Lufthansa 431 departed at 4:40 pm - well, it left the gate then. We didn't get airborne until 5:05. The guy seated behind me came on board late and immediately said: "This is going to be a miserable 8 hours." Certainly for those of us within earshot of him.. While he didn't talk all the time, when he spoke it was just loud enough to be heard, and pretty stupid.
The flight itself was not bad. There was only a brief hint of turbulence, the woman next to me was German and wasn't interested in talking. In fact, I was worried for a while that she was sick with flu or something., especially when several of her friends and stewardesses kept coming up to ask her if she was OK.. But she may have just been tired - she seemed better after eating, and her last conversation with the stewardess resulted in a supply of magazines, not aspirin.
The movie was "Enemy of the State" and the video system only broke down once during it. The lights for reading did not always work - some never seemed to work, and mine sometimes went out by itself.. The sound system worked well enough, but there were a couple of channels that were hard to tune in to - fortunately nothing I wanted. The headphones did have trouble deciding which ear I was going to get sound poured into, though.
We arrive in Frankfurt at 1:10 am body time, 8:10 to everybody on the ground. We had to wait a bit to get a spot at the gate, and the stewardesses had to order people back to their seats. Once off the plane, I started exploring the airport. It wasn't my real intention, but you wind up seeing most of the airport just trying to get your luggage. Follow the signs, I missed one and had to go back. Got through passport control. Follow the signs, through the main part of the terminal, down the stairs, and finally find the baggage pickup place. Get the bags, go through customs - Nothing to Declare, walk right on by.
Picked up the car - a Ford Fiesta, a small 4 door model, with radio and cassette player. Left my luggage in the hatch of the car, and went in search of milk. I had had an acid attack right after landing - I think the morning coffee on the airplane was a bit too strong, or I may have gotten too much contamination my "omelet" from some green peppers. Anyway, I found a grocery in the airport, and bought some milk off the shelf (i.e., not refrigerated). It tasted all right, and took care of the acid. I also picked up a large scale map of east-central Germany, the area I would be driving through. I took a look at a map of the Frankfurt area to check my route. Take autobahn 3 to 661 to 66 to Fulda - so easy I didn't need to buy the map.
I left the airport, found the sign for highway 3 right away, and was soon sailing down the autobahn. After a while, I finally noticed that the sun was behind me, over my left shoulder, instead of in front of me, as it should be if I was going east. And the next sign was for points west. Fortunately the sign after that was for highway 66, so I took it east. (Thinking back, there was construction work going on at the interchange for highway 3. There was another on-ramp, in the construction area. It looked closed, though maybe it wasn't. I do know I took the only ramp that was marked.) Unfortunately, 66 took me right through the heart of Frankfurt. The signs for Fulda were good right up until the last turn back on to the autobahn, but I managed. Interesting sight on the way to Fulda - a ruined tower, obviously medieval, still barely standing, right smack up against the fence along the highway.
I got to Fulda about 12:30 (5:30 am to me) and found that it is a much bigger town than I had expected.. So, in the best Pandaheimer tradition, I spent the next hour and a half trying to find the hotel. I had only a street name to guide me, and there were far too many streets. I kept seeing signs for the town information office at the Stadtschloss, and kept missing the turnoff for the parking lot. I finally got parked, but couldn't find the information office. No matter, there was a map of the town on a wall. I soon found the street I wanted, and was off.. Of course, the route I mapped out included some turns I wasn't allowed to make, but I eventually got to the hotel. They didn't seem to know anything about a reservation, but they had a room. It was now 2 pm - 7 am to me - I had been up 23 hours, with only about an hour's rest on the plane.
I slept for about 4 hours, then got up for supper - roast beef and potatoes, adequate, but not great, and Warsteiner beer, definitely not a keeper. I plugged in the computer and entered the day's expenses into a spreadsheet, and started work on this journal. As soon as I finish my pipe I will hit the sack again. A tiring and frustrating first day, but I really didn't plan much for it other than getting to Fulda, and I did that.
Day 2 Mar. 18. The Luxembourg Invasion Army Lives Again.
Fulda had only two sites worth seeing - the cathedral (Dom, in German), and the church next door to it. The Dom was a huge pile in the Italian Baroque style - very few and small windows with no stained glass; I didn't even bother seeing if it was open. The Michealskirche next door was much nicer - Romanesque, dating back to the 9th and 10th centuries. It looked very nice from the outside, but it didn't open until 10 am, and I couldn't waste an hour waiting for it to open.
I got out of Fulda without too much hassle - the road I needed was one I had been past yesterday. The drive to Eisenach was very nice. A bright, sunny day driving through open, hilly country. It looked somewhat like western Wisconsin, not flat, but not yet mountainous. At one point, I saw two castles on adjacent hills, no more than a mile or two apart. I got a picture of one as I was driving, but decided not to risk taking two pictures. Besides, at the speed I was going, I may have a blur and not a castle.
How fast was I going?, you ask. Fast enough. I was generally doing 120 km per hour, or about 75 mph. I was generally being passed by every other car. One time, I was up to 140 km per hour (about 87 mph) when someone passed my like I was standing still, followed by two more going almost as fast. The only real problem with the car is that both side mirrors are the kind where objects are nearer than they appear - a real problem when you check your side mirror for cars approaching from behind. I've learned to use only the rear view mirror to check behind me - it's accurate. Gas is the equivalent of $3.40 per gallon. The first tank worked out to about 32 mpg. This won't be cheap, but I didn't think it would be.
There are two exits from the autobahn for Eisenach, and I had no idea which I should take, so I took the second. It was actually the better choice, probably. It would have definitely been the better choice if I had known where I was going. There is a certain navigational gap between the highway map and the local map in the Michelin guide. And, of course, I can't read maps and drive at the same time. I can get by without someone to talk to, but I sure do miss having a navigator along.
I wandered a bit through Eisenach before finding the road to the Wartburg castle. The town looks rather nice, and I had planned to walk around the old part of town after the castle, but I was running short on time. I definitely packed too much into my itinerary. The Wartburg is outside the town proper, high on a hill. There was a beautiful view of it on the approach road, but there was no place to pull off and take a picture, and there were cars behind me. Anyway, half of that side of the castle was wrapped up for restoration.
It's a hefty climb from the parking lot up to the castle, especially as I was parked at the lowest end of the parking lot. I found out when I was done that they charge 2 marks an hour to park, and I was there 3 hours. Serves me right for having lunch there. When I caught my breath, I started taking pictures, including the hotel next door to the castle. The castle itself is not terribly big, considering how important it had been, but it is a decent size. A tour was just starting as I came up, so I joined in. There were few, if any, other English speakers, so the tour was entirely in German, but I had bought the English guidebook.
It's rather nice inside, despite the 19th century restoration. The decorations are mostly 19th century, a la Ludwig's castles, but they did make a serious effort to retain the layout of the rooms. The Great Hall was the only major architectural change, with the low, flat ceiling being replaced by a higher, angled one. Even though the decoration was only imitation medieval, one part was exquisite. Kaiser Wilhelm II, to celebrate the restoration, donated a glass mosaic room, incredibly beautiful, and almost period in its design. The museum had a few pieces of armor, a couple of Cranachs, and some other stuff, but almost none of it had any connection with the castle.
By now, I was well behind my schedule, so I passed up the town of Eisenach, and headed for Erfurt. It was pretty quick by autobahn, despite some roadwork, but I misread the number on my map for the road I wanted to take into Erfurt. I got off at the wrong exit and had to work back into town. I kept following the signs for the Altstadt - the old part of town - until I figured I was there. I parked and tried to find where I was on a map nearby. I couldn't find where I was (turned out I didn't look hard enough), but the sign pointed to the sites I wanted to see, so I started walking.
I was a little off from where I wanted to park, but not too far. I got pictures of the only bridge north of the Alps with houses still on it, as well as some nice late medieval and Renaissance buildings. I wanted to see the Dom and the church next to it. They're very impressive, sitting high above the square. Unfortunately, I got there just before 4 pm, and they don't do tours after 4. Still, I got some nice pictures of the outside.
It was getting late and I had to be on my way to Naumburg and my hotel for the night - already reserved, luckily. I started from Erfurt about 5:15. By 6 pm, I finally left Erfurt. The road I wanted was right next to where I had parked. Of course, I was parked on a one-way street, but I quickly rounded the block and was on the road out of town. At the first intersection was a sign - road closed for bridge construction. So I took another road across the river and tried to cut over the road I wanted. Unfortunately, everyone in Erfurt seemed to be using the same shortcut. Traffic crawled, but I finally got onto my road, and crawled some more. It seems they were doing some other work on it as well, and had it down to one lane for both directions. It was just a few dozen feet, but it sure tied things up. Once past there, the road was open and I took off.
I had checked my map, and knew what roads I wanted. It was all back roads, but pretty straightforward, so I thought. Mostly, the roads were in good shape, and traffic was light, so I could drive at a pretty good clip. Not as fast as the autobahn, but good enough. There was one stretch of several miles of bad road - not washboard, more like cheese grater. I was fine until I was looking for route 87. I was supposed to turn on it out in the country. I found a road just like that, but it didn't say 87, nor did I recognize any of the places it led to. This would become a recurring problem.
So, when I came to a town, I knew I had missed my road, and I went back. This should have been easy, one road all the way to Naumburg. Until I got to Buttstadt (yes, that is the correct name). Not a sign for 87, or for Naumburg. Some of the signs I did see pointed to places I couldn't find on my map. I finally checked the map for any decent sized towns between Buttstadt and Naumburg, and eventually found the right turning.
I finally got to Naumburg a little after 7 pm, and started to look for the hotel. It is on Bahnhofstrasse (Train-station street), so I decided to look for the train station - there were bound to be signs for that, at least. I turned into the inner town, and immediately saw a sign pointing the way to the train station. But I couldn't find it. I kept driving around and around the same few blocks, and couldn't see anything like a train station, or any more signs. Twice I swung out in a longer loop, just outside the inner town, and on my second pass I noticed the town map. Salvation! It turned out the train station was nowhere near the inner town at all. I finally got the hotel about 8 pm. I really need to bring a navigator next time!
The hotel is very nice, especially for $50 a night (single). Dinner was pork steak (actually, center cut pork chop without the bone) and pommes frites. Paradise regained! It's all worth it for pommes frites. They weren't the best pommes frites I've ever had, but they were real pomme frites, and they were good. The beer was Wersengruner. Grun means green, and it could have used a little aging. Still, it was better than the beer at Fulda. The best I've had so far was at lunch today - Wartburger, made in Eisenach for centuries. Not a great beer, but a good beer anyway.
Most of today's driving was through the old East Germany, and you really can't tell that you've crossed an old border. There may be a few more buildings in need of upkeep, but there's a lot of repair work going on, and lots of new construction. Plenty of shops, of the same types and variety you would find in the western parts of Germany. Lots of new cars on the road, and I haven't seen a Trabant yet. One other thing I haven't seen yet is snow - not a trace anywhere.
Day 3 Mar. 19. Plague!
I woke up feeling sick. I had a hacking cough from congestion deep in my chest. I don't know if I brought it with me (so many of my friends think they should share their germs with everyone), or if I picked it up here. Not that it really matters; miserable is still miserable. On top of that, the day was cool and drizzly, and I had planned to walk around Naumburg.
After writing off Eisenach and a lot of Erfurt, I really didn't want to give up Naumburg. So I dressed warmly (and still shivered) and went out. The guidebook overstated some of the sights, but some are very good. The earliest oriel window in town is nice, if typical. The one good thing about the oriel next door is that is seems to have created a local style - multi-story squared-off oriels. Unfortunately, the paint job is hideous. At least it was recently painted. A couple of other guide-book favorites haven't been painted in years.
The market square was very nice, with a couple of nice painted gateways on two of the buildings. The town hall has 6 dormers (gables, the guide book calls them - what does Michelin know about architecture anyway), and another building on the square has copied them exactly. A third building, just off the square, has the same style dormer, but with different tracery. There are a couple of other streets with neat old buildings, especially Jacobstrasse. One very nice late 16th century building served as a hotel for a couple of centuries - Napoleon stayed there in 1813, though the sign didn't say if it was before or after the battle of Leipzig.
Behind the market square is an interesting church, St. Wenzel's. It's greatest claim to fame is that Bach played the organ here. The nave is 108 by 36 feet, rather small, though there are large alcoves on the sides. But the ceiling is quite high, so it looks a little out of balance. In fact, the whole church looks larger from the outside than it does from the inside.
When I left St. Wenzel's, it had stopped raining, but it was still cool and damp. I crossed t he old town to the Dom - a really amazing church. It had a pair of towers in the back that were standard straight lined gothic style, topped with little domes (I think). And it had another pair of towers in the front, in sort of a Romanesque style, with columns - very nice.
Inside, the Dom was even nicer. It had two chancels (sanctuaries), east and west. And each was closed off by a rood screen. One was a solid wall, and the sanctuary was up above. Behind the wall was open, being part of the entry to the crypt. The sanctuary was very nice, some good stained glass behind the altar, a statue of a saint to hold the missal, and some very nice carvings.
The other rood screen had a panel depicting Christ's passion and crucifixion, all carved. Inside were statues by the same artist of the nobles who had contributed to the building of the church. Very lifelike portraits, showing real personality.
After leaving the Dom, I went to Neuenburg, a castle in the nearby town of Freyburg. I stopped for lunch in Freyburg - bockwurst and pommes frites - still as good as ever. There was a map of the town next to the food stand, and , of course, I needed it. Coming into town a sign pointed ahead and said: To the castle. And that was the last word about that. I guess you were supposed to figure it out on your own, and that that was a pretty good clue. Well, it wasn't. The road to the castle looked like a one-lane alley, and it got worse. It hadn't been paved in, oh, decades, at least. Ruts, washed out spots, barely wide enough for one car, steep and winding. The first thing I saw when I got to the castle was a bunch of schoolkids, and I wondered how they got their bus up that road, and where they had stowed it. Then it occurred to me that there must be another road. It may have even been on the map - after finding one road why should I bother looking for another.
The castle was pretty typical German style, with the main buildings grouped around a courtyard, their outside walls being the outside walls of the castle. There was one large, free-standing keep, shaped like a bullet. The place has been heavily renovated in the last 10 years, and part is still being worked on. When I came in a little after 1 pm, the sign said "Next tour at 12". I started to look around the courtyard, and a man and a woman came out of the museum, changed the sign to say "Next tour at 2", and walked away. I decided to wait, and wandered around the grounds for a while. I went into the museum after a while, hoping it would be warmer. It was, slightly, warmer, but deserted. Most of the exhibits were about how they were reconstructing the place, and how much they've already done. Time kept passing, I was cold and aching, and finally decided that I didn't want to tag along while a guide spoke German to the only other two people there.
It was late enough anyway. I was supposed to spend half the day in Leipzig museums, and stop at Castle Colditz on my way to Dresden. Instead, I skipped all that, and headed straight for Dresden. I don't think I could have got it all in anyway. Granted that part of the sightseeing in Naumburg was supposed to have been done the night before (which I couldn't have done, because the town was not terribly well lit at night), if I had actually been on schedule, I would have left Neuenburg at about 11 am, only 3 hours earlier than I did leave. That doesn't give me 4 hours in Leipzig, or an hour in Colditz, or the extra time to drive on the back roads between these places.
On the other hand, the trip to Dresden was probably longer than normal, because of all the road work being done. Naturally, I got off at the wrong exit at Dresden, but the road that I was on seemed to be heading right to where I wanted to go. Unfortunately, even with 3 maps in different scales, there were too many streets whose names weren't listed, so I didn't know what street I should turn onto. I finally found a street on my hotel map entirely by accident. Three hours of driving from Freyburg, another 45 minutes wandering around Dresden - the only good thing was that I was able to stay warm and keep the cold from getting worse. The bad news is, of course, no smoking until the cold clears up. Now there's an incentive to get well.
The hotel in Dresden wasn't expecting me. They were expecting an American, but not me. Still, they had a room. I opened the door and stepped into a little lobby with a big coat rack. Then another small room with a bathroom beyond, but no sign of a bed. Then I noticed the other door - a rather spacious bedroom. I looked under the TV cabinet, and on one side found 3 or 4 glasses. On the other side, I opened the door, and found another door. I opened that one and found a mini-frig.
I had already seen the menu, and knew dinner here would be a bit high, but lunch had been cheap, and I didn't want to go out into the damp again. So I ate in the hotel, all alone. Nobody else in the restaurant from 7 to 8. There were some hotel guests coming and going, but no one for the restaurant. It's a shame, because the food was good. I had venison ragout with dumplings, very tasty, washed down with the best beer I've had here yet - Eibauer Lausitzer Dunkel, an excellent dark beer.
I'm not feeling as bad as I felt this morning, but I'm still not feeling great. Good thing that tomorrow is scheduled for indoors - visiting museums all day. Regardless of what the weather is like, I won't be out in it much. I'd like to get some expectorant, but I don't know what it's called here, or where to find it. I tried one drugstore, but they didn't have anything we would consider over-the-counter medications. But my dictionary distinguishes between a pharmacy and a drugstore, so maybe I was in the wrong one.
Day 4 Mar. 20 Museums and Money, or, Hard to Find Cash and Real Cool Steel.
I woke up feeling a little better, which is good, because the bed looked I had suffered through a bout of yellow fever. Before I even left the hotel, the phlegm had pretty much broken loose and left my chest. There's still a little hint of it, but it's not too bad. My mouth still has that sick taste, like it's crawling with germs. But I've been gargling regularly and it may be clear by tomorrow - I hope.
Today was museum day in Dresden - for me, anyway. For everyone else, it was racing day. They closed off the main street in the Altstadt, and had foot races for kids, teens, and maybe adults all afternoon long. I went to the Zwinger museum. It was once a ducal palace and was turned into an art museum - full of porcelain, paintings, and armor. Then we fire-bombed Dresden and turned it into a pile of rubble. The art, at least, was safe elsewhere. And the people of Dresden decided to rebuild it, exactly as it was. And so it stands again today, just as good as new.
Well, almost as good as new. Nothing in Dresden looks new for long. The Zwinger is, by easy math, something less than 50 years old in this incarnation. Yet it looks as black as if it had been next to foundry for a century. The air pollution is really bad out here. Even on the autobahn, I have to close the air intake and recycle the air in the car, because "fresh" air from outside smells so bad. I don't know what the German Green Party has been doing, but they seem to be dragging their feet on cleaning the air. Thank God, they've gotten rid of the Trabant.
I saw the armor collection in the morning. They have some rather ordinary stuff, the kind of swords and armor and such that any good collection has. But they have some very interesting and unusual pieces, too. The first I saw was the sword 3.45 meters long, with a triangular cross section, apparently used for boar hunting. There were a large number of old pistols and muskets, all with flints, but some seemed to be converted wheel-locks. One of them was a double barreled gun, with two locks. Another had two locks, but only one barrel. I don't know what the extra lock was for. They also had a grenade launcher, dated 1729. It was labeled "Grenatagewehr", and had a large, deep mouth, just right for holding a small grenade.
There were some very nice halberds, partisans, etc., including a double-barreled flintlock halberd. There was another one (whose German name I can't recall) with a slim sword-like blade, and a curved blade on either side, almost like an oversized ricasso. They had a catch-pole, and a Janissary staff. I guess this was a battle standard or some such thing, because it didn't look like a v very useful weapon. It has two crescents pointing toward the haft, with a chain connecting the far end of each crescent to the haft. The chains weren't really long enough to snag anything easily, and the crescents didn't seem designed for cutting.
There was some very nice armor, and some nice displays of it. They had most of the armor in glass cases, which made it hard to take pictures without getting glare and reflections. But they had a pair of mounted figures uncased. And another pair of mounted figures, uncased, "jousting" with each other. There was also a display of children's armor, complete with scaled down weapons. They had a suit of scale armor made in Poland, around 1700. And a suit of gold colored armor lined with red cloth - I couldn't see it well enough to tell what kind of cloth. It looked like raggedy terrycloth, but that might have just been the age showing.
By the time I had finished the armor collection, it was 12:30, and I thought about lunch. I also thought about having just broken my last 100 DM note for a souvenir. For a while I had been thinking that I might not need to change more dollars into marks. But now I had too little for lunch, and dinner, and gas, and any other souvenirs I might want to get, not to mention having any Czech money. Easy solution, find a currency exchange (which actually will change currency in Europe), and change some money.
There I was, in the heart of Dresden's historic and tourist attracting old town, and I couldn't find a currency exchange anywhere. After wandering around for almost an hour, I went back to my car, thinking to just start driving blindly around trying to spot an exchange. Before I started up, I asked myself where there had to be a currency exchange. Train station, probably, and airport, certainly. The train station was closer, so I went there first. First thing I saw when I went in the door was an exchange. I got dollars changed into marks and crowns for Czech Republic, since I go there tomorrow, a Sunday.
Money safely in hand (or wallet, actually), I went back to the Zwinger for the painting rooms. Lots of biblical scenes, mostly rather ordinary. There was a triptych by Van Eyck that was breath-taking. It was very small, but the figures were clear and sharp, with brilliant colors. They have one or two Vermeers, at least one Frans Hals, a few Rembrandts, and lots of (bad) Reubens. They have a big section at the beginning of the museum of paintings of Dresden and its suburb Pirna in the 18th century by Canaletto. His paintings are so detailed that you can often still find the exact spot he set up his easel. And he painted tons of pictures, showing several different views of the same scene. This has proved very useful in restoring Dresden after the bombing.
After leaving the museum, I headed out past the Opera House, and the old ducal palace. I suspect these have been restored, too, but they're too black to really tell. They are doing work on the palace, but the guidebook implies that the mural of all the rulers of Saxony in procession is the original from 1906. The Catholic cathedral across the (narrow) street was destroyed, and is being restored now. And, of course, the Frauenkirche was destroyed. The biggest and best loved church in Dresden, with a huge dome, was just down the road from the palace. The sandstone of the church got so hot, it melted, and the dome collapsed. Only a few small sections of wall survived. And it stayed that way until reunification.
On the entry wall at the Zwinger is a plaque describing the history of the building. It mentions how in February 1945 the American and British bombing destroyed the Zwinger (and the rest of Dresden). It then mentions how the Soviet army freed them from Nazi tyranny, and helped them rebuild the Zwinger. Have you got the political message, yet? Of course, Communists have no interest in rebuilding churches, so the Frauenkirche lay in ruins. Private money rebuilt a lot of Dresden, even when the government dragged its feet, but there wasn't enough private money for so large a rebuilding. But with reunification, enter a new government, which wants to send its own political message. The Frauenkirche is being rebuilt with completion scheduled for Dresden's 800 year anniversary in 2006.
It's such a criminal shame that we fire-bombed Dresden. There was no military need or benefit - the war was almost over anyway. So many people died and so much beauty destroyed for nothing. The book stores still have lots of books with titles like "Dresden, Then and Now" or "Dresden, the Way It Was". On the way past the ducal palace, I passed several postcard stands. One of them had a pair of displays showing the damage done by the bombing. I don't think this is so much anger or resentment, but still a feeling of loss. The old market square is partially rebuilt, with the rest coming along. But it looks nothing like the market square in the old paintings. Putting up buildings is easier and quicker than putting up copies of buildings. The new buildings serve every purpose asked of them, except the aesthetic one. They aren't terribly ugly, they just aren't the ones that gave Dresden a reputation for beauty.
Anyway, tears came to my eyes when I got to the Frauenkirche, and I think it will be a long time before I can think about it without getting melancholy. But it is being restored, and quickly. The whole thing is under wraps, so there's no way of telling what it looks like, but it's supposed to be a duplicate of the original.
I got back to my car, and started back to the hotel, wanting to get some gas on the way, since I was low and I don't know if the gas stations are open on Sunday. I missed my turn for the hotel, but I figured I could cut over at the next street and connect up. Surprise, I found the street I had been looking for in vain last night. The one that was sure to lead me to the hotel's street. Well, it didn't. Maybe it was one of those unmarked streets that are so common here, or maybe I missed the one little sign they might have put up. Anyway, driving down the road, I came upon a gas station, and 5 pfennigs cheaper than usual. Going back, I misread a street name, and found myself unexpectedly half a block from the hotel - sheer luck.
Last night's dearth of dinner custom was not repeated. At 6 pm, when I went down for supper, there was a large party in one side room, and the banquet table laid out for another party in a second room. I decided to not give the staff anyone else to worry about, and went to another hotel down the street for dinner. Lammkottelot - lamb cutlet - was actually the two smallest lamb chops in history. It was good, but I had to take small bites to make it last. The potatoes were shaped like round hash browns, but tasted like potato pancakes, and the green beans were actually delicious (and I normally find green beans a big shrug). They had the same good beer I had last night, so all in all the meal was OK.
This part of Dresden is rather nice. It doesn't seem to have been affected by the bombing, or by anything else this last fifty years or more. Lots of huge houses, many showing signs of neglect. But quite a large number are being fixed up and turned into hotels, restaurants, offices, or whatever. It's nice to see these old buildings getting a new life.
Day 5 Mar. 21 On Schedule and Nothing Left Out!
The cold seems to have passed. I think I know what caused it. I was climbing up the the castle at Konigstein, and gasping for air, when I remembered I had been doing the same thing at Wartburg. Breathing cold air through the mouth always gives me chest congestion, and since I stopped breathing through my mouth today and feel fine, I guess that might have been it.
My hotel in Dresden had a nice set of brochures for Konigstein, with a map showing where to park without having to make the long t trek from the town. And I saw the sign for the first parking place, and turned down the road to find - nothing. I drove a couple of miles, but saw no place to park for the castle. So I got back on the highway and went a little further, and found the second parking place. This was OK - a parking lot, a tractor-pulled trolley to take you up the hill, and souvenir stands. The trolley didn't seem to be running, so I walked. The sign said 20 minutes, my watch said 30. It was a longish walk, and the last half was pretty steep, but it was worth it.
Konigstein goes back to the 13th century in some form. In the late 16th century it was turned into a fortress and it's been expanded and refined ever since, right up through the end of the 19th century. It was still used as a military base even in World War II. It is built atop a basalt (?) peak. The top is level, and the space between the top and the bedrock is filled with varying depths of stonework. The main rampart is 50 or 60 feet wide, with a deep moat behind it. There are outlying bastions in some places, and even some inside the walls. The guns on display on the rampart are 24 pounders, but they have some 12 and 6 pounders in the armory.
The most impressive part of the castle is the entrance. You cross a wooden bridge that can be knocked down in case of attack, defended by a small firing position. The road goes up along the cliff face, behind a couple of the outer bastions, until you get to the gate. It's a typical low gate, covered by a somewhat taller gatehouse just behind it, and lots of gunports and firing holes in the main wall. After going through the second gate, you go up another wooden bridge, through the portcullis, and into a long, dark and steep tunnel. About a quarter of the way up, there are two large, deep grooves in the walls. These might have been used to brace timbers for a make-shift wall. About half way up, you come to another portcullis. When you get to the top, you are at the bottom of one last ramp leading into the heart of the castle, with gun ports above and behind you. There are 8 major batteries, besides what's on the ramparts, with their own ammo stores and bomb shelters, all underground.
There are all sorts of buildings, everything a self-contained fortress should have. There are barracks, storerooms, bakeries, a well-house (150 meters deep, and still working). I didn't go into everything or walk all the way around it - it was too big and I was running late. Still, I had seen enough to make it worth stopping. On the way down the hill, I was glad I hadn't waited for the trolley. It had had an accident on the way down, and one of the two cars was off the road. Fortunately, it was near the bottom of the hill where it was fairly flat, but any passengers must have had quite a shaking up.
I had planned to take the back roads from Konigstein town to the Czech border, but I couldn't find the turnoff. Actually, I think I did see it, but the only towns it pointed to were not ones I had on my map. So I took the main road down the Elbe river to the border. I'm glad I was going into Czech, and not Germany there. There's a duty free zone on the Czech side, and the cars heading back to Germany were lined up for at least a mile. The smart people walked. The German border guards were very concerned about the car. They wanted to see the rental agreement. I showed them everything else I had, but they only wanted that, and I forgot where I put it. But they didn't hassle me too much, and sent me on my way with a warning that I had to have that paper. The Czech border guard gave my passport to one of his buddies, who looked at it with a "So what?" attitude, and handed it back. I wish getting into Canada was that easy.
I pulled over right away and changed the last of my marks into Czech crowns, getting a better rate than I had gotten the day before. And I bought the Czech road tax sticker - about $25 for a year's access to their superhighways. I also picked up some more bottled water - $2.76 for 6 bottles, 1.5 liters each.
I did not pick up anything else, despite constant opportunity going into the first big town. I had seen a news report in Germany about Czech "working girls" lining the roads around Usti - a town on my route. I didn't see them there, probably because I wasn't coming into it from the German side, but around Dicen there were lots of them. Nicely dressed, red lipstick, trying to hitch rides, or flag you to a stop. Considering how cold the day was, it must have been uncomfortable in those short skirts. But I was hard hearted, especially for the three girls with a couple of guys with them.
I wanted to see the castle at Strekhov, and the signs at Usti pointed the way, until I crossed the Elbe. I went up and up this hill, not finding any more signs. Actually, of course, the signs were pointing to the town of Strekhov, and once I was there, there wasn't any more need of directions. So I turned back and stopped at a public map I had seen. Wrong hill. But the map showed that I could take the side road right next to me, make a left and go up to the castle. Well, yes, if the road hadn't been closed off. I didn't want to leave the car on some back street and climb the hill, so I turned back to the highway. On the other side of the hill, I found the real entrance, and was able to drive right up to the castle.
It's a ruin, but in reasonably good shape, with a good sized snack bar. The next tour was at 3:30, and it was only 3 when I got there. I didn't want to wait half an hour, and was about to leave, when I saw a couple of people coming down from the main part of the castle, alone. So I went in on my own, and found several others seeing the place without the benefit of a guide. The main hall is really ruined, one room has no roof, and the other has only stumps of the walls. The lower rooms are occupied by the snack bar, and a small museum. There's a large tower that I didn't feel like climbing, and an outer defensive point of some sort, but too little left to tell much about it.
Back in the car and on to Litomerice. The guidebook said this was a nice old, untouched town. I kept wondering if I would ever get to it. Road signs are as much a problem here as in the former East Germany. I finally got there, and the signs led me all the way around what the town map said was the center of town, before letting me into it. They were just trying to control traffic - the obvious way out of the center of town led straight to the bridge across the Elbe and the main road south.
There were several nice buildings on the town square, and a few really fine ones. One had a dome ?, cupola ?, something shaped like a giant chalice - symbol of one branch of the Hussites. Most of the buildings have been repainted recently, and the square looks lovely. The buildings are all painted differently, but with a good sense of color and accents. It's really very nice. The one major building still in need of painting is the church. The bell tower has been painted a plain white, but the rest is still a worn out red and yellow. It used to be a gothic church, until some Italian artist came to town, and redesigned it in Italian baroque. It really doesn't look all that great.
After looking around town for a while, I got back on the road, heading south to Prague. Soon a sign said I could take the autobahn to Prague, so I turned - onto an ordinary two lane, bi-directional, full access road. But it was marked as an autobahn. Eventually, it did turn into an autobahn that went all the way to Prague, but the first part had me worried. In Prague, I got off the highway in the old part of town, and checked my map of Prague to see where I was, and where I needed to go. I found myself pretty easily, and saw that I was only a few blocks and turns from where I wanted to go. The map lied. I have since found that it lies about other streets, also. I guess I need a new map.
I did find the right street eventually, though I had to drive down it twice to find the hotel. The sign just said "Hostel". I parked and went up to the entrance, where other signs mentioned billiards, and a pizza place. Inside the courtyard, there were three doors - an unlit one to a cafe just being set up, one for some school, and one for the pizza place. There was no sign for a hotel, or a hostel, although the pizza place had a front desk that looked like a hotel's counter. While I was standing there looking at the place, and my reservation, a woman came up and asked if I had a reservation. This was the hotel, but they didn't have a sign up yet. The pizza place was actually in the basement, the front desk was the hotel's reception desk, but not yet in service. The place is obviously new, but acceptable.
I asked the woman if it was all right to park outside, and she said that the pizza place got a rowdy crowd, and there were a lot of Russians in the neighborhood, and they weren't to be trusted. So I found a public parking garage for the car. I figure it will cost $14.40 per full day to park there; a little high, but I'll be using it some of the days I'm in Prague. Besides, the police seem to think this neighborhood needs attention - there was a squad with 4 cops in it parked outside from 6 pm to after 9, at least.
I went out in search of supper, and had a problem. The menus are in Czech, and I don't read Czech. Some things I could figure out - biftek is the same in French - beefsteak. But can a steak actually cost $3.60? I should probably gone in to the first restaurant I came to just to learn. Anyway, English is fast becoming the second language here. A realtor's office had a sign "English spoken here", and a sign on the autobahn advertised a shopping mall in Prague as "Over 1500 meters of fine shopping for your enjoyment." I'm not sure I have the text exactly right, but I didn't have to translate anything.
Anyway, I wandered on, and found a restaurant in a courtyard. The menu looked all right, so I went in, and back out again. The place just looked too much like a greasy spoon. But across the street was another restaurant, the Marie Theresie. Their menus were in Czech, English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Japanese. I played it safe - I had the chef's special, roast duck with two types of dumpling and both red and white sauerkraut. It was fantastic! The beer was a Czech dark beer, good but not great. A bit better is the one I had while writing this. I picked up a couple of bottles of a German dark beer the other day, Kostritzer schwarzbier. Not fantastic, but a bit more flavor than the Czech beer. And if I want something I know is good, on my way back from the restaurant, I passed the John Bull Pub, Guinness on tap.
Day 6 Mar. 22. Okay, It's not Paris, but I Still Like Prague
Another cool, overcast day, it's starting to get monotonous. It rained briefly in the early afternoon, and then the clouds broke and the sun came out and warmed things up a bit. The evening even seemed a bit warmer than morning had been. Maybe tomorrow will be nice, too. I can't tell, because there aren't any time and temperature displays anywhere (though clocks are all over the place). And there's no TV in my room, so I can't look for a weather report. Language wouldn't be a problem, since all weathermen use suns and clouds and numbers for temperatures. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.
The cops were gone this morning, and they weren't there tonight, either. Actually, last night they seemed mostly interested in pulling over motorists and asking them questions. They didn't stop everybody, and they didn't stop pedestrians. I have no idea what they were looking for. One does see a lot of police around town, especially in crowded areas. They usually go in pairs, and they look tough. It does make one feel safer walking around, though.
I set out this morning for Prague Castle, figuring on taking a trolley up there, and walking back. But first I had to get a new map of Prague, since the one I picked up at the Junction was inaccurate. A block from the hotel, I found a map shop. It opened at 9 am, and there I was at 9 am. I don't know where the owner was, so he lost a sale. I walked on and found a book store that featured mostly books about Prague, and maps. After looking several over, I chose one with a panorama, 3-D view of the city. The style does obscure some of the smaller streets, but it uses oversize images of the major buildings. They're big enough to be identifiable, so I can navigate by landmarks pretty well.
I was no longer near a trolley line, and the map showed it wasn't all that far to the castle, so I walked on. After crossing the bridge, and looking up at the castle, I decided that a trolley wasn't such a bad idea after all. I happened to be at a trolley stop for a car that went to the castle, and only had to wait a few minutes for the next trolley. The information sheet in the trolley shelter had a section in English, and I was trying to find what a ticket cost when the trolley arrived. It seems you're supposed to have your ticket before you board, because there was no one to buy a ticket from on my car. Fortunately, no one checked for tickets, and I got a free ride.
The castle is immense, and has always been immense. They have models showing its layout at various points in time, and it has always covered the same ground. Large parts of it have been "modernized" by the Habsburgs in the 18th century, using an Italian architect. The result is a lot of nice, but dull, palladian style buildings. But there is still plenty of the old stuff, including the Gothic cathedral of St. Vitus, the Romanesque cathedral of St. George, and the royal palace.
St. Vitus is a big church, and half of it is new. They had built the sanctuary and apse, and the bell tower, then stopped. The Hussite wars took up a lot of royal attention and money, and then the Reformation and the 30 Years War came along. By the time all that was over, Bohemia was just part of the Austrian holdings, and no one thought to finish off the cathedral. After the First World War, when Czechoslovakia was formed, the people decided it was time to complete the work. By 1929, it was done, all according to the original plans. The only difference you can see, is that the newer section is less grimy outside than the older part.
The stained glass in the nave is all modern, of course, but nicely done. Even the glass in the apse is mostly 18th and 19th century stuff. But there's a lovely little chapel for the tomb of St. Wenceslas (as in "good king"). It's 14th century, with some very nice frescoes on the walls. It was kind of hard to see, because the place was full of tourists, mostly in groups. I hate to think what it must be like in full tourist season.
The palace is rather nice, with a lovely big great hall. The vaulting here is normal, but the veins of the vaulting, as they come out of the columns, are twisted around, making a nice effect. In some of the rooms, the vaulting is deliberately broken up, with pieces that don't join together, or stop very short. Very interesting. Down one corridor is the old Czech chancellery. This is where the 1618 defenestration took place. It's surprising that the victims survived, even landing on a dung heap. It's quite a drop.
Upstairs is a suite of rooms, apparently for the royal council. Anyway, they are decorated with the coats of arms of all the Bohemian nobility. It's very beautiful, but photography was not allowed. In the basement are some rooms from the original Romanesque palace, some still being restored. One of the rooms has a set of copies of the Bohemian crown jewels - again, no photos allowed.
St. George's cathedral doesn't allow cameras, either, but the only thing I wanted a picture of was the high, flat ceiling. There was no altar, so I guess it's been de-commissioned. It's important mainly because Wenceslaus founded the original church here.
In a back corner of the castle is a little street called the Golden Lane. It's a series of small houses all run together, put up for the foreign craftsmen who worked on the castle at various times. They are cramped, one room at street level, one above, and, at least sometimes, a room below. Now all the street level rooms are let out to shopkeepers, selling all kinds of stuff. I got a nice pipe in one. Upstairs, they've run everything into one long corridor, with displays of weapons, armor, and medieval clothing, and a crossbow shooting gallery at the end. At the other end is a stair going up into the tower. On one level is a shop selling tin figures, nice but nothing special. At the top, in the most inaccessible spot, is the best shop - it sells weapons and armor. It's all reproduction, of course, but very nicely done, and the prices can't be beat. Full length broadswords went for $108-114, halberds were about $150, I think. A suit of chain went for around $750-850. I don't recall any plate, but they had some nice looking helmets. If I had a way to bring them back, I could make a killing on this stuff in SCA. There was no name on the shop, and they didn't have any business cards, so I don't know if it's possible to order from them. I should have bought something and charged it, because the charge slip would give a name.
I went into these shops because it was raining. When I came out, the sun was shining, and I had pretty much seen all the castle. So I started down the steps from the castle gate to the town. Lots of vendors along the way, and a nice view of Prague. Because of the Habsburg connection, there's a lot of Baroque architecture in Prague, though not as flamboyant as most places. But there's still a lot of Renaissance and even medieval stuff, too. New buildings are mixed in with the old, so there aren't as many pristine period views as some places have, but there are some, and they are worth seeing. I think Paris is a more generally beautiful city, but Prague is right up there. If nothing else, Prague still has the medieval street layouts, confusing, but a reminder of how life was back then.
I came back to the hotel by way of the Charles Bridge. It has a tower at each end, and is lined with the statues of saints. Most are just typical religious statuary, but some have little details that make them interesting - like the bored Turk guarding Christian prisoners. The oldest statue is of St. John of Nepomuk, a local favorite. For some reason, people come up and rub the two plaques on the statue's base. One shows a man and a dog, and the other shows someone being tossed off a bridge. The dog and the tossee are both highly polished from people touching them. The guidebook mentions the statue, but not the custom.
I was going to have dinner at a place the guidebook says has good goulash, but I never made it there. On the way, I came upon a place advertising Budvar beer - Czech Budweiser. So I thought I would give it a try, and they offered roast venison and dumplings. Service was fast and the beer flowed fast - a guy at the table across from mine was served a second (third ?) beer before he had finished the one in his hand. The food was good, though the portion of meat was small. The beer was OK, certainly better than the American version, but not worth a trip out of your way to try. This may free up some time visiting the brewery later this week.
Dresden could learn a lot from Prague. I couldn't find a money change place in the old town in Dresden, but here in Prague you can't swing a cat without hitting an exchange. Everybody offers different rates of exchange, and commissions, and trying to figure out the best deal is tricky. I did find the best one, though. There was an American Express service center a block from the Charles Bridge. They paid a good exchange rate, and didn't charge a commission to convert traveler's cheques.
Day 7 Mar. 23. Wherein I Compete in the Bohemian Grand Prix.
Today was the first road trip day for the Czech Republic. I was going to go to Pilsen, Tepla, and Cheb, with maybe a stop at a castle or two if I had time. Of course, the castles were on the first part of the trip, and it only made sense to stop at just one of them while I was going by. And it was only about 10 miles from the expressway, so how much of a detour could it be?
That's when I discovered the Bohemian Grand Prix course - 14 kilometers of twisting, turning, up, down, and around blind curves. It took me almost half an hour to go 10 miles. But the castle (Karlstejn) was worth it. It's in beautiful shape, no signs of damage or neglect, no "modernization" into some other style. It was built by Charles IV (who built half of Prague) as a summer retreat, and outlying defense for Prague, so it's a good example of 14th century Bohemian castle building.
It's got a big keep that we got to go through, and an even bigger one that wasn't included in the tour. I had to take the tour, solitary exploration was not allowed. I just missed the English tour, so I had to wait a bit for the German tour. I don't know why they bothered with a German tour, when most of the people in the group were Czech schoolkids, who had to have everything translated for them.
You go from floor to floor via a stair tower, with pretty tall risers. The ceilings were wooden beams, looking fairly new. They were supported by a massive beam down the length of each room, which was itself supported by one or more wooden posts. I'm pretty sure the wooden posts were not in the original design, but I guess they didn't want the place collapsing under the weight of all those tourists.
I didn't hear too much of the German guide's talk, and didn't understand much of what I did hear, but it was good to be able to see the place. I got lots of good pictures, anyway, including one of some Hussite arrowheads. The castle shop also sells swords and daggers. Their prices are a bit higher than at the place in Prague Castle, but still pretty cheap. And this place has an address.
Well, by the time I left the castle it was 12:30. It was cold and windy out, and I was cold and hungry. I fixed my problems by stopping at a local restaurant for lunch. There were three Americans at the table next to mine, one of whom was telling his friends all about the Vikings. I don't know how the subject came up, but he knew his stuff really well.
So now it's 1 pm and I can see that the last couple of stops on my itinerary - Tepla and Cheb - are going to have to get cut. They're just too far out from Prague, and I'm still too close to it. So I look at my list of alternate castle sites, and find three in the area. The best, according to the descriptions, is on the other side of the expressway, even further up a winding road. If I chose that one, I probably wouldn't see anything else today. So I went to the other two castles, since they were on adjacent hills.
Actually, Zebrak is on the lower spur of the same hill as Tocnic. Neither castle was open, and Tocnic was a hike up the hill, and not so interesting from the outside. Zebrak was practically at road level, and a nice ruin. I walked around it, taking a few pictures, but didn't try to go up to it. On one side the approach was straight up a muddy trail at a steep angle. On the other side, the slope was gentler, but still not paved. I could see one door, and assumed there would be another at the front, and probably locked.
I now had just enough time to go to Pilsen (and, no, I didn't go to the brewery, though I had enough of their product today). A nice big Gothic cathedral - tall, but kind of short, lengthwise - sits in the middle of the town square. The guidebook says it's the biggest square in Bohemia, but I think Litomerice can match or beat it. Still, it has lots of nice old buildings around it. A sign in the square points out several major buildings, but I think they chose the wrong ones in some cases. They made a lot of some rather plain Baroque buildings, but ignored some rather nice Renaissance ones. The town hall made both of our lists, though. It's a big 15th century building with some nice pictures on the front, rather hard to see from all the grime on it. Next door is the "Emperor's house", made for Rudolf II when he stayed in town, by combining two existing buildings.
After seeing what I wanted in Pilsen, I started back to Prague. I needed to get gas, and pulled into a station. Gas is about two-thirds the price in the Czech Republic as in Germany. But then everything here is cheap. I had venison steak, two beers, and apple strudel for dinner tonight - for $15, including tip. I had to buy a phone card to call home. Everyone in the country uses cell phones, since the phone system was never developed under the Communists. There's no phone in my room, so I had to use a public phone, and they only take phone cards. I got a phone card that I could use outside of the Czech Republic for about $22.50. For that I got over 30 minutes of international calling. Wal-Mart in DeKalb wants $50 for a card that wouldn't give as much time.
After dinner I walked up and down Wenceslas Square (really a wide boulevard), looking at the shops. Everywhere you go in the center of Prague, you see shops. If there's a street-side window, it's got a store behind it. There are stores and restaurants in basements, and in courtyards, and down passageways. They have seen the future, and they know it doesn't have anything to do with Karl Marx. There are teens all over the streets, talking, laughing and having fun, and not a slacker wannabe in the lot. The home of Kafka is exuberant and full of joy.
Day 8 Mar. 24. Kutna Hora is Czech for You Can't Get There from Here
This morning was beautiful - not the weather, though it got sunny off and on - but the touring. I wandered around the old town taking pictures like crazy. There are lots of beautiful old buildings here, and some rather unusual ones, too. I'm also growing tired of Fodor's guidebook. Besides criticizing Czech cuisine for using too much pork and dumplings (heresy!), its directions for seeing the main square in Prague are not so much wrong, as misleading. He describes one building as being a short walk from another - it's the next building but one. He mentions a church you can reach by crossing the small park next to the town hall. The church (a huge Baroque thing) sticks out like a sore thumb, and there isn't any park, just some more paved square. Standing there, reading his description and looking around, I thought I was missing something - but, no, everything is just more convenient than he described.
Still, the square is worth seeing. The Tyn church sticks up over the tops of some nice period houses, with two turreted steeples. (Fodor doesn't like them, but what does he know?) The building next to it has been de-Baroqued, and is once again showing its nice gothic windows. The Kinsky palace, next door again, was wrapped up for work, so I couldn't see it. The most amazing building is the town hall. It looks like a tall, skinny gothic church, with a house attached to it. Actually, it is the gothic town hall and accretions. Over time, neighboring buildings have been added to the original structure to provide extra office space. It has an enormous astronomical clock which puts on a show when it chimes the hour. A skeleton rings a little bell, and a bunch of saints parade past two windows, and then the hour strikes. It draws quite a crowd, and not just from the tourist groups.
So, the morning's sightseeing done, I was ready for the second road trip from Prague. I should have known it was going to be a bad afternoon when the parking garage overcharged and shortchanged me. I was planning on going to the old mining town of Kutna Hora, then to a castle and a monastery. I didn't know how to get to Kutna Hora. I've been there, now, and I still don't know how to get there. I expected to see some signs pointing to it, or one of the other towns in its direction. Maybe I just started in the wrong direction, and all the signs were on the other side of the expressway.
There were a couple of highways that would lead me to Kutna Hora, and I thought highway 2 would be the most convenient. I couldn't find it, or any towns on it. I thought I did once, but found myself heading back into the center of Prague. I tried again, and found some signs pointing to Kutna Hora. I followed them along, turned off where they pointed, and got on the merry-go-round. The sign at the bottom of the exit said I was to take the first turn at the upcoming traffic circle, but that it was closed. I went there anyway, and the traffic circle was open, but with no signs for Kutna Hora. But I knew which turn to take, and it brought me right back to the same spot on the expressway.
After trying this a couple of more times, just to see if I had missed any turn signs, I stayed on the expressway, and found another sign pointing to Kutna Hora straight ahead. This was fine, until I got to another traffic circle, also with no signs for Kutna Hora. It did have a sign pointing to a town that would lead me to highway 2, so I took that. After a little more bewildered map reading, I found highway 2, and found that it was closed for repair halfway through town. There were no detours, either.
So, I followed the signs to another town that would lead me to highway 2 further down. My new road atlas was getting a real workout, but I really needed something with detailed maps of the towns. The atlas was good, but not quite detailed enough to navigate the towns. I finally got to highway 2, and eventually reached Kutna Hora. Reached it, but not the town center. Most of these towns, especially the historic ones, have signs pointing to the heart of the old town. I went all the way through Kutna Hora, and didn't see a single sign for "centrum", even though I could see what looked like the old town a few blocks away. So I went back, and found one. Apparently what is the main entrance road is under repair, and they took down the sign. I had started out a little after one, and it was 4:30 before I got parked. This should have been about an hour's drive.
The guidebook said that the town has stagnated ever since the silver mines ran out, and it looks it. Even though there is some modern industry there, lots of the old buildings are in poor shape. Some are being fixed up now, but there are still a lot of down-and-out looking buildings. Some of the buildings are pretty nice, with nice decorations, even if they're not all in perfect condition. There's a round, 8 foot high, gothic cistern or well-house in one square. Very beautiful. And the cathedral is fantastic. It's in great shape, a lovely gothic masterpiece. The front is a bit plain, but the flying buttresses and tracery are really lovely. It made the trip worth while.
Going back to Prague, I decided to take the other main road, highway 12. I had no trouble finding it, and it led straight to Prague without any interruptions or problems. Until I found myself in the wrong lane. They keep turning through lanes into exit only lanes without any real warning. I had just enough time to switch lanes this time, except for the car alongside me. So I was forced to exit, somewhere in Prague. I tried to get back onto highway 12, but couldn't, and spent an hour wandering around, trying to get to the heart of town, where I knew some of the roads.
I almost made it once, but I needed to get over 2 lanes to exit, and could only make one. I got off at the next exit, thinking that I had done this once before, and could get back easily enough. But I must have made a wrong turn somewhere, and went wandering again. Finally, I saw a tall, gothic tower, one of the old town gates. There are only a few of these left, and one is just down the street from my hotel. So I homed in on it, and there I was.
That's when I found out what the police have been doing outside the hotel. They were there, and flagged me down. The cop who spoke to me didn't speak great English, but seemed to say that I had turned the wrong way down a one-way street. I knew that the direction I was going was legal in front of the hotel, but I wasn't sure about the block before it. And I had been so eager to get home, that I hadn't noticed any signs. So I paid the fine - 1000 crowns ($30). The cop was nice, he gave me 200 crowns back. After dinner, I walked over to the corner I had turned and it did indeed have a one-way sign; but it was pointing the way I had gone. I got taken by a Czech shakedown.
But I went back to the Marie Theresie restaurant for some more of their excellent duck, and that made things better. Now all I have to do is re-plan my next couple of days. I can't afford to waste time wandering the countryside, and I may need to rearrange what I see.
Day 9 Mar. 25. A Tale of Two Cities, and Two Castles, But Not in That Order
Well, I really scrapped the schedule today. I cut out the stuff I missed yesterday, as well as Brno (today's big city target) and the battlefield of Austerlitz. I could probably have done today's itinerary, since I had estimated 2 hours to get to Brno on the expressway, and it would have been closer to one. Of course, getting into and out of Brno might have changed that the other way. Brno had a castle in town, and it would have been nice to see Austerlitz. But it is, after all, just a big empty field now, and I saw plenty of them today, anyway.
The main reason for changing my plans was to make tomorrow easier. I had a lot scheduled for Friday, and I was afraid the road problems I had had would continue and keep me on the road long after dark. So today I saw some of the things I had planned for tomorrow, and that should make it easier to get into Freistadt, Austria in time to see a little of the town. At the very least, it made today's travel a lot easier and relaxing.
I started out by actually studying the map before starting the car, and figuring out which road I needed, how to get to it, and which lane I needed to be in when. I almost missed the lane, but I had pre-planned a backup route for that, too. I still made a wrong turn, because I forgot the route number I was looking for. But it was a short detour and I was soon sailing down the road south of Prague.
It was a beautiful day - sunny and 48 at 10 am, and quite a bit warmer, later. Tomorrow's forecast is 57-64, and sunny again. My first day in Germany was like this, though not as warm. But it has mostly been cool and cloudy, sometimes damp or even raining. Still, today was the first day I saw any snow, mostly small remains of piles along the highway. In one place, the pile was still about 2 feet deep, but the rest will probably be gone tomorrow.
I saw quite a few cops out on the highway, too, mostly within the first 10-15 miles of Prague. They were pulling cars over, apparently at random. Luckily, they didn't pick me. I don't know if they were doing legitimate spot checks, or supplementing their income (it is the end of the month, after all), but after last night I don't feel like giving them the benefit of the doubt. But I'm going to try to forget that, and just get on with the vacation.
The day's plan was to hit a couple of castles - Orlik and Zvikov - which would have been hard to hit on my original schedule. Then I'd go to the town of Pisek, and then Tabor, where I would spend the night. I knew that both castles would be closed, but I figured that I could get some photos of the outsides, anyway. I found Orlik without too much trouble, parked the car, and walked down (yes, down) to the castle. It's a fair sized castle, with a big, solid front, all plastered and whitewashed. That's all I could see, because it's on the edge of the Vltava river. You can't walk around it unless the river freezes. But I did get a couple of long-distance shots of the side view from the approach road. They were taken through the trees, but I'll take what I can get. Actually, the castle looked rather plain and ordinary, and the most interesting thing about my visit was the two peacocks near the castle.
Zvikov was easy to find and I had to walk down to it, as well. Zvikov is even more emphatically a river castle. It's on the tip of a little peninsula, and you can't even get a side photo without crossing the river. I thought about it, but the other side was forest, and I figured I'd just get lost in it. It's really a shame, because Zvikov is a very nice looking castle. It's got a big tower up front, overlooking the gatehouse. Since there's only one place for an attacking medieval army to shell it from - right in front - the round tower has a sharp corner facing the front. Any stones or cannonballs will be deflected away. The gate was open, but the sign in the passage definitely said "Open April to October", so I didn't try going on in. Ah, well, maybe another time.
After Zvikov I headed for Pisek. I missed one turn, but it wasn't clearly marked. I made the left turn, but didn't know that it was a double left turn. On the way back I saw a much clearer sign. Still I got to Pisek in about my estimated time.
Fodor says the only nice thing about Pisek, the only reason you should even stop there, is the Gothic bridge. Phooey on Fodor. The bridge may be gothic, but I think they've changed the mortar a few times, and the stones at least once. It's rather plain and uninteresting. The town is rather nice, though. There are several nice medieval and renaissance houses in good repair. The church is a bit plain, but it has a nice carved stone doorway. And the town has a very nice park, two or three blocks long, that made for a really pleasant stroll. The only bad thing about Pisek is the smell. Everywhere I went, there was a strong smell of dry-cleaning fluid. I don't know how the inhabitants can stand it.
I left Pisek for Tabor, and had an easy trip. I got here a little after three and spent some time walking around town before looking for the hotel. I just checked my text, and I find that I have not mentioned how you park in Germany and the Czech Republic these days. There are signs indicating a parking area, on street or off. You park, then you give yourself a ticket. They have little vending machines and you put some coins in to cover the time you'll be parked there. The machine dispenses a little ticket with your expiration time stamped on it, and you put it on your dashboard. I mention this because today I learned what they do to offenders. When I pulled into the parking lot in Tabor, the car next to mine had a Denver boot on it. Soon after, a squad pulled up and a sorry looking fellow came over to reclaim his car.
Tabor was the great Hussite center and fortress, and a lot of the town's defenses are still standing. Even the town square has a big tower defending it. And you can lease the medieval house (with nice decorations) right next to this tower. (I expect the usual finder's fee.) There are a lot of attractive medieval and renaissance houses around town, though a few are in need of work. The town hall is medieval, but it was turned into a renaissance building, and then a baroque building. Last century, some architect tried to return it to its medieval roots, but it looks to much like a building trying to look medieval.
The church is very nice, gothic with some renaissance touchs that aren't needed. It's rather odd, because the front is not facing the square, but sits across a narrow street from a row of houses. As I said, it was rather warm today, but standing at the front door of the church was like standing in front of an open icehouse. Both the front and side doors were opened, and a cold breeze was blowing through. There's a really nice carved altar piece, a couple of elaborately decorated side altars, and a highly ornate pulpit. It was almost a bit too much, but the Catholic Church always did like to rub it in when it won.
There was a map of Tabor at the parking lot my car was in, so I checked the route to my hotel. It looked pretty easy on the map - drive back a few blocks, turn left, then right, then jog a little to the street. The map didn't show all the traffic on what were, in fact, main streets. It also didn't show that the street I wanted was one way, not in my favor. But that didn't matter, since few streets are marked properly here. I had to turn around and try again, and wound up on the wrong street. I decided to go around the block, and, coming back toward where I had started from, I saw the sign for the hotel.
I parked nearby and walked back to the hotel. They didn't have any record of my request for a reservation, but they did have a room, and free parking reserved on the street out front. The room is nice, though a little cramped. But how often can you get a 3 star hotel for $21 a night? Or dinner - the Tabor special (pork, pork, and pork, with two kinds of dumplings and red cabbage) with soup and strudel for $5?
I had been worried that the glory days of cheap travel in Czech Republic were already over. Not a chance! If the Czechs advertised their prices, they'd be swamped with tourists overnight. Tonight's menu had a quarter duck for $3.15, and a half liter of beer was 60 cents. Even in Prague, meals were often in the same range. And even in Prague, there are several 3 star hotels in the $30-40 range, with 2 star hotels even lower. Of course, this is still the off season, but even in season, the prices don't get exorbitant.
Anyway, today was a good day. The weather was fine; the driving was fine, with little of the hassles I had earlier; and the sightseeing was fine. It was a pleasantly easy day, much easier than my first set of plans would have been. If I had to give up some things to get it, so be it. I was able to see things at a leisurely pace, not worrying about making it to the next stop. I definitely overplanned this trip (like a starving man planning his first meal), but it's shaping up nicely now.
Day 10 Mar. 26. Last of the Tongue-Twisters - I Leave Czech Republic
Well, my plan worked. I had enough time today to linger over some beautiful sights, and still make Freistadt early. It was another glorious day, warm and sunny. I didn't see a temperature sign today, but it was probably in the sixties. Toward evening it got a little cool, but not bad.
My first stop today was Cesky Budejovice, where they make the other Budweiser. It has some nice medieval and renaissance buildings, and some nice fakes, too. There's a wonderful renaissance building dated 1909 - at least they're maintaining tradition. For once, Fodor was right - the town is nice, but not all that great. If I had stayed for lunch, I would have tried their other beer, Samson, brewed since 1723, or so. I thought I would pick up a bottle or two at a store to try out, but I couldn't find a liquor store, or a supermarket.
I wanted to get to Cesky Krumlov for lunch, so I'd have more time there. And it was worth it. I missed a turn (again), and was soon heading way out of town. Coming back, I still didn't see where I was supposed to turn. I could see the old town, but I kept not seeing the road into it. Finally, I tried the first turn I had made once again, and this time found the second turn. I parked next to the local brewery, founded in 1550, and hoped to get some of its product. No such luck, the cafe in the Information Office served some other beer.
Cesky Krumlov is an incredibly beautiful medieval town. The old part of the castle was painted with figures in the renaissance, and its tower was turned into a multi-colored, galleried, domed marvel. They may not look defensive, but they're a wonder to see. The courtyards of the main castle are also painted with renaissance designs and figures. There's also a multi-story aqueduct-looking structure to cross over from the castle on one cliff, to the castle theater on the cliff opposite. Beyond the theater are the gardens, which go on and on. And there are two bears in the moat.
That's just the castle, which is not the best part of the town. Almost everything in the old part of town is pre-1600. There aren't any 19th century fakes - they're in the newer part of the town. It's like Rothenburg, but with more beautiful houses, and with a second, modern, city wrapped around it. Lots of the Czech towns I've seen have houses like this, but none has so many, or in such good condition. There are houses with the whole front painted with scenes, or with carved stone decoration. Whole rows of medieval or renaissance houses, seemingly unchanged.
The gothic church is the one disappointment - it's been plastered outside, and whitewashed, and it just looks too plain in a town so full of color and decoration. Actually, I had another disappointment. The old Jesuit college has some nice frescoes, and an astronomical wall sundial. It's been turned into a hotel, but the art is still open to the public. But not now - it's under renovation. I spent about 3 hours in town, wandering around, and could easily have made a day of it.
But there was more to see. I was ready to head for Austria. I had time, so I took the road along the Vltava river to see Castle Rozmberk, built by the same family that made Cesky Krumlov great. I knew the castle would be closed, but I hoped to get a photo of the outside. I had a nice view of it across the river as I approached, but there was nowhere to pull over for a shot. But when I pulled into the town below the castle, I was right by it. A fortuitous gap in the line of houses gave me a good view of the castle. It's been whitewashed, too, but still looks fine, and an older part behind is still plain stone.
I continued down the road to the turn to Austria. I figured it was another 10 miles to the border, but I hadn't checked the map closely enough. Suddenly I was at the border. The Czech guard didn't even want to see my passport - maybe he thought I was German, because of the car's license plates. The Austrian guard gave the passport a brief look, and as he was passing it back, he asked if the car was rented. I said yes, and offered to show him the papers. He wasn't interested in them, but he expressed surprise that the rental company had let me take it to Czech Republic.
I liked the Czech Republic, but it's nice to be back in a land where I can understand people at least a little. My German isn't all that good, but I did manage to ask for a map of the town when I got to Freistadt, and to tell the woman at the hotel that I had a reservation. And I can read the signs - it's unnerving to drive in a country where you can't understand what the warning signs are telling you.
Freistadt is another very nice town. It has some nice buildings, though not as many or as nice as many of the Czech towns. But it still has it's medieval fortifications, with several nice towers. In fact, one of the towers is right outside my bedroom window, almost within reach. The hotel has a lovely facade, and a groin vaulted bierstube. If I read the sign outside correctly, it's not that old, but it may have been remade from something old. The hotel interior is certainly modern, and very nice. Every hotel I've been at has had comforters on the bed; this one has down comforters.
When I got here, I went into the bierstube, because the gate to the hotel was shut, and didn't look like where I was supposed to go. There were about 6 men sitting around a table, drinking and talking. When I came down to dinner, there were 2 or 3 more with them. By the time I left, there must have been a dozen people in the group, and always at least 3 talking at the same time. Dinner was wienerschnitzel (what else?) made with pork (of course), followed by the biggest piece of strudel I have ever seen. The beer was the local Freistadter, OK, but no more.
Tomorrow I'm off to Vienna, with stops at Linz and Durnstein. I also have to change some money. I only changed one traveler's check at the border, because their exchange rates are never very good. But I forgot that tomorrow is Saturday, and the banks will be closed. I really can't wait till Monday to change money, so I'll have to find an exchange tomorrow and hope for a decent rate.
Day 11 Mar. 27. If Austria Is Felix, Then Is Hungary Oscar? Or Is Oscar Hungry?
Another day's schedule fully achieved - am I good or what? Of course, I cheated on one of the castles, and only stopped to look at it from the car. But I also stopped to get a picture of one that wasn't on my list. I got it all done, despite another hunt for a change office, and two detours.
I got to Linz easily enough, but I had a little trouble finding the entrance to the old town. I knew about where it was, but missed it the first time by. It didn't matter - there's not really any place to park in the old town. I found a spot about a block outside it, though, and walked around for about an hour. It's not as nice as I had expected, though it's not shabby. The tower of the Landsamt (roughly, county building) has at least two sundials on it. (I didn't check the other two sides).
The house Anton Bruckner, the composer, once lived in is now Oncle Dagobert's dart shop, and a nice old 17th century (or earlier) house. There's a 14th century house that once stood outside the town walls. The house hasn't moved, but the walls are gone. I stepped into the main church, but it was too baroque to stand. But the main square was still performing its medieval function - a huge flea market filled the place. Bicycles, carpets, rings, second hand stuff, everything was there.
But one of my main reasons to visit Linz was to change some money. It must be something Germanic - I couldn't find a change office anywhere in the old town area - the area that is the big tourist draw. There were several banks, but they don't open on Saturdays. I finally asked some cops where to find a change office. They tried to steer me to a money machine, but I already had money - it just wasn't the right kind. At length, they decided that my only hope was the train station, and pointed out how to get there on my Michelin guide map. I got a better exchange rate there than I had gotten at the border, but they still socked me for a hefty commission. So now I have lots of nice Austrian money.
Next stop was Burg Clam (but the town is called Klam), not too far off the main road, just beyond the town of Perg. Unfortunately, just as I was about to leave Perg, I saw the detour sign. Unlike Czech Republic, Austria provides detours when it tears up a road, and it marks them clearly. Every time there was a choice of turns, the detour was marked. Which was just as well, because the detour took me on the secret Austrian Grand Prix course. It's not as tough as the Czech course, but it will hold its own against the German one. After 15 or 20 minutes, I has rejoined the main road, probably no more than 5 miles further down.
Burg Clam is a nice little castle, not too far up a slope. It wasn't open, but the gate was, and I walked into the courtyard for a picture or two. There was a small sign in German, English and French to the effect that the castle was a cultural treasure, and therefore protected from destruction in case of war.
Next stop was the castle at Personbeug, which makes a big thing of being anciently connected with the Niebelungenlied. This is the part of Austria where the Niebelungs gather to ride to meet Atilla. But, first, another detour. This one was short, and without corkscrews. It may have even been shorter than the main road. When I did get to Personbeug, I stopped and looked at the castle from the car. It was a big Renaissance box with towers. Since it wasn't open yet, there was no point to getting out. Besides, I had lost some time in Linz, and wanted to be sure to have time for Durnstein.
Durnstein, where Richard the Lion-hearted was first kept prisoner, and where Blondel found him. The ruin sits on top of a bluff, making a lovely photo. Or would if it wasn't so far away. Even with telephoto lens and my 2X adapter, I couldn't get a very large image of it. Like everything else along here, the town is built right on the Danube. To put in a wide enough road, they tunneled through the bluff - talk about a bypass! But you can park along the road before it enters the tunnel, or in a lot if you want to visit the town.
So I parked and started walking through the town. I soon found a map, but not a word about the castle. It just showed places you could spend money. But the town was narrow, stuck between the cliff and the river; and the castle was visible right above. So I figured that if I kept on going up, I would eventually find the way to the castle. And so I did, by going up and up through the town, along sidewalks (no room for a street, here) and finally around behind a house. There, at last, was the start of the walk to the castle. And just below me was the official entry.
I started up the hill, not at all winded for quite a while. Then I started puffing a bit, but the end was in sight. I reached the top of the slope, and saw more stairs going up. So on I went, up and up. Every time I thought I was at the top, another turn showed more climbing. Even when you get to the castle, you have to climb up several levels to see the whole thing. If Richard recognized Blondel by his heavy breathing at Trifels, the duke of Austria would have heard his gasps in Vienna, as he climbed Durnstein.
For all the climbing, there's really not much to see. You have a magnificent view of the Danube, way below, but the only room relatively undamaged and intact is the one carved out of the living rock. The castle was not just built on the rock, but into and around it. There is one wall, obviously a gable end, about 5 feet from the rocky top of the bluff. There's hardly any space for a real room there, and there's nothing but air behind the wall. Very odd.
Next stop, Vienna. The trip was autobahn almost all the way, if you consider limited access, non-divided highway to be autobahn. Two lanes each way, with a white line between the two sides, and a request that you stay on the right. And everyone did, except for occasional passing. Austrian drivers obey the road laws even more than the German ones. They even obey the speed limit. Then, they have to - the Austrian police have radar.
I only missed one turn on my way into Vienna, and it didn't matter that much, since the road I was on took me within two blocks of the hotel. I didn't know that, of course, since I hadn't had a chance to look at my map and find what road I was on. When I did get a chance, I found that I had overshot, but not by much. I turned back, and found the street, and a parking spot. Pension Mozart is upstairs, with small rooms that aren't worth their normal price, but which are OK for the discount price I got.
After settling in, I went out for dinner. What a shock - Vienna rolls up its sidewalks after dark. I had trouble finding a restaurant that wasn't a pizza joint or an "American" restaurant. Maybe I was looking in the wrong areas - mostly I went up a main shopping street. With all the stores closed after dark, there isn't much call for restaurants, I guess. I'll have to look for some other places tomorrow. The spot I ate in tonight was OK, but there wasn't a lot on the menu I wanted. I tried the dark beer they offered - awful. Stay away from Mohren Gambrinus - it's all malt and no hops, pretty near. It's not as bad as the malt stuff I had in Limburg, but it's a close second.
The TV in my room actually gets NBC and CNN in English, so I can find out what's going on in the Balkans. Metternich said, "The Balkans begin at the Landstrasse." This is the district just across from the heart of Vienna. The news I've seen up to now has been in Czech or German, and mostly showed planes taking off, and politicians debating. I called home, and Mom asked if I was in any danger here. I said no, the last thing the Serbs want to do is give NATO an excuse to crush them utterly. But as soon as I finish this, I'll turn on CNN and see what is going on.
Day 12 Mar. 28. The Outsides of Lots of Churches, and the Inside of One Palace.
The Pension Mozart does not provide breakfast, not even rolls and coffee. So I went out this morning looking for something to eat. There's a place a couple of blocks away, toward the museums, that serves an American breakfast for about 5 or 6 bucks. Considering that I paid almost $6 today for two jelly rolls and coffee, that's not bad. The coffee was good, but at $3 a cup it had better be.
Today is Palm Sunday, not the best day to try to see the insides of churches. Too bad, because there are some nice churches in Vienna. The cathedral, St. Stephan's, is the best, of course. Surprisingly, considering how everything else in town has been remodeled or replaced in the 17th and 18th centuries, the cathedral is still a beautiful gothic church. I'm going back tomorrow to see the insides. It is massive, and the square around it is too small for it. I couldn't find a place to take a picture of the whole thing, so I'll have to get some postcards.
Ruprecht's church is the oldest in the city, though restored several times. It has, however, not been ruined, and still looks like an 11th century romanesque church, with early gothic windows. The glass looks modern from the outside, though.
A few blocks from it is the church of Maria am Gestade, which used to overlook the Danube. It's a 12th century church which was baroqued, and then re-gothicized in the 19th century. They did a good job restoring it, though the statuary looks obviously new. But it's the right kind of statuary, in the right places.
Of course, there are some baroque churches in town, including one said to be the best example of baroque church anywhere. Naturally, I stayed out of them. Baroque art certainly took talent, but it just doesn't do anything for me.
After lunch, I went to the Hofburg palace. Since there aren't any emperors there anymore, it now houses several collections of art, and imperial stuff. I first went to the Schatzkammer - the imperial treasures. They have several crowns, scepters, and orbs, reliquaries, and gold and silver plate. They also have displays of coronation robes, the tabards for several types of imperial herald, and the ceremonial robes for several orders of knighthood. The garments didn't really interest me, but the other objects were pretty nice.
Next I went to the armor collection. They start out with a few samples of early spangen helmets, skull-cap style, and a few pieces of mail. Then it's straight into the plate armor. Lots and lots of plate, mostly full suits. A few pieces had the wide metal skirts for foot jousting - very bizarre. Some very nice weapons, too, including a hand-and-a-half scimitar. The firearms included a three-shot wheel-lock pistol. It had three locks, but only one barrel. There was a double-barreled wheel-lock, with one barrel, lock and trigger underneath the other, mirror-image fashion.
At this point I was tired, so I went back to my room for a rest. I had, during my wandering, found several restaurants, all in the old town, so dinner was not going to be a problem. I found my way back to one of them, and had a rather nice wienerschnitzel, with a glass of Gosser beer, decent enough. It's a shame that I'll be driving all day when I pass through Bavaria - I haven't yet had anything as good as a good Bavarian beer.
You can forget what Metternich said about the Balkans - today they started in the Hofburg. When I got there, there was a Serb rally going on in the main platz. They seemed to be making a lot more noise than their numbers could justify, since there weren't more than a hundred or two. Going to dinner, I learned their secret. They had moved the demonstration to the square outside the cathedral, and I had to pass through it to get to dinner. Several of the Serbs had small bullhorns, which would make a few sound like a lot. I suspect they moved to the Stephansplatz for the benefit of the TV cameras (if any - I didn't see any). Their numbers would appear larger because of all the people normally going through the platz. Coming back from dinner, I dodged around the square. Good thing, too, as the police were bringing up extra men, and the fire department water wagons for hosing down the crowd. I don't know if things got rowdy enough for that, but I didn't want to stay around to find out.
Day 13 Mar. 29. I Forgot I Had an Itinerary
I was, originally, going to spend today viewing Vienna, and then making a little road trip. But I saw most of the town I wanted to see Sunday, and I was tired of road trips. This one was likely to be just too long to be fun, and the castle at the end was going to be closed anyway. So I decided Sunday that I would see the Hofburg collections then, and leave the larger collections in the Kunsthistorische Museum until Monday.
But there was a reason I had put the Kunsthistorische Museum on Sunday - it is closed on Mondays. It's really a shame, because they have a great collection, and because they have special exhibits right now on the Medicis, and on Dark Age treasures. Bummer. I guess that will teach me to check why I schedule things. Oh, well, nothing can be done, so I won't worry about it. Tomorrow I leave for Frankfurt, and there is no way I can delay my departure for even a brief glimpse.
So, instead, I went shopping for souvenirs for people. I was having a hard time thinking of a good souvenir for Aleid. His persona is not central European, and he wouldn't really like any of the usual touristy geegaws. There weren't even any really good T-shirts, and not a single Cub souvenir. Then, passing a shop window, it hit me. Aleid likes coffee, and I was in Vienna, which raised coffee drinking to an art. I don't know why it took so long to think of that.
I also got to see the insides of a couple of the churches I had to skip yesterday. St. Ruprecht's is much nicer outside than inside. It's very plain, basically a German style hall church, with one vaulted side aisle. There is an interesting funeral monument to someone, in the form of a glass coffin with a statue of a skeleton in armor, rising up on one elbow.
But the real treat of the day was St. Stephan's cathedral. It is much more beautiful inside than outside. It has a high vaulted nave, with two wide aisles, and a rather short transept. Most of the glass is plain, except at the top of the arched windows, and behind the altar. The stained glass they have looks like it is original, but I couldn't get close enough to any of it to tell.
Everything is decorated. There are small statues with gothic pedestals and hoods on every pillar. There are several side altars with exquisite gothic canopies. The pulpit has carved heads of saints, not just generic faces, but looking like someone posed for them. And the architect put himself in a small window at the bottom. Except for the lack of glass, this is more beautiful inside than even Notre Dame. I'm not sure how much is restoration, because the cathedral took heavy damage at the end of World War II, with both Russians and Germans shelling Vienna. They say the damage was from fire, but the few pictures I saw looked like pretty extensive damage.
The cathedral offers a tour of the crypt and catacombs, so I took it. The crypt starts out with tombs of the archbishops of Vienna, then the Habsburgs, or parts of them. Rudolph IV (maybe, the guide did not speak very clear English) and his wife Elizabeth are buried there, along with several others. The rest of the Habsburg area is a set of storage shelves for the internal organs of the imperial dead. Their hearts are in another church, and the rest of their bodies in a third.
Then we went into the 18th century catacombs to see the bone rooms. One had the remains, mostly rotted away, of 500 coffins, with a few bones showing here and there. The next room had the remains of 2000 people who died of the plague in the 18th century, and were buried in a mass grave. There were a couple a other, smaller bone rooms as well. Somewhat macabre, but interesting.
Well, I had finished my sightseeing, and the museum I wanted to see was closed, and there was still some time left in the day, so I went to the movies. "Shakespeare in Love" was playing at a theater on my way to the old town, in English. Since I hadn't gotten around to seeing it before I left, and since it probably won't be around when I get back, I figured this was my best chance to catch it. It was marvelous, anachronisms and all.
And going to the movie helped me solve a problem. I had reset my watch when I got to Germany, and everywhere I went it matched the local clocks. Until I got to Vienna. Walking around town Sunday, some of the clocks matched my watch, and some were an hour ahead. One of the TV stations showed the time an hour ahead, labelled Central European Time. The station was in German, so it couldn't be any further east than Austria. The phone book showed Germany and Austria as being in the same time zone. And a clock shop had a big display of the times all around the world. Its clock for Vienna matched my watch.
Today was just as bad - some places agreed with my watch, and some didn't. Then my watch stopped and I had to reset it. I saw two clocks on the street that gave the same time, so I used that. When I went to the theater, there were several English speaking people there (naturally for an English soundtrack movie). So I asked one group if Austria had gone onto Daylight Savings Time, and they said yes. Mystery solved. The clock shop I saw on Sunday probably didn't reset their Vienna clock until they opened on Monday, and some of the others were already reset.
I went to the place that offered an American breakfast this morning. For 10 shillings (about 80 cents) less than I spent yesterday, I got two rolls with butter, jam, and liver spread, and two eggs, ham, and a piece of dry toast, and coffee. I'll stop there tomorrow before leaving town.
Dinner was determined by the weather. The last several days had been warm and sunny. Sunday was a little cool and cloudy. Today was cold and wet. I checked out one restaurant, but wanted to look at some others. I didn't go too far before the rain started getting too serious. So I went back to the Cafe Mozart, on the site of the first coffee shop in Vienna.
I had lamb chops and potato croquettes, atop a mess of green and red peppers, which is a terrible thing to serve with lamb. Fortunately, the potatoes didn't pick up too much of the green pepper taste, and the lamb proved to be totally immune to the contamination. A party of 6 Americans came in, wanting a table together. There wasn't one unless I shifted tables, so I agreed, and they bought me a beer for my courtesy. I had already tried the dark beer - the Austrians can't seem to get a dark beer right. It was still too malty, but not excessively so, and had a hint of hops. It was, at least, drinkable. But for my free beer, I decided to try the draft beer. It was one that I had decided by name alone could not be a good beer. It was called Gold Fassl, and I was right. It was pale and almost tasteless.
When I got here Saturday night, I didn't really like Vienna. Part of that was my trouble finding a restaurant, but part was also the lack of age to the town. So much of the city was built by the Habsburgs in their glory days in the 18th century that it doesn't seem as old as it is. Paris has a lot of 18th and 19th century buildings, but there is still a lot of medieval and renaissance architecture. Vienna does have some old stuff, like the cathedral, but it is swamped by the "newer" stuff.
The Hofburg is a good example of the difference. It has some very ornate decoration at the main entrances, and the interior is a good match for the Louvre, but most of the buildings in it have plain walls, with tall, well-spaced windows. This is typical 18th century style, but it looks like an early modern office building. The Louvre has the same sort of windows, but the walls are adorned with statues and decoration. It just looks more interesting.
Overall, I've come to like Vienna, but not as a real favorite. I wish I had seen the art collection, and I would consider coming back just for that. But I would sooner see Prague again, first. And prices have rather shocked me, too. After the incredibly low prices for meals in Prague, the prices in Vienna seem exorbitant. They really aren't all that high for restaurant food in a downtown setting, but they are a big jump from what I was paying just a week ago. And there's not as much variety as you'd have in Germany. No sauerbraten, only one place that offered rouladen. Little things, but they've kept Vienna from my list of must-see cities. There are some nice touches, though. Going to dinner last night, I passed by the Hofburg gardens, and heard music being broadcast in the streets. Around the corner and down the street, near the opera house, opera music was being broadcast. I don't know if it was all the same broadcast, or if the Hofburg was having a concert, too, but it was nice.
Day 14 Mar. 30. Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy-jig
Well, there's not much to say about today, since I spent most of it driving back to Frankfurt. I wanted to leave Vienna by 8 am, and it was only a little after 8 when I started the car. But before I could leave town, I needed to get some gas. The tank was really low, but I was sure I could find a station on the way out of town, since I had passed some on the way in. Just as I was turning onto the road to Linz and points west, I saw a gas station. Rather than risk not finding another, I went around a few blocks and filled up the tank. With one thing and another, it was about 9 when I finally started out of Vienna.
It was another cool, wet day, even though the forecast on Sunday said Tuesday would be warm and sunny. See, even European weathermen can be wrong. It was kind of odd at first, because I was driving through hilly country, and the clouds were hanging around the hilltops. It wasn't quite fog, but it did distort things. What looked like a thunderhead at ground level turned out to be a forest swathed in cloud.
The rain, or drizzle, stopped in the morning, and the road was mostly dry. By late afternoon, the sun even came out. It took about 8 hours to drive from Vienna to Frankfurt, with several rest stops, and almost an hour's break for lunch. I didn't eat that much, but I had forgotten about the European Union's open border policy. No one stopped me, or anyone else, at the German border. The speed limit was reduced there, briefly, so traffic slowed to maybe 35 mph, but no one showed any interest in us. I was so surprised that I forgot I needed to change Austrian shillings into German marks. So I stopped for lunch at a town where I could find a bank and do the change. I got just enough to pay for tonight's hotel, and the train fare to and from the airport.
The only problem on the autobahn were the truck drivers who thought they needed to pass one another, regardless of car traffic coming up. Several times a truck would pull out and slowly pass another truck, while all the cars would back up behind him, waiting to get by. I got to the airport, and the car return area, and then remembered I had to fill up the tank before returning it. So I went on a blind search for a gas station. I found one without too much trouble, actually. Then, instead of going back the way I had come, I decided to follow the signs to the airport. They led me back to where I had approached earlier, but in the meantime, there had been an accident further down the highway. Fortunately, I only needed the shoulder lane, and it led right to the airport turnoff. So I wasn't held up too long.
I turned the car over to a young woman who did not know what a manual transmission was. She wanted to start the car to check gas level, and other things, and it kept jumping forward on her. She finally figured out that she just needed to turn the key part way to get the system live enough for her readings. Then she got a friend to help her drive it away. Oh, well, at least she had signed off that I had returned it in good condition, however it might end up.
The train to the city was downstairs in the airport, and I had no trouble finding it. But I couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket. There were schedules for the times, with the different trains listed. But there were two different ticket machines, and neither listed my train. I eventually figured out that one of the machines sold tickets for several different trains, including mine. So I bought my ticket, and then no one checked to see if I had one.
The Bruns Pension is another low end place. It's nice enough, but the shower is across the hall and the toilet is down the hall. It's not as close to the train station as I had thought, but it's a room. I went out for dinner, trying to stay on streets I had already been on. The trouble with the train station area, though, is that it attracts bars, but not necessarily restaurants. I was surprised, since there were several hotels nearby.
After wandering a little, I found a nice place that offered filet mignon, pomme frites, and dark beer. The pomme frites were just french fries, the beer was dark in color, not malty, but just a dark lager. It was pleasant enough to have two glasses, though. And the filet, almost the only beef I've had these last two weeks, it was perfect. The waitress didn't ask how I wanted it cooked, but it was just right, mooing softly as I cut it.
So, tomorrow I leave. It's been a great vacation, but it will be good to be back with people I can actually talk to. I overplanned things, and at times that was a strain. But I had a good time, and saw some great sights. And that was the whole purpose, after all.