Greetings Again!
We are back from our travels and are still enjoying the remainder of our Christmas/New Year's break. We return back to school on January 9th, so we still have a good chunk of time to relax and to take care of a few other projects that we have been waiting for the time to get done. We had a wonderful time in our journey throughout Central Europe and are glad to be safely back in St. Petersburg.
We left Russia on December 22nd and flew to Vienna where we stayed for one night. We arrived in a very heavy fog, which continued for the next few days, even when we went to Hungary. We have been having unseasonably warm weather in Europe this year. While our family back in the American Midwest is getting buried with snow, there is no snow on the ground in St. Petersburg or in any of the places we traveled to. That was disappointing, as worrying about rain is not something that I associate with the end of December, but we managed to have mostly good weather.
We had not originally planned to go to Austria, but the cost of the flight was so much cheaper that even the cost of going to another city for an additional day still made it a better deal. We were definitely glad that we did, as Vienna was a beautiful city and we wished that we had more time to spend there. We mostly walked around to the main sites of the city and enjoyed many gorgeous churches and a lovely Christmas market (two themes for all of the places that we ended up visiting). St. Stephen's Cathedral was a definite highlight.
From Vienna, we traveled to Budapest, Hungary by bus. Thick fog enveloped us during the entire trip. We arrived on Christmas Eve and the city was largely closed up for the holiday. Some unwanted excitement occurred when an ATM rejected our cards when we first arrived, leading us to fear that we would not be able to get money. Thankfully we were able to make it to our hotel and then find another ATM that worked. Budapest was an interesting experience that combined beautiful medieval-era architecture with the heavy fingerprints of communism. In some ways it reminded me of St. Petersburg, although I much prefer it here. The main fortress complex, the major churches, and the parliament building are all worth seeing, and fortunately the fog finally lifted so that we could appreciate the beautiful view of the city and the Danube from the main hills overlooking it.
On Christmas day itself we traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia by bus again. Bratislava was the smallest and quietest of the places that we visited, but it was very nice. We enjoyed a slower pace after a few days of rushing around to see as much as we could in Vienna and Budapest. We were able to see a few movies in English (always one of the highlights of traveling outside of Russia), and enjoy good food. I ate a significant quantity of sausage on this trip, as every place that we visited seemed to specialize in some form of pork or another:-) Bratislava continued our journey along the Danube, and had a lovely old town with a tall hill with a fortress on top overlooking it. In terms of its size and feel, it reminded us both a lot of Tallinn, Estonia, one of our favorite places we have traveled.
It was a wonderful, albeit busy, trip and were very grateful for the chance to go. These were places that we had talked about visiting for several years now, and we were very happy that we had the chance to finally do so before we leave this part of the world.
Below are some of the pictures that we (mostly Amanda!) took that gives some explanation of the things that we saw on our journey. Enjoy:-)
St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. A gorgeous gothic church that dates to the 14th century. It also has an amazing tiled roof.
The interior of St. Stephen's
The old townhall/municipal building in Vienna, which had a Christmas market in front of it. Also a beautiful building.
The Votive Church, was one of Amanda's favorite buildings that we saw. She particularly liked the flying buttresses on the sides.
The Christmas market at night.
Karlskirche (St. Charles Church), with its distinctive columns featuring reliefs from the life of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI
The interior of the Jesuit Church in Vienna. We had not originally planned to visit this church, but were definitely glad we did once we saw its breathtaking interior.
On to Budapest! The most striking church we saw there was the Matthias Church in the fortress complex. The church has been damaged/destroyed and rebuilt many times over the course of its long history.
Amanda alongside the fortress walls that run alongside the back of the church.
The interior of the church was beautifully painted. The orange tones of the color scheme make it a little difficult to see the full detail (click on the picture to enlarge it and see it better), but it was a wonderful interior. The closest parallel for amount of imagery and detail would be the church of the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg.
The parliament building in Budapest. Unfortunately, due to construction we could not go all the way up to the building, but even from a distance it was a very striking work of architecture. This photo was taken from the other side of the Danube near the fortress.
A closer shot of the central dome of the parliament building.
The old stone bridge connecting the Buda and Pest sides of the river.
The fog was not as thick at this point, but was still fairly heavy. This is looking back to the Buda side of the river towards the fortress and the Matthias Church (the spire in the upper left).
The main synagogue in Budapest. It is the largest in Europe and the second largest active one in the world. Budapest was one of the locations of the Holocaust, and near the synagogue is a cemetery of victims as well as a memorial.
The holocaust memorial by the synagogue. The leaves of the trees have names of those who died.
Now to Bratislava! This is the Blue Church, which looks like a cake. It reminded us both of the Chesma Church in St. Petersburg.
Me in the Old Town of Bratislava.
Under one tower in the Old Town is a ring pointing out the directions and distances to major world cities. Sadly, St. Petersburg was not included, so we had to settle for Moscow.
St. Martin's Church with a beautiful deep blue sky.
The Bratislava castle lit up at night.
And finally Prague! This is the old town hall clock tower.
One one side of the old town hall is an amazing clock from the late middle ages. It is an extremely complicated device that conveys all sorts of astronomical information, as the image below helps to explain. Every hour large groups of tourists gather in front of it to see it strike.
Looking down from the town hall tour to the Christmas market below.
Prague also has several large hills overlooking the city. This is looking back towards the Old Town.
One highlight of Prague was visiting the Strahov Monastery with its amazing library.
St. Vitus Cathedral, the main historic church in Prague which sits atop to the fortress area of the city. It was another gothic masterpiece.
The backside of St. Vitus.
The Charles Bridge, which dates to the late Middle Ages, is another famous landmark that was always crowded with tourists.
A monument to the writer Franz Kafka, who lived in Prague. Amanda looks suitably puzzled as she ponders the author who dealt with absurdity, impotence at the hands of suffocating, faceless, power structures, and the choking power of bureaucracy.
A look back at St. Vitus at night.
Trdelnik! A delicious pastry made with dough, sugar, toffee, and lemon and rolled around a stick, which is placed over a grill and rotated.
Amanda especially enjoyed it!
The Charles Bridge with St. Vitus in the background on our last night in the city.
Thank you for reading and for your interest and support during 2013. We look forward the new year and the exciting changes and challenges that it will bring.
-Matt
