The gentle clang of cowbells reverberated across the mountain valley, echoing off the steep, rocky cliffs towering above us. I smiled and thought: Swiss cows really do wear bells around their necks. I spotted a few of these mellow creatures ambling along a grassy ridge above our trail, a few more down by the clear green lake below us. The morning sun, already warm, drenched the scene in vivid light. The sky was an unreal blue. I took a deep breath of the absolutely fresh air, and began the zigzag [View Full Entry]

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I thought I would share some photos of experiences I had in Vienna that did make my previous blog entries. They range from the culinary (the monster schnitzel I ate at Figlmuller, for example) to the historical (the graves of the great composers in the Zentralfriedhoff and the Palace of Schonbrunn) to the silly (Mozart on a bench). Also, there are just random items I thought were intriguing! (Flak Towers in the city?) [View Full Entry]

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The vineyard fell away from the deck where we perched on wooden benches at a wooden table, slopping steeply into the valley towards the muddy Danube. The spire of an old church poked above the trees near the river. Over the opposite hill, Vienna, we knew, spread far and wide. But we felt far from the hustle of the city. We were more than half way up Kahlenberg, sampling a tart white wine produced right there, from the grapes in that vineyard, by the family serving us. We were beginning to learn the ropes of another fantastic Viennese institution, the Heuringen [View Full Entry]

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The Ottomans made two attempts to capture “the city of the golden apple”, as they often called Vienna, but to the relief of Christendom both sieges were unsuccessful. The first one, in 1529, under the command of Süleyman the Magnificent (who died shortly afterwards while still on campaign in the Hungarian plains *), was not so significant in the grand scheme of things, but it did heat up the Habsburg-Ottoman rivalry that would last for centuries. The second siege in 1683 was really the most important, at least from the perspective of the Viennese (and much of the rest of Western [View Full Entry]

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I mentioned the dangers of first impressions in my first entry on Prague. I want to address another: preconceptions. As try as I might, it sometimes is difficult not to approach a place with some idea already formed of what I might expect. In the case of Vienna, I had tried to block out the stories I had heard about the sometimes gruff Viennese (in particular the haughty waiters at the famous cafes). I tried to block out the notion that it would be a sort of Disneyland of fancy palaces and people dressed up as Mozart. But, nonetheless, before ever [View Full Entry]

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I. Bathing in Budapest I didn't know what to do with it at first. It was a piece of cloth, about the size of a small handkerchief, with two long strings. This, apparently, was the "costume" for bathing in the thermal baths, at least for the men's only day. I am not quite sure what purpose this little flap is supposed to serve. If it is meant to foster a sense of modesty, I think it might have the opposite effect. Nothing draws attention to the fact that you are all but naked more t [View Full Entry]

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The Buda side of Budapest is, as I've already noted, hilly. But the two main hills are the one with the castle district and Géllert Hill. You can't miss either of them if you are anywhere near the Danube in Budapest - and both give you amazing views of the city if you get to their summits. Buda Castle looms over the city. It is an obvious place to put a seat of power in the area, so it's not too suprising that all the successive governments that Budapest has seen over the centuries would have left their stamp here. Yes, [View Full Entry]

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In many parts of Europe, you notice the absence of Jewish life in once thriving Jewish neighborhoods. You see synagogues that are now museums. You see graveyards that haven’t been used since before WWII. Prague had only one synagogue, out of at least six, where services were actually still conducted. Budapest, however, has a visible, living community. Although the current 80,000 Jews in Budapest are about half the pre-war estimates (when they made up nearly twenty-five percent of the city’s population), it is still the largest community of any city in Central Europe today. W [View Full Entry]

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The year was 1552. A great Ottoman army, 10,000 men strong, descends upon the Hungarian town of Eger, besieging its castle. It should have been easy pickings, but the brave townspeople, despite being vastly outnumbered, hold back the marauding horde for a month, eventually defeating the Turks. But the Ottomans weren’t finished yet; they came back forty-four years later to avenge their earlier defeat… That’s the basic story that is told about Eger. But the turn-of-the century writer Géza Gárdonyi embellished the story even more in his 1901 novel Eclipse of the Crescent [View Full Entry]

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The dome arched above, punctuated with small bulbs of glass that allowed in a tepid light. Steam - or maybe it was my general blindness without glasses - enveloped the space in a thin haze. Drip. Drip. The echoes of condensation hitting the stone floor rang against the walls. I could have been hanging out in a hamam in Istanbul. But I wasn’t. Up a steep, cobbled road, I found a pretty rose garden on a hill overlooking a wide river. Within the garden, a grey octagonal tomb sat neatly, its crescent and star glinting in the hot morning sun. I [View Full Entry]

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