CENTRAL EUROPE from Berlin to Zagreb - Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig, Germany
CENTRAL EUROPE
First part: DRESDEN and LEIPZIG
This has been my seventh journey in
Europe during the last 16th months.
I took a low cost flight with Ryanair
from Milan to Prague but on arrival I jumped on the first train to
DRESDEN reached on late afternoon after a two hours journey admiring
little towns and the Elbe river and hills from the train's windows.
I stayed at A- hostel close to the
railway station where I overnighted three days in a 6beds dormitory
room at the cost of 20 euro per night.
After a shower I reached the center of
the city by a twenty minutes walking, meeting first some modern
buildings and other ones of the communist time that were under
reconstruction before arriving in the old town, the historic center
of Dresden, one of the most beautiful, interesting and artistic
(baroque style) city in Europe.
DRESDEN is the capital of Saxony with
about 500,000 inhabitants and had been almost totally destroyed
during the second world war by allied bumbings even if noone believed
it could happen, owing to its artistic value. It had been restored
after the war following the traces left on pictures and paintings of
pre-war time and today it is very difficult to understand that this
city is only 60 years old.
If you stay on the other side of the
Elbe river in Neustadt after crossing the old Augustus bridge, you
can admire the long and amazing skyline of the central old town with
the imposing church Hofkirche presenting a chain of priests and holy
men statues on the roof, then the Semperoper, the famous Opera House
in a large square on the right, the castle in the centre with an old
tower and a gate, the Furstenzug or Procession of Princes, an amazing
wall on the left with the coloured paintings of the Prussian kings
and emperors since the Middle Age to the recent time, the Bruhlsche
Terrasse, a pedestrian terrace overlooking the river with other
impressive buildings that host museums like the Albertinum and a
little park.
One of the best highlight is just
behind the Hofkirche and castle: the Zwinger, a giant baroque
fortress with a long facade on the large square. When you get through
the gate you enter into a large courtyard and you remain astonished.
There are precious fountains with classic statues and elegant
decorated low palaces all around , while just opposite the gate you
can admire a royal tower with a golden crown on the top and a gate to
a little bridge as there is a channel all around and a nearby green
park.
From the high terrace along the river,
if you look on the back side you can admire a little street full of
tourists and locals seated at elegant bars and restaurants that you
can reach going down some steps.
If you walk inside the city to your
left you arrive into another large and amazing square all surrounded
by elegant high palaces of a totally different style. The colours are
yellow, pink, orange and cream and in front of them you see the giant
church of Frauenkirche with the statue of Martin Luther just
opposite. This church has been opened in 2006 after a long
restoration, using some old original stone among the new ones.
When you enter into the church you
remain surprised and admired as it looks like a theater more than a
church. The altar is very elegant and high with impressive
decorations while the opposite walls contain elegant balcons up to
the roof as in an opera house.
You can meet other churches and a lot
of museums, a large market square with wooden stalls and a little
amusement park if you walk around in other directions.
The other side of the city, Neustadt
over the bridge is less impressive but anyway interesting with some
precious churches, palaces, statues, fountains and a pedestrian
street with trees, bars and restaurants and a side area with
recently restored palaces of classic style.
I decided to visit just the castle
museum that includes the precious art collection of the Prussian
emperor, called the Grune Gewolbe.
The castle is a four floor palace with
several rooms. In the first I could admire porcelain, silverware,
Middle Age Italian religious paintings, rich golden and precious
jewel encrusted precious objects, among all the world's greatest
green diamond stone with hundreds of little diamonds and the artistic
silver, golden and pearl giant compositions of historical sceneries
like the Atzeca court of Mexican City or the Egyptian one.
On another floor you can see the
Turkish Room that contains a giant tent, silk decorated, wall
tapestries and carpets, amazing soldiers' costumes and horses'
decorations, different types of weapons, swords, guns left by the
Turkish army during the invasion in central Europe, including the
famous besiege of Vienna in 1683 when some coffee sacks had been
left in front of the city walls that allowed the Austrian to
appreciate the coffee beverages and to start the Austrian cafe.
On the last floor there was an
exhibition of Kokoshka drawings and paintins that I appreciated a
lot.
I also visited another part of the
castle with an amazing courtyard under reconstruction with outside
painted palaces'walls and a tower with about 500 steps that I climbed
to reach the top and admire the view of the old town and take a lot
of pictures.
Before the top you can rest in a little
old coins museum just to take a pause before the last steps.
The following day I took a train to
reach in a couple of hours LEIPZIG, another German interesting city
of the same largeness (around 500,000 inhabitants).
Leipzig has an amazing train station
with a precious classic facade while inside is a new elegant huge
shopping centre.
You can walk just opposite along the
main pedestrian street to reach the old town.
The first palaces that you see are grey
and cold, then a Middle Age church before arriving in the heart of
the old town with different interesting areas.
On the left is a large square with a
modern theater, a fountain and the Old City Hall whose painted facade
is protected by a glass wall. On the right side is the Old
University Palace and its church under reconstruction. You can read
on some panels the sad story of the destruction of these buildings
during the communist regime owing to the first german rebellion that
started in 1989 before the fell of the Berlin's wall.
The most famous museum of Leipzing is
the Museum of Bildenden Kuste, a rich gallery inside a cubic modern
glass palace.
Walking along a pedestrian street with
elegant palaces and shops you can reach the Market Square with the
City Hall building, long and original, yellow coloured with triangle
pinnacles that host windows on the roof.
Not far on the right side you can reach
the Thomaskirche, an old church that contains the grave of the
famous German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and outside his statue.
There is also his house, now a museum
and that of another Leipziger composer, the great Mendelsohn.
Walking to the north side you reach a
large building with several towers that looks like a castle while it
is the Neues Rathaus, the New City Hall and then another impressive
palace that looks like a royal palace while it hosts the Court of
Justice.
That's all my friends. Leipzig, is a
visit worthing city with a lot of amazing palaces even if the return
ticket by train from Dresden cost around 60 euro for a two hours
journey!
The third day I rent a bike at the
hostel and got an excursion to the castle of...........at about 20
km distance.
After passing some little towns, the
green countryside with horses, geese and a stop at a farmer's house
where I ate blackberries and lampoons, I broke the chain of my bike
and remained stuck in the country. I fortunately found a mechanic
nearby who fixed the chain, paid 27 euros but obtained reimbursement
from my hostel after presenting a regular invoice.....it helps! And
finally arrived at the castle surrounded by a little lake at the end
of a long road in the centre of a simple town.
The castle was more interesting outside
than inside except for the weird bedroom of the Austrian Prime
Minister who lived in. Everything is covered with birdfeathers. Poor
little animals!
Second part: THE CZECH REPUBLIC
PRAGUE
This two millions inhabitants capital
is maybe after Paris, Rome and Venice, the most beautiful European
city, the fifth reachest and visited (London and Barcelona come
before).
In the Middle Age Prague was the
capital of the Holy Roman Empire and one of the most important and
largest city of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in the following
centuries.
Since 1918 it became capital of
Czechoslowakia and after the partition from Slowakia in 1994, it
became capital of the Czech Republic.
Two great emperors were very important
for this city: Charles IV who built the St.Vitus church , the Charles
bridge, founded the local University around 1350 and moved the
capital of the Holy Roman Empire in Prague while Rudolph II around
1570 started the Habsburg dynasty and enlarged the castle on the
hill and gave it a rich collection of art that had been lost and
stolen after a Swedish invasion of the city.
It is not easy to describe the beauty
of Prague as almost all palaces are so amazing that each one is a
picture worthing.
Anyway the Highlights of Prague are:
the PRAGUE CASTLE on the hill,
built around 1200 and enlarged in the following centuries, is one of
the world's largest and still today residence of the President of
the Republic and in the past centuries of the kings and emperors.In
front of the Castle there are two important galleries in two
precious palaces. I visited the Sternberg Palace that contains old
paintings of European artists, the most are Italians, statues and
porcelain, silverware and together with the beauty of the roof
frescoes of the rooms; the other one is a beautiful Palace that
hosts a baroque gallery, while behind the Presidential Palace is the
St Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace with the vaulted Vladislav
Hall built around 1500 during the emperor Leopold's reign, then the
Basilica and convent of St.George of a different style and at the
end Goldenlane, a little street with tiny coloured houses, one is
the famous writer Franz Kafka sister's house where he lived a couple
of years. At the end an old tower with a prison and the tortures
room and outside a terrace with a nice view of the city. It is
possible to go downtown to Malastrana across the Garden on the
Ramparts
the CHAIN BRIDGE or Charles'
bridge, an old stone bridge built around 1350 with 30 statues along
the two sides that are now copies as the original ones are in a
museum and that represent scenes of Christianity; then two
impressive towers at each end of the bridge and many stalls of
painters and portrait artists along the panoramic walking that leads
to the Castle Hill
the OLD TOWN SQUARE with the
famous ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK at the Old Town Hall Clock Tower, then the
Tyn Church with two towers, the baroque St.Nicholas church, a
monument to the Protestant Leader Jan Hus and different nice
palaces, some of which are museums
the art nouveau MUNICIPAL PALACE,
with the Smetana Hall and an old cafè, an old tower, some elegant
hotels and a giant shopping centre
the Saint WENCESLAS SQUARE that
more than a square looks like a boulevard as the Paris Champ Elysèee
with elegant palaces, most of which are hotels, the closed National
Museum Palace at the end with the horseback statue of St Wenceslas
in the front and the symbolic grave to Jan Palach and. Jan Zajic,
two young students who suicided burning alive in 1969 during the
Spring Socialist Revolution against the Russian invasion and
dictatorship of the communist regime
the Hill of VYSEHRAD along the
left Vltava river with the SS. Peter and Paul church and the little
Slavin cemetery with the graves of the Zcech composers Dvorak and
Smetlana.
There are many other higlights as the
Estates Theatre with its golden roof, the Mucha museum with his art
nouveau posters, the Museum onf Communism, the little Island on the
river with a recreational area, the wall with the graffiti dedicated
to John Lennon and the Beatles along the river, the Franz Kafka's
House and his weird statue close to the Jewish Ghetto Josefov that
includes several old synagogues, the oldest was built around 1270
that contains a museum of Jewish objects collected by order of Hitler
who believed that after the deliberated destruction of the Jewish
race, some visitors in the future could be interested in visiting a
museum of extincted people.
In the same area is also the Jewish old
cemetery with around 12,000 graves buried inside 12 layers, included
the grave of Franz Kafka.
I stayed in a nice hostel not far from
Wenceslas Square, paying around 20 euro for a bed in a 6 beds
dormitory room. The staff was very friendly and helpful. The first
morning I joined a free walking tour starting from the Old Town
Square, in a Spanish group, led by a nice Andalusian boy who lives in
Prague married to a Czech girl. We walked around the old town about
two hours and we could have the chance to follow the 10 euro costing
tour in the afternoon to visit the Castle hill but I prefered to do
it on my own even if I met the group for a while.
I used to eat hamburgers, kebab
sandwiches, pizzas but also Czech specialities in some local
restaurants, eating pork meat and sausages with roasted potatoes and
drinking the great Czech beer, one euro for one draught pint of half
liter.
Prague has a perfect transport net with
a 3 lines metro, the oldest in Europe and completed by a wide net of
trams but I prefered to walk as the distances between my hostel and
the Prague's highlights were not so long.
The Czech people are friendly and
helpful. Most of them speak English and many also German or Russian.
There are detailed indications everywhere, so it is very easy to
visit and enjoy this beautiful city.
There is one thing that got me angry
during the Prague's visit: the fees you have to pay for visiting the
churches while these are all used for very expensive night classic
music concerts.
I remember that Martin Luther created
the Protestantism after a visit in Rome where he saw the Roman
priests selling indulgences and everythins for money.......ok, the
Czechs are atheists and they do not care about religion but this is
not a reason to pretend money from the cahtolic visitors!
CHESKY KRUMLOV
the second stop of my Czech journey was
CHESKY KRUMLOV, one nice town of about 15,000 inhabitants on the
southern region, close to the border with Austria and reachable by
train in about 4 hours from Prague after a change in Ceske
Budejovice, a 100,000 inhabitants city, famous for its Budweiser
Budvar Brewery and its controversial legal arm wrestle with the
American Budweiser over the brand use.
During the time of waiting for the new
train I walked along a beautiful pedestrian street and reached one of
the largest square in Europe, Nam Premysla Otakara, that hosts the
Samson Fountain, the baroque town hall and the Black Tower.
Cesky Krumlov is the second most
visited place in the country, in the List of UNESCO since 1992 as it
has a giant castle that belonged to a Prime Minister of Austrian
Empire and that you can visit admiring several furnished rooms with
nice paintings, decorations, weapons together with a green park and
some prisons in the underground belonged to the noble families of
Schwarzenberg and Rozmberk.
The castle is very high and dominates
the little town down below that looks like and island as it is
surrounded by the bends of the Vltava river crossed by canoes and
boats used by tourists who enjoy the river tour favoured by water
stream created by different levels.
I prefered to seat at a bar, drinking a
beer and observing the evolutions of the tourists some of which fell
into the waters after descending the different passages.
The town is pleasant and relaxing,
almost all pedestrian, with little squares, restaurants, bars, shops
Renaissance and baroque palaces and some galleries, the most
important is dedicated to Egon Schiele, the Viennese painter who
lived some years here, in the house of his mother who was from Chesky
Krumlov.
I enjoyed a 10 euro dinner in a typical
restaurant eating a thick beef filet and a Budweiser beer
BRNO
The second Czech city is BRNO, capital
of Moravia while Prague is in Bohemia, from which derives the word
bohemiene, an unconventional lifestyle, influenced by the the
Puccini's Opera “La Boheme”about poor artists living in Paris.
Brno is an elegant city, with the nice
Liberty square with beautiful old and modern palaces, a Plague
column, the 4 Mamlas Palace and a colourful market or cabbage square
with the old Parmassus fountain and some stalls for the sale of
vegetables and fruits, an old white tower of the Municipal House with
impressive decorations above the gate, a hill in the centre with the
old gotic cathedral of Ss.Peter and Paul, many parks and the famous
large fortress of Spielberg, reachable in a twenty minutes walk from
the town center.
The anti-austrian rebels had been
imprisoned inside this fortress for centuries, among which Silvio
Pellico, the Italian heroe and writer, composer of the historical
roman “Le mie prigioni”,”My prisons” that was very important
during the 1848-1870 wars of independence of Italy against the
Austrian Empire.
This fortress hosts today some museums
and galleries.
Brno is also famous for the motorcycle
championship tour even if I was told that owing to a financial crisis
they are going to stop the international race.
I stayed at Mitte hostel, in a weird
dormitory room whose name is Austerlitz as it remembers the famous
Napoleon's battle with giant posters and a table and armchairs of
imperial style.
It is in the centre, between the Main
Square and the Market Square and it costs 20 euro per night.in a 6
beds dormitory room.
I enjoyed the dinner in a typical
brewery where I ate a.......Greek salad but two pints of excellent
beer and I met two young pretty local girls whose photo you can
admire at the side of this travelblog, just to appreciate the beauty
of the Zcech girls.
Third part: VIENNA
Vienna is the capital of Austria, it
has about 2 million inhabitants and it had a great past time as
capital of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire under Habsburg royal family
for centuries and today is a point of reference for Eastern Europe,
too perfect to please, according to the comment of my daughter who
visited it some months ago.
This was my third visit, the first
capital I had visited outside Italy when I was 17 years old and then
15 years later.
I did not remember much of it, except
for:
the Schoenbrunn Palace, the Summer
Royal Palace not far from the city and reachable by metro with a
great park and garden, Italian style and a little hill with the
Gloriette temple on the top.
This time I did not visit the
castle's rooms but only the outside park.
-St.Stephansdom, well it is the
reference point of the center, a gotic church with a particular
painted roof
the Great Wheel in the Prater
Park.
I saw them all again and much more as
a lot of museums and fortunately the HOFBURG, the Winter Royal Palace
of Habsburg Family, the Empress Sissi's and Emperor Franz Josef's
appartements.
I have lived forty years of my life in
Trieste that was the port of Austrian Empire and the city that hosts
the amazing castle of Miramare where the Franz Josef's brother,
Maximillian lived before leaving Europe and becoming emperor in
Mexico where he was killed by the Mexican revolutioners.
Empress Elizabeth or better known as
Pricess Sissi visited Trieste many times and in Trieste is a nice
statue of her.
Hofburg in central Vienna is not a
Palace but twelve, 2,400 rooms and many courtyards and gardens and
a church where the royal weddings were celebrated and where the
hearts of Austrian emperors and queens are buried.
On the ground floor you can take
pictures visiting the Silberkammer with porcelain, silverware and
golden items used by the royal family.
When you arrive on the first floor you
can not take any pictures and you receive a recorder that explains
the story of the objects that you are looking at.
The royal couple used to live
separately after the first years of marriage, so you can see
different rooms with the personal belongings, portraits, the amazing
costumes of Sissi, her jewels, her toiletry and her gymn instruments
as she was maybe the first fitness fanatic and prohibited everybody
to take photos or portraits of her after the age of 50.
She was always depressed, soon after
the marriage as she could not stand the royal court, rebelling and
pretending to educate her children by her own and lived most of her
life traveling abroad or riding horses often in dangerous races.
She lived some years at Greek Corfu and
Portuguese Madera islands owing to her problems of health an after
the suicide of his only son Rudolph at Mayerling, she fell in deep
depression until when she was murdered in Geneva, Suisse by a fanatic
anarchist who wanted to kill another noble man who did not came in
Geneva, so after reading on a newspaper that Sissi was visiting the
city, he decided to change his victim and killed Sissi. What an
unlucky and tragic destiny!
Another weird news is that she was nout
famous until her death and that she had a particular love for Hungary
(according to royal gossip because she had a romance with the
Hungarian Count Andrassy) and obtained the parity of Hungary with
Austria, becoming queen of Hungary around 1870.
The emperor Franz Josef fell in love
with her since the first day of their meeting and loved her during
all his long life (1830 – 1918). He used to wake up very very early
in the....night, around 3.30 a.m. When a servant used to help him to
wash himself roughly.
He used to receive even simple citizens
during the days of visits, meeting around one hundred visitors in one
morning.
The royal rooms are elegant but not
extremely luxury as the emperor was a simple man beloved and
respected by almost all Austrians, more than his wife who became
known only after her death.
You can see the white Lipizzan horses
(from Lipizza, ten kilometers from Trieste, now in Slovenia) in the
palace of the Spanish Riding School.
There are many horses carts taking
tourists around that pass through the gates, courtyards and parks of
the Hofburg.
I also visited the Belvedere palaces,
one up and one down between an elegant park and an elegant and
classic fountain.
In the upper palace is the gallery of
modern art with masterpieces of Viennese painter Egon Schiele and
Gustav Klimt, even the famous painting the Kiss and many other
important artists while in the other palace is a gallery dedicated
to the great Austrian painter Mackart that impressed me a lot,
particulary his large paintings (Homage of Venice to Maria Cornero)
and some erotic portraits of beautiful women.
I also visited the Albertinum, another
rich gallery with a lot of masterpieces of the greatest European
painters and at the Museum Quarter, the Leopold Gallery, the largest
Egon Schiele's collection and some Klimt's paintings, the most
important Viennese painters.
The last museum that I had visited was
the Salvador Dali's Exhibition with just 5 paintings of him but some
more of other artists who took inspiration from the great Spanish
artist.
I visited one morning early and one
night late the Prater Park with the famous Riesenrad or Great Wheel
and the giant Amusement Park next to it with a lot of terrible
machineries loved by people who enjoy exciting and thrilling.
Vienna is really an elegant city with a
great culturale life, great Austrian Cafè where you can eat cakes as
Sacher Torte while drinking coffee or hot chocolates.
Other Vienna's highlights are the Opera
House, the amazing City Hall under restoration, the University
Palace, the Parliaments and Graben, the pedestrian central street
with elegant palaces and the Plague Column.
I also enjoyed the Naschmarkt, a street
market older than two centuries that hosts many little restaurants
where you can eat local specialities and some stalls where you can
buy Austrian typical products.
I stayed at the famous
Hostel........................one of the best experienced during my
journeys with large common spaces and rooms where I met a lot of
visitors drinking a beer during the Happy Hours time (half price!)
and paid about 20 euro for a bed in a 6 beds dormitory room, as
everywhere during this journey.....is that globalization?
Nothing special about the Austrian food
except for the tasty and cheap chinese noodles that you can eat
along some cental street's bars.
The metro is perfect with a lot of
lines and it is convenient to buy a three days ticket at the cost of
about 15 euros.
I did not see the Danube river and then
discovered that it is close to the Prater Park, what a pity!
Fourth part: SLOWAKIA
Slowakia was born after partition from
Czech Republic in 1994.
This country is catholic and it was
much poorer than its neighbours but in the last decades it had a
good rate of development and is the only one together with Estonia
in Eastern Europe that introduced the euro currency..
BRATISLAVA is the capital, just in
front of Vienna at one hour train's distance.
It has around 500,000 inhabitants, a
nice old town with narrow pedestrian streets, many bars and
restaurants, some old palaces, the St.Martin cathedral with the
motorway coming from the bridge over the Danube river just in front
that causes problems of stability to it (errors of the communist
regime that had no respect for the old town), a hill with a giant and
high castle under reconstruction that was the site of the Hungarian
Royal Family when the Turks occupied Budapest and Bratislava became
the capital of Hungary.
On the other side of the Danube river
is the new Bratislava with typical ugly architecture of the communist
era.
In the old town is a beautiful theater
and a green park and a long square just in front of the river, the
Slowak National Museum and Gallery , the Reduta palace that hosts
the philarmonik orchestra, the Roland's Fountain built around 1500,
the old town hall and an elegant recent area with modern buildings
and a pleasant walking along the river with view on the new bridges
and some boats and ships.
I stayed at the …........ hostel in
the old town paying the usual 20 euro for a bed in a 6 beds dormitory
room.
The following day I took a train with
the intention to stop and visit Trencin, a Middle Age town with a
castle but unfortunately I fell asleep and woke up after passing it,
so I got off at PIESTANY, a spa town, a very relaxant place with a
river and a pedestrian main street and experienced the black mud
baths, the hot sulfuruoes waters and at the end I rest in a bed at
Napoleon spa paying around 12 euros for a two hours experience and
drinking about five liters of hot spa waters.
I then passed by train the low and
highTatra mountains and National Parks that I enjoyed the previous
year during a journey in Poland from Zakopane to Lonmin mountain that
I climbed in a day's excursion.
Most of the tourists come to Slowakia
for hiking and climbing the Tatra mountains and in the weekends these
places are full of locals, most students that you meet in the
trains.
I stopped at SPISKA NOVA VES a
beautiful town, with the central wide main street totally under
reconstruction. I stayed in a 3stars hotel paying 35 euros for a
single room with bath and the use of the underground spa with dry and
wet saunas and jacuzzi.
On the groundfloor's restaurant I
could watch a marriage celebration, listening to the folk music and
the dances of the guests.
I ate very well in a little restaurant
in the centre of the town enjoying some local speciality made of pork
meat, roast potatoes and vegetables paying around 10 euros.
From Spiska Nova Ves I took a local
train to reach LEVOCA, a Middle Age town all surrounded by old walls,
with a couple of churches and I partecipated to the sunday
celebration listening to the holy songs sung by a choir and then
walking around the town and observing the old palaces, the towers and
the beautiful city hall palace.
I then took a bus to reach SPISSKE
PODHRADIE to visit first Spis Chapter or Kapitula with the old
St.Martin church and a monastery with walls dated 13-16th
centuries on a little hill just outside the town on the north side
and then walking uphill around midday in a very hot and sunny day on
the other side of the town to reach the long and large SPIS castle,
one of the largest in Europe, dated around 13th century, a
fortress used to defend the locals from the Tartars and that is the
most photographed place in Slowakia.
There are just old grey walls and
courtyards, steps, some terraces, a tower, an old palace and a little
museum that hosts an old kitchen, a bedroom, a little church, some
weapons and guns but the amazing view from the terrace is really
worthvisiting.
The final stop in Slowakia was KOSICE,
the second largest city of the country.
I was going to stay the night and to
take a train the following day to Budapest but I discovered that
there was only one train at 6 a.m. and another at 6 p.m. and I
prefered to take this second one on the same day after a two hours
walking in the center of Kosice.
The old town is not large and not far
from the train station. There is a nice park with the musical
fountain, the cathedral of St.Elizabeth, the St.Michael Chapel, the
Urban Tower and some archeological excavations, lots of beautiful
palaces and I could see and listen to a rap concert with young
artists on the stage and a lot of shouting young girls all around.
Final considerations: Slowakia is a
beautiful country, very green and relaxant, with friendly people and
simple but tasty food and cheap beer.
The highlights are poor compared to the
neighbour Vienna, Prague and Budapest but maybe it is the best
country for visitors who prefer to relax in simple towns or walk and
hike along the paths of its National Parks and climb the amazing
Tatra mountains.
Fifth part: BUDAPEST
I visited Budapest the first time in
the mid '80, during the communist era and that time I remained
surprised coming from the sad and dark Prague to see and find lots of
shops, lights and nightclubs in Budapest called the eastern Paris.
This second visit confirmed me the
beauty of this city, a mixed between Vienna and Prague.
If I should choose where to livein
central Europe, my option would be Budapest, owing to the fact that
it is not so pressed by tourists as Prague, it is not so perfect and
cold as Vienna but it has a lot of spa, around 8 of which at least 2
that can be considered little paradises.
But Budapest is not only a place of
spas, it posesses a lot of beautiful palaces, museums, parks, a giant
castle on the hill, the Danube river with its elegant bridges.
The highlights of Budapest are:
the CASTLE at Buda Hill that is a
large palace that now hosts the National Gallery; in front of it is
the statue of Eugenio di Savoia, the Italian general who was the
commander of the Austrian -Hungarian Army during the fightingS
against the Turks. Going to east there is another museum and some
old ruines of the Roman time when Budapest was called Aquinqum. At
the end IS the amazing church of St.Mathias, with a colourful roof,
the statue of St.Stephen, the first Hungarian king and the
Fishermen's Bastions, some elegant and classic white stones arches
and terraces from which you can admire the view of the city with the
river and its bridges.
The large HEROE'S SQUARE at the
end of the long Andrassy boulevard that hosts in the middle a high
column and an arch with the statues of the most important Hungarian
kings during one thousand years since the departure from Ural
mountains in Russia to reach and occupy the Magyar (Hungarian)
plateau.
The SZECHENYI BATHS at the north
side of the Heroe's square, a yellow baroque palace with a long hot
water swimming pool in the open air inside the courtyard of the
palace and two other pools where you can not swim but just relax.
The complex of VAJADHUNYAD CASTLE,
museums and churches on the southern side of the Heroe's Square
along a large artiphicial lake and the city park
The GELLERT SPA at the base of the
castle hill in Buda. This spa is inside a luxury 5stars hotel with a
nice swimmingpool in the open air surrounded by different levels
terraces and an amazing classic closed swimmingpool, recently
restored and reopened and an impressive Turkish Hamam with a pool of
hot waters and a high round roof that looks like a church's cupole.
The BASILICA OF ST.PETHER in the
center of Pest with lots of important palaces, squares and parks all
around, together with pedestrian streets, luxuries hotels and
commercial buildings
The ANDRASSY BOULEVARD dedicated
to the Hungarian Count who according to the royal gossip, was the
lover of the Empress Sissi; this long boulevard hosts the Opera
House, the Terror House that some consider the most visited museum
in Budapest that I skipped because I do not like to watch a sad
place where the Nazis and Communist tortured and killed thousands
of Hungarians;
HAGI UTCA the pedestrian shopping
street of Budapest with a lot of original shops as the one that
sells traditional Hungarian costumes; during the nights it becomes a
night life street with some striptease clubs
The Matthia CORVINO UNIVERSITY
area with different palaces for different faculties some in old and
other in modern buildings; just close you can visit the Covered
Market where you can buy typical food, souvenirs and products of the
country as paprika or Tokai wine bottles, etc.
The PARLIAMENT HOUSE that is a
gotic giant building along the Danube river that recalls the London
House of Parliament or the Dom in Milan owiing to its gotic style;
there is a nice little park around
and an amazing classic building on the back side that hosts the
Ethnoghraphic Museum
The BANKS of Danube river all
pedestrian with just the tram no.2 that runs along the Pest side,
the best one with a pleasant walking that hosts a photo exbihtion of
different centuries and the works done to protect the city from the
river's flood; there are a lot of elegant palaces that host hotels,
bars and restaurants and some beautiful little squares where you
can sit and watch the ships going down the river and the opposite
castle hill
The CITADEL HILL .that is just a
short distance from the castle hill and that hosts the statue of
Liberty, a woman on a high column that takes an horizontal large
leaf on her standing arms; there is also a fortress and a little
park with some steps and paths that lead downtown
the GREAT SYNAGOGUE with a
beautiful facade, a museum and a monument to the Jewish martyrs
I visited some other places: the RUDAS
SPA that is a Turkish Hamam with two large spa pools with a high
round cupols that let the lights enter from some coloured holes.
The …...........spa with some hot
swimmingpool among high palaces that host a hospital and a
physiotherapic center together with a solarium terrace on the top
floor.
I could see the Horse race at the
Heroe's Square that is a classic yearly show with hundreds of horses
and a happy hour area where you can enjoy the spicy and tasty goulash
soup and drink the Hungarian wines.
I stayed at …....hostel, close to
Elizabeth bridge and Astoria square, a very comfortable hostel with a
friendly staff and nice guests, Gustavo and Allyson two nice boys
from San Paolo, Brasil and Anne and........two nice French girls
from Paris who were going to Cluj Napoca, Romania for helping
children in a volounteer job.
I also met Predrag, a nice boy from Belgrade with whom I had long conversation
about the Serbian and Croatian relationship.
Ciao my dears if you read me, thanks
for your friendship and best wishes for your lives!
I was going to visit the Balaton lake
and the city of PECS but owing to long time travels I renounced and
decided to take the direct train to Zagreb, Croatia that passed along
Balaton lake, oh what a pity, I was not informed accordingly or I was
too stupid and tired to understand it!
Sixth part: ZAGREB
I am Italian by culture and language
but Croatian by race as my parents were Croatians from Istria (the
peninsula on the Adriatic Sea in front of Venice) that belonged to
Italy that lost it after the second world war when my family
emigrated to Trieste as they did not like to live under the communist
regime of Tito.
I was born in Capodistria, now Koper
the Slovenian port and only 20 km far from Trieste where I spent most
of my life before moving to Milan where I have been living since
1993.
When I lived in Trieste I used to spend
my holidays in Istria and Dalmatia, the long Croatian coast upto
Montenegro. But I had never visited the capital of Croatia before and
I was very curios to see it as the more I am getting old, the more I
feel my roots.
I have also tried to learn the Croatian
language that sometimes my parents used to speak only between them
and at the moment I can speak and understand the basic hoping to
improve it in the next future.
ZAGREB is the capital of Croatia and it
has around 700,000 inhabitants.
It is a beautiful city, different from
what I expected to find. I do not know why but I believed to see a
cold grey modern city and infact it is but only in the modern side
over the Sava river.
The old town is another story, a big
surprise, so pleasant, interesting and relaxing.
The first good thing is the lack of
traffic, no noise, no pollution, no chaos as in Milan but just few
cars and a net of blue trams that reach any corner of the city as
the artiphicial lake of Juran, on the other side of the Sava river,
where I spent a sunny sunday resting on a quiet stone beach and
swimming in the fresh and clear waters of the lake surrounded by
trees and walking on the green little islands connected by a little
bridge to the mainland.
On the same afternoon I enjoyed an
October Beer Festival at another green area where I could eat local
food (tasty sausages-klobase-and Karlovacko pivo-beer) listening to
happy music that remembered me the time of my childhood.
Zagreb has a lot of museums and I was
going to visit just the best one the MIMARA collection donated by a
Croatian billionaire who became rich in U.S.A and collected about
4,000 artistic pieces (paintings, statues, porcellain, glasses,
silverware,carpets, wall tapestry, etc..) but the destiny decided
for more and more as on September, 20 when I reached the Zagreb
airport for my flight to Milan, I discovered that my flight with
Airone, an Italian company that sold me the ticket in internet, did
not exist! It cost me only 47 euros but …....ok, I was maybe stupid
not to remember that Airone does not exist anymore after merging with
Alitalia, but, damn......why do they still have their site in
internet where they regularly sell tickets for inexistent flights
even in these days?
I advised my credit card company and
changed it to avoid eventual further damages and I will try to have
my money back anyway.
I decided to go back to Zagreb and
booked a night train with sleeping wagon leaving at midnight and
arriving in Venice at 7 a.m.and then going on to Milan where I
arrived at 9.30 a.m. spending around 80 euros.
I tried to take the best and decided to
walk around another time in the old town, strolling around the main
square that offers everyday new chances for shopping owing to the
different shows, festival, exhibitions, etc...
I walked to the hill where is an old
white tower from which a gun shoots everyday at midday. I stayed at
Strossmontmartre, a mixed name between Strossmayer, (the Croatian
bishops who in the 1800 was an important man who gave lots to his
city, for example the Strossmayer museum, an interesting gallery with
several paintings most religious and made by Italian artists) and
the Paris Montmartre but the little area is just a pedestrian street
with painters and portrait artists, a bar with broadcasting classic
music with nice view of the city from the terrace and of a little
cablecar that connects the hill with dowtown in just 64 seconds!
The hill area contains the most
important public buildings as the Parliament House, the Presidential
House and a little church in the middle with the roof painted with
the stems of the city and of the country. The hill also hosts some
interesting museums that I have visited: the amazing Naif Gallery
with around 80 paintings of the best Croatian artists as Generalic
.and the museum dedicated to the great sculptor Mestrovic inside his
house with a lot of sculptures most in bronze and some in marble and
wood of erotic women and suffering people.
At the southern end there is an old
gate with the image of an old Madonna that survived to a fire that
destroyed the city in the late1800.
Going down the hill and passing through
a very narrow pedestrian street between two high walls covered by
graffiti you arrive in the pedestrian street of old town with a lot
of bars and restaurants that are full of locals and tourists in the
afternoonn and evenings until 11.00 p.m.when Zagreb goes to bed and
the cleaning service is soon at work!
If you go down the street you reach the
main square and turning right you arrive at the shopping street area.
If you go to your left slightly uphill
you reach the old cathedral, a gothic impressive church with some old
walls behind and a couple of old towers. Nearby is the market square
with lots of stalls where the local farmers sell their vegetables and
fruits with the view of another church with a beautiful tower topped
by a green and golden head.
Zagreb has a lot of imperial palaces
that host public offices, museums and hotels and a beautiful park in
front of Strossmayer museum with a music temple where on Saturday
morning you can listen classic music performed by a group while some
couples dance tango or waltzer.
Another beautiful park is behind upto
the train station while a large one is north of the city close to the
mountains that surround Zagreb.
I stayed at the Down town Hostel close
to the train station paying always 20 euros for a bed in a 6 bed
dormitory room. The staff is very helpful but the hostel has no
kitchen and just a simple and poor common area on the groundfloor. It
is very good located between the train station and the main square.
Final considerations: I spent about
1,500 euros for this three weeks holiday along 6 countries, visiting
about 20 cities of the amazing Central Europe.