Copy of Blog from England to Hungary
England
-----------
Afer I arrived back from France, I spent some time based in Liverpool. Sarah and I stayed there in the attic room of Sarah's friend Nina and flatmate Chris. Sarah was working, mostly doing relief teaching, to save for travel. I was occupying myself by trying to learn some Spanish in advance of heading to South America. (I looked at a few methods, including a BBC kit I spent some time on, before settling on the Pimsleur System Cds, which are quite good. I took this with me in MP3 format, although of course I've mostly failed to study since leaving Liverpool, so I've probably forgotten a bit). I also sorted out some of the stuff that is impossible to arrange from the road, like organising evidence for travel visa applications (oh yeah, those of you who wear contact lenses, they're much cheaper to order online, I found out), and explored the surrounding areas (Liverpool is way out on the West Coast of England, quite a way from Cambridge, for those of you whose UK geography is as bad as mine -- I only found out where Wales was when I visited there). You've already seen some photos of the Peak District, which we returned to for a couple of days, climbing and bouldering in perfect weather, followed by some slightly rain-sodden sight-seeing, including a visit to what the locals insist is the grave of Little John, though I always thought he was a mythical character. It's a beautiful area, anyway. We also went out to North Wales and scrambled up a little mountain there, which was also fun, and I went out to the pretty town of Chester to inspect its old Roman walls. The defining event of Liverpool, though, was definitely the pub quiz held at by the school where Nina teaches...
Germany
-------------
Some people actually questioned why I would want to go to Germany (most of them German), and I remember reading in a guidebook somewhere ''few people visit Germany as tourists, possibly because the country has a reputation for being boring". An ex-flatmate of mine once told me that there was so little to do there that on Sundays when the shops were closed, people would still wander the malls, peering in shop windows. Other people have been more enthusiastic, though, and I had a swag of friends to visit there. Although it did rain quite a lot, Germany turned out to be quite entertaining.
I flew into Cologne, and immediately had to beging coping with the legendarily complex systems of German existence (see http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,413389,00.html). I gave up on making sense of the train ticket machine, and found a friendly ticket man who gave me my 2 euro ticket in a fancy cardboard envelope, and advised me to validate it before I travelled. But where? I asked a German businessman, and he replied "You know, I was just looking for the same damn thing myself..."
In Cologne, I saw the cathedral, which is absolutely huge, and met with Lena (who Rich and I had stayed with in Lisbon) and some of her friends for some pleasant drinks by the river. A couple of hours later, I caught my ride to Berlin. In Germany, train travel is so expensive that young people usually travel long distances by arranging rides over the internet - kind of like hitch-hiking, except that you share petrol costs. In Berlin, I stayed with Sandra, whom I'd met while studying in Thailand. Julia, whom I'd met the same way and who is German but had never been to Berlin, came up to the capital to meet me and to see the city. We went out to a free jazz festival, some trendy Berlin cafes, and into the famous Berlin nightlife, where we managed to get into the Soda Club, an establishment with 3 or 4 female patrons to every guy... Of course, we/I also saw some of the famous Berlin sights, like the Reichstagg, that angel in the park where the Love Parade is held, etc. One day, we all went out to Pottsdam to admire the castles in the park. Germany has a huge number of "castles", most of them resembling palaces or mansions more than my image of a castle. Anyway, this park in Pottsdam is huge, and seems to have dozens of these things; we visited the one that had been a former royal palace and was covered with impressively extravagant statues. In Berlin, of course I also caught up with Alex (who all the RMIT outdoors club old hands will remember), who is doing well and who had a big smile as always.
06/30/2006 | Marburg, with its famously wonky Church steeple
After leaving Berlin, I headed south and ended up staying the night in a small village near Frankfurt am Main, with two friends of Julia's, Thomas and Elena. One of the best things about Germany turned out to be what great hosts the locals are - they're always trying to look after you, and often one of the first sentences out of their mouths is one of my favourite phrases to hear while travelling ("Do you need to do laundry?"). Thomas and Elena exemplified this, despite having never met me before, they made me a delicious German dish with white asparagus for dinner (asparagus is nearly as much of a fixation as the World Cup in Germany in the season), and showed me around their historic neighbourhood (Germany being like England, with half the population seeming to live in houses that would be with the historic places trust at home). Many thanks to all my hosts in Germany, my visit would have been very different, and much poorer, without you!
From Frankfurt, I headed to nearby Marburg, where I stayed with Jule, who again will be fondly remembered by many of you from the outdoors club. Marburg is both a university town and a fairly well visited historical city and is very pretty. Two highlights there were playing kayak polo on the river, and visiting the camera obscura, a cool device that will appeal to science geeks and voyeurs everwhere.
06/30/2006 | Heidelburg Castle
Leaving Marburg, I took the train to Schwetzingen, a small town, where I stayed with my friend Mignon (who had previously visited Chris and myself in the German house best know for the spa party, in Melbourne). From there, I daytripped to Heidelburg, Freidburg and Karlsruhe, taking in various attractions. It has to be said that one of Germany's surprising charms is it's parks and gardens... I guess more surprising that I liked them so much than anything else, but they're pretty cool, with statues and sculptures and exotic building scattered through them. The castle grounds in Schwetzingen itself were a good example of this, featuring an aviary, extensive waterways, and a painting called "the end of the world". Most fun was hanging out with Mignon and her friends and family (she seems to know or even be related to half of Schwetzingen and Freidburg), including scoring an invitation to the annual ball of an ancient but crazy German fraternal society (complete with jazz band, ballroom dancing, and a pie-in-the-face sketch - quintesential Germany).
Czech Republic
------------------
The photos for the CR are a bit out of order - sorry :)
Leaving Germany, I caught an overnight ride with a stern but helpful Czech guy, destination: Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. Of course, I was excited to be arriving at last in Eastern Europe, which before I started travelling I'd mostly heard of as an exotic but grey place filled with a dour-faced vodka-swilling population, barely shaking off the shackles of communism and Soviet oppression.
Arriving on the outskirts of Prague at the edge of the metro system at five in an overcast and misty morning, this picture actually seemed quite warranted. Since I'd never heard Czech spoken before, nor to my knowledge previously met a Czech, the language of my companions in the subway sounded quite strange, closest to my memories of the bad guys in movies featuring Steven Segal outwitting the Russian Mafia. People seemed suitably grim-faced, too.
Mind you, I don't think there's that many smiles on the trams in Melbourne at that hour, either. Soon enough, after finding my hostel and heading into the town centre, I was plunged into the Prague of more recent legends - beautiful old buildings, cheap beer, and tourists everywhere - the Paris of the East. And since I managed to avoid being awake at five in the morning again, it was actually very bright and sunny for almost all of my stay in the CR. Apart from the time that water started flooding through the ceiling near the bathroom in my communist-era-apartment-block hostel, the whole place seems quite Westernised, and there were few blatant reminders of communism around Prague. The bulk of the tourist attractions, such as the castle, the mirror maze, and the historic centre, are focused on the earlier long and glorious history of Prague.
Of course, the people remember. The Museum of Communism made an interesting and thoughtful, if slightly grim, visit. Also interesting was the "Grotto Magique", an old house converted into a cave, decorated with dozens of paintings of subjects like "naked purple woman rides a unicorn in the enchanted forest by moonlight", and with a bonus glass of cheap wine included in the entry cost.
06/30/2006 | Sarah at Petrohrad
Sarah joined me in Prague and we headed out to a small village, well off the tourist map, called Petrohrad, to go bouldering. There was no organised accommodation there, so we camped in the surrounding forests. I made contact with two Czech climbers, Standa and Jiri, before I arrived in the Czech Republic, who were both very friendly and a great help with everything.
Here is the description of Petrohrad from the Czech Climbing website:
"People living here are usually very friendly, rustic and good-natured. They love foreigners."
...and here is Standa's text message, giving directions to the first climbing area:
"Go past the madhouse to the cemetary, and follow the path alongside the left hand wall".
The feel of Petrohrad was a lot more in keeping with the first description than with the second, though. The countryside and forest are very pretty, and it was great going down into the village for fresh bread and yummy condiments in the morning, or enjoying the very-cheap-and-very-good Czech beer in the evening. No one spoke English, but it was pretty easy to get by. I liked the countryside and smaller towns in the CR more than Prague, definitely. The bouldering itself was pretty good, though the rock can be a bit rough on the hands.
We also made shorter trips to Pilsen (home of Pilsner Urquell, the original Pilsner beer, and where we were very graciously hosted by Jiri), and to Karlovy Vary (famous and very pleasant spa town), and to Literomice and Terezin (the former being a small town with great restaurants - mmm, Czech food, three types of meat with dumplings - and the later being more of a grim memorial to some of the darker events of World War II).
06/30/2006 | Auschwitz
We returned to Prauge, Sarah flew back to Liverpool, and I took the infamous night train to Krakow, Poland. Krakow is a beautiful historic city with a nice castle and all of that, but I'd seen a lot of impressive castles at that point, so the main idea was to go visit Auschwitz, which I did.
07/01/2006 | Underground Church, Salt mines, Krakow
The salt mines near Krakow are really impressive, very old and very huge, reflecting the now-forgotten importance and value of salt in historical times.
07/01/2006 | Cycling in the High Tatras
I left Zakopane and took the bus to the High Tatras, across the border in Slovakia. They're really quite impressive, with great (steep!) cycling and hiking. I hiked up a 2500m peak with a nice guy from Brisbane called Stewart, which is probably the highest I've hiked to. The pictures really describe this part of the world the best, although of course New Zealand is more beautiful :)
07/01/2006 | Bratislava's Communist Housing District
In Bratislava, Slovakia's capital, I tried out something called Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org) where you arrange to stay with locals while you travel. I stayed with Eva, who was a great host, introducing me to her friends and family, and showing me the local sights and nightlife. She'll probably never forgive me for including this picture, the ugliest one that I took while I was staying in the city. I also have photos of a couple of very pretty castles, the Danube, and the historic city centre. However, 50% of the population of Bratislava live in these apartment blocks, south of the river, constructed during the communist era. So this is probably my best photo of the communist hangover, and I've included it :)
Hungary
---------
I took the train from Bratislava to Budapest, and in Budapest, again stayed with people through Hospitality Club. Having heard that Budapest was becoming known as a party town, I decided to do the opposite, and stayed with an older couple out in the suburbs, which worked out well. During my short visit, I had a look around several of the attractions, including Statue Park, an odd collection of triumphalist socialist statues that were torn down after the revolution, but, rather than being destroyed as many were, relocated to this park some way out of town. I'm flying back to London from Budapest, so I'll pass through the city again.
From Budapest, I flew down to Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, where I hung out in place called Art Hostel, which is run by a community art collective. Everyone was pretty friendly, nice and relaxed, but there were a few problems with things working; the internet was always falling over, the stairwell required a head torch to negotiate at night because no-one could find the light switch, and there were not enough room keys... I quite liked the place. I only stayed for a day, and didn't do that much other than my washing, getting a haircut, and constantly getting lost (all the street signs are in Cyrillic, and the Lonely Planet map isn't. But I quite liked Bulgaria, and I'm looking forward to going back there later.
Right now I'm in Istanbul, and tomorrow I meet my parents, to travel with them for a couple of weeks, including some sailing and trekking.
Keep in touch, and I look forward to seeing you all again next time.
love,
Carl
-----------
Afer I arrived back from France, I spent some time based in Liverpool. Sarah and I stayed there in the attic room of Sarah's friend Nina and flatmate Chris. Sarah was working, mostly doing relief teaching, to save for travel. I was occupying myself by trying to learn some Spanish in advance of heading to South America. (I looked at a few methods, including a BBC kit I spent some time on, before settling on the Pimsleur System Cds, which are quite good. I took this with me in MP3 format, although of course I've mostly failed to study since leaving Liverpool, so I've probably forgotten a bit). I also sorted out some of the stuff that is impossible to arrange from the road, like organising evidence for travel visa applications (oh yeah, those of you who wear contact lenses, they're much cheaper to order online, I found out), and explored the surrounding areas (Liverpool is way out on the West Coast of England, quite a way from Cambridge, for those of you whose UK geography is as bad as mine -- I only found out where Wales was when I visited there). You've already seen some photos of the Peak District, which we returned to for a couple of days, climbing and bouldering in perfect weather, followed by some slightly rain-sodden sight-seeing, including a visit to what the locals insist is the grave of Little John, though I always thought he was a mythical character. It's a beautiful area, anyway. We also went out to North Wales and scrambled up a little mountain there, which was also fun, and I went out to the pretty town of Chester to inspect its old Roman walls. The defining event of Liverpool, though, was definitely the pub quiz held at by the school where Nina teaches...
Germany
-------------
Some people actually questioned why I would want to go to Germany (most of them German), and I remember reading in a guidebook somewhere ''few people visit Germany as tourists, possibly because the country has a reputation for being boring". An ex-flatmate of mine once told me that there was so little to do there that on Sundays when the shops were closed, people would still wander the malls, peering in shop windows. Other people have been more enthusiastic, though, and I had a swag of friends to visit there. Although it did rain quite a lot, Germany turned out to be quite entertaining.
I flew into Cologne, and immediately had to beging coping with the legendarily complex systems of German existence (see http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,413389,00.html). I gave up on making sense of the train ticket machine, and found a friendly ticket man who gave me my 2 euro ticket in a fancy cardboard envelope, and advised me to validate it before I travelled. But where? I asked a German businessman, and he replied "You know, I was just looking for the same damn thing myself..."
In Cologne, I saw the cathedral, which is absolutely huge, and met with Lena (who Rich and I had stayed with in Lisbon) and some of her friends for some pleasant drinks by the river. A couple of hours later, I caught my ride to Berlin. In Germany, train travel is so expensive that young people usually travel long distances by arranging rides over the internet - kind of like hitch-hiking, except that you share petrol costs. In Berlin, I stayed with Sandra, whom I'd met while studying in Thailand. Julia, whom I'd met the same way and who is German but had never been to Berlin, came up to the capital to meet me and to see the city. We went out to a free jazz festival, some trendy Berlin cafes, and into the famous Berlin nightlife, where we managed to get into the Soda Club, an establishment with 3 or 4 female patrons to every guy... Of course, we/I also saw some of the famous Berlin sights, like the Reichstagg, that angel in the park where the Love Parade is held, etc. One day, we all went out to Pottsdam to admire the castles in the park. Germany has a huge number of "castles", most of them resembling palaces or mansions more than my image of a castle. Anyway, this park in Pottsdam is huge, and seems to have dozens of these things; we visited the one that had been a former royal palace and was covered with impressively extravagant statues. In Berlin, of course I also caught up with Alex (who all the RMIT outdoors club old hands will remember), who is doing well and who had a big smile as always.
06/30/2006 | Marburg, with its famously wonky Church steeple
After leaving Berlin, I headed south and ended up staying the night in a small village near Frankfurt am Main, with two friends of Julia's, Thomas and Elena. One of the best things about Germany turned out to be what great hosts the locals are - they're always trying to look after you, and often one of the first sentences out of their mouths is one of my favourite phrases to hear while travelling ("Do you need to do laundry?"). Thomas and Elena exemplified this, despite having never met me before, they made me a delicious German dish with white asparagus for dinner (asparagus is nearly as much of a fixation as the World Cup in Germany in the season), and showed me around their historic neighbourhood (Germany being like England, with half the population seeming to live in houses that would be with the historic places trust at home). Many thanks to all my hosts in Germany, my visit would have been very different, and much poorer, without you!
From Frankfurt, I headed to nearby Marburg, where I stayed with Jule, who again will be fondly remembered by many of you from the outdoors club. Marburg is both a university town and a fairly well visited historical city and is very pretty. Two highlights there were playing kayak polo on the river, and visiting the camera obscura, a cool device that will appeal to science geeks and voyeurs everwhere.
06/30/2006 | Heidelburg Castle
Leaving Marburg, I took the train to Schwetzingen, a small town, where I stayed with my friend Mignon (who had previously visited Chris and myself in the German house best know for the spa party, in Melbourne). From there, I daytripped to Heidelburg, Freidburg and Karlsruhe, taking in various attractions. It has to be said that one of Germany's surprising charms is it's parks and gardens... I guess more surprising that I liked them so much than anything else, but they're pretty cool, with statues and sculptures and exotic building scattered through them. The castle grounds in Schwetzingen itself were a good example of this, featuring an aviary, extensive waterways, and a painting called "the end of the world". Most fun was hanging out with Mignon and her friends and family (she seems to know or even be related to half of Schwetzingen and Freidburg), including scoring an invitation to the annual ball of an ancient but crazy German fraternal society (complete with jazz band, ballroom dancing, and a pie-in-the-face sketch - quintesential Germany).
Czech Republic
------------------
The photos for the CR are a bit out of order - sorry :)
Leaving Germany, I caught an overnight ride with a stern but helpful Czech guy, destination: Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. Of course, I was excited to be arriving at last in Eastern Europe, which before I started travelling I'd mostly heard of as an exotic but grey place filled with a dour-faced vodka-swilling population, barely shaking off the shackles of communism and Soviet oppression.
Arriving on the outskirts of Prague at the edge of the metro system at five in an overcast and misty morning, this picture actually seemed quite warranted. Since I'd never heard Czech spoken before, nor to my knowledge previously met a Czech, the language of my companions in the subway sounded quite strange, closest to my memories of the bad guys in movies featuring Steven Segal outwitting the Russian Mafia. People seemed suitably grim-faced, too.
Mind you, I don't think there's that many smiles on the trams in Melbourne at that hour, either. Soon enough, after finding my hostel and heading into the town centre, I was plunged into the Prague of more recent legends - beautiful old buildings, cheap beer, and tourists everywhere - the Paris of the East. And since I managed to avoid being awake at five in the morning again, it was actually very bright and sunny for almost all of my stay in the CR. Apart from the time that water started flooding through the ceiling near the bathroom in my communist-era-apartment-block hostel, the whole place seems quite Westernised, and there were few blatant reminders of communism around Prague. The bulk of the tourist attractions, such as the castle, the mirror maze, and the historic centre, are focused on the earlier long and glorious history of Prague.
Of course, the people remember. The Museum of Communism made an interesting and thoughtful, if slightly grim, visit. Also interesting was the "Grotto Magique", an old house converted into a cave, decorated with dozens of paintings of subjects like "naked purple woman rides a unicorn in the enchanted forest by moonlight", and with a bonus glass of cheap wine included in the entry cost.
06/30/2006 | Sarah at Petrohrad
Sarah joined me in Prague and we headed out to a small village, well off the tourist map, called Petrohrad, to go bouldering. There was no organised accommodation there, so we camped in the surrounding forests. I made contact with two Czech climbers, Standa and Jiri, before I arrived in the Czech Republic, who were both very friendly and a great help with everything.
Here is the description of Petrohrad from the Czech Climbing website:
"People living here are usually very friendly, rustic and good-natured. They love foreigners."
...and here is Standa's text message, giving directions to the first climbing area:
"Go past the madhouse to the cemetary, and follow the path alongside the left hand wall".
The feel of Petrohrad was a lot more in keeping with the first description than with the second, though. The countryside and forest are very pretty, and it was great going down into the village for fresh bread and yummy condiments in the morning, or enjoying the very-cheap-and-very-good Czech beer in the evening. No one spoke English, but it was pretty easy to get by. I liked the countryside and smaller towns in the CR more than Prague, definitely. The bouldering itself was pretty good, though the rock can be a bit rough on the hands.
We also made shorter trips to Pilsen (home of Pilsner Urquell, the original Pilsner beer, and where we were very graciously hosted by Jiri), and to Karlovy Vary (famous and very pleasant spa town), and to Literomice and Terezin (the former being a small town with great restaurants - mmm, Czech food, three types of meat with dumplings - and the later being more of a grim memorial to some of the darker events of World War II).
06/30/2006 | Auschwitz
We returned to Prauge, Sarah flew back to Liverpool, and I took the infamous night train to Krakow, Poland. Krakow is a beautiful historic city with a nice castle and all of that, but I'd seen a lot of impressive castles at that point, so the main idea was to go visit Auschwitz, which I did.
07/01/2006 | Underground Church, Salt mines, Krakow
The salt mines near Krakow are really impressive, very old and very huge, reflecting the now-forgotten importance and value of salt in historical times.
07/01/2006 | Cycling in the High Tatras
I left Zakopane and took the bus to the High Tatras, across the border in Slovakia. They're really quite impressive, with great (steep!) cycling and hiking. I hiked up a 2500m peak with a nice guy from Brisbane called Stewart, which is probably the highest I've hiked to. The pictures really describe this part of the world the best, although of course New Zealand is more beautiful :)
07/01/2006 | Bratislava's Communist Housing District
In Bratislava, Slovakia's capital, I tried out something called Hospitality Club (www.hospitalityclub.org) where you arrange to stay with locals while you travel. I stayed with Eva, who was a great host, introducing me to her friends and family, and showing me the local sights and nightlife. She'll probably never forgive me for including this picture, the ugliest one that I took while I was staying in the city. I also have photos of a couple of very pretty castles, the Danube, and the historic city centre. However, 50% of the population of Bratislava live in these apartment blocks, south of the river, constructed during the communist era. So this is probably my best photo of the communist hangover, and I've included it :)
Hungary
---------
I took the train from Bratislava to Budapest, and in Budapest, again stayed with people through Hospitality Club. Having heard that Budapest was becoming known as a party town, I decided to do the opposite, and stayed with an older couple out in the suburbs, which worked out well. During my short visit, I had a look around several of the attractions, including Statue Park, an odd collection of triumphalist socialist statues that were torn down after the revolution, but, rather than being destroyed as many were, relocated to this park some way out of town. I'm flying back to London from Budapest, so I'll pass through the city again.
From Budapest, I flew down to Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, where I hung out in place called Art Hostel, which is run by a community art collective. Everyone was pretty friendly, nice and relaxed, but there were a few problems with things working; the internet was always falling over, the stairwell required a head torch to negotiate at night because no-one could find the light switch, and there were not enough room keys... I quite liked the place. I only stayed for a day, and didn't do that much other than my washing, getting a haircut, and constantly getting lost (all the street signs are in Cyrillic, and the Lonely Planet map isn't. But I quite liked Bulgaria, and I'm looking forward to going back there later.
Right now I'm in Istanbul, and tomorrow I meet my parents, to travel with them for a couple of weeks, including some sailing and trekking.
Keep in touch, and I look forward to seeing you all again next time.
love,
Carl
posted by Carl at 4:46 AM
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