Central Europe Escapade

To celebrate my getting a year older this year, Adrian planned a central Europe escapade, taking advantage of the few public holidays here in Moscow. The plan was to land in Vienna, spend a day there, hitch a ride from our friends who will be driving into Vienna to lecture, to Budapest. Spend about 3 days there and hop onto a train that would take us to Prague. Nua another 3 days there and jump into another train that would take us back to Vienna.

Stop 1 - Vienna (Wien)

By being in the capital of music, of course we needed to make plans to attend a concert. We were spoilt for choice. There were people selling all kinds of concerts, operas etc on the streets. So many that you couldn't decide what to watch. Here's a tip. Many of these concerts are private, small scale ones and not performed in nice concert halls. So, go for those which are held in the opera house or bigger concert halls like the one in the famous new year concert.

Stop 2 - Budapest

The "Hungarian Dance" tune came to my mind. It was a scenic little city. Especially so during the night. Budapest is a city divided by river Danube. The side where the castle is situated is called Buda, the other side is called Pest. Pest is not pronounced as "Pest" but "Pesh". The stop at Budapest was quite fun except...the hotel or should I say the guest house. For some reasons, unknown to me and Adrian, he decided to book a guest house and did not see the very fine print of the reception being closed after 6pm. So when we reached the guest house at 12 midnight, we saw a note that was left behind for us. "We have waited for you until 11pm but you did not show up. We have left. Please call this number when you arrived." Great! Temperature was about 6-10 degrees then and I was only in my raincoat! So we called and waited 40 minutes for the guy to turn up. Next came the payment...cash only! What the .....! So all our US$ gone. Then came the room...typical soviet style with a 5cm thick pillow!!! Black face at this stage while Adrian was guilt-stricken (poor thing).

Other than the guest house...which subsequently also created other hiccups (like no hot water, no soap), the experience was quite fun.

Stop 3: Prague

It was a beautiful place. Lots of interesting architecture. At some angles, while walking up Charles bridge, the buildings looked medieval. Nice place but expensive cos it was too touristy. Hotel was comfortable compared to the you know what earlier on. And how often do you meet friends when travelling? We did! Met a friend we knew from Moscow. What a coincidence! All went well until the last day. After dinner, we wanted to take a walk to the Wenceslas (??) square. While crossing the cobber-stones filled road, I gave a loud yell and tears started coming out from my eyes. I had badly twisted my left ankle. So painful that I could hardly get off the track of an incoming tram. That's it, end of the evening walk and the beginning of a limping 2 days in Vienna. Luckily, the swell went off when I got back to Moscow and I was counting my blessing that it was just a twist. Greatest taboo is to go hospital for anything in Moscow...