Well, we are back from 10 days touring around Eastern Europe. We got home Wednesday night and Friday morning, I went in to have the metal plate removed from my ankle....I'm now recovering and so I am finally able to sit down and write about our travels. I must say that the Swiss hospital experience is first class.....I really felt like I was in a 5 star hotel as I was ordering cappuccinos from room service, and being served gourmet meals. It was such a treat to be waited on for 2 days even if I was laid up with a hurt ankle! The US medical system needs to take a few lessons from the Swiss!
We set out 2 weeks ago and flew to Prague as the first stop in our journey. As I've said before, getting there is always the hardest part as we manage to use every form of transportation known to man......just to get to Prague we rode a tram to train to another train to a bus, then on the plane, then another bus, then the subway, then a long walk to our hotel. Phew! We were already exhausted!
I had been told by many of my friends that Prague was a real charmer. We found it to be so, although it was a bit overrun by touristy blown-glass shops, hordes of Japanese tour groups everywhere you looked, and no one seems to have gotten the message that smoking is bad for your health. To me, Eastern Europe always evoked a small amount of fear as if it was an unsafe place to be traveling, but we didn't find it particularly so. Of course nothing feels as safe as Zurich, and we still had to have our whits about us, but overall I would never discourage anyone from taking a trip there.
We found the famous Charles Bridge to be very beautiful as we strolled across it from the side of the river that our hotel was on, across to the Old Town. Old Town itself was very unique, and I can see how many people can find this town beautiful in it's own way. One night we had the opportunity to eat at the base of an old monastery on top of a hill that gave us views of the entire city. An evening overlooking Prague was great to experience, and even better there was a playground at the restaurant so that Chance could play and Ryan and I could enjoy each other's company.
Since we love coffee so much, we've now made it our mission to eat at every famous coffee house in each town that we visit. We've also been collecting sugar packets from each, and plan to display them somehow eventually. Strange fascination I know. Maybe Starbucks should hire me as a spokeswoman. We stumbled into a Czech grocery store and was quickly reminded how good I have it in Zurich.......at least here the food labels are in German, French and Italian, and so between the 3 languages I can usually make out what the label is saying. In Prague, the Czech language would be soooooo hard!
2.5 days in Prague and we were ready to leave. We were glad to have seen it, but it wasn't our favorite place to have visited and we were ready to move on to Vienna. In Vienna, I immediately noticed how 2 countries can be entirely different, especially seeing the contrast between Prague that has just been out from the communist rule for 13 years, and Vienna that never had been effected by it. The differences were immense, and it made me think that Prague was in desperate need of a face lift. They really have a long way to go but in 13 years, I am sure that they have made it quite far from where they begun.
Vienna was grandiose, elaborate, and reminded me much of Rome with all it's gold statues and 
water fountains. It was the seat of the Hapsburg Empire for hundreds of years, and the city really has tried to maintain that feeling. As I grew up riding horses, they are still a passion of mine, and I remember seeing the Lipizzaner stallions perform several times over the course of my childhood. The highlight of Vienna for me was that we got to attend one of their practices, as the Lipizzaner Spanish Riding School is housed in Vienna. It was fascinating to see how they trained the horses to perform to such a high standard as they do.
water fountains. It was the seat of the Hapsburg Empire for hundreds of years, and the city really has tried to maintain that feeling. As I grew up riding horses, they are still a passion of mine, and I remember seeing the Lipizzaner stallions perform several times over the course of my childhood. The highlight of Vienna for me was that we got to attend one of their practices, as the Lipizzaner Spanish Riding School is housed in Vienna. It was fascinating to see how they trained the horses to perform to such a high standard as they do. While in Vienna it was nice to be back in a city that spoke German, a language that we are becoming more familiar and comfortable with. Our Swiss influence really showed through however as one morning I ordered breakfast from a to-go counter in German and the man asked me where I was from - I guess the way I ordered was uniquely Swiss and so it was a dead give away that I was speaking more like Swiss German than High German. Who knew we were slowly becoming Swiss! Vienna was small, and a quick hour walk through the city we had seen most all of it. The Imperial Palace dominated much of the landscape. The last day there we spent almost the whole day at the Schunbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence of the Hapsburg Families. We spent the morning exploring the grounds and getting lost in the labyrinth, and of course we took the tour of the imperial rooms which begins to get a little boring toward the end.
Onward to Budapest as the next stop in the tour. I underestimated the size of this city.....HUGE. We felt as if we spent half of our days in the metro underground getting from one place to the next. Food was cheap and we enjoyed having a taste of the heavy and hearty Hungarian meals. The most interesting place in Budapest I found to be the House of Terror, which was the former headquarters of both the Nazi and Soviet communists during their respective rules of Budapest. It housed a museum creatively showing the effects of both regimes on Hungary and housed a recreation of a prison that was once in the basement. Great history lesson, as I really was unaware of how much the Nazi's and Soviets effected so many other countries besides Germany and Russia. For lunch we made it to the Great Market Hall, a center for trade for hundreds of years. We bought some famous Hungarian paprika and tried to stay clear of the popular goose liver. We then walked down the famous shopping street, known to be open even under communist rule (like a little taste of capitalism for the oppressed people), and then ended up at another famous coffee shop to drink a cappuccino and collect a sugar packet. Budapest had a little piece of paradise.......found on Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube......a lush little island which was mainly just park space. We tried out the infamous bathes there, enjoying some swimming. It was much like a water park, equipped with a fun wave pool that Chance loved, and many other pools with fountains all at different temperatures. Chance really enjoyed swimming again.
Last on our trip was Bratislava, which was the winner of all 4 for us. Super charming, the tiny old town looked like a movie set. We lucked out and our apartment that we rented was in the center of the old town and overlooked the church and castle. There wasn't much to do in the city but it was a nice reprieve from so much sightseeing and traveling. Food was so cheap and we just enjoyed going from one cafe to another.....eating, eating and eating. Good thing we were walking so much. I'd highly recommend Bratislava!!
So looking back on our trip, we've learned several things: 10 days is just a little too long for Chance to be out of a routine, it's a little hard on all of us. And most importantly, we've decided it's better to pay a little extra for a room closer to the city center! I'm incorporating this in to our next trip. Lastly, we learned how lucky we are to be living in Zurich......we picked it so blindly and really lucked out!
