Bavaria Day 6: Prague to Vienna
After breakfast, Margo and Sarah went shopping. I went for a walk along the Na Prikope and Narodni shopping streets which separate the old town from the new town.
Prague is very interesting architecturally. Some buildings are medieval; some rococo and baroque; there's very modern architecture (including Frank Gehry's Dancing House), and severely functional Soviet architecture, like this department store.
But there's also a lot of brand-new shopping that are the peer of other great European cities.
I visited the Museum of Communism on this street, ironically above a McDonald's and adjacent to a casino. It's small but has some interesting artifacts and displays, such as a factory bench, a school room (with Cyrillic-character textbooks) and a very sparse and boring food shop. I learned about the Prague Spring military occupation of 1968, Vaclav Havel and the Plastic People of the Universe rock band, and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
Back following the street, I soon arrived at Wenceslas Square, where the Velvet Revolution took place.
I rejoined Margo and Sarah at our hotel. We checked out, and were glad to meet the same taxi driver who'd first delivered us. The train station we departed from (different than the one we arrived in) was quite the opposite of most European stations: low-ceilinged and dingy, with no natural light to colour the drab grey walls. We sat and waited on scratched benches.
We only had two seat reservations on our train to Wien (Vienna). With six seats to a carriage, and the other four also reserved, I moved to the next carriage to take one of its unreserved seats. It worked out well: my carriage was very quiet, while Margo and Sarah were joined by young Japanese men who got on very well with Sarah. After a few hours I started hearing occasional happy yelps from next door. They were all making animal noises. Sarah did her best to exhaust her new playmates with such games. It was a happy accident.
Looking out the window, it seemed every Czech town had its own smokestack. I saw lots of graffiti and large apartment blocks. We crossed into Austria as darkness fell. Soon we passed urban office buildings and crossed the Danube. We approached the station under a green-lit saucerlike radio tower for Telekom Austria.
We had a room in the Pension Suzanne, nicely located just down the street from the Opera House and again, walking distance to all the sights of the city centre.
Then it was a short walk to dinner at one of the recommendations we received from the hotel, the Rheinthaler. I had a wienerschnitzel; Margo had a pork roast with dumplings and salad; and Sarah had chicken schnitzel. We adults washed down our food with mugs of "vollbier dunkel" named Gösser Stiftsbrau. My salad included tomato, potato, shredded cabbage, sliced cucumber, and white asparagus in a cream and dill sauce.
We only had one night in Vienna, with a train departing just after noon the next day, and I wanted to make the most of it, so I went out for a walk. I wish I had had extra time and a dark fedora to go skulking around the cobblestones and arches like Orson Welles' Harry Lime in The Third Man, but instead I had to stick with a quick circuit of sights in the city centre.
I started down the Kärtner Strasse shopping street.
This brought me to the cathedral at the heart of the city.
From here I walked along another shopping street to the Hofburg palace. I walked to one side of it and was awed to see the huge space of the Heldenplatz to one side. This isn't a great picture but gives an idea of the view to the other side, across the Volksgarten park, of the Parliament and Rathaus (city hall).
The coloured lights of the castle-like Rathaus so entranced me that I had to see more. I walked along the ring road (very wide, with tram tracks and, on each side, two pedestrian lanes and one bicycling lane). As I approached I saw an ice skating attraction, but instead of a rink, ice was formed on the paths that wind through the Rathauspark.
The lights and the classical architecture and the massive buildings were conspiring to make me giddy with awe. It was a great first impression; I could only think to compare it to Paris, but more spaced apart.
I followed the ring road around to the opera house and our pension, where I raved about the city. I also shared the chocolate cookie I'd bought at Starbucks - a lame Valentine's treat, as the confectioners had all closed.
Prague is very interesting architecturally. Some buildings are medieval; some rococo and baroque; there's very modern architecture (including Frank Gehry's Dancing House), and severely functional Soviet architecture, like this department store.
But there's also a lot of brand-new shopping that are the peer of other great European cities.
I visited the Museum of Communism on this street, ironically above a McDonald's and adjacent to a casino. It's small but has some interesting artifacts and displays, such as a factory bench, a school room (with Cyrillic-character textbooks) and a very sparse and boring food shop. I learned about the Prague Spring military occupation of 1968, Vaclav Havel and the Plastic People of the Universe rock band, and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
Back following the street, I soon arrived at Wenceslas Square, where the Velvet Revolution took place.
I rejoined Margo and Sarah at our hotel. We checked out, and were glad to meet the same taxi driver who'd first delivered us. The train station we departed from (different than the one we arrived in) was quite the opposite of most European stations: low-ceilinged and dingy, with no natural light to colour the drab grey walls. We sat and waited on scratched benches.
We only had two seat reservations on our train to Wien (Vienna). With six seats to a carriage, and the other four also reserved, I moved to the next carriage to take one of its unreserved seats. It worked out well: my carriage was very quiet, while Margo and Sarah were joined by young Japanese men who got on very well with Sarah. After a few hours I started hearing occasional happy yelps from next door. They were all making animal noises. Sarah did her best to exhaust her new playmates with such games. It was a happy accident.
Looking out the window, it seemed every Czech town had its own smokestack. I saw lots of graffiti and large apartment blocks. We crossed into Austria as darkness fell. Soon we passed urban office buildings and crossed the Danube. We approached the station under a green-lit saucerlike radio tower for Telekom Austria.
We had a room in the Pension Suzanne, nicely located just down the street from the Opera House and again, walking distance to all the sights of the city centre.
Then it was a short walk to dinner at one of the recommendations we received from the hotel, the Rheinthaler. I had a wienerschnitzel; Margo had a pork roast with dumplings and salad; and Sarah had chicken schnitzel. We adults washed down our food with mugs of "vollbier dunkel" named Gösser Stiftsbrau. My salad included tomato, potato, shredded cabbage, sliced cucumber, and white asparagus in a cream and dill sauce.
We only had one night in Vienna, with a train departing just after noon the next day, and I wanted to make the most of it, so I went out for a walk. I wish I had had extra time and a dark fedora to go skulking around the cobblestones and arches like Orson Welles' Harry Lime in The Third Man, but instead I had to stick with a quick circuit of sights in the city centre.
I started down the Kärtner Strasse shopping street.
This brought me to the cathedral at the heart of the city.
From here I walked along another shopping street to the Hofburg palace. I walked to one side of it and was awed to see the huge space of the Heldenplatz to one side. This isn't a great picture but gives an idea of the view to the other side, across the Volksgarten park, of the Parliament and Rathaus (city hall).
The coloured lights of the castle-like Rathaus so entranced me that I had to see more. I walked along the ring road (very wide, with tram tracks and, on each side, two pedestrian lanes and one bicycling lane). As I approached I saw an ice skating attraction, but instead of a rink, ice was formed on the paths that wind through the Rathauspark.
The lights and the classical architecture and the massive buildings were conspiring to make me giddy with awe. It was a great first impression; I could only think to compare it to Paris, but more spaced apart.
I followed the ring road around to the opera house and our pension, where I raved about the city. I also shared the chocolate cookie I'd bought at Starbucks - a lame Valentine's treat, as the confectioners had all closed.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:43 pm
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