland during a recent trip to do volunteer work. I took a sip, and the syrupy menthol spirit really warms you from the inside out. After the very high temperatures of the days before, we weren’t exactly sure what to expect, but the forecast was for more than 10 degrees colder, so we had to be prepared for a shock to the systems.

The festival was on one of the islands in the river between Buda and Pest, so we caught a train to the gates, and joined the herd of people queuing to get through to the grounds. Krisztina was there to see the rock and metal acts, which we were planning to avoid, but she spent the first wee while with us walking around the island and having a drink or two. The place was filled with market stalls, the scent of every kind of food merging in the air and accents from all over the world. So many stages and areas were jampacked onto the island, from live theatre to dance. The place was like a small city, and tents were squashed like sardines onto any available inch of grass. We left Krisztina at the metal after poking our heads in for a taste and seeing the mass of long hair being thrown around like ragdolls in a dishwasher. Then it was off to see Roisin Murphy of Moloko who put on a great show with countless changes into fantastic 80s attire – headpieces, shoulder pads, giant bright ponchos. Her, combined with her enthusiastic back-up dancers just oozed cool… The whole crowd was shaking, and it was so early in the evening - that was the only downside. It would have been so much better to dance to later on, but still got us off to a great start.

Dinner was next, and we sat at a picnic table surrounded by food stalls, deciding on some spiced chicken breasts, sauerkraut (yes, still a staple), and bread, which was very filling… Some drinks (wine which was okay, and cheaper wine which was AWFUL!), and after finding a few uninteresting acts in the break between the next gig, we sat down for some drinks in an outdoor bar and met Krisztina so she could have a bite with us. She kindly shouted us to a shot of the Hungrian spirit Palinka we’d tried with her before, but this time tried peach, which was very sticky and yummy…

Krisztina then left for her next gig and we headed to the main stage to see REM. There was a huge crowd as expected for the headline act for the night, and they played some old stuff, some stuff we didn’t know, but they did put on a great show and the audience loved it. The next thing we wanted to see was Maceo Parker in the jazz tent (via some dancing in the dust...see photos), who was a member of James Brown’s band, and composed some of his music. We don’t think they quite expected a gig in the jazz tent to get so big, as they had tried to make the area into a lounge atmosphere including an area with tables and chairs (which quickly became viewing platforms for people in the back to see above the swarm of people). The music was great, and definitely got us moving and shaking, although some of the crowd were idiots, as it was nearing midnight and the drunkards had come out, and jazz wasn’t quite the music to headbang to.

After an hour or so there, we left the tent going into the morning and tried out the huge wooden seesaw outside. A half-moon shaped structure that fitted twenty or so people onto it, the idea was that people crowd onto each side and push down with their bodies alternately to start it rocking. Josh and I were right at the very end, and were moving metres up and down and losing our stomachs quite nicely. We then walked the length of the island back, and tried the delicious funnel cake (sweet bread baked over coals in a tube shape, then rolled in vanilla and cinammon sugar… mmmm). Deciding to check out another gig before it was time to meet Krisztina, we entered a tent to see a DJ, had a dance, and then met Krisztina to start the trek home. After a VERY crowded bus ride, we finally got home around 4am, and easily crashed out for the night.

Budapest - Sziget Music Festival remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

After breakfast, a very overweight local greeted us with a megaphone yelling up into the houses from the street, while others yelled back. We later asked Krisztina what he may have been doing, and she explained that some people often use this tactic to sell fruit and other goods. Deciding to spend the day in Pest (the newer side of the river), and do Buda, the older side, on Sunday, we armed ourselves with guides, maps, and information that our lovely host had pre-organised for us, and caught the metro into the city. It was already so hot, and the temperature was forecast to reach 38 degrees in the heat of the day. We caught a tube to the park, and Josh attracted an unwelcome guest who tried to sit and chat with him. In Hungarian. Walking around the very dry and somewhat sombre park, we weren’t too sure what there was to do and see there, but we found the set of many Hungarian baths throughout the city, and decided we had to visit some on Sunday.

From there we walked around the Vajdahungad Var, a castle described as schizophrenic due to its various design styles (this was becoming quite common among the castle world…) but it was now home to an Agriculture Museum. Instead of venturing in, we continued around to the impressive Millennium Sculpture. The name confused us, since it looked so old and surely couldn’t have been built eight years ago… but it was actually built for the start of the 19th Century. Our Lonely Planet recommended a place for coffee and cake, and when we arrived we felt as if we were in the lobby of a posh hotel, where we didn’t quite fit in, so after seeing the exorbitant prices (and admiring the delicious-looking delights in the cabinet), we left. We tried another recommended place for lunch that looked a lot less snobby, and enjoyed a nice meal with some super sweet, but very refreshing, homemade lemonade.

Josh decided his shoes had finally overcome him in the heat, and he headed for a shopping area in search of sandals (the sound of his dad saying “I told you so” ringing loud). Andrew and I checked out St. Stephen’s Basilica – another very golden and beautiful church interior, and walked the Pest side of the river to the shopping street to meet Josh. We found him in the indoor markets, which initially looked great, but seemed to have rows of the same stuff on repeated throughout, and weren’t a patch on Dijon’s. After a bit of iced green tea at a quiet, relaxing teahouse garden right of a main street, we decided we were in definite need of a swim.

It was now early evening, and Krisztina had told us the smaller out of the two islands in Budapest’s river had some good swimming places, so we made our way there, only to find hoards of people leaving and discovering it closes at 6pm (in summer…). Another place slightly further down the island was open until 7pm, so we made our way to the outdoor baths as fast as we could and arrived with 25 minutes to spare. The place was huge, with pools of varying sizes and temperatures, and fountains everywhere. Just enough time for a quick plunge and a cool down, which was so worth it!

We met Krisztina for dinner at a place she likes to go which is remniscent of an American corner bar, and sold many different styles of food, including Hungarian. We tried our best to taste the local food in every country, and scoured the menu for Hungarian delicacies. Starting off traditionally at Krisztina’s request with a small glass of apple-flavoured Palinka (Hungarian liqueur – very strong!), we sipped the drink before dinner, and ordered our meals. We waited so long for our meals, and were getting incredibly hungry. The waitress came out, a long time after we’d ordered to inform us that one of the side dishes wasn’t on the menu, then more waiting… Once the meals finally came out, they were quite tasty (I tried the Hungarian bean soup, pork fillet Hungarian style for Andy, a chicken dish for Josh). We did enjoy listening to the annoying Australian at a table next to us try to chat up three woman with ‘enchanting’ stories of his travelling adventures. One more drink at a different bar across the road, where the boys tried a local beer, and I tasted a delicious local red wine (not chilled!), and then it was back to Krisztina’s, saving up for the Sziget music festival the following night.

A day in Pest, of Budapest remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We weren’t meeting our couchsurfing host for Budapest until the following day, so with a day to spare, we decided to try out a place called Balatonfured, on the coast of huge Lake Balaton, for some swimming and relaxing before the big city. Trying to organise tickets to get there when no one spoke much English was quite hard, as was trying to master any of the Hungarian language in the short time we were there. This was the first place we’d found quite so out of our comfort zone, and when we really knew we needed the underclothes travel wallets. After finally deciphering the train system (and discovering we needed to depart from another train station to go in that direction, which was across town), we grabbed whatever food we could find and departed for the lake.

Boarding the oldest train we’d seen on our journey in the stinking heat, we had to use one of our bags to hold the window down, which didn’t do much at all to subside the heat. Sticky and sleepy, we endured the three-hour journey, and the toilets, which were basically a hole onto the tracks, with a warning sign not to use them when the train is at a station. In a relatively empty train we did hear some familiar voices behind us, and ended up meeting three New Zealanders on this tiny overland train. Much sweat and many empty water bottles later, we arrived at our station. We had booked accommodation over the phone, and the guy we’d booked it through told us to give him a call when we arrived at the station. He gave us directions, and we walked down the street to a green gate, and he would meet us there. Awaiting us was a rundown house with a sign outside “Cheapest rooms in the area with lake views in this house!” Maybe from the roof… The inside was very tidy, and fine for one night.

Deciding a swim was much needed after the heat of our train ride, we pulled on our togs and headed towards the lake. We then realised that most of the lake around the promenade is all fenced off, and the only place we could find to swim charged an entrance fee. Everyone else seemed to be going there, so we ended up paying, only to walk into swarms of families and elderly bathers crammed like sardines onto the grass by the lake. Not quite our scene, but we were here now… After naps in the shade it was time for a swim, and the water was nice and warm, but not very clear as the sandy lakebed gets stirred up by swimmers and makes it cloudy. Disappointed with the area, we weren’t sure we were in the right town at all.
We ended up walking back to our accommodation and getting ready to go out for dinner. Choosing a place called Balaton by the lake, we met our gruff waiter who proceeded to present us with the somewhat strange meals we had ordered. The lakefront was filled with wine stalls, as there was a wine festival in the area, but again, it wasn’t quite our scene. We decided to pick three different wines, one of which was good, the others okay, and as we weren’t really feeling the vibe, we went home.

Waking up in need of a coffee and breakfast, we walked in the growing heat to the supermarket to buy some picnic ingredients and ate by the waterfront. Afterwards, in search of a coffee through an area where everything looked equally crap, we looked at the menu at one place before Cher starting blazing through the speakers “Do you believe in life after love…” loud and proud; enough to send Josh running immediately, even before I’d realised what was playing. We found another small bar, and had a pretty decent coffee in the end, and even managed to order what we wanted when the girl only spoke Hungarian. The spirits among the group seemed low, and this was when we all proclaimed that Balatonfured was dead boring, and we’d rather not be here. After questioning whether to go back to Budapest early, we decided to give the place a go (mainly because the hassle of having our bags in Budapest for five hours before we met our host was enough to deter us).

We walked back up away from town in the scorching heat to hire bikes for a ride around the lake, as we’d heard there were some free areas to swim that way. Making it to the bike hire place just as the guy was closing for lunch, he quickly dashed inside, which we thought was to help us out quickly, but was actually to give us a map directing us to the other store in the opposite direction. We were getting over it all very quickly, but ventured to the other store and made it there with enough time to get a few hours riding in before our train to Budapest. After continuing past a few areas in search of one with sand (which we’d heard existed), we were running low on time, so settled for an available spot for a swim. It was nicer on this side without the hoards of people, and after a swim and a dry-off it was back on the road. After dropping off the bikes and picking up one of the best fruit salads ever with perfectly sweet melon from a street market, we headed off towards the train. The journey back was only slightly less hot than the first one, but we did have to share a carriage with the most shriek-happy child, who drove me to put on earplugs for the trip.

We made it to Budapest and this time we (kind of) knew where we were going, and jumped on the metro to meet our host Krisztina. After arriving around 8pm, she met us at the metro station and we walked back to her room. We couldn’t believe she’d agreed to let three people invade her small place for four nights, which was basically one room that was filled up when all of our beds were laid out, and a tiny separate kitchen and bathroom. We were incredibly grateful, and she was a saint to tired travellers, and such a welcoming host, who had cooked for us, as she knew we were arriving late. We sat and enjoyed her home-cooked meal with a glass of Tokaj Hungarian wine, which was very nice, before having an early-ish night as Krisztina had work the next morning. She even gave up her bed for us, and took a foldout futon, while we made Andrew a make-shift bed on the floor and crammed into the room for a very hot night’s sleep.

Off to Hungary remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

It was then off to find some lunch, and we made our way towards the Rathausplatz, which had a film festival on in the evenings and food and drink stalls set up all through the day and into the night. The place was buzzing with people, and surrounded by stalls serving up various types of international food where everything is cooked freshly in front of you once you order. We struggled to decide what to eat, as it all looked amazing. After deciding on some teppanyaki, seafood risotto and greek platters, and leaving very full, we walked some more of the huge city. Struggling to find the Rachel Whiteread Holocaust Memorial (mainly due to the horrible directions supplied by the guidebook), we got a bit fatigued in the heat of the day, and almost gave up, but with a bit of help from the locals we finally found it. Designed to be harsh and unattractive, resembling a war bunker, the grey concrete work sits within a small square just off a main street.

We then walked to the Hofburg Imperial Palace, which houses many museums, but we stayed outside to walk the impressive facades, covered with sculptures. From there we made our way to the Secession museum, housing contemporary art. We had read about the Beethoven Frieze, an incredibly long work of art, but as it was wrapped around four walls inside, it was hard to grasp its impressive size, and was a bit disappointing after reading the hype. The rest of the museum had some interesting, and some very disturbing, exhibits. One research art project on the ‘UFO Bridge’ in Slovakia we had just seen, and one on a man doing documentary research in Budapest by opening up a shop in a rundown neighbourhood. There was also a very horrifically violent exhibition on animals and fur, which I ended up walking out of.

We returned to the Naschmarkt, which is the first place we’d been to in Vienna with Susanne and Sabine when we arrived, and after a stroll we decided to find somewhere for a cool drink. Since it was such a sunny day, we thought we would try going back to the Museumsquartier, and enjoyed a drink before the sun disappeared, while sketching, reading and resting our feet. Off to find dinner, we decided to go back to the Rathausplatz, where we’d been for lunch, to see what the film festival atmosphere was like at night.

The place was packed out completely, and such a different space than it had been during the day. They were screening films of classical concerts, and the soundtrack filled the air from beyond the bounds of the cinema. We somehow managed to find a table in amongst the chaos of it all, and another couple flocked to the two remaining seats we had free at it. We shared some platters of seafood and noodles with a few drinks, and started chatting to the older couple sharing our table, who were from Munich. A very friendly couple, they gave us some advice on where to go and what to do during some of our travels. Josh also made us try the potent Greek alcohol he’d enjoyed back home, which didn’t go down so well for all of us. It was then back to beer and wine, but we also knew we had to catch a 7.50am train the next morning so sensibility kicked in at some point and we started to make our way home. We tried to hire bikes to get back to the hostel through the great system they have in Europe where you can hire a bike from an automatic station and drop it off at another station near your destination. It turned out you could only hire one bike per credit card though, and as Andy was the only one with a chipped credit card the machine would take, we ended up back on the underground to the hostel, happy that we'd found some of the great Vienna.

Trying to find the love in Vienna remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We arrived in Bratislava an hour later past the grey communist housing blocks and the castle set on the hill – such a contrast. It was time for yet another new language and a new currency. Walking up to the castle, one of Bratislava’s main attractions, we eventually found it closed for renovations… we could only walk the perimeter, but still got a great view from the top. The strange ‘UFO’ tower bridge hovers above the river, an odd architectural inclusion to the city. In the shadow of the castle lies the old town, which is a beautiful area, where we sat down to have drinks at a bar on the side of the street (everything was incredibly cheap here). We then found a place for dinner, which was a cave-like interior with a vaulted ceiling, where the noises of someone on the other side of the room circulate around you. It was a very cosy place, and perfect for our one night out here before catching a bus back to Vienna.

We shared a bottle of local white wine recommended by the waiter, which was absolutely delicious (and we should have written the name of it down…), and shared entrees of smoked trout, picked camembert and stuffed chillies – all fantastic. Our mains were all very tasty as well – the highlight was Andrew’s venison stew, which was impeccably cooked in a mouth-watering sauce. Slovakia is also a place where being a vegetarian is incredibly difficult. We had heard that adding bacon bits to a salad isn’t considered meat as it’s on a salad… hmmm…

Very full and satisfied, we strolled to the main street for one last drink before catching our 11pm bus back to Vienna. After waiting for a while, asking the ticket lady whether the bus was still coming (she said it was, but later packed up and went home, which had us a bit worried) and individually contemplating where to sleep should the bus not arrive, it eventually pulled in and we dozed along the way back to Vienna.

A brief fling in Bratislava remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We left the hostel and bought some more tasty lunch supplies from the markets and made our way to the train station. Our compartment was shared with a guy from Ljubljana who had travelled quite a bit and was really into extreme sports. We had one change during the journey and ended up switching to first class (putting our good old Eurail passes to use), as the second part of the trip was very busy in second class, but first class was empty. I managed to sleep most of the way, despite the pash-happy French couple at the end of our carriage making slurping noises and sucking each other’s faces off. Josh got a bit fed up with it, and asked them to kiss a little quieter, which embarrassed them so much they gave it up.

An old colleague of mine from Wellington - Susanne, who worked for us on an exchange to New Zealand and lived an hour out of Vienna in an area called Traisen, had very kindly offered to have us for a few nights, and she and her sister Sabine picked us up from the train station, and we decided to go the famous open-air markets for a drink. The markets were near closing, and we decided to cook them dinner, and ended up rushing around the markets before they closed trying to put together the pieces for a great vegetarian meal for them. We ended up with a bucket load of olives - and I mean bucket load, as the woman at the market counter went a bit crazy serving them up. Josh and Andrew tried some stuff with incredibly spicy chillies, which had them in tears (and we ended up taking out the chilli to eat the rest and it was still very hot). We found some fresh haloumi, couscous and veges, and drove back to Susanne’s place into the country in the pouring rain. We met their gorgeous new kitten and cat, who provided quite a bit of entertainment for us all.

The dinner turned out to be a bit of a disaster, as the veges took forever on the bbq, and the haloumi turned out to be some strange variety that doesn’t hold it’s shape and melted everywhere (which was such a pity as it was really tasty!). It was safe to say it wasn’t our best work at all. At least the olives were tasty. Susanne’s mother’s partner had a keg in the basement of local beer from the local restaurant, so Josh and Andrew got to try some of that while Sabine made us a delicious traditional Austrian dessert, which is like a fluffy, eggy pancake with fruit on the side. It was very tasty, and put our dinner to shame. It was great to be in a real house again, and it was one of the best sleeps we’d had on the trip so far that night, reviving us for our adventure through Vienna.

We had a lovely slow start to the next day began with delicious fresh breads for breakfast while it poured with rain outside. Deciding to go and see some of Vienna for the day, and then meet Susanne and Sabine there for dinner and a few drinks that night, we were driven to the train station about 20 minutes from their house by Susanne. Boarding a very crowded train that had come from Salzburg, there wasn’t a seat in sight, but we found places to lean for the 40-minute trip.

Emerging from the train station, the sun had arrived in Vienna just as we had. Our first stop was a traditional Viennese coffee house, which was apparently an essential part of a trip to Vienna, but we were warned about the possibility of bad service. Entering the dated original interior, with billiard tables in the corner and a host at the door (who doesn’t seem to do much but sit a bit higher than everyone else), we thought that the place might have been charming had we not been completely ignored. It was such a hot and humid place, bustling with rude, surly waitresses. We finally had three coffees dumped on our table, which were ridiculously expensive for coffee, and left with a slightly bitter taste in our mouths.

We decided to start to walk the ring road that surrounds the centre of Vienna, and first arrived at the cathedral and through the gardens (which lie next to an extremely dirty river with very low water levels and rubbish floating down it). We also wanted to spend some of the first day visiting the Kunsthauswien, which is home to the Hundertwasser collection. We should have taken a tram there, as the walk along the river to the museum turned out to be a decidedly bland route down a dirty river. A quick stop for some iceblocks in the courtyard, then into the museum with limited time, as there was only an hour left before it closed. With an option for two exhibitions, but only enough time to see one, Andy and I visited the permanent collection of Hundertwasser’s work, while Josh chose Jean Tinguely’s machine works.

The collection was very cool, especially his graphic print work, and I hadn’t realised he had such a connection with New Zealand and had visited many times, eventually proposing a redesign of the New Zealand flag in the 1980s. The building itself is also a work of art; its curves and mosaics echoing the nature of his work. Josh will have to fill you in on the exhibition he visited, although after the last time he took so long to do an entry I think it's best we continue so we don't get even more far behind...We were basically kicked out of the building as it closed, and made our way by metro to the city centre. Arriving at Stephensplatz as evening set in, we were hit with hoards of tourists crowding around street performers, the church, and there were far too many people for our liking. Susanne and Sabine were on their way to meet us for dinner, and we tried to find a place for a drink in the hour we had to meet them. It was a bit of a case of fruitless searching, as we were in the completely wrong area for bars, and the ones that were around were horrible themed places. We weren’t getting a great impression of Vienna so far, although we knew we weren’t in the right places. We finally found a tiny local pub that was the best of the lot of them, and had a drink served by the owner who, judging by the photos he had on the wall, had been there for many, many years. As Susanne and Sabine were vegetarians, their meal choices are very limited in meat-filled Austria. We ended up finding an Indian place that smelt pretty good, and settled there for dinner. It was quite a tasty meal, and we left extremely full afterwards. From there the girls showed us Museumsquartier, which is a huge square surrounded by museums, that sets up open-air bars in the summer. The entire square is filled with stylised blocks moulded as seating. We had a drink there before catching a tram to a different area, where rows of bars run under the trains but are still above ground. We had a few drinks there, and listened to their music set change from German hip hop, to rock, but called it quits when it ended up at emo… There was still an hour to drive ahead of us, and we made it back to Traisen at around 3am.

The next morning we were initially intending to take a day trip to Krems – a small university town that Susanne studies in, but we were drawn outside by the sun and drove to the nearby hills with Susanne, Sabine, and their mother. In winter you can ski down the slopes, but in summer the chairlift still operates to transport hikers up to the top. A 20-minute journey on single chairs to the top, surrounded by nothing but forest was a far cry from the tourist-riddled streets of Vienna. After Josh got a turn on the playground, we walked through some wide open fields that must be great for boarding down in winter, and ended up at the mountain café. Taking a seat outside, we had to hide under the umbrellas to shield ourselves from the sun, and took a look at the menu – or rather, had it translated to us.

Austrian food can be quite heavy, and hard to eat on such a hot, sunny day, but we sampled some local dishes. A huge roast meal for Josh (which he managed to get through somehow!), and two equally filling meals of dumplings with mushrooms for me and Andy, which filled me after a few bites, and left the table looking basically identical to when it arrived. It must be great food after a long day on the mountain though – in winter. We then trekked through the steep hills, down past small waterfalls, fallen bridges, and by the end we were exhausted, and a bit muddy. We stopped at a local icrecream shop for some scoops, and ate them in Susanne and Sabine’s old school courtyard before heading back to the house. After all that walking and such a big lunch it was a lazy evening, with a small bbq dinner (with proper haloumi this time!), a bit more trip planning, and then off to bed.

Two sides of Austria remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

An American guy, Brian, on the bus had overheard our mix-up, and started chatting to us along the way. He was currently living in Sheffield in the UK, and had broken up with his girlfriend at the airport just before they were supposed to travel together, so was doing most of the trip by himself, and going to quite a few places we were going to. He was only in Bled for an afternoon, and we invited him to join us for a few drinks on the lake, as we thought we’d hire a rowboat and head out to the island. After dropping our gear off at our hostel (which was quite lovely, with its own bathrooms, towels, and even a tv…not that we were going to be watching it), we headed towards the lake, a short walk away. Bled really is one of those ‘almost too good to be true’ sights. The entire area is immaculately groomed, the water so crystal clear that you can see the fish swimming underneath clusters of waterlillies. It was also one of the first places we’d been on the trip that was so peaceful and quiet that you could hear the birds singing in the trees.

The sun was still very hot, and we hired a rowboat to travel over the lake, looking forward to diving in for a swim by the island. We docked our boat, and walked the short track around the island and up to the church, which isn’t a spectacular sight inside, but legend has it that you ring the church bell three times for good luck, so we all had a go. After icecreams and coffees in the sun, we jumped off the dock into the crisp blue water, and floated and relaxed until we thought it was time to take the boat back and have some dinner.

We took some seats at a restaurant over the water, with a great view of the lake and island. A castle also hangs off one of the cliffs high above the water, at is another incredible sight (and postcard-worthy view). It was a tasty meal, lots of seafood on the menu, but I’m not sure Josh got the best dish. More often than not with our meal choices, there’s been a winner and a loser… the titles got shared around throughout the trip. The other thing we all lost out at was the awful cabaret entertainment, which was in essence a one-woman show of covers to a backing tape (although she did mix it up with her saxophone and keyboard from time to time). Brian escaped to go to the bus stop, and we lasted long enough to try the local dessert, similar to a custard square, before leaving saxophone lady to belt out her wedding tunes into the night.
From there we decided to try out a local bar ‘Devil’, which was decorated with organs on the wall, a mural of nymphs fornicating with ladies above the bar, and a heavily tattooed waiter… and also ABBA playing throughout the bar??? Not quite sure that Bled has their music scene sorted out. There was no one really there, but we had a quiet drink before heading back to the hostel.

The next morning, another stunning day was ahead of us, and after breakfast at the hostel surrounded by a lot of families and so many screaming children, we left for the peace of the forest to walk the hill up to the castle. We decided to forego paying the entrance fee, as we found a secret wee path off to the side of the castle, and climbed some rocks for a fantastic view over the lake and island. The perfect town for cycling around, we hired some bikes and took off towards another lookout. Josh had bad feet at the time, and couldn’t wear shoes, so we were both in jandals, but we didn’t quite realise what a climb was ahead of us to the lookout. A steep and rocky hillside awaited us, and we accidentally took the wrong path, and ended up climbing 100m higher than we intended to. I’m usually one to do anything in jandals, but this was a big mistake. Hours later, with strained raw feet and starving bellies, we managed to find a few great lookouts, and took a different route back, that included one of the steepest staircases I’ve ever seen.

Finally at the bottom, we biked to a supermarket for some picnic supplies, which we devoured by the lake before continuing our journey further around the waters edge. Nearing our bus departure time, Josh and Andy squeezed in another quick dip while I lay in the shade and relaxed, and then we dropped our bikes back and made our way to the bus. It was a very full bus trip, and thankfully we managed to get some seats. A huge group of Irish teens had overtaken most of the bus, had spent too long in Bled, and were going to miss their train that night. Incredibly loud and annoying, most of the trip was spent listening to them trying to make plans, and I was glad I wasn’t travelling in such a large group – it’s hard enough to make decisions with only three of you. Dozing off, we awoke to a loud bang, as the driver hit some road signs or something similar, and he must have damaged the bus, as soon after he pulled over and we all had to quickly change to another bus, delaying the late Irish group even more…

From the bus station we made our way back to the hostel to drop off our gear, and then decided to explore the side of the river we hadn’t seen much of, which ended up being full of great little restaurants and cafés down small alleyways. We witnessed a fire truck approaching us at full speed as a building caught fire and black smoke filled the alley, but settled at a café for dinner once the smoke had cleared. After dinner we managed to squeeze in some dessert at a cake store, and then wandered back home via the riverside streets filled with buskers and artists (and a guy selling incredibly cool bikes). Next stop Vienna…

Lake Bled, Slovenia remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

After a long time in an information queue, Josh failed to slip through by pulling the sick card, and we were forced to buy a replacement ticket. Thankfully it was only one ticket since Josh and I were travelling on the Eurail passes, but it did mean we had a few hours to fill before the next train. We then got lost on the wrong tram into town (the same number we had missed from our stop that made us miss our train, this tram number had it in for us!!!), but finally made it to a café for coffees and food. Determined to order in German, we didn’t do too badly at all. After walking some shops, and visiting the huge double-towered cathedral, it was time to head back towards the station, making sure we were very early this time.
We found some seats in a compartment which we ended up sharing with a funny Spanish couple with little English who chatted to us mainly through hand gestures, about their disgust at German food and their love for their home city of Seville in Spain which we had to visit ahead of Madrid and Barcelona apparently (which they also disliked immensely). Another girl was also sitting with us, who was from the north of Germany but studying in Munich (and shared the Spaniards dislike for German food).

It was evening by the time we arrived in Slovenia, and we left the train for the sticky intense heat of Ljubljana, heightened by the fact we were carrying all of our gear with us. Another language to try and learn the basics of, we were fooled by some of the pronunciations in the Lonely Planet but thankfully corrected by a guy at the information desk at the station. A lot of people spoke English, but we were determined to try some Slovenian. We walked towards our hostel through concrete streets where many building exteriors had fallen into disrepair. It was not too far from the train station, and was actually a school hostel that was a traveller hostel during the summer months.

We dropped our bags, then left the room to explore the city, and started with a meal at a restaurant serving traditional Slovenian cuisine recommended by the hostel. As they’re so close to Italy, Austria and Slovakia, their traditional food includes seafood, game meats, stews, pizzas, pastas… a varied range of things from many places. We had initially thought it would be interesting to go to a foreign restaurant, avoid the English menu, and point to a meal and order it without knowing what it was, but luckily we didn’t at this restaurant, as the Bull’s Testicles on the menu did not take anyone’s fancy. Josh and Andrew instead chose stag steaks, which they really enjoyed, and I had a whole trout baked in foil with vegetables, that I couldn’t finish. The wine was incredibly cheap – less than a euro a glass at some places, and actually pretty good.

After we’d finished our meals, we walked through the old town, which is centred around the river that you can row down, many bridges connecting both sides, lovely old architecture and a growing café culture. We stopped at a studenty, artsy café/bar, described in our guide book as somewhere that you never get served at, where everyone is ultra-cool and snobby in an artsy kind of way, but we didn’t find that on this particular night (or maybe we are just so ultra-cool we didn’t notice), and ordered some Mojitos to sip away at outside, under a veil of mismatched umbrellas. A few drinks later, and we set off in search of the highly recommended Jazz Club Gajo, where there was an open-jam night on that night. It was a few blocks away from the main square, and we weren’t entirely sure we were heading in the right direction, but were soon led by the distant sounds of saxaphones, piano and drums, which guided us straight to the garden bar of the club. The exterior stage was alive with young musicians mixing together jam after jam while small tables crowded with people tapped their feet to the music – drink in one hand, smoke or cigar in the other. By some stroke of luck, we found an empty table and sat down for a drink. I got my first taste of what seems to be an Eastern European oddity – chilled red wine. I warmed the glass in my hands until it was relatively normal, and sipped away. It was a fantastic night, and the place had such a buzzing, electric atmosphere. We stayed until the musicians packed up, before walking back to the hostel along the river.

The next day we started with a great cheap breakfast at the hostel, with everything we needed for a great start to the day (expect perhaps some very good coffee…). A short walk into the old town, and we headed up to one of the areas biggest attractions – the castle on the hill, which is now mainly an exhibition space. It was a short but steep walk to the top on a pretty dry and hot day. We had read that the castle is a bit of a mishmash of different styles, which it indeed was – a puzzle of bricks. Apparently it has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times due to earthquakes, different political leaders and so on, and it definitely shows.

Not entirely sure what sort of exhibitions we were going to see, we entered a room with some bizarrely bland, and quite honestly bad, paintings. We weren’t quite aware of the context of the works, but were left a bit confused. The main reason for going to the castle is to see the view over the city from the top of the castle tower, so we climbed the steep spiral staircase and took in the view over Ljubljana, extending far beyond the limits of the old town. Back down again, we were really hungry by this point, and Josh and Andrew decided they just had to try the local delicacy – horse. There’s a few burger joints called ‘Red Hot Horse’ serving up huge burgers, which the boys described as gamey (if a little chewy), but pretty tasty overall. Not sure they could have one every day of course… I refrained altogether.

We were joined by another traveller from Manchester, united by the fact we were carrying the same guide book and had ended up at the same restaurant described in it. He gave us some tips about where he’d been and what he’d enjoyed, and said he hadn’t really enjoyed Krakow in Poland at all, as it seemed like a bit of a farce designed for tourists, and wouldn’t give you any experience of what real Poland was like. It had been on our list of future destinations, and we decided to read up a bit before choosing whether to go or not. Josh left Andy and I in town to go back to the hostel and rest his feet, so we relaxed with another coffee before attempting a museum, but it was about to close. Instead we took a look inside St. Nicholas Church, through the entrance of intricately moulded brass doors that become sculptural works of art. It was a stunning interior, shimmering with gold from ceiling to floor. We happened to get caught in a private prayer ceremony halfway through our visit, and as we couldn’t understand a work of Slovenian prayer, we left the locals to it and walked back to the hostel.

Intrigued by a recommended Bosnian restaurant, we set out to the opposite end of the river for dinner, but sadly discovered it was closed (when we finally found it). It was getting late by this stage, and a lot of restaurants close around 10pm in the area, so we found a pasta place (Slovenia is supposed to have great Italian food as it’s on the border), and took a seat outside to eat. A bit of antipasto to start (again accompanied with a chilled red wine???), and the food was initially good, but the mains we weren’t all as lucky with. My seafood risotto was quite tasty, but Josh and Andrew’s ravioli meals were pretty awful. Dry, bland, and Andy’s was a strange, almost Asian flavoured, concoction. It was quite funny despite, or perhaps because of, the taste. I tried to order a glass of rose instead of more chilled red, as apparently the area is known for them, and the waiter smiled and nodded, then brought over yet another chilled bloody red. I really did not understand. I guess the upside is they’re insanely cheap. During our meal the rain had begun to pour, and luckily this time we were more prepared than our biking experience in Salzburg, so we zipped up our jackets, got out the umbrellas, and walked back to the hostel.

Munich to Ljubljana, Slovenia remains copyright of the author joshtracey, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs