Bohemian Highlights (Eastern Europe) - June 2010

Day 2 – Berlin, Monday Weather: cloudy 18ºC, afternoon storm

So the pattern begins: wake-up call 6:30am, showered, dressed and into the breakfast room by 7:00am, and onto the bus at 7:30am. And keep an eye on the Trafalgar noticeboard at each hotel. I found it useful to take a photo of the notice as you have your camera with you most of the time and it avoids writing things down. The TD will always advise you of the times, but being able to check the notice on your digital camera avoids mistakes.

Our optional tour is led by a local guide, Ita, who originally comes from Malaysia but has lived in Germany for many years. Today is Pfingstmontag (Whit Monday) - a public holiday in Germany, celebrated 50 days after Easter Sunday. Hence, the traffic is light. We headed straight to the Reichstag and after passing some fairly strict security, took the elevator up to the roof, where Ita explained some of the history of the Reichstag building, including the 1933 fire that served as a pretext for Hitler to consolidate power and showing us the turret where the Soviet flag was raised in 1945. The dome itself is glass and mirrors – an amazing structure that doesn’t match the century-old façade of the building. A spiral path took us up to the top of the dome where a mirrored cone descends down and into the plenary chamber where the elected officials assemble. Interestingly, the dome is open at the top and any rain is naturally deflected by the rising vortex of warm air (politicians’ hot air?) from the building. From the dome you can see distant ‘hills’ which are really mounds of rubble from buildings destroyed by WW2 bombing.

Back on the bus, we passed the Brandenburg Gate, then parked at the corner of Cora-Berliner and Hannah-Arendtstraße, opposite the Holocaust memorial – or as it’s officially known, ‘Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas’ - Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial comprises 2,711 concrete blocks of various heights and sizes, one for each page of the Talmud (Rabbi text of Jewish laws). The ‘haphazard’ arrangement of blocks represents disorder and confusion and that’s exactly the impression from the street view. But when I walked into the memorial I realised that all the blocks were aligned in very orderly rows and columns and my interpretation is that the memorial reflects the holocaust’s chaotic aspects from outside, whilst within, the Nazi regime conducted its grisly policies with great preparation, system and precision.

  Holocaust Memorial; Berlin

Just around the corner is the site of the Fϋhrerbunker. This area was Hitler’s Chancellery and the bunker still sits there underground, albeit destroyed by Soviet explosions. It doesn’t appear on tourist maps and fittingly, it’s now a rather plain car park, with only one sign describing what lies beneath. You have to credit the Germans with doing what they can to treat Hitler with contempt. Building a memorial to murdered Jews only a stone’s throw away from where Hitler died was a nice touch.

The bus then headed across the Spree River to the East Side Gallery where the only intact section of the Berlin Wall remains. The wall is painted by various artists, ranging from amateur to professional. We returned to the hotel, passing several embassies on the way. Here. we collected the remaining members of the group for our included City Tour, a small part of which covered some areas we had already passed. We drove past the Tiergarten, Berlin Cathedral, Humboldt University, Neue Wache (war memorial) and then parked at the Brandenburg Gate, near Hotel Adlon – made famous by Michael Jackson dangling his kid over the balcony. We purchased a curry-wurst sandwich (three small curried sausages in bread) for €3.50. It was 11:45am and we headed back to the hotel to end the trip. The bus constantly criss-crosses between what was East and West Berlin and while this would be of profound importance to Berliners who couldn’t do such a thing until recent times, the significance is somewhat lost on us foreigners, especially without a map of where the wall was. We returned for another lunch at Starbucks (ham+cheese baguette €3.50) and of course free WiFi so Mrs Oz could get her daily fix of talking to the kids again. At 22 and 20 years of age, they were doing fine, apart from the sudden and horrible imposition of housework.

The afternoon had an included tour - a brief drive down to Checkpoint Charlie to visit the museum. Inside, there are many exhibits portraying attempts by East Berliners to cross to the west. It was hard to imagine the desperation and difficulties faced by split families and that this terrible chapter only disappeared a mere 21 years ago. Rather than wait for the bus, we walked the short distance back to the Hilton.

The rest of the afternoon was free time so we walked to the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral) for better photos. Parts of this building date back to the 1450s. Technically, this isn’t a cathedral at all because there’s never been a Bishopric in Berlin and this building even spent many years as a Protestant church. But hey, it sure looks like a cathedral so I’m not about raise pedantic points of order with a 500 year-old building.

  Berlin Cathedral

Outside, the gypsies seeking money approach you with the question, “Do you speak English?” I responded with a puzzled look and a terse “Nein!” and it would have been splendid had Mrs Oz done something similar. I reminded her that replying with “No” somewhat defeated the purpose. At 5pm a sudden thunderstorm did a superb job of dispersing the poverty-stricken gypsies, causing them to use previously concealed mobile phones to make hasty calls. Rather than wait to see if their chauffers turned up next, we took shelter under a hoarding near the Lustgarten (‘Pleasure Garden’) that has quite a varied past. Once a garden attached to the palace, it was converted to a military parade ground by the King of Prussia, then back to a garden, and then Napoleon returned it to a parade ground. Hitler addressed mass rallies of a million people here and it later became a bomb-cratered dirt patch during WW2. On that history, the trees here must be feeling like they have a use-by-date.

Returning to the hotel, we went to the nearby Maredos restaurant, preferring that to the optional dinner that would have cost €104 per couple. Two rump steaks, fries and two glasses of wine (+ tips) all up totalled €40 – nice and affordable.

Then bed. Next morning would start early and there was a lot of travel ahead of us.

Optionals: The “Berlin’s Secret Past” optional was certainly worth doing if you have an interest in the history of the Nazi/Cold War era and seeing the interior of the Reichstag building. To me, it was definitely worthwhile. The Berlin dinner was reportedly good, but you’d have to question whether it was value for money, given the price and you’ll get to know everyone as the tour proceeds anyway.

Day 4 – Warsaw, Wednesday Weather: sunny, cloudy 16ºC

The wake-up call was unusually scheduled for the later time of 7:30am today, but this was a one-off. We were awake earlier anyway and in the bathroom, blaming each other for turning the TV on so loud. As it turned out, that was our wakeup call: the TV switches on by itself, emitting a beeping alarm and on-screen display, telling us to press the ‘alarm off’ button on the remote. Problem #1: Finding where you left the remote control. Problem #2: There’s no such button. Problem #3: The wakeup tone gets louder and louder whilst you’re scrambling around, cursing the whole situation. By accident, I somehow managed to turn the damn thing off, but the distant sounds of the identical alarm in other rooms indicated that the same antics were being replicated throughout the hotel.

I was so impressed with those ‘theme-park’ elevators that I pressed the up button just for the thrill ride to the top and back. It was even worth the disapproving look from Mrs Oz but I didn’t push my luck with a second joyride. After breakfast, we boarded the bus at 8:45am for our included city tour.

  Westin Hotel (Atrium), Warsaw (with elevator system in the atrium)

Our local guide was Barbara and our first stop was Lazienki Park where the main feature is a large statue of Chopin. We were shown a park bench that has a button and loudspeaker and plays a small piano piece composed by Chopin. Several of these are located around Warsaw and I thought it would be cool to search for the one that plays the ‘Minute Waltz’ so I could time it. Frederic Chopin is revered in Poland and it’s a shame he died in France at only 39 (of either tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis). I mentioned to another couple that Chopin was fearful of being buried alive, so to remove any such risk, his Will required that his heart be removed; which must’ve gone some way to solving the problem. The ticker was brought to Warsaw where it resides in an urn in a church. The rest of Chopin remains in a Paris cemetery where presumably, the Great Maestro is now de-composing.

   Lazienki Park (& Chopin statue); Warsaw

Next, the bus took us toward the Old Town, stopping within the precinct of the former Warsaw Ghetto. In 1940 the Nazis herded 400,000 Polish Jews into this small residential area and walled them in. Starvation and disease killed 100,000 people before the Nazis transported 250,000 to their deaths at Treblinka. In early 1943 the prisoners fought back in what was to become the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. However, their initial successes infuriated Hitler who ordered the annihilation of the ghetto. During April-May, Nazi troops systematically blew up and burned building after building until almost 60,000 Jews had been slaughtered. This horrific act is remembered via a memorial, with a sculpture of the ghetto uprising heroes on one side, and victims headed toward their deaths at Treblinka on the other. “How could this have been allowed to happen?” asked a member of our group. I replied with the Edmund Burke quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

   Memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto

It was then apparent that what we could see of Warsaw was relatively new; 90% of the city had been levelled by the Nazis and after the war the Poles had rebuilt it to look like the original, using the rubble as building materials. You’d have to agree that they did a fine job. Those lovely buildings that look centuries old have only just celebrated their 50th birthdays. In many instances, old paintings of the city provided the builders with the images they needed to recreate old Warsaw.

The Stare Miasto (Old Town) contains most of these wonderful buildings and a town square that looks like it did centuries ago. We walked along Krakowskie Przedmieście, the main street that dates back to the 1400s and a couple of blocks from the Vistula River. Notable buildings here are several palaces, including the Presidential Palace, Holy Cross Church (inside is a pillar containing Chopin’s heart), St Anne’s Church and Visitationist Church (where Chopin used to play the church organ). We passed the Copernicus statue at Staszic Palace. The clergy boycotted its unveiling in 1830 because the church still refused to accept the Copernican concept that the sun, not the earth was centre of the solar system. The statue ought to have a smirk on his face. We walked past an exhibition dedicated to the Katyn massacre but it was all written in Polish. It’s difficult to navigate away from the main road without close attention to the map because many street names are unpronounceable and hard to memorise.

   Old Town; Warsaw

After the group split for free time and lunch, it was hard to decide on a café because the menus are in Polish and without English subtitles. It also seemed that English wasn’t a language many people spoke here. We wandered on; reaching an open area called Plac Pilsudskiego (Pilsudski Square) and took photos of the gardens and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier with its two guards. Interred here is not only the obvious, but also 38 urns containing soil from battlegrounds where Polish soldiers have fought. As we neared our hotel we found a small supermarket and decided to test our skills at interpreting what the labels were saying. We purchased bread rolls, sliced meat and drinks for lunch – 9 zloty, a pittance. However, given my time over, I’d have persevered with finding a café and committed to eating any mistakes I ordered.

Back at the hotel, we rested from the walk and spent some time talking to the kids on the internet. Mrs Oz enquired about every little thing imaginable and endlessly told them how much she missed them. In contrast, I went on briefly to remind them to put the rubbish bins out. There’s a charge for the internet here, but not if you know how to get around it. We sat near the bar on the ground floor and I sent Mrs Oz over to ask the bartender for the password to get free WiFi. Bingo. It’s not what you know, but whether you have access to a formidable weapon – feminine charm.

The optional tour to Wilanów Palace had been cancelled today due to flooding and a replacement tour to another building had been arranged. I’m not sure if many people went on this tour but it didn’t sound all that interesting. Later, nobody seemed to even comment on it, so maybe it wasn’t popular. However, if you go on this tour and want to see a baroque palace in Warsaw that’s genuinely old (300 years), Wilanów’s the place to go.

Half our group left for the optional Chopin recital/concert at 5pm. The rest of us boarded the bus at 6:30 for the included Highlight Dinner at St Antonio’s restaurant. We were reunited with those who took the optional, it being walking distance for them. Our group was led to tables in an enclosed patio area. The meal comprised tomato soup; chicken fillet in creamy mushroom sauce with vegetables; and apple slice with cream/ice cream. We were told we could have two drinks with this, but all that happened was a token top-up for those alert enough to catch the attention of the waitress. Tea/coffee finished it off. The TD remarked what a lovely meal it was, although it seems that the exact same meal has been served for every tour group for years so there were no surprises. In fact, it was amusing to predict each course before it arrived. Nevertheless, the meal was indeed nice. We returned to the hotel and with an early morning departure ahead, went straight to sleep.

Optionals: The attendees of the Chopin concert reported that they enjoyed it immensely. However, there’s a Mozart/Strauss concert later in Vienna so if you limited yourself to one, choose on the basis of the type of music you prefer. As the Wilanów Palace tour was cancelled I can’t offer any opinions there, other than to say that you’ll see a grander palace in Vienna.

The photo hereunder is the tallest and most prominent building in Warsaw - the Stalinist era Palace of Culture & Science. It’s now an office complex and exhibition centre.

Day 5 – Auschwitz, Thursday afternoon

Caution: Some readers may find some aspects of this commentary distressing.

How does a person prepare for a visit to Auschwitz? How does one write about it? Say it’s a moving experience and skim over the basics, or confront it with detail? I’ve pondered this question and decided that there really is no right or wrong way; it depends on the individual reader. If you are easily disturbed by hearing of the atrocities, it will be an emotional experience and as I will go into some detail, you may prefer not to read what I have written here. But if you are interested in history, even if it deals with aspects that are both ghastly and shameful, you will be absorbed by this place. But you cannot leave a tour of Auschwitz without sad feelings about an episode in history that should never have happened, and should never be repeated. If you are well researched on the holocaust, the visit is easier because you’ll be familiar with the horrors you will encounter. Our visit to the Warsaw Ghetto was also a useful preliminary to dealing with Auschwitz.

Being aware that a decent perspective of this place is best gained with a visit to nearby Birkenau, I asked the TD if this were possible. He agreed, provided the bus access wasn’t impaired by the recent floods. As soon as I saw the barbed-wire fencing I knew we had arrived at Birkenau and the TD made an announcement to explain to the others that we were making a small diversion to see this.

Auschwitz was really a complex of 48 camps, the two main ones being Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II – Birkenau. In 1939 the Nazis chose the town of Oświęcim as the site of its camps, renaming it Auschwitz. The isolation and rail access made it suitable for their needs. Auschwitz I was a Polish army barracks, easily converted to a concentration camp. The nearby village of Birkenau was destroyed and a larger camp built there. Seeing Birkenau gives a perspective of the size and scale of the operations. This site is enormous with 300 barracks (or the remains of them, as they mainly have only chimneys left) as far as you can see and unlike Auschwitz, tourists can wander about unattended.

  Birkenau

Forget the term ‘labour camp’; this was predominantly a ‘Vernichtungslager’, an extermination factory, the largest that the Nazis operated. I stood at the main gate, somewhere near where the evil Maria Mandel stood, selecting for execution anyone who looked up at her as they filed past. I imagined the haunting sounds of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz who were forced to play music to pacify newcomers into believing something other than that they were headed directly into the gas chambers. How hard it must’ve been for them to avoid eye contact. A gentle breeze caused the grass to waft slightly; how peaceful this place was today, compared to the hell it must have been 65 years earlier. As this was an unscheduled stop, we didn’t stray too far from the main entrance. I walked down the section of rail track and surveyed the view from left to right. Nearby a bunker attracted several tourists and I joined them. Inside, the wooden structure was empty, with just bleak timber walls and supports. It was probably a temporary shelter to many frightened people who had been uprooted from their homes throughout Europe and thrown into the cauldron of the Third Reich. Back on the bus, we reached Auschwitz I in three minutes.

Although Auschwitz I is smaller than Auschwitz II - Birkenau, more of it is intact due to the sudden advance of Soviet troops before the Nazis could destroy the evidence. Inside, we collected radio headsets and followed our guide, a young Polish guy, under the famous ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign. Like Birkenau, the camp is still surrounded with barbed wire fencing, once electrified, and without this; you’d almost think you were somewhere else. The green grass and trees, the blue sky and the buildings almost resemble a school camp with dormitories. But reading the various signs and listening to our quietly-spoken guide, the sinister past becomes an uncomfortable reality.



Some of the cell blocks have been converted to museums but no photography is allowed inside. Behind a glassed area there were thousands of suitcases, each with the owner’s name painted thereon – indicating that each person had a false expectation that they would be reunited with their belongings upon leaving. Another case contains almost two tonnes of human hair, once earmarked to make various goods, but now greyed over the passage of time. A display of empty Zyklon-B cans is in another. A large glass container contains a grey powder that is first overlooked until you are told that it’s ash from the crematoria. And it really sinks in: the emotional impact finally catches up and meshes with the historical facts and you stare in disbelief at the artefacts of human misery. It brings a lump to your throat that just stays there.

But the one thing that brought tears to the eyes of some women in our group was the display of personal belongings. There’s a display of pots and pans brought along in the belief they would be used when the families were resettled.

Luggage cases (internet photo)    Shoes (internet photo)

Every comb, hairbrush and toothbrush belonged to some poor person whose life was so abruptly extinguished by a vile regime. And a little child’s shoe – probably one that brought happiness when it was first worn – sits alone with its pair missing and its owner tragically separated and lost in time. I remember looking at that shoe a very long time. Who stood in this footwear? What was the child like? How old would that person be now, 70? What would he or she have become had this terrible fate not intervened? A factory worker, teacher? Doctor, lawyer, inventor? Mother, father? Maybe a scientist whose great discoveries are yet to be made by someone else. These displays immensely personalised what we were seeing.

Between cellblocks 10 and 11 is a brick wall where prisoners were hauled to and brutally shot, often immediately after a mock trial. Block 11 was known as the Death Block, a hell within a prison. Here, prisoners were tortured with starvation until they died after about 20 days. We inspected the 'sthebunkers' (standing cells) where four prisoners were held together for days in a cell the size of a small wardrobe, with no ability to sleep before being dragged out to work during daytime. There are rooms where Dr Josef Mengele performed his grotesque medical experiments on prisoners. This notorious cellblock was also the location of the early Zyklon-B tests to see how long it took for prisoners to die from poison gas.

   Execution wall. Cellblock 11 is on the right.

Back along the row of cellblocks we see gallows where prisoners were hanged and left there for days as a warning to others that they must conform to the rules. At the end of the road is the Gestapo area where we see the gallows where the camp commander Rudolph Höss was hanged for murdering millions of people. Turning left, we arrived at the gas chamber and crematorium. Usually, prisoners were separated at the rail platform into those deemed suitable for work (fit men and women) and those earmarked for death (children, the elderly and the sick). After upsets caused by separating mothers from their children, the Nazis found it easier to simply allow the relieved mothers to stay with their offspring in the queue earmarked for execution, not that they had any idea of their joint fate. Usually, the condemned prisoners were taken to the gas chamber soon after arrival on the ramp.

In an open paved area the prisoners were required to remove their clothing and enter the chamber, usually with the belief they were being de-loused. After squeezing in hundreds of people the doors were sealed and they were left there, sometimes for up to two hours for their body heat to increase the temperature to a point where the Zyklon-B granules could work best. As the wait endured you can imagine how the inconvenience became puzzlement, then concern, and finally fear. Then the Nazis poured their lethal pellets into the chamber from slots in the roof. Hydrogen Cyanide blocks the ability of cells to use oxygen and those nearest died immediately, suffering coma, seizures and cardiac arrest. Further away in the corners, a victim might have felt dizzy, weak, confused and with a shortness of breath. Then these poor people had time to panic, realising what was happening before the fumes engulfed them. After 20 minutes, the doors were opened and the chamber ventilated. Prisoners working in the crematoria (next room) removed the bodies, extracting any gold teeth before loading them straight into the furnaces. My photo shows this chilling building.

  Gas chamber & crematoria; Auschwitz

Our guide then took us into the chamber, saying that there were to be no photos or talk. This was a place to reflect, and that’s exactly what we did. It’s very dark inside and you’re not in there long because there’s little to see. We shuffled through to the left side of the building where the ovens, trolleys and metal tracks have been rebuilt to look like they once did. It’s dark here too and for most people, just a brief look is adequate to get the general idea.

But it still is hard to sink in that this atrocity could ever have been allowed to happen, or that 70,000 people died right here, a million more at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and the pattern repeated elsewhere. This isn’t a doubt that it happened, but the scale of it is hard to get your head around. Our guide had initially referred to the Nazis, then the Germans-Nazis. By the end of the tour he was simply referring to them as Germans. Feelings run very deep here and you can understand why. The guide answered a few questions as we walked to the main reception block and then bid farewell to us all. There’s a tiny bookshop nearby where I purchased a small publication. And then you realise that something is missing: this museum has no shop that sells the souvenirs or tourist paraphernalia you normally see. How totally appropriate – Auschwitz is here as a dedication to the millions of victims and for current and future generations to see and learn what happened.

And with that, we left Auschwitz. The experience was both sad and enlightening, but I do recommend it. As the bus drove off I looked back on the receding reception building and was reminded of those famous words by George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

Day 6 –Krakow, Friday Weather: warm, sunny 22ºC

We awoke before our scheduled 6:45am wake-up call that eventually arrived at 7:05am. This happened to others in our group too so maybe that’s some sort of Krakow custom or a goof. It was probably the latter because it happened the next day too; but it could also be that local customs are merely consistent. It would have been more helpful if the message was along the lines of “you should’ve been up 20 minutes ago, loser”. We had a nice breakfast, which is standard practice now.

With a clear recollection of the previous night’s festivities and the absence of a headache, it’s apparent that I may have exaggerated a little in last night’s tour summary. I made a mental note to take everything I’m saying with a grain of salt. So consistent with this, we were in the bus at 7:45 for our optional tour to the Wieliczka Salt Mine.

This is an attraction on the UNESCO World Heritage List and I think this stands for Underground, Nobody Escapes Salty Conditions Ok? Salt is no longer mined here because as we all know, it’s found in supermarkets these days. But it’s tourism that now brings in the cash to this mine. Wieliczka and Krakow are located in a region called Lesser Poland but this only causes bad feelings when the people of Greater Poland and So-So Poland make a really big deal about it.

  Wieliczka Salt Mine

We arrived after a 30 minute drive but had to wait another 30 minutes before getting inside the mine building. Agnes stayed outside and the tour was led by an employee who took us down the mine shaft in an elevator (nine to a cage, crammed in like sardines, with another cage above us). This is a great way to meet your fellow group members up close and as it was still early morning, everyone passed the personal hygiene test. If you’re a claustrophobic, this short trip is the only part that would worry you. At 65 metres down, we walked past sculptures and chandeliers made from rock salt. There’s even a gigantic chapel down here, accessed by a lot of steps until you’re 160 metres below ground.

  Underground chapel carved from salt; Wieliczka Salt Mine

You’re supposed to pay 10 zloty for a permit to take photos in the chapel, but nobody does. Just stick your hands in your pockets, look at the ceiling and hum a tune to yourself whilst avoiding eye contact with the attendant sitting there. He knows you’re about to go shutter-happy the moment you’re past his aura of authority anyway. Here in the chapel are wall carvings of religious scenes and a large rock salt statue of Pope John Paul II. The tourist route down here is rated as 3km long but I doubt we walked that far. The mine actually extends to about 300km of tunnels and goes to a depth of over 300 metres. We finally emerged from the mine at 10:45am, somewhat behind schedule.

So we returned to the hotel to collect those who didn’t do the optional, and I could honestly say to them that we were back from the salt mines. After a short break we drove to the Old Town centre where the bus parked outside Wawel Castle and we commenced our city tour. Walking along the perimeter, we scaled the steps and into a large square inside the castle walls. This courtyard displays Renaissance architecture of the internal building. Apart from a mass of people, including many schoolchildren, there’s not much here to look at and most of the time was spent queuing for toilets. And then we left, passing the cathedral with the stone dragon curled around its portal. “That’s no scary dragon” murmured several guys, each with the first hand experience of having a mother-in-law.

  Wawel Castle; Krakow

Next, we walked past the religious school where a young Karol Józef Wojtyła studied Catholicism 101 for a career that ended up with him living in a nice apartment in Vatican City despite noisy crowds just outside his window. From here, it’s not far to the main town square which is huge. At one corner is the imposing St Mary’s church, a Gothic basilica that dates back to the 1200s. We enter and sit in the pews, listening to a commentary by Agnes on our earphones. No photography, but if you’re discreet and avoid using a flash, you can snap the magnificent Veit Stoss Altar - but check first to ensure that guard didn’t follow you from the salt mine. This altar is enormous (11 metres x 13 metres), the largest in Europe, and I couldn’t get it all into the illegal photos I took. The side panels are hinged and the altar is closed each night.

  Veit Stoss Altar; St Mary's Church, Krakow

Outside, on the hour, a bugle player appears from a top window of the high tower of the basilica to play a short piece, re-enacting the warnings of the approaching Tatars. The music stops abruptly, mirroring the moment when the original bugler was hit in the throat by an arrow.

We had three hours of free time and several of us followed Agnes to a store to buy some amber jewellery. The prices are better here in Krakow than they are in Warsaw. We had lunch, and then wandered around the square to buy a few items for people back home.

At 3:45pm we assembled outside the Hard Rock Café adjacent to the church and took the bus back to the hotel. Our included dinner was at 7:30pm in the ground floor restaurant. It comprised vegetable (tomato) soup; salmon rice & vegetables; and apple/almond tart with cream. I was able to pick up some free hotel WiFi signal to check the basketball scores for one of the Americans in our group. Then sleep.

Optionals: The Salt Mine excursion is quite interesting and hard to match with anything similar in the world that I’m aware of. As mentioned, if you’re claustrophobic, you only need endure the brief elevator ride because it’s quite spacious elsewhere. The mine is one of eight on the UNESCO World Heritage List that the tour sees, and 1.2 million people visit it each year. It was certainly worth doing.

Day 8 Budapest, Sunday Weather: warm, cloudy & afternoon shower 25ºC

What we think was a wake-up call came through at 6:45am and we would’ve been more certain if it hadn’t been spoken in fluent Hungarian. Breakfast is a busy affair at the Ramada Plaza and it’s hard to find a place to eat in this large room. After coughing a few times and mentioning out loud how bad this swine flu problem seemed to be, I was able to choose from several empty tables.

The food is similar to others on the tour but with the addition of Hungarian sausage to the buffet. Rumours were circulating that our driver, Pavel had been taken to hospital but there he was again, ready to drive us around Budapest. I guess some people also thought I had swine flu so I can see how these irresponsible rumours get around. I asked Pavel how his back was and he replied that he was feeling better than yesterday.

At 8am we set off for our included city tour were joined again by our local guide, Andrea, who gave a comprehensive commentary as we drove to Heroes’ Square, in time to see the finish of a military parade, complete with marching band. We continued on the city excursion by bus and while the commentary was excellent, it’s a disappointment from a photographic perspective. The streets are too narrow and the buildings are too tall for good photos and you can’t get images from the opposite side of the full bus when people are sitting there. I had to concede defeat and later purchased a Budapest book to get a pictorial record of what we had seen.

Next, we headed across to Buda and up the hill to Fisherman’s Bastion, named after the defence of the area by local fishermen in the middle ages. How they did this is a mystery to me but I suspect they used something more than a twelve pound line and a number 8 hook – and the enemy was probably more than a mackerel with a bad attitude. This building is only a century old and the seven turrets are dedicated to the Magyar tribes that occupied Hungary. It’s fortunate that there wasn’t an eighth tribe because this would have possibly blown the construction budget many centuries later. The elevated position affords great views across the Danube to Pest.

  Fisherman's Bastion; Budapest

We paused for a group photo under the statue of St Stephen and spent some free time looking around the area of Matthias Church. Correctly titled Church of Our Lady, we don’t get to enter the building but having gone to great lengths to research this for you (i.e. the book fell open at the right page when I opened a cabernet merlot), I can fill in some details here about ol’ Matthias. Matty became King of Hungary in 1458 at the age of just 14. I’m not sure how he did this but it probably had a lot more to do with being born into the right family than having plenty of Facebook friends. By the age of 12 Matty was already getting military training and even got engaged. At 18 he got married to Catherine of Poděbrady who was 13 at the time – the wedding gifts mainly comprising a selection of Lego. Then the rest of her siblings got married too: Greg Poděbrady to Marcia Poděbrady, Peter Poděbrady to Cindy Poděbrady ... and that’s the way they all became the Poděbrady Bunch ♫. Sorry, I digress ... back to Matty. (Come on, stop humming that TV show jingle; I know you’re doing it…). At age 15 he was elected King of Bohemia and turned out to be pretty darn good in military matters, having the advantage of practicing war strategies on whatever existed as a 15th century version of Nintendo. Becoming Hungary’s most popular king, he had two weddings at this church and is considered a national hero.

  Hungarian Parliament; viewed from Fisherman's Bastion; Buda

Most shops are closed on Sundays and there’s not a lot here to buy anyway. But save your spending for the cheaper St Andrews later if you take that optional. The city tour led into our optional visit to the Parliament building after dropping off those who hadn’t chosen this optional. Inside this magnificent building (Gothic Revival) are the treasured ‘crown jewels’ – no flash photography allowed here, but most cameras should cope. I gotta tell you about all this before I forget. The collection comprises four items: the Crown of Saint Stephen; the sceptre, the orb and the mantle. The crown is more than 1000 years old, weighs 2kg and is too large for human heads (the kings used to wear leather padding with it during the coronation). There’s a gold cross that’s crooked (a result of an accident in the 1600s and the lawyers are probably still negotiating the repair bill). And get this: the crown is said to be a living entity. Well if you ask me, they should let the poor little guy out of the case more often for ‘walkies’. The crown jewels also have a long history of being stolen, misplaced, recovered and hidden. To stop the Soviets getting their mitts on them, they were handed over to the American Army for safekeeping and it’s a miracle that they ended up at Fort Knox instead of the local pawn shop to finance a few hands of poker.

   Hungarian Crown Jewels; Budapest

We arrived in time to witness the changing of the guard, which curiously involved two guards (known as koronaőr) completely abandoning the crown jewels before their replacements arrived. I was about to offer to keep an eye on the treasures until a stern glance from the wife implied that I should not become a pest in Pest. From here, we went inside the upper house chamber and only took photos because everything else had been nailed down.

Outside, Andrea pointed out where protestors were shot during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Here’s my potted history of this conflict: It started off in 1953 when Stalin finally did something beneficial for the world that should have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize – he carked it. The next couple of years were a time of social unrest in the Eastern Bloc countries and Hungary had warmed to the USA’s recent nice-guy gestures. Faced with a decision between austere Soviet repression or a future filled with Western fast-food and daytime TV, the Hungarians were totally confused about which was worse. The Hungarian students started protesting and the communist government tried to haul the country back from the prospect of I Love Lucy repeats.

Things got nasty and it all erupted on 23 October 1956 when a crowd of 20,000 assembled outside the parliament and someone cut a hole in the Hungarian flag, removing the communist coat of arms from it. By 6pm the crowd had gotten to 200,000, many armed with scissors but still peaceful until some of them tore down a bronze statue of Stalin. This really was the last straw for the communist government, which started using teargas and firing on the crowd from the building to our left. Soviet tanks moved in and fighting continued for days. On 4 November the Soviets captured Budapest and invaded Hungary, later executing the new prime minister, Imre Nagy as a lesson to others. Some 200,000 refugees escaped Hungary and those who stayed suffered prison or stricter controls by Moscow. And here we were, outside the Hungarian parliament building, the epicentre of another important episode in history.

Next, we boarded the bus as our optional moved to the nearby town of Szentendre (or St Andrews) on the Pest side of the river. Here, you walk up a cobblestone lane lined with shops where prices are cheaper than elsewhere in Budapest (or ‘Budapesht’ as the locals pronounce it). At the top of the lane we entered the town square and down an alley into the rear courtyard of a restaurant. Here, we made our own gulyas (goulash) soup, some of our group merrily donning aprons and cutting up vegetables and meat that was thrown into a cast iron pot on an open fire to cook for a few hours. Then seated at the outside tables, we were served the soup (or more correctly, the soup prepared by the previous tour group). The soup is brought to your table in stainless steel bowls suspended over a flame to keep them hot – one for each diner. You then ladle it out into your ceramic bowl and it’s delicious. This was followed by sliced pork in salsa, rice & cabbage, then dessert. You pour your own wine from an unusual glass dispenser at the table.

   Town Square; St Andrews

It began to rain as we browsed the retail opportunities. Here’s where you can shop, ladies, so try to not knock anyone down in the rush. The prices in the quaint little shops here are cheaper than Budapest and they have plenty of clothes, linen, embroidery, handkerchiefs, pillowcases, handwoven towels, toys, carved wooden boxes etc. Each shop has an individual character and you can spend hours here (tag along, guys, because you’re trapped in what’s basically an inescapable retail hostage situation and all you can do is meekly point to your watch and remind her that the bus will be leaving at some stage). Among the things Mrs Oz purchased were: a hand puppet 4300Huf (roughly $22) and a handkerchief 780Huf ($4). The forint takes a bit to get used to because the conversion was tricky: A$1= 194 Huf; US$1= 221 Huf; C$1= 214 Huf.

After the men in our group eventually coaxed the wives out of the shops and hauled them onto the bus, we headed back to our hotel. Our TD announced that our driver Pavel was leaving the tour due to his bad back (although he would’ve been leaving soon anyway for days off). I handed Pavel an envelope with a tip and a ‘thank you’ note I wrote in his native Czech language, hoping I had got the words right. He smiled and nodded that it was written correctly (there’s always a risk of saying the wrong thing when you’re being a smart Alec and attempting an unfamiliar language, as I once found whilst speaking Mandarin in Shanghai). I only saw one other person tip Pavel so I hope others remembered to do so.

In the evening, our included meal was at a restaurant in a downstairs dining room. The meal comprised a salad entrée, goose leg with 3 dumplings & red cabbage, dumplings in cinnamon for dessert, and one glass of wine. I fished around the wine glass with a spoon, looking for submerged dumplings, thinking they might be lurking in there as well. Three musicians bombarded us with something that was almost like music and tried to sell a CD without success. A better option would have been to buy the plastic case and put that in your CD player. I did though, admit to having a soft spot for those ‘musicians’ – it’s called the Danube. To be quite frank, the meal was fairly ordinary: the goose was predictably greasy, the dumplings plain, the wine rather inadequate, the three musicians too loud and the room way too hot. Apart from all this, things were absolutely superb. A member of our group later commented that the meal was forgettable. I disagreed, saying that a person cannot ever forget being goosed. The dinner wasn’t really so much a terrible experience, but more something that could be improved upon, especially since these experiences have been noted by other tour groups over several years. We ran through pouring rain back to the bus, then drove back to the hotel to sleep.

  Goose on the menu.

Optionals: The Parliament/St Andrews optional is the most expensive on the tour, but it’s also the longest and includes lunch. It should also be noted that Sunday is quieter in Budapest with many shops closed so this tour fills in the day nicely. On balance, I think it was worth it, as long as I could say ‘nem’ a lot at the shops.

Day 10 Vienna, Tuesday Weather: cold, cloudy, rain & wind 14ºC

So much for the first day of summer; this is exactly the winter weather we left behind in the southern hemisphere. And like Budapest, the breakfast room is a very crowded place. Breakfast itself was standard fare, but I’d have to say that the scrambled eggs were possibly the best I’ve tasted on tour.

This morning we are taking the optional ‘Vienna’s Fabulous Past’ and departure is 7:45am. The others not taking the optional got to sleep in and were collected by the bus later. First stop is the Habsburg palace of Schönbrunn, one of the finest in Europe, perhaps only outshone by Versailles. So here’s my summary of the Habsburg family history. Firstly, the Habsburgs and the McCoys were neighbours who lived in Kentucky and West Virginia and they hated each other’s guts. Then one day …. Pardon? Hatfield?... Really? Ok, sorry, got my dysfunctional families all mixed up here so I’ll start again. The Habsburgs were the dudes who ruled Europe for six centuries – yes, that’s better. Nobody knows exactly who handed Europe over to this lot but you can get a bit of an idea by working out who was sleeping with whom and joining up the dots.

   Schönbrunn Palace; Vienna

Lacking imagination, the dynasty’s name came from Habsburg Castle in Switzerland so it could well be that it was the name of the real estate agent who sold it to them, having first secured the naming rights. Pretty soon, these people managed to breed a bit and spread themselves out beyond Switzerland. They eventually became Austrian big-shots such as Frederick III and his son Maximilian I, both of whom became Holy Roman Emperors. It wasn’t hard to do this in those days, given some slick political footwork and the occasional appearance on Oprah. Business was going well for the Hapsburg dudes so they continued their recipe for success – fighting the occasional war but mainly marrying the ugly, boring daughters of other monarchs. This worked fairly well for a few centuries until the family overdid the inbreeding, relatively speaking. This eventually showed up as genetic disorders such as protruding lower jaws and even mental impairment, the latter suggesting a little Habsburg found its way into gene pool of some current leaders in the Middle East.

In 1740 Emperor Charles VI died without a male heir but he’d set up his daughter Maria Theresa as empress. This upset a few of the misogynist countries who reneged on their agreement with Chuck, and Prussia invaded Silesia just because they could. I’ll bet that when those folk in Győr heard about this they got the matches out again. Maria Theresa decided to fix everything in a typical Habsburg way: she married Francis I, the Holy Roman Emperor. Now, Maria Theresa must’ve thought her main duty to the empire was to multiply Habsburg chromosomes and she wouldn’t leave ol’ Frank alone, eventually producing 16 children from him (one of these was Marie-Antoinette who later became queen to Louis XVI and got shortened in Paris during the French Revolution). And poor Frank, worn out, white-haired and unable to stand anymore, died exhausted, but with a smile on his face at the ripe old age of 28. No, that’s not right; he survived to 56 but spent his last 29 years basically hiding behind the curtains whenever Maria Theresa walked through the palace with a suggestive smirk on her face. This is probably why Frank didn’t assume the tasks of Emperor, leaving Maria Theresa to run the place herself while he sought out new hiding places where she would never look. Unfortunately, some of these hiding places had women in them and Frank went about further exhausting himself in a slow, pathetic, downward spiral of immense pleasure. No wonder he suddenly died in his mid 50s.

Our local guide, Trudy was great, taking us through each of the rooms of the palace and explaining their function to us as well as some of the history of the Habsburg dynasty which differed somewhat from the version I’ve just told you. The grandeur of this palace certainly justifies the visit. You cannot take photos in here and they arrest you for just thinking about it. Imagine the look of horror on the face of one woman on our bus when I later showed her the images in my camera of the palace interior. I had to admit that I’d taken shots from the book I purchased in the souvenir shop. I recommend you do the same if you want pictures to bring home and like to alarm or irritate your fellow tourists.

   Dining room; Schönbrunn Palace; Vienna

Check out the painting of one of the Habsburgs – his foot appears to move, continually pointed your way as you walk past the frame. The palace has a large number of rooms with ornate furnishings and gold paint. In one of these rooms a child prodigy named Mozart performed for the empress and even hopped into her lap. After exiting, we looked at the side and rear gardens for awhile. In the distance at the rear of the palace is the world’s largest and most famous gloriette – an elevated pavilion that acted as a war monument. As the cold wind and rain limited further exploration, we took photos of the grand courtyard, then left.

   Gloriette; Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna

Back at the bus before 11am we discovered the remainder of our group aboard so we could all join for the included city tour (the last part of our optional would occur later). The city sights were great but there’s so many of them that you could easily forget their names if you’re not concentrating. We stopped at St Stephen’s Cathedral, a huge building unfortunately surrounded with scaffolding (as is so often the case in Europe). Trudy took us through the streets on foot, pointing out interesting places such as Beethoven’s home (the locals prefer to claim Beethoven as an Austrian and label Hitler as a German), and an old apartment in a courtyard and some Roman ruins. It’s amazing how many ruins those Romans built throughout Europe, but I kept that thought to myself. Next, we walked by the Hofburg Palace, the twin museums (Kunsthistorisches & Naturhistorisches), and the Opera House, finishing up at Albertina. From here, we picked up the remaining part of our optional tour whilst those not participating dispersed for personal sightseeing and lunch.

   Naturhistorisches Museum; Vienna

Trudy took us down a street to Neue Markt Square and into the Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypts of the Habsburg family). Here, 143 bodies of the royal family are interred in tombs ranging from the plain to the most elaborate, that being Empress Maria-Theresa. Many of these people designed their own tombs and some of the sarcophagi are quite elaborate – and huge. Trudy gave a great narrative on the lives of the more important Habsburg rulers. And with that, our optional tour ended and everyone headed off for lunch.

   Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypts) of the Habsburg family

We found a nearby McDonalds, ostensibly for the free WiFi to communicate to family at home before they went to bed. Returning to the bus at 2:15pm we drove back to the hotel. There was no included dinner tonight but many of our group had elected an optional Imperial Dinner in a great restaurant for €114 per couple. However, we had decided to take a break from restaurant meals tonight. A couple of blocks away is the Stadion shopping centre and we spent some of the afternoon browsing the shops and buying a few articles. There are some restaurants here and others in our group reported that they were good. Instead, we purchased items from the supermarket (half a roast chicken, salads, bread rolls, drinks, cheeses and a bottle of wine – totalling a mere €18). We took this back to our hotel room and enjoyed it immensely. And a couple of glasses of wine contributed to a good sleep.

Optionals: I do recommend the Schönbrunn Palace/Habsburg crypts tour and the feedback is that this was a better palace than elsewhere on tour. As for the restaurant optional, our opinion is that you can go to a nice restaurant anywhere, and if you’re on any sort of a budget, this one could be missed. There was some feedback that the meal was good, but not much was mentioned.

Day 12 Prague, Thursday, Weather: rain easing 17ºC

After a wake-up call at 7am, breakfast was the usual buffet, but crowded like Vienna. At 8:15 we’re off in the bus on our Prague city tour and it’s raining constantly. Fortunately, the Hilton provides free loan umbrellas. We drove straight up the hill to Prague Castle to visit St Vitus Cathedral – a grand structure inside the castle grounds, parts of which date back to 925 AD, with the main structure 1344.

   Prague Castle

Our local guide is Jan and he was good at describing the buildings and providing historical data. However, we had little time to see much of the cathedral, other than the most important areas. Uppermost is the St Wenceslas Chapel which started out as a rotunda until the large cathedral was built around it. Yes, this is Wenceslas of Christmas carol fame, although to be accurate, he never was a king, only Duke of Bohemia. So next Christmas, you can become a grinch by sending away on a technicality, those pesky kids at your front door singing about a king that never was. Now here’s where the story gets interesting. Wenceslas had a younger brother named Boleslaus (or Boleslav) who also had designs on being Duke. Without any loopholes or even a reality show to vote his brother off, in 935 Boleslaus tried the most subtle way he could think of: getting three of his buddies to murder poor ol’ Wenceslas on his way to church. It’s a pity that it had to happen this way instead of the traditional method by which brothers settle disputes – by belting the sh*t out of each other, and the loser running off crying to his mother.

Alas, happy endings don’t always occur and Boleslaus became the new Duke of Bohemia, unsurprisingly becoming known as ‘Boleslaus the Cruel’. This image problem must have been alarming enough for a makeover team to apply a bit of spin but ‘Boleslaus the Occasionally Nasty’ really didn’t catch on. Boleslaus seemed to greatly regret what he’d done, but not quite enough to surrender his Dukehood of course. And after the dust had paid settlement tax, Wenceslas was left to perform a few miracles from the grave to attain sainthood. Sadly, none of these miracles included Boleslaus being covered in honey and left on an ant nest, or being sat in the front row of a Barry Manilow concert. The chapel of Saint/Duke/Not King Wenceslaus is ornate with paintings covering the walls and fresh flowers on the tomb. However, it’s off-limits to both tour guides and mere mortals so you have to stand at the doorway and lean over the rope barrier to get photos.

   St Wenceslas Chapel; St Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle

We soon moved outside and made a few furtive attempts to take photos of the area outside the cathedral until the rain won the contest - although a nearby group of Japanese tourists managed to take one million snaps of the cathedral door. Walking back to the bus, you pass a couple of sentry houses and the two young guards do an excellent job of standing still and staring blankly like their counterparts at Buckingham Palace. It’s tempting to try to get a reaction out of them, if only for a slight curl of the lip. However, my best jokes were rendered ineffective through an inability to translate them into Czech. The bus took us to the Vltava River, parked, and we all crossed the bridge and walked to the Jewish Quarter, relieved that the rain had eased off for what would be the remainder of the day.

We stopped at a corner and Jan described the Jewish migration to Prague. While he spoke, I noticed that the building behind him had outside ladder rungs leading up to the attic – a sure sign that this was Golem territory. In Jewish mythology, The Golem is basically a monster made of clay or mud that lives in an attic and comes out to attack people after a rabbi switches it on with Hebrew incantations. Right. I was going to share this personal research with the tour group but reconsidered, preferring not to spend the rest of the tour, lying on the back seat of the bus wearing a straitjacket.

We then walked through the Jewish Quarter, past expensive shops and apartment buildings until finally arriving at the Old Town Square, just before 11am – and we soon discovered why this timing was important. Here, you get a free show – the hourly clock chimes, and everybody within range assembles in front of the clock tower to witness the extraordinary performance. First, I’ll need to explain the features, although the photo here will help. The astronomical clock (known as the Orloj) comprises three main parts: a calendar/zodiac dial at the bottom, a complex astronomical dial above it, and clockwork animations above and beside the dials. Way above, near the top of the tower is a conventional clock. Astronomy is my hobby so I was looking forward to seeing the Orloj for real. I’ll explain as best as I can, how to interpret the two dials because they look very complicated. Readers may wish to skip the next bit unless they plan to visit Prague and are interested in this stuff.

   Astronomical Clock; Old Town Square, Prague

The lower dial is easiest as it’s fairly plain. The inner circle moves very gradually, indicating which zodiac sign we are currently in (as shown by the 12 inner yellow circles and the gold pointer). It’s showing the border between Gemini and Cancer, although I suspect that’s slightly out for when we were there.

The upper dial looks very busy because it’s telling you a lot of things and I’ll try to summarise. Basically, this is a medieval planetarium, showing the solar system. The background represents a stationary earth in the central blue circle, the daytime (blue) sky above it, and the (black) night as a circle at the bottom. In between, you have grey/orange as dusk and dawn. The inner, lopsided ring has 12 zodiac signs on it and a golden star is sitting over the symbol for Gemini (the constellation sitting behind the sun when the photo was taken). You’ll note that the size of each of the segments differ, the largest being Gemini and Cancer to the left and below it. The smallest are Sagittarius and Capricorn opposite, near the bottom. This shows the northern hemisphere summer days are longer in June and shorter in the winter constellation months. The clock has two large hands, one with a golden star on it (representing the sun) and another with a dark ball (representing the moon). The clock is telling you the positions of the sun and moon in terms of rising and setting on the horizon (if you look closely, you’ll even see the moon’s phase). There are 24 numbers on the perimeter of the ring, representing 24 hours in a day (local time). The inner series of Roman numerals looks like a 12 hour clock, but it’s really showing sidereal time and the little star on one of the hands is showing us the position of the vernal equinox – I won’t explain these concepts here as it’d take too much space.

Each hour, an extraordinary show commences here. There are eight figurines beside the dials and one of them - the skeleton (i.e. death) - begins to move, yanking a chain, followed by another one (i.e. vanity) that peers into a mirror. Bells chime, a golden rooster crows from a small window above and twelve apostles pass by another two windows. Finally, a trumpeter (a real person this time) appears from the balcony atop the tower and plays a short piece of music before taking a bow. And then the crowds below applaud the show. And this repeats itself each hour of the day, so if you missed it, it’ll be back.

After the show finished, we had free time to sightsee as we were not taking today’s optional lunch cruise. We walked down to Charles Bridge and walked across and back. I didn’t see any pickpockets here but the place is renowned for them. The bridge is a lively place with a few souvenir/postcard sellers and plenty of tourists. Along both sides are many baroque statues of significant people, mainly religious. I recognised one as being John of Nepomuk so I took a photo.

   Statue of John of Nepomuk; Charles Bridge, Prague

Nepomuk was a Christian martyr and a beloved Czech saint, and here’s my version of his story. John (or Jan) was born in the 1340s in the town of Nepomuk, near Pilsen. John studied Canon Law and became right-hand vicar to the Archbishop of Prague. This was at a strange time because the Catholic Church had split back in 1309 so we had a pope in Rome and another one in Avignon, France. These days, we call the Avignon dudes anti-popes so we know who’s who. Now, King Wenceslaus of Bohemia (not the Duke we previously talked about) was cheering for the Avignon anti-pope at the same time as the Archbishop had his money on the Vatican pope. That was never a great idea to begin with, but it got worse.

A vacancy arose for the job of new abbot at Kladruby Monastery, further south. This was a perfect opportunity for the king to stack things his way by getting a guy in who saw things his way, especially when dealing with pesky nobles. The trouble was, the Archbishop appointed another guy and left it to his deputy John to handle the interview process, check references, set up the pension plan, and hand over the keys to the abbey. John, displaying incredible loyalty to his boss, but also incredible disloyalty to the king, rubber-stamped the deal. The king was furious and took it out on John, although some people believe that this flimsy excuse wasn’t the real basis for the upset. The theory goes that the queen had told Vicar John things in the confessional and he had refused to blab when the king demanded to know what she’d said. That sure sounds like a juicier plot for a telemovie, so I’ll go with that version. And John? The poor guy got tortured and taken to Charles Bridge where he was tossed over the side to drown in the Vltava River. Moral of the story: never trust your immediate boss or the big boss; they’re a heap of trouble. There’s a plaque on Charles Bridge at the point where poor John went over.

   Charles Bridge; Prague

We returned to the bridge tower and at noon, stopped for lunch at the nearby “Czech Mediterranean Restaurant” where we ordered a three-course meal (salad, goulash & apple strudel) – 195 Krone each plus beers at 60 Krone each. It was quite ok and we were attracted by the photos of the meals at the front before you go in. Then back over Charles Bridge and along the main road to St Nicholas Church. It’s 70 Krone to get in here and I took photos of some artwork and the interior of the magnificent dome. Rather than later rejoining the bus, with a map, we walked down toward another bridge, then back to the town square and on to the Palladium shopping complex, with plenty of stores inside. You can sneak some free WiFi signal by sitting near the Starbucks here. Back at the Hilton, we returned the umbrella we borrowed.

There was an included dinner in the hotel tonight in the Czechouse Restaurant. The set menu comprised: Caesar salad, pork fillet medallions with mashed potato & veg., cheesecake and coffee. It was a nice meal. We rode an elevator to the top and took some photos of the gigantic atrium, then returned to our room to pack cases for our departure the next morning. The good news was that the weather was clearing.

Optionals:

The lunch cruise sounded ok but the €90 per couple put us off a bit and we were happy with the views we got walking around and a lunch that cost the equivalent of €22. However, others commented that it was a nice optional to take and the rain had stopped for photos. Had we not overspent on optionals before this, it might’ve been on the agenda.

Day 14 Frankfurt Departure, Saturday

We awoke and went to the breakfast room and sat with some members of our group, although many were missing. That’s what often happens on tour group departure days – some leave early, some sleep in for a later departure and some stay on. We said a few goodbyes to whoever we could and were disappointed not to be able to do so with every one of our friends we’d spent the past two weeks with.

Most were taking the transfer to the airport but we left in a taxi €20 (including tip) to the station, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. Ahead was a rail trip to Paris where we would spend a day and night before heading down to the French Mediterranean for a week at the beach before returning to Paris and a flight to Seoul, South Korea for a stopover on the way home.

And with that, our wonderful Bohemian Highlights tour ended.

---

Addendum: It has been several years since we went on this tour and its itinerary has changed from time to time. Currently, Trafalgar starts the tour in Frankfurt instead of Berlin. They also experimented at one stage with taking passengers by train between Berlin and Warsaw, which avoided the long, tedious coach trip in slow traffic (it's back to road-only these days).

Trafalgar operates a Highlights of Eastern Europe tour that visits most of the same cities, but in the opposite direction. That tour adds Croatia and Slovenia, as well as southern Austria and southern Hungary. There are alternatives to Trafalgar such as Globus (Bohemian Dream & The Best of Eastern Europe) so these might be worth considering.

For different perspectives of this tour, I recommend reading the excellent travel tales written by:

Chech (2009): travel-forum.freeforums.net/thread/248/bohemian-highlights-june-2009
LKD (2011): travel-forum.freeforums.net/thread/181/bohemian-highlights-sep-oct-2011

I actually just did a search for the “Highlights of New Europe” tour and couldn’t find it. I guess Trafalgar doesn’t offer it anymore.

There's an enormous amount of detail in mine, Tiffany, so only bother with what you think is relevant to you. I sort of got carried away a bit on that travel tale. 

Trafalgar sells several tours to eastern Europe, such as:

• Bohemian Highlights
• Highlights of Bohemia (costsaver) 
• Highlights of Eastern Europe
• Imperial Europe

But don't ignore the Globus tours:

• Bohemian Dream 
• The Best of Eastern Europe
• Imperial Splendors
  
  

Thanks Californian and Oz. I’ll check out the other tours noted below. I’ve never done a Globus tour, but I’m not opposed to doing one, if the price and itinerary is right. I looked at Trafalgar’s other tours, but the Highlights of Eastern Europe tour is the one that really appeals to me.

Good luck with that Tiffany. I'm not renowned for writing short travel tales ....


  .... so a 'quick read' is quite ambitious. 

Yes, there were a few people posting travel tales recently so there was plenty to read. I'm paying a price for the time I spent on my France/Benelux tale - catching up on work matters has made it hard to participate here as much as usual. 

I'll try to do better on my next trip by writing it all whilst I'm travelling, then being ready to post it when I return. We are about to depart on a different travel adventure to what you normally have read on forums like this one, details of which I'll describe soon on the countdown thread. 

I do too, where are you taking us this time, Oz?