Train – Page 4 – David and Yanmei

June 21, 2015June 21, 2015

Prague, Czech Republic

The train from Vienna to Prague is about 4 hours 45 minutes. For some routes a reservation is required, but not for this one. However I suggested to Yanmei we get a reservation anyway. A reservation provides you with a seat number, otherwise you just sit wherever there is space. Our Eurail pass is for 1st class, but they ticket lady said they only had one 1st class seat left, so we reserved two 2nd class seats. I was annoyed at myself for not making the reservation the previous night when we got back from Budapest and walked past the ticket office. However the 2nd class reservation turned out to be money well spent since the train was packed. People were sitting on the floor and standing in corridors, not something we want to do for nearly 5 hours.

We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner, since it was supposed to be nice. The service was great and they had live piano music, but the food itself was just okay. I had a Czech hanger steak with dumplings and Yanmei had a mushroom risotto.

Castle gates guarded by fighting giants. Hapsburg crown in the center. Restoration going on in the first courtyard.

The next day we did a tour. We started at the Prague Castle. Inside the castle is the Saint Vitus Cathedral. The construction of the cathedral started in 1344 and was only completed in 1929, 585 later. You can see in the picture that we were under serious threat of rain.

St. Vitus Cathedral. In the bottom right you can see a direct connection to the castle complex.

Close up on the gargoyles on the church. On the right you can see two men in business suits. These are the final architects indicating this part was finished in the 20th century despite the gothic style.

Once we got down to the river we took a 40 minute cruise on the Vltava river.

Yanmei and her Taiwanese friend she met on the tour

Charles bridge in the background. It was so hot I put on sunscreen. This jinxed us and it started to rain heavily a few minutes later.

Charles bridge across the Vltava. It was the only bridge across the river for 500 years until 1841.

The river floods periodically. The most recent was in 2002, which they called a thousand year flood, because it was the highest water ever recorded in the city's history. If you go to YouTube and search for Prague flood 2002 you can find some videos of it.

Markers on a building showing the flood levels. The smaller one highest up is 2002. The very small one lower is 1890.

Another perspective to show how high the water was, river is on the left and the markers on the building are on the right.

Finally we walked across the famous Charles bridge.

As part of the tour we had a late lunch in a “medieval restaurant”, and then finished up with a quick walk through the Jewish quarter.

-David

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June 20, 2015

Budapest, Hungary

Since it is so close we decided to use our Eurail pass to take a day trip to Budapest. We had to get up early for this, to catch the 7:12am train to Budapest. It is about a 2.5 hour train ride.

Dense field of wind turbines in Austria. Big too, this continued for at least 10 miles.

On the other side of the Danube is Slovakia. This is the closest we got this time.

Our train was a little late arriving at about 10am. We planned to go on a free walking tour at 10:30am, which meant it would be a challenge to get there on time. We found the metro station outside the rail station, but there was a huge line for the single ticket machine. We decided we wouldn't make it if we waited in line, so we went outside to get a taxi. There were lots of taxis waiting outside the train station, but none of them would take us, they were all reserved. Then I noticed another ticket machine for the buses with no line, so I quickly bought us two tickets and we went back into the metro. The tickets worked and we made it to the tour starting point with 2 minutes to spare.

The Budapest metro is nice. Very clean and easy to navigate. As you can see from the metro map Budapest is made up of the Buda side and the Pest side.

I guess a lot of people had the same idea as us, because there was a huge crowd for the tour, so much so that they broke it up into 4 groups, and each group was still about 40 people. Our guide was named Zoltan and although he was Hungarian, he spoke clearly enough that Yanmei could understand him very well.

Buda Castle as viewed from the Pest side of the Danube

Overlooking the Pest side from the Buda side

Changing of the Hungarian Presidential guard. After we watched this the guide mentioned they just started doing this 3 years ago as a tourist attraction.

When the tour finished we had lunch. After lunch Yanmei wanted to go to a thermal bath house. Budapest is known for its mineral water hot springs even from Roman times. More recently when conquered by the Turks they started building bath houses. We went to Gellert Baths, which is not the biggest one, but is supposed to be less crowded and touristy. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but it turned out to be pretty nice.

One picture of the main pool from the entrance. After this I didn't take any more. I think it's a little rude to take photos of people bathing, although some people were doing it.

It is mixed bathing with swim suits required. First you shower, then you go into the swimming pool or thermal baths. We went to the baths. There is a certain sequence they recommend, but we just did whatever we felt like. It wasn't very crowded and sometimes there were only a couple of other people in the large thermal pools with us. I'm not sure what the age limit was, but there were no kids running around wrecking havoc, so it was easy to relax and float around in the pools. We also used the saunas. They had three levels of saunas, I tried to go in the hottest one, but the floor was so hot it burned my feet so I left after about 5 seconds. If I had flip flops and a towel to sit on so I didn't burn my legs I probably could have stayed a few minutes.

I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and would have stayed longer but we had to get back to catch our train back to Vienna. After so many days on the road, and a long walking tour it helped relax my joints and soothe my sore feet.

I know there is a Veeva office in Budapest. I looked up the address and I wore my Veeva shirt just in case, but we didn't have time for a visit this time.

-David

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June 19, 2015June 19, 2015

Vienna

As I mentioned in the previous post, after we got back from the Tuscany tour we went directly to the train station to catch the night train to Vienna. We had reserved tickets the previous day, but unfortunately the sleeper berths were sold out so we got couchettes. Fortunately we were in a 4 person cabin, so it was only bunk beds, not triple level bunks like the 6 person cabins, but the bad news is we both had upper bunks. It was hot and uncomfortable and even though we were both tired from the long day we couldn't have a good sleep.

The train ended up being over an hour late, but it was still pretty early when we got to our hotel in Vienna. Happily they had the room ready even though it was more than 3 hours ahead of check in time. We went to the room and collapsed.

Night trains are good because you don't need to book a hotel or other accommodations for that night, and you don't waste a day traveling. However for that reason the comfortable berths sell out early. With our last minute planning style it doesn't work very well. If you get an uncomfortable berth then you essentially blow a day anyway because you don't feel like doing anything the next day. That's what happened to us. We mostly just rested in the hotel room all day, although we did go out for some Wiener schnitzel.

The next day we still got up late and finally went out to see some of Vienna. Yanmei has been here before, but she doesn't remember much other than the opera house.

We got tickets for a hop on hop off bus. These are double decker buses that drive around to various points of interest and you can get off, stay as long as you want, the get back on when the next bus comes by. It also included a short walking tour of the city center.

One of the interesting things the guide mentioned was that although most of the buildings appear old, many of them are only about 150 years old, including the state opera house. They were built with the style of previous periods to given the feeling of age.

We visited a flower and fruit market. Didn't see any flowers but there were a lot of fruits and vegetables and spices. It made Yanmei wish we had access to a kitchen.

We were considering going to an opera in the evening, but since we didn't plan ahead they were sold out already. Our other option was to stand in line for the standing room only tickets that go on sale each day at 6pm. We both felt tired so we decided to skip that.

Coming out of a pay toilet. This one played opera music to help you enjoy your visit.

I feel like Vienna is a city we should visit again. We barely scratched the surface, and it is located close to a lot of other interesting cities, such as Bratislava, Budapest and Prague.

-David

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