From Budapest (see previous post) we continued to circle anti-clockwise through Europe. First Vienna in Austria, then Prague in Czech Republic, followed by Berlin and Amsterdam.
Our stay in Vienna was short but we found there was a lot to love. We were only there a half day and a night. But, oh, what a day it was. We were given a quick drive around town when we first arrived and we were struck by the clean splendor of the place in comparison to the other cities we'd seen. Our first actual stop was a visit to the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. This is the family that owned and ruled half of Europe at one stage. What they hadn't already conquered, they tried acquiring by breeding and marrying off their children. It was working for a while.
Anyway, their palace was amazing. Or, to be precise, the gardens of their palace were amazing - we didn't actually go inside. We were only there for half an hour or so but as we walked past the stables we realised you could ride around the grounds for a couple of hours and still not see the same scenery twice... walkways covered by a tunnel of rose vines, perfectly trimmed hedges and trees, flower gardens, and of course, the occasional fountain or statue. Impressive.
But we couldn't loiter with the Hapsburg's too long, for we had an appointment with a schnapps museum. The 'museum' status seems to be earnt by the use of an old, old typewriter and a front office from the early 1900s. It's still a working business. At one time it was the 7th largest company in Austria. But many of their facilities were destroyed in the war and now they are just a small family-owned operation that entertains tour groups like ours and wins prestigious awards. Our host, let's call him Gerhard (I think that is right, but honestly can't remember) was full of good humour. At one stage one of the girls in the front row commented that he seemed like a very happy person. Quick as a flash, he responded, "of course, I'm looking at you!"
We collectively hoped his schnapps were as smooth as he was.
Now those who know me know that I don't really drink alcohol. I believe it is unwise to get drunk (and the bible itself says as much), but mostly I just don't like the taste of alcohol. So I had tiny sips of my shots. Then I'd hand the rest to Amanda. At one stage I said, "I could probably put up with that one because I liked the taste until the alcohol flavour kicked in". I immediately realised how ridiculous that sounded. Amanda, on the other hand, enjoyed sampling a red chili based 'rocket fuel' one, which is rumoured to cure a 'ticklish throat'; some absinthe; and one with gold leaf flecks in it...and a few others.
[Amanda: I asked for some smaller than normal samples and sometimes shared with others so i could try more of the curious and tasty flavours!]
In the evening a few of us took up our tour guide's recommendation and had dinner at a place where you order your drinks by the centimetre. We ordered the 'sword', which is a real sword with pork steaks, schnitzels, and large chilies skewered on it. Underneath were copious amounts of chicken wings, chips, and chili con carne. In short, more food than you could poke a stick...or sword...at.
Another small group from our tour sat at the table next to us. After boasting of their digestive exploits in Budapest (remember the massive meals in the last post) they decided that one sword wouldn't be enough for them, so they also ordered two separate 'schnitzel meals' only to find that each schnitzel meal was in fact three schnitzels on a mountain of potato wedges (each schnitzel was bigger than anything I've ever seen at the Harmonie German club in Canberra). It's safe to say, this group met their match in centimetre.
After dinner our tour group went to a small Viennese concert complete with opera singers and ballet. Mozart and Strauss are definitely two of Austria's favourite sons.
As the highlight reel kept rolling, we rolled into Prague. It's as beautiful as everybody says it is. We walked through the old town (which just keeps going, unlike other towns where the charm stops after a short distance) and onto the famous Charles de Guille bridge. The following day we decided to explore a bit further afield and walked up into the massive castle and its surrounds. The castle was once home to... you guessed it, the Hapsburgs. The sculptures on the front gate sent a pretty clear message to visitors and any would-be rebels (see photo).
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A simple welcome mat may have been a more hospitable choice.
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This castle is also home to the infamous defenestration (throwing out the window) of the Hapsburgs. Funnily enough, they landed on a stack of hay and survived. So they marched back up into the castle and dealt with the rebels (or liberators depending on your politics). This all started the 30 years war that crippled Europe somewhat because anyone with an axe to grind (literally) or who liked the look of his neighbour's property jumped on the bandwagon as armies and militias wreaked havoc across Europe, leading to a significant redistribution of power and wealth across the city states of the continent.
The castle was also home to an alleyway where alchemists used to live. The houses and doorways here were very very short. So maybe there is something in those rumours about leprechauns being obsessed with gold...
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The cathedral inside the castle grounds!
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Late in the afternoon we found ourselves in the cobble stone town square and some Hare Krishna's came dancing past... We weren't expecting that! But they were soon drowned out by a fantastic performance by a band called 'jumping drums' who were playing in stage set up for Euro 2012. After a while, the rhythms were so intoxicating that Amanda couldn't help herself and just started to dance and groove away, not caring what anyone else thought. She had lots of fun.
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Note the odd-looking astrological clock on the left!
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Joining in some street art...
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Prague is also home to the famous Bohemian crystal (Prague is located in the former area of Bohemia). You can barely walk 50m without seeing a store selling it in one form or another... hand painted carafes, chandeliers, wine glasses, and so on. One of our favourite games was to enjoy looking at all the shiny things and compare my favourites with Amanda's. Towards the end of the day we decided to actually go into one of the stores and to have a closer look. An ill-fated move.
Let's just say a hidden price tag, 'do not touch' signs that I couldn't see, clumsy fingers, a broken lid, and a credit card later, and we are returning to Australia with some of the shiny stuff (...please pray briefly for a special parcel of ours in the notorious Czek post!). We realised later that at least I have good taste. The one I broke turned out to be probably our favourite design and style.
With our souvenir shopping done we jumped back on the tour bus and made our way to Berlin. We walked a lot in Berlin. We went on a 3-4 hour walking tour and then retraced our steps twice over while visiting sites and poking around! We visited the Berlin wall - the part with street art and also the preserved historic part. We visited the Reichstag, where Hitler rose to power after some 'revolutionaries' tried to burn it down (many now believe that Hitler's own party lit the fires and blamed some communist extremists in an effort to get power).
We also saw the Brandenburg gate with its famous quadrega (think of 4 horses pulling a chariot with the rider holding a symbol of victory). And let's not forget the mighty Trabant - the only car ever produced in East Berlin. It's the car that would barely run and now won't die. It's kind of like that song, "it's Friday, Friday..." which was terrible and universally mocked, but that meant a lot of people watched it and radio stations played it and the singer made a lot of money. That's how it is with the Trabant. It was so bad it has reached a kind of cult status and you can now do tours of the city in them.
Overall, Berlin seems to be doing okay, but you can still see the hangover from decades of division. The Mayor of Berlin describes it as "like a 22 year old - poor but sexy".
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Doing what many Berliners longed to do for decades... crossing the Berlin wall.
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By far the most memorable and impacting part of our trip to Berlin was our visit to the Jewish holocaust memorial. As an artwork it is incredible. There are a series of different sized blocks that you can walk amongst. It is designed to create a sense of confusion, disillusionment, disorientation, and aloneness - feelings that many Jews felt during and after the holocaust. Walking through it, Amanda and I both agreed that it worked. The museum underneath is also impacting... ... gut wrenching even.
On the way to Berlin we had visited the site of a former concentration camp at Mauthausen. It was harrowing and sobering. We learnt about the 'staircase of death' - a place where many malnourished prisoners were forced to carry boulders up a staircase beside a mini cliff. If they fell over the edge it was considered one less to deal with later. Sometimes prisoners were forced to jump, or worse, push a fellow prisoner off. We also stood inside a gas chamber/shower and saw human-sized kilns.
We found it peculiar just how close it was to the nearby town. It made us wonder whether people knew what was happening and turned a blind eye out of fear or helplessness or something else, or whether the Nazi propaganda machine was so effective that people genuinely didn't know. We'd all like to think that in similar circumstances we would have stood up to be counted, but it made us wonder just how we would have acted in a similar situation. Hopefully, we will never know.
Having been to the Jewish quarter in Budapest and Mauthausen, by the time we visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin we had a pretty strong sense of the horrors and atrocities involved. However, it was here that both the sheer scale and personal anguish hit home for me - it was the first time it really sunk in just how many people were murdered - approximately 6 million. It was also here that I read the following words from 12 year old Judith Wishnyatskaya in a post script of a letter from her mother to her father: "Dear Father, I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won't let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly."
Ok, deep breath.
Ok, deep breath.
While in Berlin, we also ate dinner in a German beer hall. Amanda tried some of the local beer and discovered that she quite likes a German pilsner. We also learnt that true German quality means that its preservative free, which allegedly reduces the sore heads the day after mass consumption. We had no desire to put this to the test though!
We stopped briefly for lunch in Dresnan, which seems to be most famous for having the snot bombed out of it during the war and still having the tell-tale black stains on the walls and roofs. To be fair, we actually liked Dresnan, we just weren't there long enough to form a real opinion. We did, however, have time to try a 'currywurst', which is a hot curry sauce and sausage. Just pick a number between 1 and 10 depending on how stupid, I mean 'interested in chili', you are and that's the ordering done. We went middle of the road - enough to tickle the taste buds - and survived fine (just don't judge us by how much sauce was left on our plate at the end...)
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Amanda doing singing in the rain in front of a statue of Martin Luther and a church in Dresnan
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Our last major stop was Amsterdam, or 'Amsterdammage' as it is affectionately known. Oh, how to describe Amsterdam...? It's the city of bicycles, cheese, bicycles, clogs, bicycles, windmills, bicycles, and a very legal red light district. But mostly it just smells like weed. If you are under the age of 15, stop reading here.
As I'm sure most of you already know, in Amsterdam you can legally buy and consume marijuana. There are many 'coffee shops' in the downtown area where you can try it in brownies, as a joint, or in a variety of other creative forms. If you want to meet up for a coffee, you have to go to a 'cafe' otherwise you might go in for a latte and end up having 'high tea'. It might seem a bit confusing, but the coffee shops are very obvious - just look for the crowded, smokey places with hordes of young tourists getting high on the anticipation alone... Oh yeah, the coffee shops smell like weed. But that's not saying much because half of downtown Amsterdam smells like weed.
It was, however, mildly amusing to watch people come back to our hotel after visiting coffee shops. Depending on the person they were either paranoid (don't stand too close on the ferry!), had a serious case of the munchies (Umm, I'll have 4 big macs and three large fries) or were just very relaxed and sanguine and wanting to talk and be everybody's best friend all of a sudden. This was ok as long as you were happy for the conversation to be circular, as it seemed that many had traded in their ability to focus, their self-awareness, and their ability to be 'present' in the conversation in order to have the relaxed state...
[Amanda: at this point you can probably tell that both Jahda and I are 'experimentally naive' when it comes to taking drugs and fully intend to remain that way!]
We also enjoyed a bicycle tour around the canals during which we passed Anne Frank's house (but decided not to join the very very long queue to go inside), ate some stroopwaffles (mmmmm, so good!), tried some pancakes, and sampled their potato chips (fries). Allegedly, they are famous for their potato chips, but I couldn't work out what all the fuss was about. We also visited the Van Gogh museum at my request.
*[Amanda: hey! Its just that I've already seen a lot of his paintings and I know some of the best aren't here!]
Bicycles really do rule the road in Amsterdam. Wikipedia says there are almost 1 million bicycles in the city. When you step off the ferry in the downtown area there are big parking lots like you might see in Australia but these ones are for bicycles!
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Amanda trying on clogs in a small cheese farm and clog manufacturer in Amsterdam... This is where I started to get worried!
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In the evening, we walked through the red light district to see what it was about as Amanda wanted to see what it was like for the women in the windows. It truly is 'red light' as there are red flourescent lights around the windows where the women are posing and trying to catch your eye.
I know it's legal and I know that some might say that in this modern and enlightened age women can choose what to do with their bodies and if they choose prostitution to make some money (perhaps to put them through university) then they should be allowed to. I get that school of thought. I simply disagree - and strongly. It's incredibly saddening to me to see women parading their availability and selling themselves for mostly male 'clients'. It may be by choice, or it may not. But if by choice, by what motivations? To make money? To feel wanted or appreciated at some level? I tend to think that these aren't real choices and if there are factors driving women into this situation then they need to be addressed. Besides, how is it that we men think it is okay to let desires create a system that even makes this an 'option' for the daughters, sisters, and mothers in our world. It just doesn't seem healthy or right. Ok, rant over!
While in the red light district, there was an optional excursion as part of our tour to attend a live sex show (another thing for which Amsterdam is particularly known). I was a bit surprised it was included as a formal option and done as a group activity. We passed on this one. I mean, why go to a show to watch people having sex, when you are married and...
It turned out to be a good decision on a number of levels. We heard some stories at breakfast the next day, particularly about how 'in your face' it was. They joked that one girl from the group got such a view that she might never want to have sex again. The rest of the stories really will 'stay on tour'. Besides, they are not ours to tell.
We finished our whirlwind 16 days of continental Europe by driving through Belgium where we stopped for lunch in Brugge (hope to go back one day and explore properly), catching the ferry to the white cliffs of Dover, and then taking a bus on the wrong side of the road to London...Or was that the right side of the road? I'm so confused now!
Curiously, the ferry across the channel was delayed as an old mine (bomb) from the war was found in the water and had to be cleared safely! I guess old rivalries between nations die hard. So, on arrival in London we said hurried farewells and made a bee line for the train to Oxford, UK, where we would meet up with some very good family friends of Amanda's.
J.
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