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Of incredible beauty and depressing decay
Just when we thought we could not stand another cathedral or ruin, we had to change our position as we were at first surprised by the medieval beauty of Bratislava, and then completely blown away seemingly endless array of castles, cathedrals and opulent public buildings of Budapest. Both cities suffered heavy damage during the war and there has been a huge amount of rebuilding, some in the original style, some post war and some very modern. Offsetting the incredible beauty of the restored/maintained historical buildings are just as many that are sadly falling into decay, such is the pity.
A major theme given prominence by the guide in Budapest was the period of occupation and repression under the communist regime. There was a great deal of passion in her voice when she described the abject plainness of living in homogenous grey painted apartment buildings and life without variety or even adequate quantities in the shops. The areas of communist architectural influence were clear and it was easy to extrapolate why the people eventually ousted the government. One could even hypothesise about where the money went and why so many of the beautiful buildings were left
to fall into disrepair.
Prague is somewhat larger than Bratislava and Budapest, and somehow managed to find a more middle of the road ambience. It also seems to have about 3 million tourists resident at any one time. The buildings are nonetheless beautiful, but few attain the level of spectacle that we experienced particularly in Budapest. Or could it be that the two B cities spoilt us.? Prague does have a magnificent castle overlooking the city and we had a tour that took in most of it before we adjourned for some morning tea and a very wicked honey cake – beauuutiful! At this point I should mention that APT use a device called a ‘quiet box’ which enables the group to listen to the guide through an earpiece, thus eliminating the need to be within earshot or even line of sight. I mention that because it was at the castle that we lost one of our group, and it this point that Geoff realised that loosing ones wife is a dream common to all men – the husband waited until we had moved on from morning tea before notifying the guide that his wife was missing. Thirty minutes after
the fact does not make for a quick response to be effected, and so we moved on much to the consternation of most of the women in the group. Sometime later, after we had wound our way around the 3 m tourists and through the little streets and across the squares of the ‘lesser’ town, lo and behold the lost wife re-joined the group! She had used the variations in the strength of the sound signal from the “quiet box” to track us down – unbelievable!
This was to be our last city in Europe and after taking some 1650 photo’s in the river cruise, Geoff was becoming frustrated with the limitations of his little camera, and so decided to look at a bigger/better version. After a little research, he determined the make and model that he could afford and with some directions from an enthusiast fellow traveller he set off to make his purchase. Somehow things went a little pear-shaped; oh, he did manage to negotiate his way through the purchase with the Czech speaking staff, and get the appropriate tax refund form (what a drama that was) and use his credit card which initially seemed to be beyond
the young lady shop assistant, but… When he got back to the hotel and unpacked his new prized possession, he found the manuals were in Czech – not a word of English, and the battery charger had America pins with a European adapter! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. He loves his new camera though. Marg has been allowed to use it twice so far!
We are now in the UK – Scotland to be accurate, and will bring you another update soon.
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