Czech Mate! (haha, get it??)

Dobry den!
(hello in Czech)

We really enjoyed Prague. It was everything we expected, if a little more expensive than the guide books indicated - possibly a result of the large number of tourists that crowd the city. The old buildings in the town, the castle on the hill, tons of history and local legends. This is definitely a place we left feeling like we had barely scratched the surface, and that there was so much more to discover than the main tourist attractions we had time to see!

Here are a few photos of the highlights of our visit:

The astronomical clock on the clock tower of the old town hall. Every hour, little figures of the twelve apostles appear, rotating around at the top, while the skeletal and other figures next to the lower clock face ding bells.

At the top of the clock tower, after the clock has chimed every hour, this guy plays a short tune on his trumpet and waves from each of the four sides of the tower.

On the Charles bridge with Prague Castle up on the hill. The castle complex has lots of things to visit, including the royal palace, the cathedral with St Wenceslas's remains/chapel (of "Good King Wenceslas" fame - even though he was never king), prison tower and torture chamber, and gardens.

At the Old-New Synagogue. This is one of the oldest  synagogues in Europe. Jews have prayed here for over 700 years, only interupted during the Nazi occupation between 1941-1945. Stu had to wear a Jewish kippa on his head (you can just see it in blue) to enter the synagogue.

We had dinner one night in what was "the oldest cellar restaurant in Europe". All the walls were covered with beer mugs or dead animals (mostly dead animals - heads, rugs, or fully stuffed bears) - was a little creepy...

From Prague we headed to Neuschwantstein castle in Bavaria. The night before our visit, we stayed in a little village about half an hour away. The village of Jungholz is actually in a little chunk of Austria completely surrounded by Germany, and only touches the rest of Austria at the very peak of Sorgschrofen mountain (at 1638m). This out-of-the-way village was really a "typical" Austrian village - mountains all around, rolling green pastures, cows and sheep with bells around their necks that you can hear echoing around the mountains and valleys, quaint little farmhouses clustered around little path-ways. It's quite popular with Germans and Austrians for hiking in the summer, but more so in the winter when the small ski-field is open.

 Let's try uploading my first video to the blog, hopefully it works... and you might even be able to hear the clanging of the cow-bells! Hmmm... video didn't work, here's a photo instead...

View of Jungholz. We actually stayed in a cluster of houses (making up the even smaller village of Langenschwand) about 10min up the hill from the main village.

Frolicking on the hills!

A pretty view. The dots on the nearest hills are cows.

Next, on to Neuschwanstein castle. There's a lot of hype about the castle, and it didn't disappoint, though you can only see a few of the interior rooms. We also visited Schloss Hohenschwangau (where Ludwig II, who built Neuschwanstein, lived as a child during the summer months). You can't take photos inside either castle, but luckily they're both very photogenic on the outside :)

View of Neuschwanstein from Hohenschwangau.

Stu at Hohenschwangau.

View of Hohenschwangau from near Neuschwanstein.

Us and Neuschwanstein.

We're now in Luzern, staying with my sister at her flat for a few days. Another blog on our stay here in a few days...

Tschuss!

The Murky-Green Danube

Servus (Austrian German) and Szervusz (Hungarian) Everyone!

So it's been a few days since the last post. In that time we've been in a couple of the imperial cities on the (murky green - there's no way it could ever be described as "blue") Danube - Vienna and Budapest.

We had 3 nights in Vienna, and stayed with a friend of my (Mita) dad's from university. I don't think they've seen each other in 30 years! It was all rather short-notice, and they took very good care of us :)

Our Viennese friends - James and Deena

Our main activities in Vienna centred around the Hapsburgs. The palaces of the Hapsburg empire, the museums displaying their treasure, the Sisi museum (covering the life of the most famous Hapsburg queen Elisabeth [Sisi], whom Stu thought seemed more like a bit of a whiner than anything else!).

In the gardens of the Hapsburg summer palace.

Stu and one of the crown/sceptre/orbs of Austria.

At an old Viennese coffee house.

We drove on to Budapest next, arriving during some sort of festival, which included knights and horses and chariots racing around an arena set up at Hero's square. We couldn't get in (it was absolutely packed, I doubt we could've gotten tickets even if we could figure out where to get them). There also seemed to be an environmental-expo/excuse-to-have-stalls - all up the main shopping street starting from Hero's square. The road is quite long - about a half hour's walk - and they had closed off the entire thing to cars, and had stalls (both about energy conservation, and selling all sorts of other things) and stages the whole way down. At the end opposite Hero's square they had set up quite a long race track and were racing electric go-carts, complete with cheer leaders! (Not that Stu noticed...) Apparently there was also a chocolate festival on up at the castle, but we didn't find this out til the next day - just our luck! Up until mid-September is the time for festivals in Budapest - we just arrived for the last of them. The week before they had a beer festival, and before that the wine festival, and an organic foods festival.

Chariot racing - took the picture over the fence and through the crowd, so it's the best I could get!

Hungarian children dancing.

We also missed out on a few things we wanted to visit, because our only full day was a Monday, and lots of things are (of course!) closed on a Monday. The lady at the information desk who sold us a Budapest card (which amongst other things, lets us in to a few of the museums for free -except on Mondays) forgot to mention that detail... But never mind, we still saw a lot of the main sites, exploring Castle Hill on the Buda side, and all around about the Pest side of the river. We did a walking tour of Castle Hill (which we did use the Budapest card for), which was good :)

At Fishermen's Bastion up on Castle Hill.

In front of the largest parliament buildings in Europe (beating Westminister by 3m).

One evening, we did a night cruise on the Danube. It was pouring down with rain for most of it, so everything was rather blurry through the glass sides of the boat, but still pretty. And we braved the weather out the back of the boat a couple of times to get some beautiful views of the buildings, churches and castles all lit up (probably not a good environmental practice) on either side of the river.

Mattias' Church and Fishermens' Bastion

Parliament buildings.

Chain bridge and Buda palace.

We have moved on now to Prague, but since we've just got here (and already loving it!) we will leave that for the next blog!

Tschuss and Viszlat!

Mita and Stu :)

The hills are alive....

Gruss Gott!

We are currently in Salzburg, and absolutely loving it!

But I get ahead of myself... first some photos from Venice (in no particular order):

Gondolas (we didn't go on one - way too expensive).

Food stall on a boat.

Drinks and dinner next to the Grand Canal with the Rialto bridge in the background.

Travelling on the water-bus down the Grand Canal.

Last look to freedom on the "Bridge of Sighs" in the Doge's Palace.

Venice was our last stop in Italy. From there we drove over the border to Austria. We've had a couple of days in Salzburg, and absolutely loving it!

Yesterday we went on a Sound of Music tour, which as well as taking us on a bus tour around the film-related sights around Salzburg, also took us out to the Lake District, which was absolutely beautiful! It reminded me of home, but the houses are prettier.
So I had an awesome time! And we even got to do sing-a-longs on the bus - EXCITING! (Stu enjoyed himself too...)

the tour bus!

the church in Mondsee where they filmed the wedding scene.

views of the lake district (in the beginning scenes of the movie)

 Mirabell gardens, on the do-re-me steps!

The front of the house (taken a day later, in the pouring rain, and I'm carrying my handbag under the jacket which is why it sticks out funny to the side!)

Of course, we did other things in Salzburg too!

looking down on the old town from the castle-fortress "Festung Hohensalzburg"

looking down on St Peterskirche cemetary, from the catacombs built into the cliff behind it. (ok, so this is Sound of Music related as the crypts here were an inspiration for the scene where the family hide from the Nazis in the abbey.)

Mozart's bithplace (and museum)

Lunch at the St Peter's abbey - in the old wine cellars. Apparently this restaurant is the oldest in Europe and dates back to the 800s.

This evening, we went to a perfomance of the Magic Flute, done using marionettes. It was a fun watch, though rather abridged, and as they only selectively translated bits from the German, if you didn't know the story, it really didn't make a lot of sense!

We've ended up staying in a hotel here in Salzburg, for various reasons, and even though it was a cheap find on Expedia, it's lovely, and pretty luxurious after all the camping! We continue on to Vienna tomorrow, and back to more camping!
Auf Wiedersehen!

Churches and Ruins

The last few days have been rather full on... actually, all our days since Nice have been pretty full on, but there's so much to do and see and eat!

So we visited the Vatican - the Vatican museums and St Peter's Basilica. The museum is a bit overwhelming. Way too much to see and a lot of information to absorb! We only spent 5 hours there, and had to rush through a lot!

Happy snap, Stu and Mita in Sistine Chapel. So you're not allowed to take photos in the Sistine Chapel, but everyone else was... So we got quite a few. Including the one below:

Stu in front of St Peter's Basilica (there was an Australian girl on the bus home that kept referring to it as "the Basilisk"...)

We did a day trip down to Pompeii (and a drive-by of Naples). It was a long way to go, for only 2 or so hrs in the ruins. Will definitely have to come back and do it again some day! The ruins were amazing, and a lot bigger than I expected.

Mita, Forum, Mt Vesuvius.

Stu avoiding "street-muck" by using the handy stepping stones.

We are currently in Florence. (spent the car-ride up belting out 80s/90s songs on the radio, with a specially good rendition of "the power of love") We've walked around the town, and seen all the principle attractions, including, of course, Michelangelo's statue of David (the original, and the two copies). We spent today in the Uffizi museum and the Accadamia Gallery. I'm a bit religious art-worked out now... We also saw the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Dante and others, which was really interesting.

Florence!

Stuart and David. Which one is which? Hint: Stu is the more chiseled one...

Mita and Galileo.

our tent at the Michelangelo camp.

Tomorrow we head to Venice!
Ciao!

Mama Mia!

OK, free internet, but slow, so no photos, which is a pity - cos there are some good ones! Will upload them some time in the future...

Anyway, so since we last left you, we went to Monaco, picked up the car in Nice, drove to Italy, climbed the tower at Pisa, wandered the streets and sights of Rome, and ate a lot of pizza and pasta.

We won't say too much about Monaco, cos apart from the Prince's Palace and some pretty boats, we weren't too impressed with it.

We picked up our Peugeot 308 (named Pierre) from Nice airport early one morning, after waiting 45min in a line we didn't have to wait in... It's been my job to drive (cos Stu gets more stressed than I do, though he has been doing plenty of that for the both of us from the passenger street). It has been interesting. We left France pretty much straight away, and headed for Italy - the border is only about half an hour from Nice. I only got honked at once, and that was cos I was too far forward at an intersection to see if the lights were green or not (they don't put them on the other side of the intersection too like they do at home). I have tried to change gears with the door handle a few times, but only hit the wind-screen wipers instead of indicators once! Italian drivers seem to drive anywhere between 90 to 140+ km/hr irrespective of what the actual speed signs say... I did enjoy driving along at 130km/hr on the motorway (our GPS told us that was the speed limit - there were no signs), but was a bit worried about all the cars still passing me at speed! And they all seemed rather annoyed when I went at 70km/hr in the 50km/hr zones...

So we arrived at a campsite in Pisa - only 10min walk from the leaning tower. That first night we slept in the back of our car - put the back seats down, put our suitcases in the front seats, and spread out a sleeping bag in the back. It would have been comfortable enough, except for the insane heat! Winding down windows don't help if it's stinking hot outside all through the night, and comes with the added benefit of now being covered in mozzie bites. We're now in a camping site in Rome, but we're not allowed to sleep in our car here, and have hired a tent to sleep in - comes with bunk-beds - luxury! Still ridiculously hot though...

Pierre at the camping ground in Pisa.

Anyway, so we spent an afternoon wandering around Pisa - and of course going into the main sights - cathedral, baptismal, and leaning tower! Climbing the leaning tower was particularly interesting - the way your sense of balance changes as you spiral your way up, falling towards or away from the outer wall, or sometimes falling forwards as you climb up, or feeling like you're climbing up as you head down...

poking the leaning tower

pizza, wine (and beer) and the leaning tower... (this was the worse wine I have ever tasted - like slightly fizzy, watered-down, tart grape juice.)

We drove to Rome the next day, and have 3 days here. We've covered most of the main sites, and are off to the Vatican tomorrow. Today we wandered around the Roman forum ruins, and up the Palatine hill. Then the Colosseum. I took a brief picture on the Spanish steps, but it was too crowded to spend much time there. We threw coins into the Fontana Di Trevi - we'd actually got there early this morning, to find the fountain empty, and the workers sweeping and clearing away huge mounds of coins in large bags! - so headed back in the afternoon when things were in full swing and added to the mounds ourselves.

where's mita? on the spanish steps.

colosseum

roman forum ruins and palatine hill.

Yesterday, we covered the Piazza del Popolo, the Pantheon, Piazza Venezia. I took photos of Stu posing in various poses mimicking the statues in the fountain at Piazza Navona - definitely will have to post those pictures up at some stage! We crossed the river Tiber, stopping at the island in the middle, which was a lot smaller than I expected, and feasted on pasta, pizza and panacotta in the Trastevere district.

Stuart and the Piazza Navona fountain series...

We're heading down for a day trip to Pompeii in a couple of days. We'll probably find that it's no where near enough time for us to see everything we want to, but logistics demands it unfortunately. I'm sure we'll still see plenty to keep us happy though :)

Ciao!