Prague, Vienna, Ljubljana
Three cities, three countries, three days... oh my
Prague was to be where the language barrier issues begin. Despite tourism picking up a lot since the end of the Cold War, it is not as common to find people who speak English, especially if they are over thirty. And Czech is a very different language than we were used to. It's Slavic-based like Polish, but most of the words are very different. At the train station we began searching for our route to the hostel. We had the instructions with us: take the Metro to Karlova station. The only problem was, we didn't know how to use the Metro and when we asked for help, we got some generally unfriendly Czech responses.
We eventually figured it out and within a half hour or so we were arriving at Hotel L'Opera. But not before walking past the guys at Cabaret Nana, trying to lure us in. At the hotel we got upgraded to a full hotel room as their hostel was full. Fine by us. It had fuzzy satellite TV including CNN International and BBC World. There was a window onto a little courtyard and the bathroom had a bedet in it. This was the first encounter with that in our travels.
We went out to see the neighbourhood and get some food, only to discover that there was not much to be found in our immediate area at that time of night. After walking around in a big circle, we realised that there was and had been all along, a little restaurant across from our hotel that was open until 2:00am. We had some nice pasta dishes... I know, really authentic Czech food. Retirement to the room came shortly thereafter.
In the morning we set out to see Prague. The weather was decent. We went east a bit and then north to come upon the Museum and the statue of St. Wenceslas, on one of the main streets in the city. We strolled down the road looking at the prices of things and doing the conversions in our heads from euros/dollars to Czech Koruna or crowns (one is worth about CDN$0.05, so most items were in the hundreds of crowns). We saw all of the umbrella-clad tour guides with their groups, pointing and talking. We continued our journey, down along the river to the Charles Bridge. At the foot of it is a Museum of Medieval Torture, a morbid find but a fascinating one nonetheless. We had seen ads for the one in Amsterdam and decided to pay the five euros to get in.
The museum was just a handful of rooms on each of three floors with (what I presume were) replicas of various medieval torture devices: the rack, the wheel, spikes and pokers of all kinds. It was interesting but not mind-blowing by any means. I guess it puts humanity into perspective a bit and makes a person realise that though torture was a lot more barbaric and widespread in medieval times, it is still far from disappearing.
We crossed the Charles Bridge, where painters sell their wares and musicians play songs for the passersby. The bridge is very old, and seems to be standing very strong despite its age. Near the end of the bridge is the famous sculptural plate that people rub for good luck. We humoured the situation and took our turns.
We followed the crowd up the cobbled streets, past cafes and restaurants, up steps and around bends to come upon the castle and cathedral. From here there is a vast view of Prague with its red roofs and pink facades. We lingered here for a few moments, eavesdropping on what the English tour guides were telling their groups. Then we walked down the steps to the bottom of the hill and found our way back into the old town, where pictures and busts of Franz Kafka abound.
We sorted out our train tickets for the following day and then picked up some absinth on the way back to the hostel, complete with absinth glass and slotted spoon. Czech absinth is the best in the world and we thought it fitting to give it a go in Prague. The green fairy as it's affectionately called was drunk by everyone from Napolean's soldiers to the Post Impressionists. It has a heavy licorice taste and a high alcohol content. It certainly is an acquired taste. We picked up some sugar cubes so we could prepare it properly. The best way is to put the sugar on the spoon and rest it on top of the glass. Then pour the absinth over the cube and light it on fire. Sometimes the fire spreads into the glass itself and burns off some of the alcohol. What you're left with is a lukewarm, heartburn-inducing licorice-flavoured mouthwash. We didn't do much else that evening, save for a little walk to KFC for a little western grounding.
In the morning we were off to Vienna, back to the west for a brief period. So we had a break from the German language in Prague and now we were heading back into it in Austria. When we got there, we were again faced with learning a new transportation system. Vienna's is much like Berlin's and Hamburg's in that there is the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn. Finding the entrances to the stations, and maps of the system for that matter, are a bit tricky. Lost for a bit I popped into a bookshop and asked the clerk, "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" She gave me a not-so-confident grimace, so I began to ask in German where we needed to go. With that we were going the right direction. In the station, a friendly Austrian told us which train to take and we eventually made it to the Westbahnhof, near our hostel.
We found the Do Step Inn rather quickly and waited in the lobby while the young woman at the desk finished her work on the computer. Then came the fifteen-minute check-in process. We paid her in cash and then signed three differnt receipts. The first one for four thousand some euros, and then the one that had seventy some euros subtracted and then one that added another five thousand euros and finally the one that had the right price. I guess she was having a bit of trouble with Excel or something.
We put the card in the door of our room and opened it to find a jacket on the chair and a guy sleeping in the bed. Well he was sleeping until we walked in. We closed the door and went back to the desk. "Oh the room will be ready at 6:00pm," she informed us. So we dumped our bags in the luggage room and headed out to see Vienna. Our first stop was the Volksgarten and Parlament. Then we headed to the Imperial Palace, now a collection of museums of all sorts. We aimlessly wandered Vienna, stopped for some more Italian supper and then headed back to the hostel to check in properly. The room was ready. Nobody in the room. Again satellite TV, but only one pillow and one blanket. Oh well.
We headed out again to the city to see it at night. We enjoyed some Wiener Wuerstl, and then wandered around looking at the prices on the items in the shop windows of Armani, Prada, Chanel and Rolex. Ridiculous. Nearing midnight, we hopped back on the U-Bahn to Westbahnhof. I wanted to stop in at a local sports pub to sit amidst the locals. All four of them were rather uninterested in us, but it was an experience nonetheless. Back to the hostel and to bed.
At 7:50am there was a series of knocks on the door. I opened it to find an Austrian woman smoking a cigarette telling me in German that we needed to be out by 8:00am. We didn't really understand this, as the sign on the door clearly stated that check-out was 10:00am. Angered, I went to the front desk to enquire. Apparently the room is rented from 8:00am to 8:00pm, a detail they failed to mention to us. I told her we'll be out when we're ready and we're not rushing. Half an hour later we were sitting in the common room with our bags. I approached the same young woman who had checked us in about getting a discount. She was unable to do anything so I told her I wanted to talk to her boss. She called his number and handed me the phone. When he answered, I could tell the phone had woken him up. Ha, justice. In the end, we got a free breakfast and a couple bottles of coke. The clerk was very apologetic, and it was hard to be really mad at her.
We were all too happy to leave Vienna after that incident. Our destination was Ljubljana, Slovenia. We had heard of a hostel there that was formerly a prison, and were intrigued to check it out. It was also exciting to be heading into the former Yugoslavia and experiencing yet another Slavic language. Slovene is quite similar to Czech, so some of the signs would be familiar.
We got into Ljubljana and had no trouble finding the hostel. There was no bus to take, just a few blocks walk. The capital of Slovenia only has a population of about 300,000 afterall. Ljubljana seemed to have more graffiti than we'd seen anywhere else. In fact the compound of our hostel had a whole perimeter of various styles of graffiti. Inside, we booked our cell. It turned out our reservation hadn't come through but there was a three-bed cell available, so long as we shared it.
The place is really cool. There is a side patio with music playing, a little bar, a raised shoes-off kind of sitting room and a little peace garden at the back. Upstairs are the rows of cells which have been converted into rooms. Most of them have been designed by artists, as the hostel is also an art gallery. There are solid doors outside, and prison cell doors inside. At 2:00pm everyday, they open the solid doors, leaving the cell doors locked, and people can come to view the cells. Our short stay meant that we wouldn't get to see the other cells unfortunately.
Out in Ljubljana, the late afternoon sun was shining and we moved toward the centre to see what there was to see. We finally seemed to be in a place where there weren't a lot of people speaking English, and I think we only heard about two American accents in the whole lot. That posed a bit of a problem when it came time to eat though. We weren't exactly sure what things were. In the end we settled for a place that had pictures of their dishes.
Ljubljana has a castle high atop a crag, and the city recently built a funicular to reach it. We paid the fare to go up and back and rode up the steep angle to the castle wall. Once there, it was clear that a lot of effort and money was put into the project. In the walls of the castle are ritzy bars, restaurants and a hotel. It's all nicely put together. The day was turning into night at this point, and the clear skies were darkening with cloud. As we looked out to the mountains we could see that rain was falling hard in the distance, and occasional bright lightning flashes meant we just might get caught in the rain. Sure enough, as we stepped off at the bottom of the funicular, the rain started coming down. We headed across the street to the empty market stalls to wait it out. The rain got harder and harder and then eventually lightened to a drizzle. Soon we were walking back.
The hostel was booming at this point. On top of the regular local bar visitors and hostel guests, there was a wine and cheese reception for a fashion show of the work of a Slovenian fashion designer. Back in the room we met our roommate, an Australian studying in Germany who was heading down to Croatia for a vacation. He had hitchhiked from Salzburg, Austria; quite a distance.
In the morning we sorted out the train to Venice and then went back to the hostel to take advantage of our included breakfast. We were excited that in just a few hours we would be in Italy, the last new country on our journey (if you don't count the Vatican City as a country).
Don't forget to check out the videos at Darryl's site.
Cheers.
Prague was to be where the language barrier issues begin. Despite tourism picking up a lot since the end of the Cold War, it is not as common to find people who speak English, especially if they are over thirty. And Czech is a very different language than we were used to. It's Slavic-based like Polish, but most of the words are very different. At the train station we began searching for our route to the hostel. We had the instructions with us: take the Metro to Karlova station. The only problem was, we didn't know how to use the Metro and when we asked for help, we got some generally unfriendly Czech responses.
We eventually figured it out and within a half hour or so we were arriving at Hotel L'Opera. But not before walking past the guys at Cabaret Nana, trying to lure us in. At the hotel we got upgraded to a full hotel room as their hostel was full. Fine by us. It had fuzzy satellite TV including CNN International and BBC World. There was a window onto a little courtyard and the bathroom had a bedet in it. This was the first encounter with that in our travels.
We went out to see the neighbourhood and get some food, only to discover that there was not much to be found in our immediate area at that time of night. After walking around in a big circle, we realised that there was and had been all along, a little restaurant across from our hotel that was open until 2:00am. We had some nice pasta dishes... I know, really authentic Czech food. Retirement to the room came shortly thereafter.
In the morning we set out to see Prague. The weather was decent. We went east a bit and then north to come upon the Museum and the statue of St. Wenceslas, on one of the main streets in the city. We strolled down the road looking at the prices of things and doing the conversions in our heads from euros/dollars to Czech Koruna or crowns (one is worth about CDN$0.05, so most items were in the hundreds of crowns). We saw all of the umbrella-clad tour guides with their groups, pointing and talking. We continued our journey, down along the river to the Charles Bridge. At the foot of it is a Museum of Medieval Torture, a morbid find but a fascinating one nonetheless. We had seen ads for the one in Amsterdam and decided to pay the five euros to get in.
The museum was just a handful of rooms on each of three floors with (what I presume were) replicas of various medieval torture devices: the rack, the wheel, spikes and pokers of all kinds. It was interesting but not mind-blowing by any means. I guess it puts humanity into perspective a bit and makes a person realise that though torture was a lot more barbaric and widespread in medieval times, it is still far from disappearing.
We crossed the Charles Bridge, where painters sell their wares and musicians play songs for the passersby. The bridge is very old, and seems to be standing very strong despite its age. Near the end of the bridge is the famous sculptural plate that people rub for good luck. We humoured the situation and took our turns.
We followed the crowd up the cobbled streets, past cafes and restaurants, up steps and around bends to come upon the castle and cathedral. From here there is a vast view of Prague with its red roofs and pink facades. We lingered here for a few moments, eavesdropping on what the English tour guides were telling their groups. Then we walked down the steps to the bottom of the hill and found our way back into the old town, where pictures and busts of Franz Kafka abound.
We sorted out our train tickets for the following day and then picked up some absinth on the way back to the hostel, complete with absinth glass and slotted spoon. Czech absinth is the best in the world and we thought it fitting to give it a go in Prague. The green fairy as it's affectionately called was drunk by everyone from Napolean's soldiers to the Post Impressionists. It has a heavy licorice taste and a high alcohol content. It certainly is an acquired taste. We picked up some sugar cubes so we could prepare it properly. The best way is to put the sugar on the spoon and rest it on top of the glass. Then pour the absinth over the cube and light it on fire. Sometimes the fire spreads into the glass itself and burns off some of the alcohol. What you're left with is a lukewarm, heartburn-inducing licorice-flavoured mouthwash. We didn't do much else that evening, save for a little walk to KFC for a little western grounding.
In the morning we were off to Vienna, back to the west for a brief period. So we had a break from the German language in Prague and now we were heading back into it in Austria. When we got there, we were again faced with learning a new transportation system. Vienna's is much like Berlin's and Hamburg's in that there is the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn. Finding the entrances to the stations, and maps of the system for that matter, are a bit tricky. Lost for a bit I popped into a bookshop and asked the clerk, "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" She gave me a not-so-confident grimace, so I began to ask in German where we needed to go. With that we were going the right direction. In the station, a friendly Austrian told us which train to take and we eventually made it to the Westbahnhof, near our hostel.
We found the Do Step Inn rather quickly and waited in the lobby while the young woman at the desk finished her work on the computer. Then came the fifteen-minute check-in process. We paid her in cash and then signed three differnt receipts. The first one for four thousand some euros, and then the one that had seventy some euros subtracted and then one that added another five thousand euros and finally the one that had the right price. I guess she was having a bit of trouble with Excel or something.
We put the card in the door of our room and opened it to find a jacket on the chair and a guy sleeping in the bed. Well he was sleeping until we walked in. We closed the door and went back to the desk. "Oh the room will be ready at 6:00pm," she informed us. So we dumped our bags in the luggage room and headed out to see Vienna. Our first stop was the Volksgarten and Parlament. Then we headed to the Imperial Palace, now a collection of museums of all sorts. We aimlessly wandered Vienna, stopped for some more Italian supper and then headed back to the hostel to check in properly. The room was ready. Nobody in the room. Again satellite TV, but only one pillow and one blanket. Oh well.
We headed out again to the city to see it at night. We enjoyed some Wiener Wuerstl, and then wandered around looking at the prices on the items in the shop windows of Armani, Prada, Chanel and Rolex. Ridiculous. Nearing midnight, we hopped back on the U-Bahn to Westbahnhof. I wanted to stop in at a local sports pub to sit amidst the locals. All four of them were rather uninterested in us, but it was an experience nonetheless. Back to the hostel and to bed.
At 7:50am there was a series of knocks on the door. I opened it to find an Austrian woman smoking a cigarette telling me in German that we needed to be out by 8:00am. We didn't really understand this, as the sign on the door clearly stated that check-out was 10:00am. Angered, I went to the front desk to enquire. Apparently the room is rented from 8:00am to 8:00pm, a detail they failed to mention to us. I told her we'll be out when we're ready and we're not rushing. Half an hour later we were sitting in the common room with our bags. I approached the same young woman who had checked us in about getting a discount. She was unable to do anything so I told her I wanted to talk to her boss. She called his number and handed me the phone. When he answered, I could tell the phone had woken him up. Ha, justice. In the end, we got a free breakfast and a couple bottles of coke. The clerk was very apologetic, and it was hard to be really mad at her.
We were all too happy to leave Vienna after that incident. Our destination was Ljubljana, Slovenia. We had heard of a hostel there that was formerly a prison, and were intrigued to check it out. It was also exciting to be heading into the former Yugoslavia and experiencing yet another Slavic language. Slovene is quite similar to Czech, so some of the signs would be familiar.
We got into Ljubljana and had no trouble finding the hostel. There was no bus to take, just a few blocks walk. The capital of Slovenia only has a population of about 300,000 afterall. Ljubljana seemed to have more graffiti than we'd seen anywhere else. In fact the compound of our hostel had a whole perimeter of various styles of graffiti. Inside, we booked our cell. It turned out our reservation hadn't come through but there was a three-bed cell available, so long as we shared it.
The place is really cool. There is a side patio with music playing, a little bar, a raised shoes-off kind of sitting room and a little peace garden at the back. Upstairs are the rows of cells which have been converted into rooms. Most of them have been designed by artists, as the hostel is also an art gallery. There are solid doors outside, and prison cell doors inside. At 2:00pm everyday, they open the solid doors, leaving the cell doors locked, and people can come to view the cells. Our short stay meant that we wouldn't get to see the other cells unfortunately.
Out in Ljubljana, the late afternoon sun was shining and we moved toward the centre to see what there was to see. We finally seemed to be in a place where there weren't a lot of people speaking English, and I think we only heard about two American accents in the whole lot. That posed a bit of a problem when it came time to eat though. We weren't exactly sure what things were. In the end we settled for a place that had pictures of their dishes.
Ljubljana has a castle high atop a crag, and the city recently built a funicular to reach it. We paid the fare to go up and back and rode up the steep angle to the castle wall. Once there, it was clear that a lot of effort and money was put into the project. In the walls of the castle are ritzy bars, restaurants and a hotel. It's all nicely put together. The day was turning into night at this point, and the clear skies were darkening with cloud. As we looked out to the mountains we could see that rain was falling hard in the distance, and occasional bright lightning flashes meant we just might get caught in the rain. Sure enough, as we stepped off at the bottom of the funicular, the rain started coming down. We headed across the street to the empty market stalls to wait it out. The rain got harder and harder and then eventually lightened to a drizzle. Soon we were walking back.
The hostel was booming at this point. On top of the regular local bar visitors and hostel guests, there was a wine and cheese reception for a fashion show of the work of a Slovenian fashion designer. Back in the room we met our roommate, an Australian studying in Germany who was heading down to Croatia for a vacation. He had hitchhiked from Salzburg, Austria; quite a distance.
In the morning we sorted out the train to Venice and then went back to the hostel to take advantage of our included breakfast. We were excited that in just a few hours we would be in Italy, the last new country on our journey (if you don't count the Vatican City as a country).
Don't forget to check out the videos at Darryl's site.
Cheers.
posted by Mark Bauche at 7:09 PM
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