vienna

vienna is all class.

my guidebook said it was "sweet and bitter". i'm not sure what they mean by that, maybe they mean that the city is absolutely gorgeous but the people are pretty snooty. if so, then they're spot on.



This was my hotel (not). its the Hotel Sacher, yes chocolate lovers, it the home of the Sachertorte (for you un-foodies that is an amazing dense kinda mud cake) The true recipe is still a secret. I was going to go have a slice at their cafe but couldn't get past the American tourists.



Being the home of music, thought I should go along to the opera. Bought a standing room ticket to see 'Robert Devereaux' at the State Opera House (thats it above), an opera about Queen Elizabeth I – it was absolutely unbelieveably amazing. (blew the one in Prague away). I know it’s a big call, but the most amazing opera singing I have ever heard – actually almost brought me to tears.

Even the buskers in Vienna are classy.



And the window displays are classy too, in a euro-trashy kinda way.





Viennese Art Nouveau architecture is amazing - this is the Secession, a beautiful exhibition building originally built for the 'Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession'.





and the Majolica Haus by Otto Wagner, an apartment building.



couldn't get inside to have a look but this is what its like....



Not so Nouveau, but this is the Hofburgh, a vast castle inhabited until the early 20th century by the imperial family, now is basically the office of the Austrian President - and a very impressive office it is!



This is the Museumquatier, a complex of about 7 different museums. The best one was the MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst (Art)), it had a massive survey show of comtemporary photography - was just vast and amazing!



There were these huge specially round seats designed for people to just lay about and soak up the sun and the atmosphere. Here's the frühstück (breakfast) I had at a cafe in the museum courtyard...



on the last night, a few people from the hostel went to get dessert – that’s mine in the front, a nutella sundae. I only got through about half of it. (that's John, an irish guy - he was heading for Munich for the octoberfest)



L x

prague

Day one in Prague started about as perfectly as you could hope for.

On the train from I met some nice people from Adelaide, and someone had thoughtfully left their copy of the Guardian behind. I had booked a hostel that looked palatial on their website (usually means it will be a complete dump), I followed the instructions provided on the website to get to the hostel, and they were perfect. Only took me a few minutes to get there, and the tram stopped right outside… yeah. When I arrived, it was actually nice, like really nice! But even better, it was an old building that had been renovated, so it didn’t stick out from the surrounding buildings. There were a few people sitting in the lounge area talking, not yob-like or too quiet. They were even playing St Germain in the foyer. I immediately decided to stay 2 extra nights (which they of course had available just by luck) – I had a feeling I was gonna like this town.

The guy at the reception desk was so helpful, without being annoyingly happy. He gave me a map and pointed out where we were, where the city centre was, and where the trams and underground lines went. There was a lift, so no lugging the case up millions of stairs. I had decided to go luxury style this time, and get a single room – the room was clean, they windows opened right up, it had a massive bed, new linen and massive fluffy pillows… heaven.



The hostel wasn’t in a tourist area, which is perfect for coz it means you see people going about their daily business, and get a much better sense of what the city is like. On the tram I saw a man carrying a bag of hay, and another man carrying a huge tv antenna.

I quickly discovered that this place is cheap – like really cheap! Was able to catch up with Selena, Chloe and Danny again for a final farewell dinner – I was gunning for some good eastern European meat dishes, but they were sick of it already – so chinese it was. We ate a feast for about $5 each.

Bought a ticket to whatever was on in the Opera House that night – it was Madama Butterfly. I think they wheeled out the C-list orchestra, was ok but nothing to write home about (well maybe to blog about). But the interior of the theatre was amazing…





un petit miroir so you can check yourself before going out for drinks at interval...



And after the opera I had this for dinner...



Yes, I actually ate that. (you can even see a bite – couldn’t wait to get the camera out)

Next day wandered about in the old city and Prague Castle, and walked over the Charles Bridge…



all the little shops have great window displays – Bridget, this ones for you…



On the last night went to a traditional beer hall and had Goulash and Budvar, the local favourite beer.



The were hoards of tourists in Prague, especially around the old city, and the really annoying loud pushy (often American) kind. Ruined the experience a bit, but Prague still rocked!

L x

berlin

On the train from Brussels, we stopped at Koln for a little while, just long enough to announce loud and clear that I had arrived in Germany… saw all the clichés of German people in about 5 minutes – a roly-poly man eating a sausage with a tiny belt stretching around his enormous waist. Crazy german gothy-punky kids with bizarre spiky dyed red haircuts. 80s style young guy with tight stonewash jeans and white tshirt, and greasy wave hairdo - think james dean if he was german in the 80s. but my favourite was an aging german bruce springsteen with a spangly red peace symbol embroidered on his jeans pocket… brilliant!

Berlin is a strange and amazing place, there’s was a sense of lawlessness about, as though people are just doing whatever they want, whenever and wherever. The city has had such a tumultuous history, I think its just taking a breath and getting itself back together, hoping the next chapter doesn’t start for little while yet. After WW2 and the opening of the wall, the city was in such a desperate state and is still being rebuilt now. Apparently in the years just after the wall fell, 80% of the cranes in Europe were in Berlin… crazy! The landscape is so grand, architecture just huge, solid and imposing – a real shock to the system after the Netherlands and Belgium. I also found it really strange that a lot of the buildings are actually reconstructions of originals (usually built to exactly replicate the original) – so often the only way to tell if you are looking at a building that stood before the war is to see if it has bullet holes or not – the originals are completely riddled with little chunks taken out from gun battles.

Was able to catch up with Chloe, Danny and Celena again, as our travel paths had crossed – we went at night to the Reichstag, the German parliament.





Its one that has been extensively repaired, and has had a new Dome section built on the top – by Norman Foster. Its designed so you can see down into the Parliament chamber, with a huge mirrored centre column reflecting light down into the room, and the giant eagle hung on the wall - yikes!





Next day went to the new Holocaust Memorial and exhibition . I’d seen pictures of it already, but its not until you are in it that you feel how powerful it is. The huge grey concrete pillars swallow you up and really gave me a sense of isolation.





The accompanying exhibition was - amazing – but horrible. Not the happiest way to start the day, but a good experience.

Later went to the East Side Gallery, a section of the Wall that has been sacrificed to some incredibly baaaadddd mural art – I was really surprised about how thin the wall actually was – but later learnt that other sections were much thicker, and there a no-go zone surrounding the wall, sometimes as wide as 500m, patrolled by armed guards.



Berlin is built on a big swamp ('berl" actually means swamp in old polish i think), if you dig down only a little you get to sand – so all around the city there are these riverside ‘beaches’ where people go to drink beer, lay around in banana lounges and pretend they are somewhere near the sea. Of course we joined in! any excuse for a beer in the middle of the day…



Next day i went on another bicycle tour, this time with Karl the Danish-born ex-Melbournite (wanna-be) filmmaker. He spent a substantial amount of time in his tour intro plugging how good his mega-blockbuster film was going to be. Of course all he had to do was finish the script and get the money... right-o! But the tour was good, visited all the greatest hits, including the Siegessäule, or Tower of Victory with a gleaming figure of Nike at the top. The tour guide shorthand lingo for this is the chick-on-a-stick.



Also went to the crazy tourist mecca that is Checkpoint Charlie, which was the last checkpoint between east and west in former berlin. Nothing really happens there now. Its pretty strange actually.



Next day visited the Neue Nationalgalerie, it was holding a giant exhibition called 'Berlin-Tokyo/Tokyo-Berlin'. (dont ask me about the wierd brown man sunning himself - no idea what he was about!)



My fave work was called 'Then, I decided to give a tour of Tokyo to the octopus from Akashi' by Shimabuku, a Japanese artist. He takes a freshly caught octopus on a trip to Tokyo by train. (the octopus is in a esky kinda-thing - still alive!). They go in a cab and visit the Tokyo tower and then go to a fish market where it meets a Tokyo octopus (the market guy says Tokyo octopuses are high sprited). Then he takes it back to the sea where it was caught - the artists said that he "hopes it is still talking about its Tokyo experience to other octopuses". I love it!

bridget - these pics are for you... stumbled across a kids festival thing in the street near the gallery...





alison - this ones for you...



My hostel didn't have a laundry (stupid) so I had to walk about 20 mins to find one, took a wrong turn and ended up here...



the pic doesnt really show it well, but the whole street was like a wasteland, people are living in those vans with dogs etc. it was only a tiny bit away from other busy neighbours.

anyway, four days in berlin was definitely not enough, feel like i only just touched the surface. will definitely come back later...

x

rotterdam

whoops, forgot about this one. in chronological order, this came after Utrecht... no offence, rotterdam.

I’d read that Rotterdam was the only city in the Netherlands that doesn’t have a declining population of ‘young’ people, so was pretty keen to go take a look. When we arrived into our hostel the bar was full of old Dutch people having a birthday party for Jojo – they were all wearing red handkerchiefs and angel wings…



This is a bad pic but the woman dancing in the background had a dress with sunflowers sewn all over it – bridget you would have loved it!

The rooms at the hostel were themed, ours was the ‘Festival’ room. We left and stumbled across – yes you guessed it – a Festival. Hmmm. A whole street had been blocked off and completely covered in pink dots – walls, ground, windows – everything…



Wandered about the city, discovered the port area with a huge ocean liner berthed there.



Check out these lights – looks as though they were moveable.



Settled in at a canalside bar for a few drinks – this was their mascot (it was motorised, the jaw and tongue moved!)



x

brussels

brussels and i didn't get along that well. its actually the capital of europe, as i learnt, and i think it suffers from capital city syndrome, ie boring. its a business city - too big and built up to be nice to wander about in, completely over-run with traffic and crazy roads. but not enough exciting things to do like in a real big city.

my hotel sucked too, pretty pricey and for no real reason. and the staff were completely uninterested. as were most people i came across! and their internet cost 5 euros for 15 minutes!!! ridiculous.

however it does have an amazing town square - said to be the most beautiful in all of europe...





this statue was just up from my hotel, its the namesake of the belgium national anthem.



i did a walking tour of art nouveau buildings, they were really amazing - but frustrating too because you couldnt see inside any of them!





love the details of the buildings...



however one thing the belgium people do know about, its chocolate. i went to a few shops - purely research of course... this one called pierre marcolini...



the shop's street level was like a chocolate gallery - to buy anything, you had to go to the upper level through a dramatic stairwell with black velvet curtains and downlights. it was like going to a chocolate bordello.

anyway, wasn't sad to leave brussels but sad that we didn't get along. i guess you can't be friends with everywhere you go

x

antwerp

sorry gonna be brief with this one... all I need to say is Antwerp is way cool. Definitely my favourite place so far.

Classic train station



Best steak and chips in town



Coolest cloakroom ever, in the Fashion museum



Amazing gothic cathedral in the middle of town







Yummiest apricot tart



Cool cat hanging out in the newsagent (I love how dogs and cats are allowed anywhere – shops, restaurants, even bars!)



x