Central Europe Capitals

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CAPITALS OF CENTRAL EUROPE
Prague, Bratislava, Vienna, Budapest
June 5 - 13, 1998

Friday & Saturday, June 5 & 6, 1998
Brian drove us to IAH for our 9:30 a.m. Continental flight to Newark, where we boarded our Czech Air flight to Prague and the land of my paternal grandmother. The flight crew was attentive and time passed quickly, even though we only slept for about two hours. Arrival into Prague about 8 a.m. was preceded by a very scenic approach over the Czech countryside. It was a beautiful vista of many shades of green squares dotted with colorful villages.

An hour later we were in our hotel, a Holiday Inn 4 star, which has an interesting history, having been recently remodeled after serving as an elegant Bolshevik hotel for visiting Russian military dignitaries. The room was lovely and in a floor plan unlike any I had ever seen with separate sleeping and sitting areas. We took off on our own, hopped on a bus, and then on the subway with the help of several pleasantly helpful Czechs, some of whom spoke excellent English. We walked around the festive Old Town area and paused to watch the glockenspiel spectacular that occurs hourly on the Old Town Hall’s astronomical clock, a longtime symbol of Prague that was built in 1410. At the striking of every hour, visitors are treated to a medieval “morality play,” as two doors slide open and statues of the twelve apostles glide by while the evils of life dance below—a death skeleton, vanity, a corrupt Turk, and a greedy Jew.

We rode the Metro subway back to the hotel, where at noon we met our guide Maros Borsky and driver Vadislav and discovered that we were the only ones on the tour and therefore could “customize” our experience any way we wished! We began with lunch at a restaurant that “locals” frequent and discovered that the prices for locals, in places not discovered by tourists yet, were about 20% that of the tourist areas. For example, my lunch of beef and dumplings with spinach was about $1.10. At this point, however, we began to feel we had packed the wrong clothes—Internet weather had predicted 55-75 degrees—because it was very hot, around 85, and felt hotter than Houston.

Our driver deposited us at the theater and the National Museum, from where we walked down the gently sloping Wenceslas Square toward Old Town, or Stare’ Mesto, founded in 1234 as the first of Prague’s original five towns. Its ancient streets meander haphazardly but are lined with beautiful Renaissance and baroque facades. Everywhere people were handing out leaflets advertising classical music performances—the Czech passion. Many of these performances take place in the churches and help raise money for them. Of note on our walking tour: Statue of St. Wenceslas; Jan Hus Memorial (& soapbox from where he preached), Tyn Church; the site of the murdering of 27 Bohemian noblemen in 1621 by the Hapsburgs to quash religious opposition; the Jewish Quarter, including the Old Jewish Cemetery, where 12,000 graves are piled in twelve layers; and many fine ornate Baroque buildings. Returning to the bus, we passed a political rally for a prime minister candidate, and we walked through the Powder Tower of the original city wall, down the street that had been the moat, and past the art nouveau Municipal House.

After resting, we went to the storybook Mala Strana, or Lesser Town, founded in 1257 by Germans, and laced with narrow winding lanes boasting palaces and red-roofed town houses that were homes of the merchants and craftsmen who served the Royal Court. Many of the palaces have been used in American movies, such as Mission Impossible. We also saw the Lennon Peace Wall, a peculiar monument to the Czech youth who were passively rebellious and adopted John Lennon as their symbol of resistance against the Communist suppression of rock music. On Kampa Island (Devil’s Stream) we walked past Kampa Gardens into the Church of Our Lady Victorious, which houses the famed statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague (important to Catholics); the restored mill wheel; to the lovely restaurant where we had another typically Czech meal of pork, potatoes, and cabbage. We particularly liked the appetizer—crispy covered nuts! Off to bed to sleep off the jet lag.

Sunday, June 7, 1998
I had a wild night with my dreams! Hearing the Czech language spoken brought back so many words and phrases that I had learned as a child from Grandma Kana and thought I had forgotten! Words came flooding back to me in my dreams—I actually dreamed in Czech! It was so weird.

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, Maros and Vlad met us at 8 for a dazzling day in the Mala Strana (Lesser Town), the Hradcany (Castle District), and Stare Mesto (Old Town)—three of the original five adjacent self-governing boroughs, each unique. We began with a Latin Mass at 9:30 in St. Vitus Cathedral, which was very a moving and thrilling experience. The Gothic cathedral with its graceful soaring towers was built in 1334 is among the most beautiful in Europe and said to be the spiritual heart of the Czech Republic. The vast and beautiful interior glows in the colorful light that filters through the brilliant stained-glass windows that are considered artistic masterpieces.

After Mass, we walked past the Royal Palace, the largest secular palace in the world and currently the official home of the president. Many defenestrations are said to have occurred here. A defenestration is a particularly Czech Bohemian method of expressing protest by throwing someone out of a window. A brief walk took us down the Golden Lane, an enchanting collection of tiny, ancient, brilliantly-colored houses—one of which housed Franz Kafka in 1916-17 and which were originally occupied by castle guards in the 16th century. The impressive changing of the guards ceremony in front of the castle was followed by another inexpensive but tasty lunch of cheeses, butter, mustard, and onions for $1.

We went on to Mala Strana, where we saw the high baroque Church of Saint Nicholas wit its stunning gilded interior. The altars were packed with statues and frescoes and framed by gold-capped marble columns. Also interesting in this borough were the “addresses” over the doors of the homes. They were not numbers, but pictures or carvings or paintings that represented the owner in some way. For example, one had a frog, one had a bear, and one had three ostriches. This is how the homes and their owners were identified instead of numbers.

Finally, we arrived at Prague’s most celebrated structure, Charles Bridge, which dates from the 14th century and is a 1700-foot long pedestrian promenade lined with 30 statues of saints. The view is a fairy-tale one of the river and of Prague on both sides with its palaces, cathedrals, and medieval buildings. Another breathtaking view was seen from the bridge tower on the Old Town side, overlooking Mala Strana and Hradcany. It is said to be one of the most beautiful views in Europe. It is definitely the most beautiful one I have ever seen. I could have stayed there for hours.

Two hours of shopping in Stare Mesto was followed by dinner in the hotel and a lovely relaxing evening in our room enjoying the fresh breeze and sound of a thunderstorm through our windows overlooking the gardens. The refreshing storm was the reason for the intense heat the day before and cooled things off considerably.

Monday, June 8, 1998
A large breakfast buffet at the hotel preceded our 7:45 departure for Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic (formerly part of Czechoslovakia until the mutual departure in 1992). Since we were the only two on the tour, our vehicle was a Mercedes sedan. We were in the back seat, and Maros was up front with the driver. We felt like royalty! The Czech countryside was truly beautiful—gently rolling hills covered with every shade of green imaginable with corn, wheat, barley, apple trees, and vineyards. Colorful villages appeared every few kilometers, and the preview we had seen from the plane became very real and even more stunning from ground level. The Moravian area was particularly beautiful—although I’m not biased, this is the area where my grandmother was born and grew up until coming to the U.S. in her mid-twenties late in the 1900’s.

As we neared the Slovak border, the scenery abruptly changed, as if by magic. Instead of the glorious green hues of agriculture, there was a more rugged terrain. We were able to bypass about three miles of trucks that were lined up at the border. For two countries who used to be part of each other, they certainly are vigilant at their border!

Bratislava came into view about 12:30 p.m., as we stopped at the handsome 9th century Bratislava Castle (the identifying feature of Bratislava) and viewed the city and the Danube River and the high-rise Communist-era apartment projects across the river. After checking into our hotel on the Danube, Maros led us on a walking tour of the charming, winding Old Town streets, after which Bill and I had a nice dinner of tasty cream of garlic soup and trout almondine. The evening came to a lovely, romantic end with a stroll along the Danube.

Tuesday, June 9, 1998
I had no idea what to expect today because I had never heard of any of the places and sights on the agenda. That’s what makes this place the world’s best-kept tourist secret. What a perfectly lovely day! Cheese kolaches like Mama used to make were part of our huge buffet breakfast at the hotel, followed by a drive through the lovely picturesque farmland north of Bratislava—now the land looked more like the Czech Republic with miles and miles of grains, sunflowers, and apple trees framed by the Small Carpathian Mountains as a backdrop. We stopped at the famous Prestany Spa Resort, famous for its healing mineral waters and muds and renowned for successful treatment of rheumatic ailments, and at the oldest town in Slovakia, Trnava, which dates from 1238. We toured the Cathedral Temple of John the Baptist with its richly gilded, baroque masterpiece main altar, and an old Jewish synagogue. We then took advantage of being the only persons on the tour and asked Maros if we could visit a local high school (gymnasium). We strolled the halls of the school, which was for grades 5-12, and visited a geometry classroom that had square chalk that was used on painted green plywood that was used as a chalkboard. The students were polite and well-behaved, and we enjoyed our experience.

Then we drove on to the Carpathian Mountains and the well-preserved Renaissance Castle Cerveny Kamen (red rock) that dates from 1240 and was important in the defense of Hungary against the Turks. We lunched in the courtyard on fish, boiled potatoes, and cabbage and then toured the vast interior with its rich collection of furniture, weapons collect, castle pharmacy, and castle chapel.

Continuing along the Carpathian mountainside, we passed through Modra and the scenic wine-growing region and stopped in Pezinok for the wine museum and a wine-tasting of some good Slovakian wine. Back to the hotel at 54, we took a lovely walk across the Danube—about 300 meters—on the New Bridge to the futuristic, spaceship-like café atop one of the bridge pylons 80 meters above the Danube for a great view of the city. Dinner was at the trendy Gremium Restaurant—pork medallions, boiled potatoes, and cabbage—was followed by people-watching at the Old Square and another romantic moonlight stroll along the Danube to our hotel.

Wednesday, June 10, 1998
A 7:30 start began our Vienna day. Steve was our driver in his white Mercedes. Steve, by the way, looks like a Mafia bodyguard with his shaved head, bodybuilder physique, and strong, silent demeanor. The Austrian farmland was lovely but different from the Czech and Slovakia farmland because it is and has been owned by individual farmers, so the farms are smaller and consist of a variety of crops rather than the miles of the same crop on the once-Communist-owned cooperative farms we have been seeing. We waited thirty minutes at the Austrian border as cars were beginning to stack up. Bratislava and Vienna are the closest capitals in the world—40 miles apart.

The Belvedere Palace, originally the summer residence of Prince Eugene, with its elegantly terraced gardens was followed by a tour of Schloss Schonbrunn (Schonbrunn Palace), a lavish 1200-room summer palace from the time of Maria Theresa. We toured 25 rooms and the formal gardens, which created a picture of unsurpassed elegance.

Maros has a degree in art history and is working on his Ph.D. in architecture, so he gave us valuable insight into the beautiful Renaissance, baroque, rococo, and art-nouveau buildings that give Vienna its charm. The well-known Ringstrasse (Ring) was our path as we walked past the Parliament, the State Museums (including Ephesus), the Opera House, and Imperial Palace (Hofburg Palace). All had interspersed with magnificent gardens. We even watched a military ceremony for an ambassador in front of one of the palaces. Hours of windowshopping (but no buying because of the exorbitant prices) in the famous bustling shopping district with its elegant and exclusive shops was punctuated by lunch at Havelka’s on Dorothea Street because Maros had said it was inexpensive. Wow—what prices Vienna has! The cup of coffee that one finds in Slovakia for 30 cents is $3.00 in Vienna—of course, it IS out-of-this-world Viennese coffee—yummy. We each had a coffee, two Vienna sausages (the size of our wieners), a piece of bread with a dollop of mustard for a total cost of $20! Prices are about 10 times those in Bratislava, about 40 miles away! Even at McDonald’s, a burger meal was twice as expensive as in the U.S. We saw the apartment Mozart was living in when he composed Figaro and toured St. Stephen’s Cathedral, an impressive Gothic structure consecrated in the mid-12th century with a 450-foot tall spire. We had another delicious café Vienna at an outdoor café and met Maros and Steve at 4 for the slow drive home due to traffic. We did stop en route at a small village just inside the Slovakia border to explore some Roman ruins of a coliseum dating back to the 3rd and 4th century B.C.

Dinner was at a local Bratislava restaurant with cream of garlic soup, stuffed pork chop, boiled potatoes, and cabbage—notice a trend here? Then we walked through neighborhoods, St. Michael’s Gate (only remaining part of the city’s medieval fortifications), the Centrum, and to the Reduta, home of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra , for an unexpected treat—a performance in the elaborately carved, gilded theater. Another stroll along the Danube brought us back to the hotel around 9.




Thursday, June 11, 1998
A morning visit to St. Martin’s Cathedral, a massive Gothic church consecrated in 1452 and host of the coronations of 17 Hungarian royals, after watching Bold and Beautiful in French ended our stay in this lovely city, and we took off for my paternal grandfather’s Hungary, whose folklore and customs are rich in history and culture with spicy food, proud horsemen (csikos), unspoiled baroque villages with winding cobblestone streets, and an undulating countryside. As we drove through the verdant, rolling, rich farmland of Transdanubia, we stopped briefly in the villages of Higyeshalom and Masonagyarovar, spending some time in the farmers’ market. As we continued on the highway toward Budapest, we began to see young ladies standing on the roadside as if thumbing a ride. I mentioned to Bill that because they all seemed so scantily dressed, they probably wouldn’t have any trouble getting a ride. We kept seeing them, at lease every quarter mile or so. Then Maros told us that they were there for the truck drivers. Wanting to clarify, I asked, “You mean, to service them?” and Bill popped up with, “Oh—they’re mechanics!” They were, of course, trucker hookers and when Vlad showed down so I could take a picture of one, she shouted some Hungarian words that Maros refused to translate and gave us a finger sign that didn’t need translating.

We passed through Gyor and arrived in bustling Budapest early afternoon, thus beginning our 1 ½ days in this colorful, typically-European, yet uniquely-distinct atmosphere, which archaeologists have shown to be over 50,000 years old. Situated on both banks of the Danube, Budapest unites the colorful hills of Buda and the businesslike boulevards of Pest, with a population of 2 million. Many elegant but crumbling architectural details of antique structures are all that remain of the past, as 30,000 buildings were destroyed during vicious World War II battles.

We drove past Gellert Hotel with its famous thermal baths (one of 14 bath houses in the city) at the foot of Gellert Hill, and at 761 feet, the most beautiful natural formation on the Buda bank. We spent several hours strolling around the charming cobblestone streets of Castle Hill (Varhegy), visiting Holy Trinity Square, named for its baroque Trinity Column erected in 1712 as a gesture of thanksgiving by plague survivors; Matthias Church—1245—where the last two Hungarian kings were crowned, which had been a Turkish mosque with a decidedly Byzantine interior and festive pillars; Fisherman’s Bastion, a wondrous “porch” panoramically overlooking the Danube with a cluster of white stone towers and arches and columns above a bronze statue of St. Stephen, Hungary’s first king; and the baroque Royal Palace, which had to be rebuilt after WWII by removing as much as 20 feet of debris in some places.

Driving through the third original city, historic Obuda (Old Buda), we arrived at the urban heart of Budapest, Pest, which is dominated by the huge neo-gothic Parliament buildings, which are grandiose with 24 slender towers, outlined with 90 historical statues. With 691 rooms inside, it is one of the world’s largest Parliament buildings. We traveled the main boulevards (called uts) to the traditional Grand Hungaria Hotel. We ate dinner at a lovely little Hungarian bistro named Huszar, where the food, service, and ambience were superb. I had traditional Magyar fare of delicious cold cream of pistachio soup, paprika carp (baked carp in a cream sauce with lots of paprika), plus noodles with mushrooms. The soup tasted like melted pistachio ice cream! Bill had the cold cream of almond soup, which was just as good. A stroll down the avenue preceded retiring to the hotel and watching Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien on television. Other American shows in the listing guide were Nash Bridges, Ally McBeal, WCW Wrestling, Cheers, Seinfeld, and Lassie.


Friday, June 12, 1998
Our day in unique Budapest began with a short drive via Andrassy Ut, Budapest’s grandest avenue of music and mansions to Heroes’ Square, which is centered by the Millennium Monument, which was erected on the 1,000th anniversary of the Magyar settlement. The semicircle colonnade features statues of Archangel Gabriel and the heroes (kings and leaders) of Hungarian history. At the base of the column ride seven horsemen, who are the Magyar chieftains led by Arpad (who looks exactly like pictures of my Grandpa Kana and whose tribes conquered the land in 896).

We had a super time at the “Zoo Park,” as Maros called it, a 130-year-old beautiful zoo with one of the leading animal collections in Europe—over 2,000 animals. The striking features for me were not only the uniqueness of some of the animals which are not found in other zoos, but that there were so many baby animals, plus the open-ness and proximity of the animals to visitors. We could actually reach out and touch the hippopotamus and put our noses up against the window with a lion. The capuchin monkeys were darting about freely in an open area all around us, and mice and birds roamed freely in the bird house. All four bear types were out and about: polar, grizzly, black, and brown. We had a great time!

A drive through Liberty Square took us to the site of a solemn shrine to the Russian liberation from the Nazis (Hungarians actually hate Russia and wanted to tear it down, but because Russia did save them from Hitler, they kept it). We passed the American Embassy which is the site of many scenes from the movie Evita with Madonna. The dark and massive St. Stephen’s Basilica was next. It seats 8,500 and has King (Saint) Stephen’s right arm preserved as a relic in the chapel. Maros and I climbed the 302 steps to the basilica’s dome for a magnificent 360-degree panorama of the city.

Vlad then dropped us off at Vaci Utca, Budapest’s best-known shopping street with its mixture of shops and folk artists and cafes, one of which was where we had lunch. Cyrano’s was a chic but friendly bistro where we had great goulash and tomato/cucumber salad. On our own at this point, we strolled along the Danube of the Korzo past the elegant hotels on the riverwalk with postcard-perfect views and folkcraft souvenir vendors. We then gathered our courage and took the first subway on the continent (only London’s tube is older) and the world’s first electrified subway to the Hungarian State Opera House. The Hungarian language is one of the most difficult in the world with a similarity to none other except perhaps Finnish, so we needed help from a lot of locals to decipher the routes. We took off our shoes and donned slippers to protect the rugs of the spectacular Opera House with its grand staircases, wood-paneled corridors, frescoes, and “jewel-box” glittering auditorium. We walked down Andrassy Ut, stopping at a market for some delicious ice cream, then across to Erzebet, to the Salamander shoe store where I bought a pair of Italian leather shoes for $35, finally arriving at our hotel, where we met Maros for our grand conclusion of the enlightening and enjoyable week of four European capitals. We were taken to the Citadel fortress atop Gellert Hill for a Hungarian dinner and folklore show with exciting gypsy music and dancing by gentlemen who greatly favored my paternal relatives. The final sight of the day (and of the trip) was the breathtaking view from the monument at the Citadel—Budapest and the Danube by night! The scene was even more romantic because it was stormy, and the lightning, thunder, and drizzle lent a surreal atmosphere.

Saturday, June 13, 1998
We awakened at 5 a.m. to prepare for our departure, turned on the television and discovered that a German network was televising game 5 of the NBA finals, auf Deutsch, of course! We watched the exciting finish as we packed and giggled at the phrases used by the announcer: “auf der pocket” (from the bench) and “Mein Gott!” whenever something exciting happened. A very long 24 hours of transit followed via Malev Hungarian Airlines to Prague (about an hour flight), Czech Air (CSA) to Newark (8 hours, 20 minutes air time), Newark to IAH, which was delayed by three hours and arrived at 1 a.m. instead of 10 p.m. The delay, due to thunderstorms all over the U.S. enabled Brian to attend Julia’s graduation party

Odds and ends of delightful memories:
• the friendly, young female gift shop clerk in Bratislava who told Bill, “I like for you”
• “smashed” potatoes
• delicious boiled potatoes, cream of garlic and cream of pistachio soups
• goulash
• touring Europe in a Mercedes with a private driver and tour guide
• green, green farmland
• Maros’s comparative metaphors of the four cities we visited: “They are like sisters. Vienna is the wealthy one, but unattainable; Prague is cultured and eduated; Budapest is fun-loving; and Bratislava is a country girl.”
• reading in our room by the window overlooking a garden in a thunderstorm in Prague
• the thunderstorm at the Citadel our last night, overlooking Budapest and the Danube
• Mass at St. Vitus
• Buda-pesht
• Infant Jesus of Prague
• the ubiquitous St. John Napamuk and Franz Kafka—everywhere!
• View from the Charles Bridge tower
• The yawning hippo in the zoo park
• “a coffee” and “a dinner”
• evening strolls on the Blue Danube
• Trnova high school (gymnasium)
• trucker hookers
• NBA finals at 5 a.m. in German
• paprika on salads
• learning that the Austrio-Hungarian Empire = the Bohemian and Hungarian Kingdoms

Only regret: not seeing the view from the Charles Bridge at night. Save that for next visit. Great trip—would love to go back!
Postscript: We did go back the very next year and had a great time on a ten-day tour with friends and colleagues from HCC.

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Photos

Budapest Zoo
This is not a zoomed photo; we were really this close. You could reach out and touch most of the amimals. Only a waist-high rock fence was between us.