Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Budapest, Vienna and Salzburg
Friday, May 30 :
The domed building on the right side of this picture is the Parliament building-- I have pictures of this building from every angle... it's really lovely (we visited it over the weekend, so there are more pictures to come). The bridge in the picture is Chain Bridge.
I took a video panorama of from Gellert Hill as well to try to give a sense of the scope of what you can see from there (the larger green domed building you see near the end is St. Stephen's Basilica. Construction started in 1851, but it wasn't totally completed until 1905).
Along the way, we stopped at the shoe monument, a monument to the Jews who were killed along the Danube by the Arrow Cross Regiment (there's a picture of the model of it from the Jewish Museum above). It's a bronzing of the shoes that were "left behind" (read taken off the victims).
And, then we walked up to the main road at where there was a large area blocked off where they were filming a movie-- over to our left was Melissa McCarthy about to shoot some scene riding on a motorcycle (I tried to take a picture by security stopped me. This building, which is the Academy of Science, is the building she was in front of. In the bottom left in the bright yellow vest is the security guard who stopped me from taking the celebrity photo I really wanted.)
The movie is Spy and also stars Jude Law and Rose Byrne. It'll be out in 2015-- so if you see this building in a motorcycle shot, that's what we saw being filmed.
Post-celebrity sighting, we got on the bus which took us all around the city in a really winding route towards the Castle. We did pass a couple of interesting sites, like the Opera House, along the way. It has statues of famous Hungarian musicians on the top.
The bus ride was actually so long and winding that we got off in front of the synagogue (closed because it was Saturday) and got lunch at a cafe.
I had what turned out to be the fanciest ham and cheese sandwich ever. (Martha actually wasn't feeling too well at this point-- we're blaming the goulash she had for breakfast...) so there's no picture of her food.
When we finally got to Castle Hill, we walked along this cute pedestrian street, called Lord's Street,
to go first to Matyas Church
which we couldn't get into; it was closed for something (I think a wedding based on this bride I saw later-- I'm guessing these people are somehow important but I don't know why.).
Based on just the detail of the roof of the Church, which was built between the 13th and 15th centuries and then restored at various times after conflicts on Hungarian soil, most recently in 1970, I'm sure the interior would have been amazing.
We elected not to pay to walk on Fisherman's Bastion, which is right next to Matayas Church. It was built in 1895 as a monument to the Fisherman's Guild on what was the site of the old defensive walls of Buda Castle.
It seemed only to offer a great photo opportunity (my guide book calls it a purely aesthetic addition to Castle Hill) but we'd had a lot of those for free. From there, we walked over to the Royal Palace,
passing another changing of the guard (it seems to be a big and somewhat random occurrence)
(where we were still up high and could take good pictures, for free, mostly of Parliament which we were still obsessed with photographing from every view and angle because it's so pretty).
The Palace has a small garden
and the fountains, like this one built in 1904 depicting King Matayas, still remain.
The Palace itself has been turned into an art museum now as there is no more Hungarian Royalty and all the furnishings have vanished (I'm guessing taken by either the Germans or the Russians) or destroyed along with some of the palace itself in 1945 (what was rebuilt favors the 19th century incarnation). There are still some indications of how ornate it must have been, such as the handles on the gates
Behind the Palace are the remains of Buda Castle that haven't been restored. It looks like rubble really.
Much of the history of the torture is told through interviews with those who survived; there were a shocking lot of these interviews, so much so that you could spend a whole day in the museum and maybe not hear all of them. It became a little overwhelming after awhile, but it did give a good sense of how harsh the conditions were, even more than the lengthy histories typed out and available in almost every room.There were also lots of examples of Russian Propaganda films and posters which painted a very rosy picture of how great it was to work and live in Hungary than anything else would lead you to believe-- the contrast was eerie. The basement torture cambers and cells have been preserved-- they're creepy. There is a chamber that still has the hanging apparatus, one that is padded, and one that is about 2 feet in width and length in which people were locked. There were other torture rooms as well as a couple of holding cells. There seemed to be a room dedicated to each form of torture. The creepiness was made worse by the fact that by the time we got to them, the museum was announcing that it would close in 15 minutes and all we could pictures was the cell gates slamming shut at 6 and locking us in overnight. We made sure to get out with five minutes to spare. This was a good look into the history that Hungarians seem to most want to share; almost all the information we were given at historical sites started in 1945 when the Nazis occupied Budapest-- there is really little mention of what Hungary was like before that (It took going to Vienna to make the connection to the Hapsburgs and their time of rule. They built much of the original Royal Palace.), possibly because so much of Budapest was destroyed during WWII and subsequently during the Russian invasion (they boarded up and tore down a lot) so much of what is in Budapest has been rebuilt since 1989. Much of the history starts with when the building was rebuilt.
After about 6 1/2 hours we reached Vienna
and made our way to our hotel, the Imlauer. It was definitely more modern than our hotel in Budapest, with a different kind of charm (including a shower with an actual shower head attached to the wall)
and a nice street view.
We decided we should try to see something in Vienna that evening since we really only had one full day there, so we headed out to find Stephensdom (St. Stephens Church), the cathedral in the center of Vienna. When you get off the metro, it's immediately in front of you (and quite large, so hard to get a good shot of)
as are men dressed like Mozart trying to push concert tickets on you. It's a little surreal being attacked and pressured to buy tickets to hear classical music.
It was originally built in the 13th Century but was largely destroyed in WWII (a running theme of our trip) and has subsequently been rebuilt, though I don't think I would know that if I hadn't read it in the guidebook. The detail is incredible-- like on the roof.
The inside of the Cathedral is gorgeous. While we were there, there was a choir performing which made it that much more enjoyable. Vienna is a city of music-- it's basically impossible to go anywhere and not hear music of some kind.
and yet completely deceptive since once you cross through to the interior, it becomes even more magnificent (the fact that the sun was going down and was in a pretty perfect position doesn't hurt).
You can get something of an idea of how expansive the complex is from the video.
The best part of the complex is the Volksgarten (the People's Garden). It might be the most gorgeous garden I've ever been in-- I don't think the pictures really do it justice.
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Across the street from the gardens is the Parliament building, which after the one in Budapest was a bit of a disappointment (it's kind of disappointing for Vienna in general-- all the buildings are so opulent, so I think I was expecting more of their Parliament). It's built in a Greek tradition.
Next to the Hofburg complex is also the Burgtheater, one of the most prestigious stages.
We wandered by this, by now quite hungry and still trying to get somewhere in the vicinity of Cafe Central-- and were passed by Viennese soldiers (though not changing the guard) escorting people into Christie's.
The interior is opulent and amazing
and yet still inviting. And, there's a charming piano player in the center.
We each got a salad (which had potatoes in it-- I'm hard pressed to think of a meal I had in Hungary or Austria that didn't have potatoes in it) and shared wienerschnitzel
and then of course had to have coffee (which was big-- Martha even ordered coffee and she doesn't really drink it) and dessert (one apple strudel and one chocolate cake that had milk, dark and white chocolate layers and still managed to be light and not very sweet) which is what we had headed towards the cafe for in the first place.
And then we headed back to the hotel to sleep-- and plan our day of visiting palaces.
Wednesday, June 4:
We're both very fond of palaces and we had yet to see the interior of one-- the one most recommended is Schonbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburgs, completed during the reign of Maria Theresa. (There are still only exterior pictures of the palace because we couldn't take photos inside. The pictures are some of the best I took-- largely because this was the one really sunny day we had on the whole trip. This day's photos are the only pictures with clear blue skies in the background.) This is the front of the palace.
And, from there you are basically back to the front of the palace. We set off in search of our second palace of the day, the Belvedere, which was the summer palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy. But first, we stopped for lunch outside of the palace
at a restaurant that served Viennese and Greek food. After our fancier dinner the night before, we had decided that what we really wanted was beer and sausage for lunch, so that's what we got.
When we were paying our check, the restaurant's manager brought us two glasses of complimentary wine.
You can see a little more detail in this shot from the side (the trucks that were parked in front also moved by the time I got around the side, so it was worth zooming in a bit more).
This is actually the upper palace; the Belvedere is two palaces-- and upper and a lower one, but the upper is certainly prettier. The lower is pretty plain by comparison.
We didn't go in either since they're now largely art galleries. The gardens are, once again, really pretty though.
We walked down through the palace gardens and out the lower palace to head towards the metro which took us past Schwarzenbergplatz, a fountain and Soviet monument
to Stadt Park (this portal was built between 1903 and 1904)
where the Musikverein, the home of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, is located.
We headed back to the St. Stephen's Cathedral for dinner; our guide books had said there would be plenty of "street food" available, but the only place we'd seen anything remotely like that was at a make-shift German festival outside the cathedral.
So, we went there for spaetzle and bratwursts with sauerkraut.
And then went back to the hotel because we had to be up really early to head to Salzburg the next day.
Thursday, June 5:
We had decided that we wouldn't really feel like we'd seen Austria unless we got closer to the Alps, so we booked a one day tour to Salzburg which took past the lake regions, hitting a lot of top sites for Mozart fans and Sound of Music fans. Our tour left from in front of the Opera House.
It was really hard to get pictures out the bus windows of the countryside. I tried-- this is really the best one I got.
At some point, we drove past the church that the wedding scene from Sound of Music was filmed in; I tried desperately to get a picture of it, but the bus was winding around so much that it either came out really blurry or I wound up just getting a picture of the trees that obscured it from some angles.
On the way to Salzburg, we stopped at what our drive kept calling a rest stop. There was a gas station there-- and an eatery that is like no rest stop food place I've ever seen. The food was amazing.
This is also where I became a little embarrassed to be an American. Not everyone from our bus was American-- but they largely spoke English as a first language and several became really irate when the people working there couldn't understand them. One woman was in crisis because she couldn't figure out how to order a decaffeinated coffee (which I'm not sure they had) and another woman loudly exclaimed how ridiculous it was that the woman behind the counter didn't speak English well. (I at least had bitte and danke down by this point and made a point of using both when ordering because I felt so bad about how others were acting.) The rest stop itself had a lovely scenic view as well. (Really, rest stops should all be this nice.)
From there, we headed into the lake region which is part of Salzburgland, the larger region that Salzburg is a part of. We stopped for a few minutes to take pictures, so I got pictures of the Alps we were hoping to see.
From there, we headed into the city of Salzburg, home of Mozart and where many scenes from Sound of Music were filmed (which Americans care a lot more about than the Austrians, many of whom have never even seen the movie as our tour guide told us. But, they are managing to cater to the Americans who have; there is actually a tour dedicated entirely to the Sound of Music movie sites as well as some of the places the von Trapp family lived.). On the way to Salzburg, we listed to both music by Mozart as well as some tracks from the Sound of Music to put us in the spirit of what we would see.
We stopped behind Mirabell Palace, once the home to Archbishop Wolf Dietrich's mistress Salome Alt (a daughter of a Jewish merchant who supposedly had 15 children with the Archbishop) and now a civic administration building. and started there.
Several scenes from Sound of Music were filmed here. This is the Fountain used in Do-Re- Me:
And the hedges they hid in:
We got to go in the palace for a few minutes, but couldn't see much because there was a wedding (this one) taking place-- it's lovely for a building now referred to as a civic building.
The gardens are large and really beautiful, so we walked through them
out to a bridge that led us into the more central area of Salzburg.
We crossed the bridge and walked through Salzburg's streets
which had shop windows with clothes straight out of Sound of Music. I can't imagine who actually buys these; it's not anyone who lives in Salzburg because no one was dressed like this. But, multiple shops sell these clothes. I'm trying to imagine the tourist who buys these... good for Halloween costumes, maybe?
We passed Mozart's House (which I'll come back to)
and vendor's selling edelweiss (I never actually knew what it looked like-- it's a lot like daisies).
Our tour guide pointed out that a lot of the buildings are dated with the dates they were built as well as dates when they were refurbished or rebuilt (you ca see them on the top of the peach building). Once you know to look, you see it on a lot of buildings in Salzburg.
We walked through the courtyards of places like St. Peter's Monastery (this was a walking tour of Salzburg-- it didn't include really entering buildings), which was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and remodeled in the 17th and 18th centuries but otherwise is the oldest abbey in this part of Europe that has remained intact.
It has this lovely graveyard
and a nice view to Hohensalzburg Fortress
which was built in the 11th century and served as a refuge for the archbishops when they felt threatened. In the 19th century, it was used as a military barracks-- now it's a tourist attraction, though we didn't go up. You can see it from any point in Salzburg really-- I have pictures of it from Mirabell Palace, which is pretty far away.
We could see it even better as we got closer to Rezidentplatz.
Rezidentplatz has the Rezidence which was the seat of the Prince-Archbishop and is now government offices. This is where our tour guide left us to be on our own for a couple of hours, instructed to meet back at this fountain by 3:30.
On the other side of Rezidentplatz is the Cathedral which was built in the 8th century though it was almost entirely rebuilt after a fire in 1598, which is the first place we went as our group broke up.
It, like other buildings in Salzburg, has its dates of building and reconstruction on it, though they don't include it's earliest iterations. Mozart played the organ at this Cathedral in 1703.
This was the prettiest church we went to inside. I think it's the purple lighting, at least in part.
I took a video of it to try to get a sense of the whole thing.
After visiting the Cathedral, we decided to get something to eat; this was a bit of a negotiation since we were running low on cash but still needed to spend most of what we still had before we left Austria the next day. We were trying to strike a balance between spending most of our money but still having enough for things like a soda later or coffee at the airport the next morning. We wound up getting these pretzels--we hadn't had pretzels yet and they were everywhere is Salzburg.
The one on the right is an olive pretzel. The one on the left is a Mozart pretzel; all over Salzburg (really, we found them in Vienna too) there are these chocolates called Mozart chocolates-- they're dark chocolate covering pistachio marzipan. That's that the pretzel was-- a pretzel with chocolate and pistachio marzipan. It was surprisingly good.
We walked up Gold Street.
where we passed a shop with rubber duckies dressed like traditional Austrian kids (if they all dress the way the kids did in Sound of Music).
We decided that the touristy thing we would in Salzburg with our free time was visit the Mozart House. We hadn't done anything touristy specifically associated with music yet.
And, this is one of Mozart's first pianos.
The museum did a really good job giving character to Mozart as well as examining his childhood traveling around playing music. It was really focused on how his role as a prodigy effected and was supported by the family-- it painted a really nice story of what the whole family was like, focusing on them as a unit more than on Mozart alone.
And, the Mozart Museum had Mozart duckies playing violins. (These too were 10 euro... rubber duckies must be a precious commodity in Salzburg.)
We met up with our group back at the fountain; we were a few minutes early which gave us time to notice that the water in the fountain at Rezidentzplatz comes out of the horses' nostrils.
And then, we all got back on the bus. We stopped again at a rest stop for dinner-- a different one, but equally as nice with a lovely salad bar. (I have no idea if we were just taken to anomalous places or if all rest stop restaurants in Austria are this nice-- but either way, this is definitely something the US should look into importing.) It was kind of exciting have salad at this point.
There were also lovely desserts; I spent all of dinner looking at this strawberry panna cotta dessert (you can see it slightly to left behind my beer above) so I had to get it (besides, it was my last night traveling).
After a long day of travel that started the day before in Greensboro, NC and included a nearly 4 hour long layover in Dulles airport (where my dad kindly met us for lunch), we arrived in the Budapest airport, figured out how to take money out of an ATM (which isn't hard in itself since all ATMs are the same, but took some figuring as it was hard to figure out how many Forints, the Hungarian currency, is equal to an amount that a US bank will allow to be withdrawn in a day), and found our shuttle bus to the main city. The ride into Budapest isn't particularly scenic; Hungary looks kind of sad and like the communist bloc country it once was on the outskirts of Budapest but becomes really gorgeous onceyou get into the city proper. My first picture is of the view of the market building from the back of our van.
It doesn't really do Budapest justice, but it was the first really pretty building we got a clear view of. Our airport shuttle took us to our hotel, which was located directly behind the famous Gellert Hotel, with the famous baths (which really just looked like a fancy swimming pool complex-- I had a hard time figuring out what all the fuss was about. We passed the back of the spa, with all of its pools, every day on our way down the hill and I never really understood why people were paying so much money to go hang out in a pool. But maybe it would have been different if I'd experienced it...)
Our hotel was the Kalmar.
It's really more of a bed and breakfast; it didn't have the fancy exterior of the Gellert, but our room was really large and pretty cool.
Not as cool as the bathroom though, which was absolutely huge and almost completely made of marble.
That bathtub posed logistical problems I'll get to later... but it was stunning. We were staying in what I assume was the main part of the hotel; I think our proprietor's apartment was in the same section. They live there with their dog who was largely around somewhere. This is him lying on the breakfast room floor.
We were right outside the breakfast room. There were other rooms, we assume (there were other rooms offered on the website when we booked), but it was never quite clear where they were. The Kalmar Hotel is located in a villa built by Count Pal Teleki who was Prime Minister in the early 1900s; it's been renovated in some way to be both apartments as well as the hotel, but it's hard to tell where each begins and ends. At any rate, our room was lovely and offered a pretty view of the Pest side from our Buda side hotel.
We got to Budapest pretty early in the morning and we had dropped off our stuff at the hotel by 9:45 in the morning. We couldn't get into our room, so we opted to buy tickets for the Hop On, Hop Off bus and go sight see around Budapest for the day. Our main goal was to see the Synagogue since we wouldn't be able to do that on Saturday. To get to the Central Market, the closest bus stop, we had to walk downhill (fortunately, we largely always managed to be going downhill as the Buda side really is steep) and cross Freedom Bridge (it looks prettier in the scenic pictures later, taken from the top of Gellert Hill).
Crossing the bridge, headed towards the Pest side, provides a lovely view.
Being on foot also meant a better sense of what the Central Market looked like when not seen from a moving airport shuttle. It's the largest market in Budapest, but there are markets everywhere. (There's a lot more about the market later; we took a cooking class that included a tour of the market.)
It was chilly that first day and we wound up on a totally open-air bus which, when moving made it ridiculously cold and pretty impossible to hear the tour guide. At some point, we were told to change to a closed bus, which made the ride more pleasant, but also made us realize that we had missed the stop that would have allowed us to walk to the Synagogue, so we wound up doing the whole pink route (there is a green route and a pink route) about 1 1/2 times.(The synagogue stop is listed as on green line, so it's unclear that it's easy to get to from pink line. What was nice was that going around the whole route gave us a sense of the city layout. And, we got to preview some of architecture from the bus.)
We got off the bus and walked back towards the Donahy Synagogue. Donahy means tobacco; it's the tobacco synagogue because it's located near where there once was a tobacco factory. It's hard to photograph entirely because it's really large; it's the second largest synagogue in the world (the largest is in New York City).
We had to wait until 2:30 for tour of the synagogue, so went to museum.
Most of the artifacts seem to be from the 1700s from Poland and Hungary. A lot of the display cases were interestingly organized by holiday. This is Passover.
But, there were also handwritten Torahs.
There was some stuff on display from earlier than the 1700s; this Catuba is from the mid-1600s. (I don't think I was supposed to take a picture of it, but I saw the sign too late.)
There is also a small Holocaust remembrance room dedicated to the Jews who were taken near end of WWII that includes a model of the memorial along the Danube, which we saw in person the next day
The Synagogue is located within what were the walls of the Jewish Ghetto and so it was the site of many deaths-- about 10,000 people died within the ghetto walls while about 450,000 Jews were taken to Auschwitz in about a 3 month period (the Germans got to Hungary late in the war but were really quick by the time they got there). Our tour of Synagogue was really talk about it and the history of Jews in Hungary-- Hungary has gone through ups and downs of religious freedom and religious intolerance (largely due to alliances with Germany and then the Russian invasion and Communist takeover in the 20th century). The temple itself was largely destroyed during the war and was rebuilt after being bombed in WWII; the funding for the rebuild was paid for in part by a lot of Hungarian-American celebrities including Estée Lauder who paid for about half of the rebuild. It;'s a really Christian looking interior with a rose window
and organ at the front which is played by a Christian organist on Shabbat and holidays so that Jews don't have to work on Sabbath.
Outside the Synagogue is a wall representative of where the ghetto walls were during WWII. (It's the short white wall on the left, in the foreground before the fancier wall.)
The ghetto was erected near the end of WWII, near the end of 1944 and then was dismantled when the Russians came through in early 1945 but 10000 died in that time. There is a memorial garden outside the synagogue as well as this cemetery that holds the bodies of many who died during that time which is unusual since synagogues don't have cemeteries but Jews also don't move the bodies of those already buried and so the synagogue got permission to leave the cemetery where it is.
Behind the synagogue is the Weeping Willow memorial to those who died in the ghetto with names written on leaves.
The memorial was paid for by actor Tony Curtis. There is also a stained glass window donated by Hungarian artist who returned from Israel after many years.
Behind the synagogue is the Weeping Willow memorial to those who died in the ghetto with names written on leaves.
The memorial was paid for by actor Tony Curtis. There is also a stained glass window donated by Hungarian artist who returned from Israel after many years.
After our synagogue tour, we stood by green bus line stop for a long time waiting for a bus to finally appear-- one green bus drove past without stopping. We'd been up for a really long time by this point, so it seemed like a cruel joke when the bus didn't pick us up. When we finally got on the bus, there were headsets to listen to recordings about Budapest approximately 25 languages. It helpfully told us that to tell if you're on the Buda side or Pest side look for a hill. If you can see one, you're on the Buda side. We took green tour bus to Citadel, which is pretty much the highest spot on the Buda side and the site of the Liberation Monument.
It seemed like the easiest spot from which to navigate our way back down to hotel. It really wasn't far from the hotel, and not nearly as daunting on the way down-- though the walk is really quite steep.
The views from Gellert Hill are amazing though.
The domed building on the right side of this picture is the Parliament building-- I have pictures of this building from every angle... it's really lovely (we visited it over the weekend, so there are more pictures to come). The bridge in the picture is Chain Bridge.
I took a video panorama of from Gellert Hill as well to try to give a sense of the scope of what you can see from there (the larger green domed building you see near the end is St. Stephen's Basilica. Construction started in 1851, but it wasn't totally completed until 1905).
When we got back to the hotel, we both took naps and then I decided to take shower in the luxurious bathroom which was a debacle because the shower head has a lot of water pressure; I placed it in what seemed to be the holder to make it shower height and then the water pressure caused it to go flying off, banging into giant soaker tub and spraying water everywhere. My second attempt to insert head into the holder and use the knobs to control it (I thought I could tighten it into place somehow) resulted in the same thing, leaving the pretty marble floor (and really, pretty much every surface of the large bathroom) really wet with no way to clean up the water since we only had two towels (which eventually dried up, mostly, overnight). (Martha had similar issues with the shower head and later re-soaked the bathroom, even though I had warned her, so I didn't feel quite so inept...) For the rest of the trip, I wound up sitting down in the tub, running water coming from the bath and turning on the shower head only when I needed the spray and only when it was first firmly in hand.
We left to go to dinner and were turned down from "traditional" Hungarian restaurant which had live performance because there were no tables (we weren't given the option to wait for a table to open up-- people must not leave when there's a performance) so we wound up at a small restaurant-- Cafe Hummus-- that served hummus and falafel.
We were given a shot of homemade lemonade which was quite good (though, it's strange to be given a shot of something non-alcoholic). I had the falafal platter which included the hummus in the restaurant's name and a variety of salads and pita.
Not a very Hungarian meal, but by now we'd been up (largely) for 33 hours and hadn't had a "real" meal since the plane dinner service (I think this is why Martha looks so happy in the picture-- we were finally sitting down). I don't think I've ever had a Hungarian wine (which is being brought to us in the first picture), but we ordered a bottle of Chardonnay (which we were allowed to take with us when we didn't finish) that was really good--so now I may look for Hungarian wine in the States. We were starting to feel bad that we didn't know how to say anything in Hungarian (which isn't as bad as it sounds-- Hungarian is a really difficult language; no one in Hungary seems to expect any visitor to know how to say anything. They, of course, all speak virtually perfect English though.) so we asked him to teach us how to say thank you. The word is köszönöm which is pronounced something like co-so-no. Nothing in Hungarian ever really sounded like the spelling suggested it should. The only other words we managed to master were ut, utca, and tér (way, street, and square-- it was helpful for figuring out directions to places).
We were given a shot of homemade lemonade which was quite good (though, it's strange to be given a shot of something non-alcoholic). I had the falafal platter which included the hummus in the restaurant's name and a variety of salads and pita.
Not a very Hungarian meal, but by now we'd been up (largely) for 33 hours and hadn't had a "real" meal since the plane dinner service (I think this is why Martha looks so happy in the picture-- we were finally sitting down). I don't think I've ever had a Hungarian wine (which is being brought to us in the first picture), but we ordered a bottle of Chardonnay (which we were allowed to take with us when we didn't finish) that was really good--so now I may look for Hungarian wine in the States. We were starting to feel bad that we didn't know how to say anything in Hungarian (which isn't as bad as it sounds-- Hungarian is a really difficult language; no one in Hungary seems to expect any visitor to know how to say anything. They, of course, all speak virtually perfect English though.) so we asked him to teach us how to say thank you. The word is köszönöm which is pronounced something like co-so-no. Nothing in Hungarian ever really sounded like the spelling suggested it should. The only other words we managed to master were ut, utca, and tér (way, street, and square-- it was helpful for figuring out directions to places).
Dinner eaten, day one was over. Because our hotel is on the Buda side, we have great views of the city even at night, which I took time to appreciate and photograph from our balcony before going to sleep.
Saturday, May 31
We started by going down to the Central Market to get breakfast. It was Saturday and really crowded so it was hard to take pictures inside, but you can get some sense of the scope of it (though the picture is really of one aisle taken from the second floor. There are 3 floors and lots of aisles.)
We ate at cute cafe on the second floor which was priced to be the tourist trap that it was, but it was still cute.
By the time we made our way there, it was some liminal space between brunch and lunch, so I had breakfast and Martha had lunch-- mostly because we'd been in Hungary for 24 hours now and still hadn't had goulash.
From there, we hopped on the Hop On, Hop Off bus to get to the Parliament Building which is stunningly gorgeous (I have an absurd number of pictures of the building from both close up and in panoramic views from the tops of hills... but I won't put them all in here.).
When we got there, there was a changing of the guard ceremony happening (who knew this happened in Hungary--and in front of a political building, not a palace? To be fair, though, it does look like a palace.).
At the end of the ceremony, the guard in charge made some announcement in Hungarian.
I have no idea what he said, other than "photo"; it turns out that after the ceremony, the guards pose for photos with guests. So, we posed for a photo with one of them.
There are other soldiers at Parliament as well. They are much more like the traditional guards-- they don't move or smile. People still stand next to them and have their picture taken though-- or just take pictures like I did.
We ate at cute cafe on the second floor which was priced to be the tourist trap that it was, but it was still cute.
By the time we made our way there, it was some liminal space between brunch and lunch, so I had breakfast and Martha had lunch-- mostly because we'd been in Hungary for 24 hours now and still hadn't had goulash.
From there, we hopped on the Hop On, Hop Off bus to get to the Parliament Building which is stunningly gorgeous (I have an absurd number of pictures of the building from both close up and in panoramic views from the tops of hills... but I won't put them all in here.).
When we got there, there was a changing of the guard ceremony happening (who knew this happened in Hungary--and in front of a political building, not a palace? To be fair, though, it does look like a palace.).
At the end of the ceremony, the guard in charge made some announcement in Hungarian.
I have no idea what he said, other than "photo"; it turns out that after the ceremony, the guards pose for photos with guests. So, we posed for a photo with one of them.
There are other soldiers at Parliament as well. They are much more like the traditional guards-- they don't move or smile. People still stand next to them and have their picture taken though-- or just take pictures like I did.
We wanted to tour Parliament, but it turns out that it's hard to get tickets and they sell out first thing in the morning to those who queue (it's second similarity to Buckingham Palace); we were told we could go online to try to buy tickets in advance for the next day, so we left the Parliament building to walk along the Danube to get back to the bus that would take us to Buda Castle. That turned out to be a lovely, scenic walk itself.
And, then we walked up to the main road at where there was a large area blocked off where they were filming a movie-- over to our left was Melissa McCarthy about to shoot some scene riding on a motorcycle (I tried to take a picture by security stopped me. This building, which is the Academy of Science, is the building she was in front of. In the bottom left in the bright yellow vest is the security guard who stopped me from taking the celebrity photo I really wanted.)
The movie is Spy and also stars Jude Law and Rose Byrne. It'll be out in 2015-- so if you see this building in a motorcycle shot, that's what we saw being filmed.
Post-celebrity sighting, we got on the bus which took us all around the city in a really winding route towards the Castle. We did pass a couple of interesting sites, like the Opera House, along the way. It has statues of famous Hungarian musicians on the top.
The bus ride was actually so long and winding that we got off in front of the synagogue (closed because it was Saturday) and got lunch at a cafe.
I had what turned out to be the fanciest ham and cheese sandwich ever. (Martha actually wasn't feeling too well at this point-- we're blaming the goulash she had for breakfast...) so there's no picture of her food.
When we finally got to Castle Hill, we walked along this cute pedestrian street, called Lord's Street,
to go first to Matyas Church
which we couldn't get into; it was closed for something (I think a wedding based on this bride I saw later-- I'm guessing these people are somehow important but I don't know why.).
Based on just the detail of the roof of the Church, which was built between the 13th and 15th centuries and then restored at various times after conflicts on Hungarian soil, most recently in 1970, I'm sure the interior would have been amazing.
We elected not to pay to walk on Fisherman's Bastion, which is right next to Matayas Church. It was built in 1895 as a monument to the Fisherman's Guild on what was the site of the old defensive walls of Buda Castle.
It seemed only to offer a great photo opportunity (my guide book calls it a purely aesthetic addition to Castle Hill) but we'd had a lot of those for free. From there, we walked over to the Royal Palace,
passing another changing of the guard (it seems to be a big and somewhat random occurrence)
(where we were still up high and could take good pictures, for free, mostly of Parliament which we were still obsessed with photographing from every view and angle because it's so pretty).
The Palace has a small garden
and the fountains, like this one built in 1904 depicting King Matayas, still remain.
The Palace itself has been turned into an art museum now as there is no more Hungarian Royalty and all the furnishings have vanished (I'm guessing taken by either the Germans or the Russians) or destroyed along with some of the palace itself in 1945 (what was rebuilt favors the 19th century incarnation). There are still some indications of how ornate it must have been, such as the handles on the gates
Behind the Palace are the remains of Buda Castle that haven't been restored. It looks like rubble really.
There are photos outside the ruins show what it probably looked like at different points before it was leveled. Hungary has been bombed so much that many of the buildings (most really) are reconstructions. There seems to be very few buildings, if any which are the original constructions. Beneath the Castle is the cave labyrinth which would have been really cool to see but its been permanently shut down having been seized on July 11, 2011. (It's a fairly melodramatic story-- you can read it here: www.labirintus.com/splash_details_en.php). There is also the Hospital in the Rock
which is not shut down, but it was getting kind of late and we didn't feel like we had time to do the tour of that. We took the bus to the Citadel and walked downhill from there to our hotel. On the way, we passed people going uphill carrying a baby carriage-- I'm not sure why that seemed like a good idea. (Remember-- it looks like this:)
The women hauling it up stairs and hills seemed to be wondering why they thought they should bring the carriage, too. I took pictures of this house on our way back down to the hotel: I like the round balconies.
After resting at the hotel for a little bit, we set out to find dinner. We walked across the bridge around sunset, so we could see Castle Hill with the sun setting behind it which was spectacular-- and makes it much easier to photograph the Royal Palace we had visited earlier in its entirety.
We ate a cute restaurant on the Pest side, sort of near the Market, called Borbirosag.
I had duck with a cabbage strudel and risotto (duck seems to be a big thing in Hungary)
which is not shut down, but it was getting kind of late and we didn't feel like we had time to do the tour of that. We took the bus to the Citadel and walked downhill from there to our hotel. On the way, we passed people going uphill carrying a baby carriage-- I'm not sure why that seemed like a good idea. (Remember-- it looks like this:)
The women hauling it up stairs and hills seemed to be wondering why they thought they should bring the carriage, too. I took pictures of this house on our way back down to the hotel: I like the round balconies.
After resting at the hotel for a little bit, we set out to find dinner. We walked across the bridge around sunset, so we could see Castle Hill with the sun setting behind it which was spectacular-- and makes it much easier to photograph the Royal Palace we had visited earlier in its entirety.
We ate a cute restaurant on the Pest side, sort of near the Market, called Borbirosag.
I had duck with a cabbage strudel and risotto (duck seems to be a big thing in Hungary)
and Martha had chicken with a pear and blue cheese tart.
From there, were decided to try to find one of the city's Ruin Bars, bars that have been constructed between the ruined, bombed buildings. It's hard to tell from the pictures
but they are really between buildings with some covering constructed between scaffolding and some open sky. In the one we went to, Szimpla, there were multiple bars, each of which seemed to serve something different (so, you could get beer at one, wine at another, etc.). (There's a better picture on someones website-- it was taken in better light: http://papercranessilverrings.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/szimpla_8.jpg. You can more clearly see the old cars that have been turned into seats/tables in it as well.). We tried some of the flavored brandy, Palinka, that is supposed to be Hungary's famous liqueur-- it kind of tasted like moonshine. We ordered two different flavors, sour cherry and apricot with honey, but they didn't really taste any different to me. We then had to go to a different bar to get glasses of wine-- we also had to leave a deposit for our wine glasses which we could get back when we returned the glasses (which seems like a really smart idea in a bar so large and crowded). That ended our day-- or rather, this picture of Buda Hill at night did.
From there, were decided to try to find one of the city's Ruin Bars, bars that have been constructed between the ruined, bombed buildings. It's hard to tell from the pictures
but they are really between buildings with some covering constructed between scaffolding and some open sky. In the one we went to, Szimpla, there were multiple bars, each of which seemed to serve something different (so, you could get beer at one, wine at another, etc.). (There's a better picture on someones website-- it was taken in better light: http://papercranessilverrings.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/szimpla_8.jpg. You can more clearly see the old cars that have been turned into seats/tables in it as well.). We tried some of the flavored brandy, Palinka, that is supposed to be Hungary's famous liqueur-- it kind of tasted like moonshine. We ordered two different flavors, sour cherry and apricot with honey, but they didn't really taste any different to me. We then had to go to a different bar to get glasses of wine-- we also had to leave a deposit for our wine glasses which we could get back when we returned the glasses (which seems like a really smart idea in a bar so large and crowded). That ended our day-- or rather, this picture of Buda Hill at night did.
Sunday, June 1:
We successfully bought tickets for the Parliament tour the night before, so that was our big plan for the day. But that was at 3-- so, we decided that we should try to go to brunch at Gundel, one of the oldest restaurants in Europe, located in City Park. This required navigating the metro for the first time, which we did after a few minutes of difficulty (largely because the Hungarian language is so difficult so it takes a little while to make sense of the stop names). The metros in Budapest do have the fastest moving escalators in the world (I'm assuming-- I don't know for sure, but it's hard to imagine they can go faster and not throw people off. It felt a little perilous when getting on and off. They really are a little scary.), some of which are really steep. We got to one of the two metro stops located in City Park (without getting injured on the escalator leading out), the one at Hero's Square
and found the restaurant.
Since we didn't have reservations, we were offered a seat in the garden which the hostess presented as some some kind of consolation but since it was nice out, it really didn't feel like we were missing out.
Brunch was a buffet, though it would have been hard to eat our money's worth no matter how hungry we were (it was by far our most expensive meal-- and this was the inexpensive way to eat at Gundel. Ordering off the menu is even more pricey.), but it did come with a glass of sparkling wine included. Highlights of lunch were the cold Strawberry soup and the white asparagus soup as well as the duck with cabbage noodles.
And, the desserts were really good. (We were determined to sample the desserts even if we weren't still hungry... they looked really good and we had paid a lot to have the opportunity to sample them.)
Brunch seems not to quite mean the same thing as it does in the US, so there were not breakfast item (unless fruit counts as breakfast-- but it didn't seem to be intended that way) and so I think it was a great faux pas when I asked for coffee with my meal, instead of after (at least our somewhat surly waiter seemed to take some surprise/issue with me wanting coffee at the beginning instead of the end. In my defense, I hadn't had coffee yet. It was really critical.). We walked around City Park after brunch
which offered us a view of the famous baths located there
and then found the metro to Parliament, making it there with about 30
and found the restaurant.
Since we didn't have reservations, we were offered a seat in the garden which the hostess presented as some some kind of consolation but since it was nice out, it really didn't feel like we were missing out.
Brunch was a buffet, though it would have been hard to eat our money's worth no matter how hungry we were (it was by far our most expensive meal-- and this was the inexpensive way to eat at Gundel. Ordering off the menu is even more pricey.), but it did come with a glass of sparkling wine included. Highlights of lunch were the cold Strawberry soup and the white asparagus soup as well as the duck with cabbage noodles.
And, the desserts were really good. (We were determined to sample the desserts even if we weren't still hungry... they looked really good and we had paid a lot to have the opportunity to sample them.)
Brunch seems not to quite mean the same thing as it does in the US, so there were not breakfast item (unless fruit counts as breakfast-- but it didn't seem to be intended that way) and so I think it was a great faux pas when I asked for coffee with my meal, instead of after (at least our somewhat surly waiter seemed to take some surprise/issue with me wanting coffee at the beginning instead of the end. In my defense, I hadn't had coffee yet. It was really critical.). We walked around City Park after brunch
which offered us a view of the famous baths located there
and then found the metro to Parliament, making it there with about 30
minutes to spare (and, time to take more pictures of it!).
There was no changing of the guard, but there was a lot of guard activity-- when they're not posing for pictures, they are really serious about keeping order. They seem really concerned with preventing protests because instructions for visiting included not being allowed to carry megaphones or wear totalitarian garb. (It is also prohibited to lie down on the stairs inside which didn't make sense until we started climbing them. There are a lot of stairs to get to this hall; someone probably tried to stop and rest at some point.)
We saw one of the two chambers of Parliament
There was no changing of the guard, but there was a lot of guard activity-- when they're not posing for pictures, they are really serious about keeping order. They seem really concerned with preventing protests because instructions for visiting included not being allowed to carry megaphones or wear totalitarian garb. (It is also prohibited to lie down on the stairs inside which didn't make sense until we started climbing them. There are a lot of stairs to get to this hall; someone probably tried to stop and rest at some point.)
and heard about how there had only been one house since the Soviet takeover (this is presumably the one not used now)-- a lot of the history we heard was about the Nazi occupation followed by the Soviet liberation which quickly became the Soviet takeover. I sort of picture the Hungarians cheering as the Russians entered the city to liberate the ghetto and fight back the Nazis quickly followed by cursing as Communist rule took over (which seemed to make things even worse).
Outside the chamber is this contraption
which held the cigars of members needing a smoke break. You can't tell from the picture, but each is numbered so that Parliament members could go back and forth between the chamber and their cigars and know which was theirs.
The Parliament also houses the oldest crown-- the one which all the kings and queens wore at coronation since about 800 when the first king of Hungary was crowned-- Stephen, now called St. Stephen. There are two guards who stand on ether side of the crown jewels and for some reason switched positions on the sides of the box while we were there. It was a mini changing of the guard though it's hard to tell why they had to switch sides of the box. This room was the only place we weren't allowed to take pictures-- it's under the dome so we heard about how electricians have to climb on top of the dome and enter from above the huge chandelier in order to change light bulbs. And, there are statues of the kings and queens decorating the room-- they are "mounted" high up the columns that go around the room. From the Crown Jewel/Dome room, we entered this hallway
and were allowed to take pictures again, though the lighting make it hard to get one that allowed the detail to really show. I took one of the ceiling which gives some sense of how elaborate each surface is.
Outside the chamber is this contraption
which held the cigars of members needing a smoke break. You can't tell from the picture, but each is numbered so that Parliament members could go back and forth between the chamber and their cigars and know which was theirs.
The Parliament also houses the oldest crown-- the one which all the kings and queens wore at coronation since about 800 when the first king of Hungary was crowned-- Stephen, now called St. Stephen. There are two guards who stand on ether side of the crown jewels and for some reason switched positions on the sides of the box while we were there. It was a mini changing of the guard though it's hard to tell why they had to switch sides of the box. This room was the only place we weren't allowed to take pictures-- it's under the dome so we heard about how electricians have to climb on top of the dome and enter from above the huge chandelier in order to change light bulbs. And, there are statues of the kings and queens decorating the room-- they are "mounted" high up the columns that go around the room. From the Crown Jewel/Dome room, we entered this hallway
and were allowed to take pictures again, though the lighting make it hard to get one that allowed the detail to really show. I took one of the ceiling which gives some sense of how elaborate each surface is.
When we left Parliament, we got back on the metro to head back towards the City Park (though not all the way there) to visit the Terror House, a museum built in a building that people were brought to to be tortured and executed. The museum is dedicated to chronicling the horrors of the Nazi and Russian occupations (the Russian occupation takes up a lot more of the museum since the Nazis were really only in Hungary for about 4 months while the Russians reigned for nearly 45 years) of Hungary. (No photos are allowed so the only shot I have is of the exterior-- the name is carved above so that when the sun is shining, which is wasn't, it appears on the sidewalk so that you walk in the shadow of the terror.)
Much of the history of the torture is told through interviews with those who survived; there were a shocking lot of these interviews, so much so that you could spend a whole day in the museum and maybe not hear all of them. It became a little overwhelming after awhile, but it did give a good sense of how harsh the conditions were, even more than the lengthy histories typed out and available in almost every room.There were also lots of examples of Russian Propaganda films and posters which painted a very rosy picture of how great it was to work and live in Hungary than anything else would lead you to believe-- the contrast was eerie. The basement torture cambers and cells have been preserved-- they're creepy. There is a chamber that still has the hanging apparatus, one that is padded, and one that is about 2 feet in width and length in which people were locked. There were other torture rooms as well as a couple of holding cells. There seemed to be a room dedicated to each form of torture. The creepiness was made worse by the fact that by the time we got to them, the museum was announcing that it would close in 15 minutes and all we could pictures was the cell gates slamming shut at 6 and locking us in overnight. We made sure to get out with five minutes to spare. This was a good look into the history that Hungarians seem to most want to share; almost all the information we were given at historical sites started in 1945 when the Nazis occupied Budapest-- there is really little mention of what Hungary was like before that (It took going to Vienna to make the connection to the Hapsburgs and their time of rule. They built much of the original Royal Palace.), possibly because so much of Budapest was destroyed during WWII and subsequently during the Russian invasion (they boarded up and tore down a lot) so much of what is in Budapest has been rebuilt since 1989. Much of the history starts with when the building was rebuilt.
From the Terror Museum, we ventured back to the area between the market and the art museum to try to find the walking street with lots of restaurants we had heard a lot about-- the metro let us out right onto it, so it wasn't hard to find.
There, we found a place serving Hungarian dishes for dinner (almost all the places boasted traditional Hungarian food, so that wasn't hard to find either)
where I had goulash soup
and Martha had paprika chicken rolled with cottage cheese served with fried potatoes.
It felt the most traditional Hungarian meal we'd had. We ended it with cottage cheese balls in strawberry sauce, a traditional dessert, and then headed back to the hotel-- which is up a hill and so seems to burn some of the calories.
Monday, June 2:
There, we found a place serving Hungarian dishes for dinner (almost all the places boasted traditional Hungarian food, so that wasn't hard to find either)
where I had goulash soup
and Martha had paprika chicken rolled with cottage cheese served with fried potatoes.
It felt the most traditional Hungarian meal we'd had. We ended it with cottage cheese balls in strawberry sauce, a traditional dessert, and then headed back to the hotel-- which is up a hill and so seems to burn some of the calories.
Monday, June 2:
For our last day in Budapest, we had booked a cooking class. We were met at 9 am at the central market by Agi and Andrew who gave us a guided eating tour of the Central Market. We started on the second floor of the market, where all the prepared food stalls are.
First, we tried Langos, which is basically fried dough with toppings.
We had one that had sour cream, cheese and garlic on it; there were lots of sweet offerings on the menu, but we were told they were all for tourists, that Hungarians would never eat one of the sweet ones. The one they ordered for us was the only one on the menu that was "Hungarian." From there, we moved to another stand where they ordered an array of food including beef stew (goulash), friend potatoes, pasta, and a liver dish (which is not my favorite thing to eat, by far, but considering it was liver, it was pretty good).
I was glad Agi had told me in an email not to eat breakfast before we came to meet her-- having eaten nothing, I was still stuffed at this point. We also stopped to get sour cherry bon-bons-- they tasted like really good maraschino cherries covered in dark chocolate. And, because I wanted to buy paprika-- which is
in pretty much everything-- I asked about what was being sold at the stalls. It looked pretty touristy to me, but I was told it was the same kind of paprika that was in the boring looking bags, just packaged nicely (I could have bought one of the boring bags, but the touristy packaging came with adorable tiny scoops for measuring out the paprika, which is funny because at the rate the scoop would dole it out, you'd be scooping paprika for hours to put a "Hungarian" amount into food.). Paprika comes from one of two areas in Hungary, Kalocsa and Szeged, and the paprika you buy is marked with what region it comes from, though apparently even a connoisseur like Agi (who buys her paprika from a guy at a market near her who makes it himself) can't tell the difference between the paprika from each region. It's actually worth buying paprika in the Central Market, even if you're buying the touristy packaging-- in the market, it's 350-400 HUF (which is less than $2). You can buy the same thing in souvenir shops all over Budapest, but it costs at least twice that in those shops for the exact same thing. It seemed like the farther the shop was from the Market, the more it charged for paprika, so if you walk far enough away, you can end up paying 1200 HUF. (It's not like it's a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it's the principle-- why pay 2 or 3 times more?) We briefly stopped our eating tour for Martha to buy glasses made of Hungarian crystal, the souvenir she most wanted.
We hadn't seen it anywhere other than the market despite the fact that it's rather traditional. And then we kept going, moving to the first floor of the market where the meats and vegetables are. Hungarians will use every part of any animal they can, so there were lots of the more disgusting "cuts" of meat on display like intestines, brain, and tripe.
Andrew was telling us that one day, one of the vendors had had cow udders for sale; he hadn't bought it then because he had no idea how to cook it, but he had since rethought passing it up and was hoping to find more. (I was just really glad it wasn't one of the things they got for us to taste. I'll try pretty much any food once, but cow udder would have pushed my limits.) There were lots of vegetables on display,
though Agi and Andrew told us that Hungarians don't' really eat vegetables which I don't think was too much of an exaggeration (you can tell from looking at the pictures of our meals). Thinking back on our few days in Budapest, other than potatoes, there weren't many vegetables on the menu (though Martha's dinner from the night before had some. She had been excited to see actual roasted veggies.) We also stopped and bought little biscuits made from different things like potato and sour cherry.
We were totally stuffed but ate them anyway because they were really good. Finally, we went to the basement were the fish market it-- tourists almost never see this part because it's not labeled; there are no signs directing people to it, so if you didn't know it was there, you wouldn't know to look for it.
After touring the market for about an hour and a half, we got in a cab and headed to Agi's apartment where she held the cooking classes. It's a relatively small kitchen which makes me think that there are never more than 2 or 3 people in a class.
Before we started cooking, we were offered more food-- baguette with toppings, strawberries and cherries-- which we picked at a little but really were way too full to eat and a shot of plum palinka that friends of Agi had made. (Hungarians all know someone who makes palinka-- they never buy it in stores. It reaffirms for me that it's a lot like moonshine in the US south.) This one was plum flavored but really didn't taste any different to me than the two shots we'd ordered in the ruin bar. Agi poured us glasses of white wine and then we started cooking. It was nice to be cooking in an actual Hungarian apartment though-- it gave a small sense of what life in Budapest might be like. We had chosen to make goulash soup, cabbage rolls, and a dessert called floating island which is meringue floating in custard. What we learned most vehemently is that you can always add more paprika. Every time we put in what we thought was enough, we were told to add a lot more. We started the soup first since the meat takes a long time to cook-- they did it in a pressure cooker so that it wouldn't take hours and hours.
From there, we moved to the cabbage rolls which are cooked in a small cauldron between layers of sauerkraut (which both Agi and Andrew, especially Agi, kept picking at like I would pick at peanuts or potato chips).
The floating island was certainly the dish that required the most skill-- especially the custard part. But, before you make custard, you heat some of the milk for it in a pan and scoop out the meringue to steam on top of it. It steams for two minutes on one side and then is flipped (which is kind of hard to do without breaking the "islands") and steamed, covered, for two more minutes before being removed. Then, the rest of the milk and the egg yolks are poured into the pot to make the custard. I was told to stir it quickly so that it wouldn't become scrambled eggs-- which I did and then Andrew told me I was stirring too fast and to stir in a figure 8 pattern, somewhat more slowly. And then, Agi returned to paying attention and told me to stir quickly using my wrist mostly (which is what I had been doing in the first place) because Andrew's method would make it become scrambled eggs. And then, they proceeded to squabble about the best method for stirring the custard while I stood in the middle and continued to stir in some combination of their two preferred methods while Martha stood off to the side laughing at me and refusing to take over stirring. It all eventually worked out ok though and nothing came out like scrambled eggs.
Finally, we sat down to eat our meal, though we still weren't really hungry having been stuffed at the market. First, goulash soup.
Then the cabbage rolls and sauerkraut which is served with sour cream (there was a shocking lack of sour cream throughout our meals-- all the guide books told us that everything is served with sour cream, and lots of it, but this was the first day we'd been given sour cream to put on anything).
And finally, the floating island.
We were leaving Budapest the next day, so it was hard to take any of the food with us-- the soup wasn't going to be good cold. But we did take some of the cabbage rolls with us to eat on the boat to Vienna the next day.
While we were cooking and eating, we learned some interesting things about Hungarian life. The health care system is free, but doctors expect to be tipped and if you don't tip them well, you don't get good care. They can pretty much refuse to take care of patients who don't tip. Most interesting to me was the idea of naming days- there is a pre-approved list of names that parents can name children (approximately 1300 for girls and 1600 for boys... or maybe it's the other way around. Agi couldn't remember). Parents have to get special government approval to name their kids anything not on the list and apparently that almost never happens. But then, each name has a day that it's celebrated on and it's expected that friends and family will wish you a happy naming day and provide presents. (This is in addition to your birthday.) There is no Leah in Hungarian; I wouldn't have a name day.
After our class, we made our way back to our hotel area by trolley which is a part of the metro system. Right near our hotel was the Cave Chapel which we had been wanting to see but had put off because it's one of the few sites open on Mondays. The Cave Chapel is exactly what it sounds like-- it's a church built in a cave.
It was founding by Pauline Monks in 1926.When the Russians "liberated" Hungary at the end of WW2, they closed up the cave, building a concrete wall to block its entrance. The monks themselves were considered criminals under Russian rule-- many of them left Hungary to avoid jail or worse. When Hungary was freed from Communist rule in 1989, the cave was reopened and the monks returned.
Our last activity in Budapest was souvenir shopping. It's not the most pleasant experience since it's hard to just browse a souvenir shop; most proprietors want to actively assist you or push wares on you. One woman I bought something from seemed actively bothered that she had to sell me anything, but in another shop the
saleswoman was friendly and helpful and not pushy. It made me happy I spent more money there. We weren't really hungry, having been stuffed with food since 9 am, but we stopped for a beer (which was expensive by Budapest standards-- I think we were paying for the ambiance of the place)
and then moved to Anna's cafe to have light dinner which was a meat and cheese plate that included a really good spread made from cottage cheese and paprika and what was the equivalent of cracklin' but made from goose (which I tried-- it's a lot like pork rind but made in nuggets).
And then, we walked back to our hotel so that we could pack up and prepare to get up early to catch our cruise boat to Vienna the next day.
Tuesday, June 3
We had to get up early to be at the dock to catch our boat to Vienna-- a cruise up the Danube seemed like a nice way to get there. It takes about twice the time a train would, but it's scenic. Getting to the boat turned out to be much easier than either of us was expecting-- we were really close to the port so we decided to walk, toting our luggage downhill. There was a chance that this was going to be harder than it sounded, but it actually turned out well. Getting on our small boat, which is a hydrofoil was really easy. This is our small cruise boat.
taking pictures of what we passed was a little difficult since the boat was moving quickly and the ride was never perfectly smooth, but I managed to get some shots
as well as this video of what it's like to cruise the Danube.
Surprisingly,we were served lunch and beverages for free-- the website for the cruise had said there would be a snack bar on board to purchase snacks and drinks but no site, not the official website nor trip adviser, had mentioned that they served food at your seat.
It was a nice surprise and meant that we didn't have to break out the cabbage rolls we had brought on board in anticipation of being hungry during the 6 1/2 hour ride.
Twice on the trip, we stopped in locks. I've never actually been in a lock before, so it was kind of exciting (more so the first time... it turns out that being in a lock loses it's cache pretty quickly after the first time). Exciting enough that I recorded it-- entering the lock:
First, we tried Langos, which is basically fried dough with toppings.
We had one that had sour cream, cheese and garlic on it; there were lots of sweet offerings on the menu, but we were told they were all for tourists, that Hungarians would never eat one of the sweet ones. The one they ordered for us was the only one on the menu that was "Hungarian." From there, we moved to another stand where they ordered an array of food including beef stew (goulash), friend potatoes, pasta, and a liver dish (which is not my favorite thing to eat, by far, but considering it was liver, it was pretty good).
I was glad Agi had told me in an email not to eat breakfast before we came to meet her-- having eaten nothing, I was still stuffed at this point. We also stopped to get sour cherry bon-bons-- they tasted like really good maraschino cherries covered in dark chocolate. And, because I wanted to buy paprika-- which is
in pretty much everything-- I asked about what was being sold at the stalls. It looked pretty touristy to me, but I was told it was the same kind of paprika that was in the boring looking bags, just packaged nicely (I could have bought one of the boring bags, but the touristy packaging came with adorable tiny scoops for measuring out the paprika, which is funny because at the rate the scoop would dole it out, you'd be scooping paprika for hours to put a "Hungarian" amount into food.). Paprika comes from one of two areas in Hungary, Kalocsa and Szeged, and the paprika you buy is marked with what region it comes from, though apparently even a connoisseur like Agi (who buys her paprika from a guy at a market near her who makes it himself) can't tell the difference between the paprika from each region. It's actually worth buying paprika in the Central Market, even if you're buying the touristy packaging-- in the market, it's 350-400 HUF (which is less than $2). You can buy the same thing in souvenir shops all over Budapest, but it costs at least twice that in those shops for the exact same thing. It seemed like the farther the shop was from the Market, the more it charged for paprika, so if you walk far enough away, you can end up paying 1200 HUF. (It's not like it's a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it's the principle-- why pay 2 or 3 times more?) We briefly stopped our eating tour for Martha to buy glasses made of Hungarian crystal, the souvenir she most wanted.
We hadn't seen it anywhere other than the market despite the fact that it's rather traditional. And then we kept going, moving to the first floor of the market where the meats and vegetables are. Hungarians will use every part of any animal they can, so there were lots of the more disgusting "cuts" of meat on display like intestines, brain, and tripe.
Andrew was telling us that one day, one of the vendors had had cow udders for sale; he hadn't bought it then because he had no idea how to cook it, but he had since rethought passing it up and was hoping to find more. (I was just really glad it wasn't one of the things they got for us to taste. I'll try pretty much any food once, but cow udder would have pushed my limits.) There were lots of vegetables on display,
though Agi and Andrew told us that Hungarians don't' really eat vegetables which I don't think was too much of an exaggeration (you can tell from looking at the pictures of our meals). Thinking back on our few days in Budapest, other than potatoes, there weren't many vegetables on the menu (though Martha's dinner from the night before had some. She had been excited to see actual roasted veggies.) We also stopped and bought little biscuits made from different things like potato and sour cherry.
We were totally stuffed but ate them anyway because they were really good. Finally, we went to the basement were the fish market it-- tourists almost never see this part because it's not labeled; there are no signs directing people to it, so if you didn't know it was there, you wouldn't know to look for it.
After touring the market for about an hour and a half, we got in a cab and headed to Agi's apartment where she held the cooking classes. It's a relatively small kitchen which makes me think that there are never more than 2 or 3 people in a class.
Before we started cooking, we were offered more food-- baguette with toppings, strawberries and cherries-- which we picked at a little but really were way too full to eat and a shot of plum palinka that friends of Agi had made. (Hungarians all know someone who makes palinka-- they never buy it in stores. It reaffirms for me that it's a lot like moonshine in the US south.) This one was plum flavored but really didn't taste any different to me than the two shots we'd ordered in the ruin bar. Agi poured us glasses of white wine and then we started cooking. It was nice to be cooking in an actual Hungarian apartment though-- it gave a small sense of what life in Budapest might be like. We had chosen to make goulash soup, cabbage rolls, and a dessert called floating island which is meringue floating in custard. What we learned most vehemently is that you can always add more paprika. Every time we put in what we thought was enough, we were told to add a lot more. We started the soup first since the meat takes a long time to cook-- they did it in a pressure cooker so that it wouldn't take hours and hours.
From there, we moved to the cabbage rolls which are cooked in a small cauldron between layers of sauerkraut (which both Agi and Andrew, especially Agi, kept picking at like I would pick at peanuts or potato chips).
The floating island was certainly the dish that required the most skill-- especially the custard part. But, before you make custard, you heat some of the milk for it in a pan and scoop out the meringue to steam on top of it. It steams for two minutes on one side and then is flipped (which is kind of hard to do without breaking the "islands") and steamed, covered, for two more minutes before being removed. Then, the rest of the milk and the egg yolks are poured into the pot to make the custard. I was told to stir it quickly so that it wouldn't become scrambled eggs-- which I did and then Andrew told me I was stirring too fast and to stir in a figure 8 pattern, somewhat more slowly. And then, Agi returned to paying attention and told me to stir quickly using my wrist mostly (which is what I had been doing in the first place) because Andrew's method would make it become scrambled eggs. And then, they proceeded to squabble about the best method for stirring the custard while I stood in the middle and continued to stir in some combination of their two preferred methods while Martha stood off to the side laughing at me and refusing to take over stirring. It all eventually worked out ok though and nothing came out like scrambled eggs.
Finally, we sat down to eat our meal, though we still weren't really hungry having been stuffed at the market. First, goulash soup.
Then the cabbage rolls and sauerkraut which is served with sour cream (there was a shocking lack of sour cream throughout our meals-- all the guide books told us that everything is served with sour cream, and lots of it, but this was the first day we'd been given sour cream to put on anything).
And finally, the floating island.
We were leaving Budapest the next day, so it was hard to take any of the food with us-- the soup wasn't going to be good cold. But we did take some of the cabbage rolls with us to eat on the boat to Vienna the next day.
While we were cooking and eating, we learned some interesting things about Hungarian life. The health care system is free, but doctors expect to be tipped and if you don't tip them well, you don't get good care. They can pretty much refuse to take care of patients who don't tip. Most interesting to me was the idea of naming days- there is a pre-approved list of names that parents can name children (approximately 1300 for girls and 1600 for boys... or maybe it's the other way around. Agi couldn't remember). Parents have to get special government approval to name their kids anything not on the list and apparently that almost never happens. But then, each name has a day that it's celebrated on and it's expected that friends and family will wish you a happy naming day and provide presents. (This is in addition to your birthday.) There is no Leah in Hungarian; I wouldn't have a name day.
After our class, we made our way back to our hotel area by trolley which is a part of the metro system. Right near our hotel was the Cave Chapel which we had been wanting to see but had put off because it's one of the few sites open on Mondays. The Cave Chapel is exactly what it sounds like-- it's a church built in a cave.
It was founding by Pauline Monks in 1926.When the Russians "liberated" Hungary at the end of WW2, they closed up the cave, building a concrete wall to block its entrance. The monks themselves were considered criminals under Russian rule-- many of them left Hungary to avoid jail or worse. When Hungary was freed from Communist rule in 1989, the cave was reopened and the monks returned.
Our last activity in Budapest was souvenir shopping. It's not the most pleasant experience since it's hard to just browse a souvenir shop; most proprietors want to actively assist you or push wares on you. One woman I bought something from seemed actively bothered that she had to sell me anything, but in another shop the
saleswoman was friendly and helpful and not pushy. It made me happy I spent more money there. We weren't really hungry, having been stuffed with food since 9 am, but we stopped for a beer (which was expensive by Budapest standards-- I think we were paying for the ambiance of the place)
and then moved to Anna's cafe to have light dinner which was a meat and cheese plate that included a really good spread made from cottage cheese and paprika and what was the equivalent of cracklin' but made from goose (which I tried-- it's a lot like pork rind but made in nuggets).
And then, we walked back to our hotel so that we could pack up and prepare to get up early to catch our cruise boat to Vienna the next day.
Tuesday, June 3
We had to get up early to be at the dock to catch our boat to Vienna-- a cruise up the Danube seemed like a nice way to get there. It takes about twice the time a train would, but it's scenic. Getting to the boat turned out to be much easier than either of us was expecting-- we were really close to the port so we decided to walk, toting our luggage downhill. There was a chance that this was going to be harder than it sounded, but it actually turned out well. Getting on our small boat, which is a hydrofoil was really easy. This is our small cruise boat.
taking pictures of what we passed was a little difficult since the boat was moving quickly and the ride was never perfectly smooth, but I managed to get some shots
as well as this video of what it's like to cruise the Danube.
Surprisingly,we were served lunch and beverages for free-- the website for the cruise had said there would be a snack bar on board to purchase snacks and drinks but no site, not the official website nor trip adviser, had mentioned that they served food at your seat.
It was a nice surprise and meant that we didn't have to break out the cabbage rolls we had brought on board in anticipation of being hungry during the 6 1/2 hour ride.
Twice on the trip, we stopped in locks. I've never actually been in a lock before, so it was kind of exciting (more so the first time... it turns out that being in a lock loses it's cache pretty quickly after the first time). Exciting enough that I recorded it-- entering the lock:
and exiting the lock.
I also took pictures of the water level rising at different stages, but what was actually more amusing was how many people there were standing on the bridge watching our boat rise to leave the lock. People gather for this kind of thing.
After about 6 1/2 hours we reached Vienna
and made our way to our hotel, the Imlauer. It was definitely more modern than our hotel in Budapest, with a different kind of charm (including a shower with an actual shower head attached to the wall)
and a nice street view.
We decided we should try to see something in Vienna that evening since we really only had one full day there, so we headed out to find Stephensdom (St. Stephens Church), the cathedral in the center of Vienna. When you get off the metro, it's immediately in front of you (and quite large, so hard to get a good shot of)
as are men dressed like Mozart trying to push concert tickets on you. It's a little surreal being attacked and pressured to buy tickets to hear classical music.
It was originally built in the 13th Century but was largely destroyed in WWII (a running theme of our trip) and has subsequently been rebuilt, though I don't think I would know that if I hadn't read it in the guidebook. The detail is incredible-- like on the roof.
The inside of the Cathedral is gorgeous. While we were there, there was a choir performing which made it that much more enjoyable. Vienna is a city of music-- it's basically impossible to go anywhere and not hear music of some kind.
We were trying to get to Cafe Central for dessert and coffee and so were meandering to find a place to eat, preferably to get wienerschnitzel and start off with a proper Viennese meal, but wound up wandering for quite a while, largely because there are a lot of side streets in Vienna which weren't on the map Martha was carrying (which came from Lonely Planet) and which were on the map I was carrying, provided by the hotel, which had so much on it that it was impossible to read (a magnifying glass might have helped). So, in the meantime, we saw Graben
A pedestrian square filled with incredibly expensive shops as well as this grotesque monument of people suffering that's a memorial to the victims of the plague. We wandered through the square and down a couple of winding streets and wound up in front of the Hofburg Complex completely by accident (and without really realizing how close we had been). The complex is the former Emperor's residence, built by the Hapsburgs. The front of the complex is lovely
A pedestrian square filled with incredibly expensive shops as well as this grotesque monument of people suffering that's a memorial to the victims of the plague. We wandered through the square and down a couple of winding streets and wound up in front of the Hofburg Complex completely by accident (and without really realizing how close we had been). The complex is the former Emperor's residence, built by the Hapsburgs. The front of the complex is lovely
and yet completely deceptive since once you cross through to the interior, it becomes even more magnificent (the fact that the sun was going down and was in a pretty perfect position doesn't hurt).
You can get something of an idea of how expansive the complex is from the video.
The best part of the complex is the Volksgarten (the People's Garden). It might be the most gorgeous garden I've ever been in-- I don't think the pictures really do it justice.
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Across the street from the gardens is the Parliament building, which after the one in Budapest was a bit of a disappointment (it's kind of disappointing for Vienna in general-- all the buildings are so opulent, so I think I was expecting more of their Parliament). It's built in a Greek tradition.
Next to the Hofburg complex is also the Burgtheater, one of the most prestigious stages.
We wandered by this, by now quite hungry and still trying to get somewhere in the vicinity of Cafe Central-- and were passed by Viennese soldiers (though not changing the guard) escorting people into Christie's.
Finally, we turned the corner at the end of this street and found what we were looking for!
By this time, we were tired of walking (it's hard to believe that we had been on a hydrofoil just a few hours before) and famished, so we decided to have both dinner and dessert in Cafe Central. The cafe is famous for having been a gathering place for important people in politics, science, math, art and literature. When you enter, you're greeted by a statue of Peter Altenberg, a poet who spent so much time there he listed the cafe's address as his work and home address.
The interior is opulent and amazing
and yet still inviting. And, there's a charming piano player in the center.
We each got a salad (which had potatoes in it-- I'm hard pressed to think of a meal I had in Hungary or Austria that didn't have potatoes in it) and shared wienerschnitzel
and then of course had to have coffee (which was big-- Martha even ordered coffee and she doesn't really drink it) and dessert (one apple strudel and one chocolate cake that had milk, dark and white chocolate layers and still managed to be light and not very sweet) which is what we had headed towards the cafe for in the first place.
And then we headed back to the hotel to sleep-- and plan our day of visiting palaces.
Wednesday, June 4:
We're both very fond of palaces and we had yet to see the interior of one-- the one most recommended is Schonbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburgs, completed during the reign of Maria Theresa. (There are still only exterior pictures of the palace because we couldn't take photos inside. The pictures are some of the best I took-- largely because this was the one really sunny day we had on the whole trip. This day's photos are the only pictures with clear blue skies in the background.) This is the front of the palace.
The palace is really bright yellow; it feels summer-y (though not at all like a quaint summer home). We toured the palace first-- we saw 44 rooms of the palace, which seemed like quite a lot, but it's a small percentage of the 1,441 rooms it actually has. There's a lot of information about the Hapsburgs given as you tour, a lot of which is hard to keep straight because there were a lot of Hapsburg children, 11 of which were girls and all of whom were named Maria-something. (Marie Antoinette was a Hapsburg daughter.) Only one daughter of the 11 was allowed to marry for love; the rest were married off in political alliances intended to basically assure that there was a Hapsburg in power everywhere in Europe-- the Hapsburgs were very proud of how good they were at marrying as a way of keeping peace and gaining power. They also all looked alike-- which meant none of the portraits of the women showed them as attractive. They all had exactly the same face, though I'm not clear if this is because they all really looked exactly alike or if the person painting the portraits only knew how to draw one face. Much of the tour is about the reign of Maria Theresa, the only female Hapsburg ruler in Austria; I'm assuming this is largely because the Schonbrunn was finished under her reign and much of the gardens were created under her direction.
We visited the gardens after the tour of the palace.
The Gloriette you can see in the first picture was built at the command of Maria Theresa-- she wanted to have a panoramic view of the palace and Vienna from the top, which it does have (pictures are coming).
This palace, like the Hofburg Palace, is pretty big.
There's a fountain at the end of the garden
Around the side of the palace is the Privy Garden.
We visited the gardens after the tour of the palace.
The Gloriette you can see in the first picture was built at the command of Maria Theresa-- she wanted to have a panoramic view of the palace and Vienna from the top, which it does have (pictures are coming).
This palace, like the Hofburg Palace, is pretty big.
There's a fountain at the end of the garden
that you can get behind and take a picture of the palace from
before you ascend the steep hill to the Gloriette
for a panoramic view of the palace and Vienna.
And, from there you are basically back to the front of the palace. We set off in search of our second palace of the day, the Belvedere, which was the summer palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy. But first, we stopped for lunch outside of the palace
at a restaurant that served Viennese and Greek food. After our fancier dinner the night before, we had decided that what we really wanted was beer and sausage for lunch, so that's what we got.
When we were paying our check, the restaurant's manager brought us two glasses of complimentary wine.
And then, as we finished those, he refilled them. He eventually brought out the bottle of wine we were drinking to show us and then poured the rest of it into our glasses saying that he was trying to encourage us to come back. I have to say we probably would have, but the restaurant (and the Belvedere Palace) were a bit of a hike to get to and not really anywhere near our hotel. But a free bottle of wine almost encouraged us to try to get back. It also made me a little tipsy. I was joking that all my pictures of Belvedere would probably be crooked now that I'd had so much to drink, but they came out pretty well. There are a lot of them though-- apparently being a little buzzed makes me take a lot of pictures without realizing how many I was taking. I did try to get a few that showed the whole front of the palace-- it's really difficult to photograph palaces anywhere. They don't really fit in the frame of a shot without being far away.
You can see a little more detail in this shot from the side (the trucks that were parked in front also moved by the time I got around the side, so it was worth zooming in a bit more).
This is actually the upper palace; the Belvedere is two palaces-- and upper and a lower one, but the upper is certainly prettier. The lower is pretty plain by comparison.
We didn't go in either since they're now largely art galleries. The gardens are, once again, really pretty though.
We walked down through the palace gardens and out the lower palace to head towards the metro which took us past Schwarzenbergplatz, a fountain and Soviet monument
where the Musikverein, the home of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, is located.
We headed back to the St. Stephen's Cathedral for dinner; our guide books had said there would be plenty of "street food" available, but the only place we'd seen anything remotely like that was at a make-shift German festival outside the cathedral.
So, we went there for spaetzle and bratwursts with sauerkraut.
And then went back to the hotel because we had to be up really early to head to Salzburg the next day.
Thursday, June 5:
We had decided that we wouldn't really feel like we'd seen Austria unless we got closer to the Alps, so we booked a one day tour to Salzburg which took past the lake regions, hitting a lot of top sites for Mozart fans and Sound of Music fans. Our tour left from in front of the Opera House.
It was really hard to get pictures out the bus windows of the countryside. I tried-- this is really the best one I got.
At some point, we drove past the church that the wedding scene from Sound of Music was filmed in; I tried desperately to get a picture of it, but the bus was winding around so much that it either came out really blurry or I wound up just getting a picture of the trees that obscured it from some angles.
On the way to Salzburg, we stopped at what our drive kept calling a rest stop. There was a gas station there-- and an eatery that is like no rest stop food place I've ever seen. The food was amazing.
This is also where I became a little embarrassed to be an American. Not everyone from our bus was American-- but they largely spoke English as a first language and several became really irate when the people working there couldn't understand them. One woman was in crisis because she couldn't figure out how to order a decaffeinated coffee (which I'm not sure they had) and another woman loudly exclaimed how ridiculous it was that the woman behind the counter didn't speak English well. (I at least had bitte and danke down by this point and made a point of using both when ordering because I felt so bad about how others were acting.) The rest stop itself had a lovely scenic view as well. (Really, rest stops should all be this nice.)
From there, we headed into the lake region which is part of Salzburgland, the larger region that Salzburg is a part of. We stopped for a few minutes to take pictures, so I got pictures of the Alps we were hoping to see.
From there, we headed into the city of Salzburg, home of Mozart and where many scenes from Sound of Music were filmed (which Americans care a lot more about than the Austrians, many of whom have never even seen the movie as our tour guide told us. But, they are managing to cater to the Americans who have; there is actually a tour dedicated entirely to the Sound of Music movie sites as well as some of the places the von Trapp family lived.). On the way to Salzburg, we listed to both music by Mozart as well as some tracks from the Sound of Music to put us in the spirit of what we would see.
We stopped behind Mirabell Palace, once the home to Archbishop Wolf Dietrich's mistress Salome Alt (a daughter of a Jewish merchant who supposedly had 15 children with the Archbishop) and now a civic administration building. and started there.
Several scenes from Sound of Music were filmed here. This is the Fountain used in Do-Re- Me:
And the hedges they hid in:
We got to go in the palace for a few minutes, but couldn't see much because there was a wedding (this one) taking place-- it's lovely for a building now referred to as a civic building.
The gardens are large and really beautiful, so we walked through them
out to a bridge that led us into the more central area of Salzburg.
We crossed the bridge and walked through Salzburg's streets
which had shop windows with clothes straight out of Sound of Music. I can't imagine who actually buys these; it's not anyone who lives in Salzburg because no one was dressed like this. But, multiple shops sell these clothes. I'm trying to imagine the tourist who buys these... good for Halloween costumes, maybe?
We passed Mozart's House (which I'll come back to)
and vendor's selling edelweiss (I never actually knew what it looked like-- it's a lot like daisies).
Our tour guide pointed out that a lot of the buildings are dated with the dates they were built as well as dates when they were refurbished or rebuilt (you ca see them on the top of the peach building). Once you know to look, you see it on a lot of buildings in Salzburg.
We walked through the courtyards of places like St. Peter's Monastery (this was a walking tour of Salzburg-- it didn't include really entering buildings), which was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and remodeled in the 17th and 18th centuries but otherwise is the oldest abbey in this part of Europe that has remained intact.
It has this lovely graveyard
and a nice view to Hohensalzburg Fortress
which was built in the 11th century and served as a refuge for the archbishops when they felt threatened. In the 19th century, it was used as a military barracks-- now it's a tourist attraction, though we didn't go up. You can see it from any point in Salzburg really-- I have pictures of it from Mirabell Palace, which is pretty far away.
We could see it even better as we got closer to Rezidentplatz.
Rezidentplatz has the Rezidence which was the seat of the Prince-Archbishop and is now government offices. This is where our tour guide left us to be on our own for a couple of hours, instructed to meet back at this fountain by 3:30.
On the other side of Rezidentplatz is the Cathedral which was built in the 8th century though it was almost entirely rebuilt after a fire in 1598, which is the first place we went as our group broke up.
It, like other buildings in Salzburg, has its dates of building and reconstruction on it, though they don't include it's earliest iterations. Mozart played the organ at this Cathedral in 1703.
This was the prettiest church we went to inside. I think it's the purple lighting, at least in part.
I took a video of it to try to get a sense of the whole thing.
After visiting the Cathedral, we decided to get something to eat; this was a bit of a negotiation since we were running low on cash but still needed to spend most of what we still had before we left Austria the next day. We were trying to strike a balance between spending most of our money but still having enough for things like a soda later or coffee at the airport the next morning. We wound up getting these pretzels--we hadn't had pretzels yet and they were everywhere is Salzburg.
The one on the right is an olive pretzel. The one on the left is a Mozart pretzel; all over Salzburg (really, we found them in Vienna too) there are these chocolates called Mozart chocolates-- they're dark chocolate covering pistachio marzipan. That's that the pretzel was-- a pretzel with chocolate and pistachio marzipan. It was surprisingly good.
We walked up Gold Street.
where we passed a shop with rubber duckies dressed like traditional Austrian kids (if they all dress the way the kids did in Sound of Music).
I had actually been looking for Hungarian or Austrian themed rubber duckies for my youngest nephew the whole time, so a store window full of them was really exciting. But, these were 10 euro each (which is about $13-- that seemed like a lot for a rubber ducky bath toy) so he's not getting one.
We decided that the touristy thing we would in Salzburg with our free time was visit the Mozart House. We hadn't done anything touristy specifically associated with music yet.
Leopold Mozart and his new wife, Anna Maria Pertl, moved into this house in 1747 and the Mozart family lived on the third floor of this building for 26 years. They had 7 children only two of whom survived: Wolfgang Amadeus and his sister, commonly called Nannerl, who was a talented musician in her own right but overshadowed by her brother. I have some pictures from the visit-- it's really unclear whether photos were allowed or not. Some rooms had clear signs that said no pictures (and often also had docents who were enforcing that) while others did not. I took the absence of signs and docent enforcement to mean I could snap pictures. This was the kitchen that was on display when we first climbed the stairs to the apartments.
And, this is one of Mozart's first pianos.
I also took a picture of one of Nannerl's pianos, but it didn't come out very well.
And, the Mozart Museum had Mozart duckies playing violins. (These too were 10 euro... rubber duckies must be a precious commodity in Salzburg.)
We met up with our group back at the fountain; we were a few minutes early which gave us time to notice that the water in the fountain at Rezidentzplatz comes out of the horses' nostrils.
And then, we all got back on the bus. We stopped again at a rest stop for dinner-- a different one, but equally as nice with a lovely salad bar. (I have no idea if we were just taken to anomalous places or if all rest stop restaurants in Austria are this nice-- but either way, this is definitely something the US should look into importing.) It was kind of exciting have salad at this point.
There were also lovely desserts; I spent all of dinner looking at this strawberry panna cotta dessert (you can see it slightly to left behind my beer above) so I had to get it (besides, it was my last night traveling).
And, from there we headed back to the bus to go back to the front of the Vienna Opera House
to be taken back to our hotel by smaller shuttle vans. And, the next morning, we left to come home.
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