Month: January 2018

Flying … Prague to Paris

Paris to Hong Kong

Hong Kong to Melbourne

36 or so hours.

Dark, light, light, dark.

Breakfast when it felt like dinner time.

Dinner when it felt like the middle of the night.

Dark when it felt like midday.

Melbourne Airport – Uber – home.

Midnight.

Bed.

Nine hours later I’m back at work.

******

I’d been worried that I’d hate the cold, that I’d be so cold I wouldn’t enjoy myself, that the cold would see me reluctant to head outside, and whinge vociferously if I did.

But I actually loved it. It wasn’t so cold that I couldn’t function; Tim had bought so many winter-in-Europe appropriate clothes that I wasn’t ever very cold; my fur-lined boots meant my feet were always warm (and dry); my borrowed coat was perfect; the addition of buffs to our wardrobe was a master stroke of stylish fashion meets practical warmth; and I came to enjoy those times when it was cold and/or raining.

That’s not to say I’m now going to enjoy winter in Melbourne. Not unless we get proper heating and weather-insulating features common to European houses/apartments.

But in Europe the cold made sense to me. It fitted in a way it’s never fitted in Australia; especially at Christmas.

And, I have to say, I wouldn’t be reluctant to go back in winter.

Pátek 5 Leden 2018

Guest post by Tim Moss

By Prague standards it’s still early when we meet Darko outside our apartment at 10am; the air is still fresh and cold enough to fog our reintroductions, although these aren’t strictly required. Darko is every bit as welcoming and warm as we had anticipated, giving the distinct impression that he is a man very much engaged in doing what he loves: meeting people, and sharing stories and time together.

As we discover on the way to Kutná Hora (it’s about an hour from Prague, or at least it’s an hour with Darko’s efficient, precise, and fast – very fast – driving style), Darko is himself an import to Prague, born in Macedonia and relocating 14 years ago, frustrated with the difficulties of trying to attract tourists into fractured countries. The Czech Republic seems to genuinely suit him, and he it, and he speaks of the Czech people with a fondness and familiarity. He’s a wonderful host; we find breakfast and water waiting for us in his comfortable and modern van, and we learn about his daughter, who is still new to skiing but can swim better than just about any other child in Prague (thanks to Mediterranean summers), his business (how he holds an ambition of one day working full-time in Kutná Hora, leaving Prague to a colleague), and some of the people he’s met. Needless to say, time passes quickly in his company, and we arrive at our first stop, the Sedlec Ossuary.

Darko tells us something of the history of the place, and how earth gathered in the middle east was scattered here, as it was believed to be the driest soil in the world and thus excellent at returning bodies to their most base materials in no time. People lined up to be buried here, and with plague and war both close to hand, it was a long line. Bodies and their component bones piled up in the ossuary for many years, until in the 19th century, a carpenter was employed to “do something” with all of the bones. He did, and what resulted is something of a unique fusion of display, respect, pomp, macabre sideshow, and religious offering. There are sculptures, piles and pyramids, threaded columns of spine, skull, and hip bones, and a chandelier containing at least one of every bone that can be found in the human body. The sculptor even signed his name on the wall. Using bones. I’m not sure how I felt about all this; I think a strange, unresolvable mixture of awe, shock, revulsion, and appreciation. Maybe that was the intention all along.

The place begins to fill up as one and then another large coach pulls in and disgorges loads of onlookers. Darko’s approach is more in tune with our own; some brief facts and points to note, and then he removes himself while we “make photos”, joining him outside for our next stop. This is the pattern across the day, and it is well-practised and orchestrated. Darko has clearly rehearsed this tour; it seems effortless as we move to our next location (the Church of the Assumption, still in Sedlec), hear some interesting points about how the church was designed somewhat too ambitiously (taking so long to finish and costing so much money that it had really outlived its necessity by the time it was completed), “make photos”, and then find Darko waiting outside with our van, ready to move to the next location.

Next is Kutná Hora itself, a fascinating and well-preserved (in fact still quite busy and fully-functioning) city that at one stage looked set to challenge Prague for the status of capital of Bohemia. There’s a sense of wealth behind the place; I’m reminded of gold rush towns in Australia, where there are giant, solid, opulent architectural examples that hint at a past that was considerably larger than the present, or indeed the future.

Kutná Hora had modest beginnings, as the site of a monastery, until one day, taking a much-needed break, one of the monks put his feet up on a rock, scuffed the side, and discovered silver. Fast forward just a little, and Kutná Hora was gripped by what Darko called “silver fever”, with tens of thousands of people both above and under ground working the mines (in dangerous conditions, almost total darkness, and caverns constantly at risk of collapse or flooding) and creating wealth and status and lives. In places, it’s a beautiful town, and Darko points out the fusion of Gothic and Baroque architecture that seems to dominate the town itself.

Much of the Gothic architecture is gone as residents decided the style looked horribly dated and so conducted ‘extreme renovations’ to update their properties to the Baroque style (Sedlec Ossuary was similarly updated in somewhat disastrous style, as the cement poured to fill in the Gothic windows has so overloaded the structure that it seems to be collapsing in on itself, putting at risk the unique treasures of the basement described above). As we stroll the streets, Darko gives us a sense of life in the town, and some of the colourful personalities and exploits of the past (we are fascinated to hear of the jeweller who specialised entirely in making jewellery for the many statues of Kutná Hora, and indeed for the wider region – the Czechs do love their statues!). We see grandiose buildings and churches constructed with ambition and prestige in mind, such as a palace constructed so that the king could relocate from Prague (he politely declined, but did make use of the palace as the royal mint so at least the place didn’t go to ruin). After our delightful walk, we have lunch in a traditional Czech restaurant, and Sharon’s meal of svickova na smetae (a kind of stew with beef, cream, and cranberries) looked extraordinary and (I’m led to believe) tasted even better.

After lunch, to “aid our digestion” we walk to the largest of the three churches in the area, St Barbora’s Cathedral.

It seems too large, too grand, too ambitious for Kutná Hora, and indeed from the information we’re given it probably was.

Again, this was an effort to trump Prague’s efforts at communicating with and celebrating God; unfortunately the silver, and thus the money, ran out (several times) before the cathedral could be finished, and so it sat as a fixer-upper for several hundred years, only really being completed in the 20th century.

Even then, completion really involved chopping off about a third of the plans and just putting up a wall instead and calling it done.

Still, as we learnt in Venice, apparently the architects of these great cathedrals always had a ready-made excuse for any alterations and compromises in their completion, because “only God can create perfection”. We take a little time to learn about the various chapels, make a few photos, and then head out, to find Darko waiting with the van again, already running and warm inside. He’s even restocked our fruit and water supplies.

It’s later than expected when we arrive back in Prague, and we decide we’re too tired (and still full from our traditional – in both taste and size – Czech lunch) to head out in the evening. It’s an early start again tomorrow – we’ll see Darko in another 12 hours for our airport drop off!

 

Domenica 31 Dicembre 2017

Tim has a penchant for supermarkets. He found a few in Paris he quite liked, although his favourite was M&S because they had a lot of English food and English food means he can read the labels and therefore avoid the nasty things that would make our trip most unpleasant.

But there is no M&S in Venice, so he had to battle through lists of unfamiliar ingredients to find products safe to eat. It’s the sort of challenge he takes seriously – and, what’s more, the kind of challenge he enjoys. He manages just fine though and returns with unfamiliar but safe foodstuffs. (More on the exciting topic of grocery shopping later – I bet you can’t wait!)

We make our way to Ponte dell’Accdemia where we meet Vinnie. He’s our photo walk tour guide for the morning and I won’t say anymore except that we had a fabulous time wandering through parts of Venice we’d never have found ourselves. Of course there are so many bridges and canals it’s hard not to take the sorts of shots that Venice is famous for.

Here are some photos I took along the way …

Samstag 30 Dezember 2017

We ate a huge breakfast as it’d be our only meal till tonight, then hopped on a tram for a quick spin around the city. We hopped off at a deserted outer suburban stop and hopped on another one going in a different direction.

Fortunately it was going in a direction we needed to go in.

We checked the board when we arrived at the train station – conveniently located across the road from our hotel – to discover our train was 10 minutes ritardo. We had 40 minutes to change trains in Milan, so still do-able.

This train was slower than other ones we’d traveled on in France and England, and stopped much more frequently. At each stop we became a little more ritardo, and there was mention of technical issues.

In between stops though we travelled through snow-covered landscapes and mountains in the distance that are far bigger than mountains back home.

I was glad to be travelling by train and not hiking!

At Monza we had a 30 minute delay (unspecified and ongoing ‘technical issues’ apparently) – Tim started investigating other options for getting to Venice from Milan, but we arrived in Milan with five minutes to run from platform two to platform five – plenty of time!

A steward came around offering free drinks and biscuits – but my Italian is so bad that I smiled politely and he moved on. After, I might add, an extended conversation with the three other people in my four-seater compartment (Tim was in the one next door – weird seat numbering), where I think they talked about the Australian sitting amongst them too stupid to learn some Italian for her long-awaited return to Venice.

Venice, and one more means of transport today … trams in Basel, trains through Switzerland and Italy, vaporetto in Venice.

Thankfully our huge breakfast had sustained us. Even more thankfully that there was a kebab shop next to our apartment because if we’d had to go further afield to search for food things might have started to get ugly!

Yes, even more ugly than a crowded kebab shop late on a Saturday night where the only option for eating in was standing at a small though tall red plastic table. Not our finest gourmet experience, it has to be said!

Vendredi 29 Decembre 2017

It’s with great reluctance we say au revoir to our Bastille loft this morning. It really has been a great place to come back to each evening – so spacious and warm and comfortable.

But we’re heading east to see yet another city in yet another country and so saying au revoir is inevitable. We can certainly see ourselves coming back though!

We decide to walk to Gare Lyon – it isn’t far and it’s an opportunity to see a different part of the city. There’s no passport and security checks here as there was when going to the UK and that certainly makes the beginning of our next train trip much more pleasant and stress free.

Without any fuss we’re heading off through the suburbs. Ludovico Einaudi provides the soundscape once more – the exquisite delicacy of the piano in Run is a fine counterpoint to the industrial nature of the cityscape flashing past outside. The trains are so comfortable and roomy and the leisurely nature of train travel (despite hitting a top speed of 320kms per hour) makes moving from one place (city or country) to another a seamless experience that has a certain rhythm and flow – an experience I particularly enjoy.

We are heading to Venice but have decided to stay overnight in Basel, a city sitting almost at the juncture of Switzerland, Germany, and France. If we’d had more time we’d have stood on that spot of confluence, but our time was short and the helpful man at the tourist centre gave us loads of ideas for things to see in Basel itself.

We had designed it as a stop over only, but found it a lovely place to visit. The old town is gorgeous – and that’s where we were when it snowed a little (amazingly exciting experience – so amazing I made a video). We wandered through the old town, watched large groups of young Swiss people dance outside the Cathedral with some nuns, were carried over the Rhine on a boat connected to a wire (which stops it floating off in the current), wandered through the Christmas market, were amazed by the redness of the Rathaus, came across a food van selling spinat borek so had to try one (delicious), bought some Swiss chocolate for a colleague of Tim’s (which he ate, so he had to buy some more!), and miraculously found our way back to the hotel (well, when I say miraculously I really mean ‘thanks Google maps’) where we drank tea like the posh people around us and listened to the piano player, trying not to doze as that would have seemed rude.

I sat there thinking how fortunate we are to have this experience – to spend even small amounts of time in other cities, to see different cultures, to experience different ways of life. And to know that I can handle the cold – and not whinge about it! Not even once 😜.

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Anyone would think I hadn’t seen snow before! Well, I haven’t had it fall on me before and certainly not in a town!!