Spring Break: Vienna & Venice

Dobry den, all! I have re-train myself to say my Czech phrases again after speaking Italian for so long. Yes, Italy. That is why I have been absent from the blogosphere for so long. I decided to pack light for the trip, sans computer, to make traveling a little easier. So, that means I have about two weeks worth of adventures to cover! I've decided to break it all up over a few posts to make it a little easier on myself, so we'll start with Vienna, Austria and Venice, Italy. I also didn't bring my camera along for the ride (packing light, remember) so I don't have any pictures to show... just kidding! My iPhone proved to be a more than adequate substitute for my camera. I'll post all my photos from each place at the end, so you have to read in order to get your reward. Okay, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let's go!


Vienna

Vienna was wonderful, overall. A pleasant city with lots of culture and great food – you really can't go wrong there. Some highlights for me were:

The Art. If you're not a fan of some Austrian artists, then you probably don't realize they're Austrian. Austria, and Vienna especially, have produced some great artists and I was able to see work of the two of the best while in Vienna. The Leopold Museum is a wonderful gallery that I found to be just my size when it comes to museums – small enough to be able to appreciate everything without rushing through, and large enough to see a great selection of work and feel satisfied. Julie, Kait, Steph and I were able to see first-hand the beauty of Gustav Klimt's work, who Julie and Kait especially liked. I was very impressed with the work of Egon Schiele, an artist I recognized in name but knew little about. There are a lot of other fantastic museums in Vienna, so if that's your bag I would advise a visit. We didn't even make it to the art gallery that holds Klimt's most famous works because it was on the other side of the city, and I was disappointed that I didn't have time to see the natural history museum that is home to the Venus of Willendorf among other things.

The Blue Chairs. These are possibly the most ingenious invention ever developed by man. In fact, they're so clever I'm not convinced that they weren't planted here by aliens as some sort of trick to completely demobilize the human race.

 I'm talking about those blue things there. Here is a closer look to give you a better idea. Photos courtesy of Anne Langford.

Okay, that was probably a lot of unnecessary build-up, but sitting on these things was definitely the most relaxed I've ever been while sprawled across a piece of plastic furniture (don't quote me on that, though). After visiting the museum was the perfect time to take a nap on these babies and the 4 of us all partook... on the same one. It was cozy.

Mountains! On our way out of Austria to Venice we passed through the Alps of southern Austria and Northern Italy. I haven't been fortunate enough to see a lot of mountains in my lifetime so it was pretty breathtaking. We stopped at a little gas station/restaurant and some the group walked down to the river that ran right beneath the mountain. It was gorgeous and it felt really freeing to be there even though we were only a short walk from some civilization. I finally get what Maria was singing about. You can check out the pictures below.


Venice

It's a floating city... what's so great about that? Well, a lot actually. Sure, upon our arrival I might have been a little less than impressed with Venice. I was tired from the drive. It was crowded with obnoxious tourists. But after some sleep, and with a little better weather, I was able to see Venice in all its glory. It's really a beautiful place, but it's obviously not the shining pearl of Italy that it was very long ago. It's definitely aged and gotten a bit drabby, but it still maintains a sort of magical quality and what I could only describe as "moldy elegance."

An Unexpected Ride. On our arrival in Venice, Julie said the only way she would ride a gondola was if the driver's name was Fabio. We really weren't expecting to take a gondola ride during our stay. We were in the camp that it was too expensive (80€ during the day and 100€ after dark)  and probably overrated. Well, often we are proven wrong. Walking through the city, we were stopped by a strapping older man standing near a bridge: "A ride for 10€ a piece?" he proposed. There were 5 of us, and we all stopped in our tracks. I had heard that you can oftentimes barter with gondoliers, but I was a little dumbfounded. There was very little debate among us. "We'll take it!" And we hopped on into his gondola. As we began to take off down the canal I asked him his name, "My name is Fabio," he said, and then he began to whistle a tune. I guess some things are just meant to be.

Reunion. My fellow traveler and friend, Steph, decided to take an Italian adventure for spring break with Weekend Student Adventures. Students within Europe can sign-up and go on a guided trip with the company founder, Andy Steves, the son of the Rick Steves (yes, that one). Well it just so happened that my good friend, Brandon Drozd, currently studying in Ireland, signed up for the same trip! He was in Venice to meet up with the WSA group, so we had a little haphazard reunion in Venice (coordinating meetings using only the unreliable wifi I can find is rather difficult) but we were able to meet and catch up for a little bit before parting ways in Italy.


Well that's all for now, but there will be more from my spring break trip soon! Enjoy the photos!

jumping the border

Fair warning, lots of the photos in this one! Last weekend, myself and the rest of the #pivo14 crew ventured back to the big big city of Prague, because once just wasn't enough, and then made a day trip to Dresden to explore an amazing city that rebuilt itself from the ground up after it was devastated in WWII. Let's get started, shall we:


To begin, I love trains. So I deeply enjoyed making the journey to Prague and then Dresden on the rails. There were some wonderful sites to see, too, since we stayed alongside the river most of the way. Some beautiful villages were nestled among the hills in between Prague and Dresden and I could see kayakers and fishermen along the river on the way. It really made the travel go by fast.

Since I had already spent a little time getting to know Prague, I was able to relax this time and really get a good look at the city. It's largely dominated by the expanse of the Vltava River which divides the city into two sides. The west side is home to Prazsky Hrad (or Prague Castle, more on it later) enclosed around the lavish St. Vitus Cathedral and was formerly the "noble" side where all of the royalty and noblemen lived. The buildings are large and flamboyant to show the wealth of their former residents and most of them now act as international embassies (whaddya know?). The east side was the commoner side and holds the town square, the famous clock tower and pretty much the rest of the city. They are separated by many bridges, the most famous, and oldest, being the St. Charles bridge. It is always full of people during the day and many vendors and musicians line the outside edges along with some exquisite baroque statuary.

I already wrote a little bit about the Lennon wall in a previous post (its on the noble side by the way), so this time just enjoy the pictures:

After visiting the Lennon Wall, we were free to explore the city so a small group of us climbed the hill for an excellent view, then made our way slowly back across to the river.

Click here for large version

We got a great view of the St. Charles Bridge on our way back.

Click here for large version

The Prague Castle was one of the main focuses of our trip. We got up early on our second day and trekked up the hill to see it. The most enjoyable experience for me was viewing the interior of the St. Vitus Cathedral. It's a massive gothic style church with a glorious interior filled with Baroque sculptures and garnishes. It houses the tombs of all the old kings of Prague as well as the relics of St. Wenceslas, a legendary figure in Czech history. The castle is apparently the most expansive in all of Europe. It's more of a chateau than what you might think of as a castle but it was still quite spectacular. Inside we saw a room where apparently all sorts of events were held and on one side was a window that had an interesting bit of history about it. According to our guides, for a long time in Prague's history there was a peculiar tradition of "defenestrations" (throwing people out of windows) and this window was a favorite for such a task. The first of these defenestrations even began the breakout of the Hussite war, and it just kept happening after that. It got so popular, in fact, many officials that were "fired" and allowed to leave through the front door considered themselves lucky to be doing so.

Dresden is only a couple hours by train away from Prague. We got there in the late morning so we had plenty of time to explore the city. Completely destroyed by the Allies at the end of WWII, Dresden has been almost completely rebuilt based of photographs of the old structures. The parts of the city that survived the firebombing are clearly marked by their charred exteriors making it impossible to forget what happened here. Clearly the most incredible monument of the rebuilding campaign is the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady in German). After the bombardment only an exterior wall was left standing, but in 1993 after much promoting, it was decided to reconstruct it using original 1720's plans. The views below are from the top of its great tower and provides an astounding 360˚ view of the city.

One more quick anecdote about Dresden– and if you're reading the blogs of anyone else on the trip than you may already know about this one. On the day of our trip, there just so happened to be an unexpected stampede through the city... of Americans (and our Czech guides). Apparently, we were all a little confused about the departing time of our train back to Prague, so when we realized it left in five minutes while we were in the middle of Dresden 20 minutes from the train station, we decided to pick up our pace, and then we picked it up again and so on until eventually most of us were sprinting through intersections, crowds of people, and even a street breakdancing performance at one point. Unfortunately, we didn't make it, but fortunately we did make the next one 2 hours later and had an unscheduled pivo break in while we waited. Not bad for only our third week here.

Thanks for reading and more to come!

Trav