Well, another few days since I last posted an update to the
blog – another city, another country, another currency. If I wasn’t writing
this I think we’d have a hard time keeping up with what we’ve been doing, quite
apart from the challenges posed to the reader.
Prague – what a beautiful, crazy, mixed up, cosmopolitan
city – if it wasn’t in Bohemia, you’d call it Bohemian! We arrived in Prague
from Potsdam on Monday after a somewhat interesting drive – a diversion off the
autobahn took us winding up one side and down the other of a steep mountain
pass, now bisected by a tunnel through the mountain. This had the unexpected
benefit of exposing the Czech Republic’s magnificent countryside to us, which
on the autobahn we’d be sailing past in oblivion. We arrived mid-afternoon at
our campsite, a small but again leafy, green and well-kept site on the
outskirts of Prague and made camp – as we were only staying a couple of nights
we decided to forego the extra space of the awning, but instead set up the tent
for the kids to sleep in. Frances and I then took ourselves off for a walk into
the local suburb to find a supermarket and cash. We followed the directions
given by the site manager and ended up after two or more kilometres at a huge
hardware store (just like Homebase or Bunnings) – not entirely what I’d
expected, but convenient as I managed to buy some nuts and bolts to make more
running repairs to the hard working scooters and a packet of rubber O-rings to
fix up out water inlet pipe. When we finally arrived back at the site, we found
Charlie and George having a great time scootering around the site with a German
boy who also had a scooter. They’d managed to exchange names, and that seemed
enough to form a strong bond of friendship for the duration of the evening.
With the kids tucked up in their tent, Frances and I managed
a sly beer or two at the quiet campsite bar – four big beers for 140 Czech
Crowns – that’s about £3.00 – could be seriously damaging to one’s health – or
at least, judging by some of the locals, one’s girth!
On Tuesday morning we began our now well-rehearsed routine
of packing ourselves off on the local public transport into the city centre.
We’d enjoyed our walking tour with Grite in Dresden so decided to find
something similar in Prague. We lucked upon Sandemanns New Prague tour – a free
(tips only) guided walking tour. Our guide, Jakob was really the most
interesting and entertaining chap – so much so that we completed the morning
old-town tour (10.00am to 1.30pm), and then continued straight on with him for
the afternoon castle tour from 2.00 until 6.00pm. I’m not going to attempt to
record the many interesting buildings, artefacts views that we saw – it would
be impossible to do so, and impossible to do it justice if I could. But much
more importantly, it would miss the point of our day – which was to spend time
in the company of a young man who’d been born in communist Czechoslovakia, sat
on his grandfather’s shoulders in the main square of Prague jangling his keys
in unison with hundreds of thousands of other Czechs in the peaceful protest
which became the Velvet Revolution, saw the emergence of the Republic of
Czechoslovakia, the subsequent cessation of Slovakia and finally the emergence
of the Czech Republic and its
rehabilitation into the European Union. What an incredible recent history – and
one which reflects Czech’s very complex historical past. With a Scotish
step-father, Jacob had spent several years at school and university in the UK.
His perspective about the communist and post-communist years couldn’t have been
more different to that of Grite in Dresden – perhaps this was influenced by his
well-travelled youth, perhaps by Prague’s evident prosperity and his own
success, perhaps by being just a few years younger – but unlike Grite, his
perspective of the years under Soviet control was that they were ‘hard
communism’, that one tyrannical regime, Soviet Stalinism had simply replaced
the other, Nazism, and that the Purple Revolution had finally brought ‘freedom’
to the Czech people. For a young man (mid-late twenties) he gave a very moving
speech while outside the Jewish cemetery about tyranny and evil, and the
importance of being actively good rather than simply being passively good. For
us, while the buildings, churches, castles and bridges of Prague are
indisputably beautiful, it’s these personal insights which bring the city and
its people to life and cast such an indelibly memorable image for us.
By 6.00pm, after a full day’s walking and an eight hour
history lesson, we were, understandably, knackered! After a dutiful stroll on
the Charles Bridge we flopped wearily back onto a tram and then bus to the very
welcoming comfort of the caravan.
We unhurriedly packed up and left Prague on Wednesday
morning for the relatively manageable 340kms to Vienna, via Brno. Once again we
found ourselves having to navigate without the aid of the Tom Tom sat nav app
on the iPhone, which was no great problem once we hit the autobahn, but for the
first 15kms or so we had to make our way through Prague using Google Maps –
that’s fine while you’re on the right route – but if you make a mistake – well,
you could end up in hospital…as indeed we did! One slight wrong turn and we
found ourselves heading into the casualty/ambulance reception area of a major
Prague hospital. Which would, of course, be fine in a car – but towing a
caravan?! We took a look around at the unfortunates hobbling in and out on
crutches and in wheelchairs, made a hasty and (even if I do say so myself) damned well executed three point turn and
headed off down a winding suburban street in search of the route out. This took
us straight through the centre of Prague, but that was the route Google
insisted we travel – and as we all know they know best – so we wound our way
past trams, beautiful Baroque museums and galleries, on past communist era rows
of apartment blocks and finally, as we hit the autobahn, we saw our first sign
to Vienna. Plain sailing. At which point, the communists took over the
road-building, and for the next couple of hundred kms we rattled our fillings
loose on the corrugations of their seen-better-days concrete autobahn. A quick
pit stop to buy food and booze at a pre-border Lidl (very quaffable Czech red
wine for about £1 per bottle – marvellous!) and then we headed past the eerily
deserted labyrinthine border crossing – this would once have been a big and
secure border between east and west – and now just one building is occupied, by
a cheap café! It’s a bit of an
anti-climax now – somehow we miss the queues, the tension, the stamps in
passports that would have gone before – now, there’s just a lonely sign saying
welcome to Austria.
The roads improved immeasurably once we got into Austria,
and so once more we barrelled into the setting sun towards our destination
city, this time Vienna. We arrived at our planned campsite to find it closed.
Ah. So we rang the next one, and got an answer-machine. And the next – the
number was disconnected. By this time, the sun had set and dusk was falling. We
re-set the sat nav, managed a swift u-turn and headed off more in hope than in
confidence. We got to the next site without too many problems, and found it
closed. Permanently. Being re-developed into housing. And so on to the next. We
finally arrived at this site in the dark, picked our way around and squeezed
ourselves into a very tight spot. With all Vienna’s other sites closed for the
winter, this is packed like a motorway service station car park – caravans,
campervans, massive mobile homes all cheek-by-jowl on hard-standing – it’s
practical and convenient, but not exactly schone ausblick! Nevertheless, once
we’d made camp and we settled in to eat the dinner which Frances had prepared,
we were very comfortable – as the French say,plus ca change, plus c’est la meme
chose – the more things change the more they stay the same.
On Thursday we again headed off into a new city on public
transport. It’s such a great way of exploring a city, we really enjoy the fun
and adventure that each trip brings. Having had such an intensive immersion in
Dresden and Prague we decided to wander a little less formally in Vienna, and
were quickly rewarded with the most magnificent, impressive baroque buildings,
adorned with statues, bas-reliefs, frescos, gilded statues to crown the
buildings, boulevards, parks, horse-drawn carriages – the opulence and
splendour are incredible. Much of it seemed to have been built in the
nineteenth century – when Australia was already 100 years old, which puts
Sydney’s historic buildings into a rather meagre perspective! Still, this was a
city and nation, the Austro Hungarian Empire (the hugely wealthy Habsburg
family) at the absolute height of its powers at the centre of Europe, so a
rather unfair comparison to one just starting out in the then remotest corner
of the globe!
In the afternoon we made our way to the Hundertwasser
museum. I’m sure you’ll all know about Hundertwasser – as indeed should I
before we went. But in truth, all I knew was that we had a framed poster of a rather
odd painting of his hung in our kitchen in both Sydney and Winchester – and
that we’d stopped off at a roadside public convenience which he’d famously
re-designed and decorated, on a drive from Auckland north to Whangerai in New
Zealand a few years ago. So quickly, my
summary of this remarkable man is that he was (he died in 2000) an artist,
architect, environmentalist, peacenik and activist who truly believed that his
ideals and beliefs of design could be brought to life in building and town
planning to make the world a better and more sustainable place for all. The
museum was in a building which he had designed – his artistic philosophy was
centred around organic forms (spirals in particular) and was opposed to
straight lines – and so this multi-story building in the middle of an urban
district of Vienna featured his love of uneven floors, unexpected twists, turns
and voids, unusual colours and reflective components, and organic plant and
water elements. He was very well travelled (aboard his own sailing boat)
spending much of his life in New Zealand (hence the public toilet!), and
amongst the exhibits were his proposed alternative flags for New Zealand and
Australia (I thought he’d cracked it for NZ, but not quite for Aus) along with
several models of amazing urban developments seamlessly integrating green and
organic space with homes and garages. Really clever. And then up the street was
another building of his design in which artists have apartments. And here,
sadly (at least in my view) the practical realities of an urban building
collide with his artistic ideal as, in truth, the colours had faded, the rain
water and city pollution had turned the whites grey, and really the building
looked rather sad. Nevertheless, we
loved his ideas and idealism, and really enjoyed the art and the rest of the
exhibition.
After Hundertwasser we headed back into the centre of town
to a small evening concert of Mozart and Strauss. After a slightly awkward
start (the old ‘you must check your bags and pay $1.50 each’ routine!) we found
ourselves moved into front row seats in the small and intimate room in which
Mozart had evidently given his first ever concert with his sister! The string
quartet and pianist took to the stage and despite their diminutive number
immediately filled the room with beautiful music. They were joined by a
beautiful soprano (she had a wonderful voice too!) who was followed by an
equally beautiful and very, very Austrian looking ballerina, who was then
joined by the tallest male ballet dancer in the known universe! And all of this action was taking place just
a couple of feet from us – I had to duck a couple of times to avoid the flailing
legs of the male dancer as he pirouetted around the small stage. The Mozart
music was wonderful – although I couldn’t help but smile at the comment made by
Jakob in Prague about why Mozart had been musically exiled there by the Viennese Royal court – because his music had
‘too many notes’! The second half was
Straus – much more orderly and, well, Austrian in style – until that is, the
soprano took to the stage once more and directed her beautiful aria from Die
Fledermaus at me in an almost personal serenade that made me blush! She brought
blushes to George and Charlie too with her very engaging smile and very, very
direct looks! The couple of elderly Irish ladies behind us were delighted with
George and Charlie’s attentiveness and interest in the music. We had a really
beautiful and memorable evening watching these very talented performers at such
close quarters.
Today was another wonderful day. The beautiful weather we’ve
enjoyed up until now finally made way for a cold and rainy day, so we donned
our wet weather gear and headed to the Spanish Riding School to watch their
morning training session. To watch the incredible horsemanship and beautiful Lipizzaner
stallions at work was a great privilege – it is incredible to see the new young
horses being schooled in the complex moves that they perform so gracefully, and
in such a beautiful environment. We’d loved to have gone to the evening
performance but would have had to take out a second mortgage to do so. We’ll make do with a DVD and the memories of
having seen the horses and riders at work. In the afternoon we visited the
Belvedere Palace art gallery – a beautiful palace housing an impressive
collection, including a Gustav Klimt (The Kiss) exhibition, as well as a couple
of our other favs: another Hunderterwasser, a Nolde (we’d seen his exhibition
in Ellos in Sweden) and another Edvard Munch. George and Charlie completed the
challenging kids quiz which guided them around the gallery setting difficult
questions which required a really close inspection of many of the works – a
great way to expand their knowledge and understanding of the art they’re
looking at. By mid-afternoon we were hungry and tired, and so had the much
anticipated Vienna Schnitzel and Goulash we’d promised ourselves at a very
local restaurant – superb.
And that, dear readers, if you’ve made your way this far, is
that! Tomorrow we head off early for a long drive (600kms) into Italy and on to
Venice. We were hoping to stay at the campsite we Campbells had stayed at in
the early 70’s and of which I have such happy memories, but sadly, despite Dad
having sent the name today, we’ve discovered that it’s closed for the
off-season. Shame as having seen it on the internet it looks even more
wonderful than it was then. Never mind – we’ll stay at an alternative close by,
and head off into Venice by boat on Sunday or Monday. The weather looks promising in Venice which
would be a real treat.
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