Brno to Bratislava and In Between

  • July 30, 2009 10:42 AM

Day 9 & 10: I’m combining these two days because we didn’t have any extended stops in this stretch. First, we drove from Prague to Brno, spent the night, and then from Brno to Budapest. We wound around to some interesting stops making it so we passed through 4 countries – Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary.

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Our first stop was in a small town outside of Prague called Kutna Hora where we toured the Sedlec Ossuary. It’s a Roman Catholic church that is decorated with 40,000-70,000 human skeletons. Most of the skeletons were placed there in the 14th century after the Black Plague. My favorite part was a huge chandelier in the middle made of arm and leg bones and skulls.

We were going to try to stop by the Moravian Caves for our afternoon stop, but we arrived too late to go in. Still, the drive in that area was gorgeous and we were glad to have some rest time in the hotel in Brno.

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One of the things I’m finding really interesting on this trip is the differences in the country areas we drive through – different landscape, house architecture, agriculture, etc. The sunflower fields are my favorite.

The next day, we crossed the border into Austria to tour the Marchegg Stork Sanctuary. There were a ton of storks – from the viewing tower, we saw 11 nests, but unfortunately, the mosquittos were so bad that we couldn’t stay long.

Afterward, we crossed the border again to have lunch in Bratislava, Slovakia. One of the tricky things with this part of the trip is that Czech, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary all have different currencies and different languages. When it comes to the Czech, Slovakia, and Hungarian language, I’m totally lost. I couldn’t translate a word even if I guessed.

After lunch, we hopped on the highway and headed to Budapest, Hungary where we’re staying for a couple days while Thomas works.

P.S.  I’ve now met my New Year’s Resolution to visit 10 countries this year – Hungary was my 12th!

Prague and a couple videos

  • July 29, 2009 10:52 AM
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Thomas on a Segway near the Charles Bridge

Day 8: Since Prague was the first city where Thomas had a chance to tour, he chose to do it by Segway. Let me just say — those things are cool! We did a 3-hour tour of sights around the city, and though the tour wasn’t that exciting, the Segways were really fun to play on. Segways are controlled by shifting your weight. It sort of feels like roller-blading or skiing, except you can’t really fall over on them. They go up to 12.5 miles per hour and go forward, reverse, or in circles depending on which way you shift your weight. Here’s some video I shot of Thomas on his Segway; it’s bumpy because I’m also on one.  (Sorry about all the wind noise…)

Prague is a crazy city. To me, it felt like a tiny Amsterdam – not in the way of bikes and canals, but in partiers and trippy things. I loved looking in the souvenir shops in this town – among the weirdest were string puppets and absinthe. I got some Matryoshka nesting dolls.  I thought they were more of a Russian thing than Czech, but oh well.  :)   That night, we saw a Black Light Theater troup called Ta Fantastika that my brother toured with when he was a teen. It’s hard to explain Black light theater – it’s a mix between magic and the circus. Here’s some clips from the show we saw:

Prague was a quick stop, but worth it.  The food and beers were excellent, the city is beautifully ornate, and though crowded with tourists, they’re all there to have a good time.

Beautiful Northern Bohemia

  • July 26, 2009 6:43 PM

Day 7: We drove from Berlin to Prague in a day filled with gorgeous scenery. Just look at this photo – it was an amazing view of the Bastei Bridge in the Saxon Switzerland National Park just outside of Dresden, Germany. The area of Northern Bohemia was some of the prettiest scenery I’ve seen in Europe – very green and lush. We followed the Elbe River through Germany and right up into Czech Republic without any problems.

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In Dresden, we toured the Hygiene Museum. As kitschy as it sounds, it was pretty neat. The museum started in 1912 and is still going strong, though it was temporarily taken over by the Nazis and their racist ideology for a while. We saw exhibits on everything from how babies are born, to how old age effects the body. My favorite exhibit was one where you could wear various contraptions to simulate old age – sight and hearing loss, walking bent over, and shaky hands.  I also found it interesting that children were encouraged to go through the museum. I don’t think all parents would be fans of some of the racy exhibits on sex or the disturbing examples of physical effects from various diseases.  However, children seemed to really enjoy the interactive exhibits.

Berlin Again

  • July 26, 2009 9:29 AM

Day 6: Thomas went to work and I toured the Jewish Museum. This museum was great – it was huge – it could take an entire day to see it all. I was really impressed with all the different interactive designs they used for the exhibits. Wouldn’t it be fun to be a museum exhibit designer?

There were also some powerful memorials. This one in the photo, called Fallen Leaves was a long echoey hall where you could walk across metal faces. They’re all separate and clink as you step on them, and the silence of the visitors mixed with the echoey clinks is really chilling.

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Berlin kind of surprised me. At first, I didn’t like the city. It feels big and busy and dirty, but in the end, I liked that I learned a lot there – about the Cold War, Socialism, Communism, etc. It really just blows my mind that this all happened in such a recent time period – families instantly split apart (for 28 years), living conditions that were hard enough that people risked their lives sneaking across the border… It really made me think about what’s going on right now in other parts of the world – North Korea, Sudan, Afghanistan, etc. I think, especially living in the US, it’s easy to forget about places far away and not realize that the crazy things you hear about are real and now.

Thomas caught up on his photo-a-day for Berlin all in one post – be sure to check it out: Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Berlin

  • July 24, 2009 12:41 PM

Day 5:  Thomas went to work and I went on a 5-hour bicycle tour of Berlin Wall sights.  It was pretty interesting. This photo shows a man cleaning the wall. This year is the 20-year anniversary of the Wall falling, and they’re controversially restoring some of the old murals.

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In Berlin, our hotel did not have free wifi, and sadly, that threw me into a funk in the morning. It’s obvious that I need a break from the Internet when something like that affects me, especially when I didn’t even have any blog comments. I really wasn’t missing anything. Finally, I found a free wifi hotspot, and we’ve purchased some Internet time to plan the next leg of our trip, but wow, I didn’t know it had become such an addiction. I guess having email and web browsing constantly on my iPhone isn’t as great as I thought.

One of the things that amazes me about all these cities we’re visiting is how each one feels completely different. The German cities feel the closest to the US, but they’re still different between them. My best suggestion for what city Berlin resembles is Washington DC. When I mentioned that to a DC-er here, he said that Berlin feels much more safe. The resemblance for me is the city’s size, modern architectural style, and abundance of historical sights. It also seems a little weird that the main sights I saw focused on a time period from when I was alive. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 when I was 11. It’s different from Brussels, where a lot of the historical sights are places from hundreds of years ago.

One more day in Berlin and then we head off to Prague…