Central Europe (Prague, Budapest, Vienna)
Ginny and I went to
Budapest, Vienna, and Prague (via Helsinki) as part of a SmarTours group.
There’s a lot to be said for being able to put your suitcase outside your door
in the morning and reuniting with it in your hotel room that night in a
different city. Our tour guide Renata was an amazing lady – she managed to be
both knowledgeable and well-organized without the slightest hint of
officiousness. Her tips on where to shop were particularly good. The downside of
being on a tour, needless to say, was that we didn’t have nearly enough time in
any of the cities.
I’m warning you in
advance: if you ask to see my pictures you’re doing so at your own risk. These
pictures, though beautiful individually, almost bore even me: here’s a church,
and there’s another church; this is the Danube, and so is this; that’s a plague
column, and that’s another plague column, etc. Occasionally there will be a
picture of a tour member whose name I don’t remember and I’ll never see again.
Most of the pictures of either me or Ginny have been expunged by mutual
agreement because we both had a series of bad hair days.
Another warning: don’t
ask me for any restaurant recommendations. True to form, I’d done an enormous
amount of research into places with good local cuisine and a lot of atmosphere.
Alas, it soon became apparent that while atmosphere was easily come by (Vienna’s
heurigen! Prague’s beer cellars!), aside from the pastries and Mozartkugeln
“good local cuisine” is an oxymoron. There is only a limited amount of goulash,
pot roast, and bread dumplings one can eat, especially in the summer. By the
second night in Prague even I was ready to find an Italian restaurant.
Budapest
Our first stop was
Budapest, which we were introduced to by a splendid Danube-at- night cruise.
It’s an interesting city that really “spoke” to a lot of people on the tour.
Buda, the hilly part with the castle, is on one side of the Danube, while Pest,
which is flat, is across the river from it. There are several superb churches
(St. Matthias and St. Anne in Buda, St. Stephen in Pest), an ornate neo-Gothic
Parliament Building right on the river bank, an impressive opera house, and a
number of the thermal baths for which Budapest is famous, many dating back to
the Ottoman Empire. I actually “took the waters” at the Gellert – a highly
decorative art nouveau hotel/spa complex. (All three cities, much to my delight,
have a strong “Secessionist” art nouveau strain in both art and architecture.)
One of the reasons we
selected this tour was that it included visits to the countryside; to some of
the smaller towns in the area. We took a side trip from Budapest to Szentendre,
an artists’ colony, and Estergom, a cathedral town. Szentendre was charming, as
well as being a souvenir shopper’s paradise (where else can you get hats made
out of mushrooms?) Museums there ranged from the sublime (Margit Kovac, a very
talented ceramicist) to the ridiculous (the Marzipan Museum -- featuring 3 foot
tall battling marzipan dinosaurs, a life-size marzipan Yoda, a marzipan
Parliament Building, marzipan tableaux of almost every Disney feature-length
cartoon, and [our favorite] a 6 foot tall white chocolate Michael Jackson. You
really had to see it to believe it.)
On to Vienna, a city
I’ll have to get back to as there was so much to see and we had so little time
to see it all. We found St. Stephen’s stunning (particularly the pulpit) and the
Belvedere magnificent. We got to the Hundertwasser Haus – a large apartment
building designed for both people and tree tenants. While there, we had the
opportunity to avail ourselves of “The Toilet of Modern Art,” an experience not
to be missed. We toured Schonbrunn Palace (such opulence!) and managed to hit
many of the highlights of the Kunsthistoriches Museum.
In the interests of
Ginny’s dissertation, we took advantage of an optional side trip to the Vienna
Woods to visit an operational Cistercian Monastery. Mayerling, where Crown
Prince Rudolf and his inamorata were found dead, was included in the tour. The
scenery was beautiful – lush green woods, a very colorful array of wildflowers,
and picturesque villages.
The journey to Prague
took a full day. First, we stopped at Durnstein, where the Bambergers held
Richard the Lion-Hearted hostage when he passed through on his way to the Second
Crusade. Another stop was made at Telc, a delightful Renaissance town straight
out of the 15th century. The entire town square still has all the original
Renaissance facades, replete with sgraffito, sculptures, and colorful paintings.
Enchanting.
And then we were in
Prague. What a marvelous, fascinating city! Granted, it needs a good cleaning.
And we were constantly warned about pickpockets (a few attempts were, in fact,
apprehended) and told repeatedly not to get hurt as the medical care is so
abysmal. Many people had said that I’d love Prague, and they were 100% right. It
escaped bombing during WWII, and so has a complete sequence of architecture
ranging from medieval through art nouveau.
The main cathedral, St.
Vitus, is breath-taking – a classic example of Gothic exuberance. Your heart
soars when you walk into it. Much of the original stained glass remains,
including a magnificent window by Alphonse Mucha. (I know, that sounds like an
anachronism. The cathedral wasn’t completed in its present form until the early
1900’s.)
Old Town Square is
fabulous – an exquisite collection of Renaissance houses, palaces, and churches,
completed by the town hall’s astronomical clock. Every hour on the hour there’s
quite a show: among other things, the 12 apostles parade past open windows, a
skeleton rings a bell, a miser shakes his money bag, and a rooster crows. In Old
Town and Little Town houses were marked by signs before the advent of house
numbers, so there are houses with the sign of the Black Madonna, of the 3
Ostriches, of the 3 Fiddles, of the Golden Bears, of the 2 Suns (where Neruda
lived) and the like. Kafka also lived in Prague, in a tiny house on Golden Lane
– a (previously slum) street rowed with small houses built right up against the
citadel’s fortification wall.
Charles Bridge is
spectacular, though very crowded. Two stately towers mark each end of the
bridge; the bridge itself is lined with statues of saints and is crammed with
booths selling everything touristy from jewelry to paintings. We went to the
Mucha Museum – glorious—and sought out other hallmarks of art nouveau such as
the Municipal Building and Hotel Paris. The Jewish Quarter also has many fine
examples of Secessionist architecture in addition to its synagogues and cemetery
(where Rabbi Low, of Golem fame, is buried.) And we made sure we saw the
original Infant of Prague – a wax figure about 1 foot tall in a very elaborate
Baroque shrine. He lives in a church with a sign that says “Beware of
pickpockets while praying,” has an extensive wardrobe, and is always dressed
appropriately for whatever the occasion.
Our last night was
spent in Helsinki. Having given up on finding good restaurants, I let Ginny
select the venue for our last vacation meal, and she really rose to the
occasion. We ate wood-smoked salmon at a place called Havis, and it was
absolutely delicious. The next morning we visited the Eastern Orthodox Uspenski
Cathedral during services. The Mass was chanted, and people stood for most of
the service. When they knelt, all but the most elderly got down on the floor,
touching their heads to the ground. After that, we went to the local market,
bought a liter of the best strawberries I’ve ever had, and headed for the
airport for an uneventful flight home.