It was a lovely sunny day, with the temperature near 20 Celsius. Apparently this is the first really nice day of spring this year, and it felt like the sunshine brought everyone out onto the street. We used the day to just walk around outside and take in the city. We started by walking over the bridge into the old city.
And then we just wandered, taking in the architecture.
We headed south into Sodermalm, eventually ending up on a hilltop providing lovely views of Stockholm. The warm weather, and sensible liquor licensing laws, brought people up onto the hill where many groups were enjoying chatting with friends while sharing a glass of Prosecco. Very civilized.
Views of Stockholm
More walking is planned for Saturday, as it will be sunny again. Sunday won’t be quite as nice, so that will likely be a day for museums.
Yesterday was a travel day, flying from Budapest to Stockholm. The experience nicely illustrates why I don’t entirely miss traveling for business. If things can go wrong, they will go wrong. And of course, they obviously can go wrong. But in the end, you muddle through and it more of less works out – as long as you remain calm.
Shortly before landing in Stockholm
We had a tight connection through Frankfurt. Our plane was delayed coming into Budapest, so we were delayed getting away. That changed a tight connection into a very tight connection, but we were assured we were okay. We would be met at the gate by an agent who would expedite our transfer to our next flight. And it almost worked too. But it appears our late arrival meant our scheduled gate wasn’t available, and we were sent to a “non-Schengen” gate. Why is that significant? We’ll, if we de-planed using a jetway, we would need to clear customs, which is definitely not the way to make a quick connection. So a bus took us to a Schengen gate … after everyone was off the plane. And even with all the confusion, we almost made it. As we were being shuttled to Lufthansa customer service, we came within 10 meters of our plane … just close enough to wave as it was pulling away. Then things got interesting. I received a notice that we had been rebooked … for the next day … with a 7:00 AM departure … which meant having to be up before 4:00 AM. That was the low point of the day. But it turned out the human agent (rather than the automated booking program) could put us on a 4:00 PM flight the same day, which had us in Stockholm in time for dinner.
The view while walking to dinner
So in the end, everything worked out. We are looking forward to the next few days in Stockholm.
We had a tour of the castle on the Buda side on Sunday, but that time we took a bus to the base of the hill. Today we decided to walk from our hotel, then climb up the steps to the castle complex. All told, we walked about 10 km, so we felt we earned our wine with dinner. The first interesting sight we saw along the way was a church with a tiled roof. It wasn’t the tiled roof that made it stand out, but the fact that it was a Protestant church. I think it was the first one we’ve seen on this trip.
Protestant Church – with yet another tiled roof
When we got to the top of the hill we spotted a restaurant in the Fisherman’s Bastion. It had lovely views over the river and a window table that was just coming free. We took it and had a lovely lunch overlooking the Danube.
Lunch With a View
After lunch we walked around the outside of the castle complex. On Sunday we stayed mainly in the central area, but once you get a little off the beaten path you find interesting details. We’ve seen many tiled roofs this week, but most of them have been on churches. This wasn’t – I think it was the archives. But it was very beautiful, no matter what it was.
Half of the walk around the castle complex is planted in cherry trees, and they are in full bloom now. In this case our timing was perfect.
Cherry Blossoms
The petals are beginning to fall, coating the ground with something that looks a little like snow or hail, but is far more pleasant. I definitely prefer this.
And then we headed down the hill to the Danube. This picture gives you a sense of how far down we had to come – and how far up we had to go to get there in the first place. If you zoom in on this picture, near the statue on the top of the walls you can see tiny people. That is where we were 20 minutes earlier.
As we headed back to the Pest side of the city, we spotted a monument that we’d first seen at breakfast as we sailed into Budapest. It was the perfect angle, almost making it look as if the saint (it has to be a saint, right?) was summoning the heavens…
It’s a good final image of Budapest. Tomorrow we fly to Stockholm.
We took it easy today, mostly just walking around Budapest and enjoying the lovely spring weather. We began by heading up towards Hero’s Square. Along the way, we came across this, which certainly qualifies as an interesting use for a car.
An Unusual Flower Planter
After arriving at the Hero’s Square, we started walking down the boulevard heading toward the Danube. We stopped for a delightful light lunch, sitting outside in the sunshine. Lunch was delicious, and the price was amazingly reasonable. After lunch, we continued walking toward the Danube, eventually passing by the Terror Museum. It appears that the name is designed to be seen from the air.
We decided against spending the afternoon in the museum (you really need to be in the right frame of mind for that), but we did look at the installations in front of the museum. One was a piece of the Berlin Wall.
Continuing down the street, we came across many statues, most of them with swords. Here is a fairly typical one.
The buildings seem to have a mix of architectural styles that can only be described as “eclectic”. Here are two examples near each other, along the boulevard, that give a sense of what I mean.
On our way back to the hotel we walked through St. Stephen’s Square. I could show you a picture of the cathedral, but … a cathedral is just a cathedral. But the decorative paving stones in front of the cathedral were far more interesting (to me) so I’ll show those instead.
We disembarked today and took a taxi to our hotel, since we will spend a few more days in Budapest. We considered walking – it was only 15-20 minutes to the hotel, but we had our luggage, and we thought there might be cobblestones, which can complicate things. Bad call. The taxi took us on a very scenic (and by “scenic” I mean long and roundabout) route to the hotel. In the end, what should have been a 5 minute taxi ride was more like 15-20 minutes. A lesson for next time. It was before noon and our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our luggage and went for a walk around Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube.
Hooded CrowsGarden Star-of-Bethlehem
Our guide yesterday told us that locals measure their fitness by how many times they run around Margaret Island – rather than kilometers they use “Margarets”. We completed one lap – almost 6 km. By the time we finished, our room was ready. We unpacked, and then went for lunch at a lovely Belgian pub just around the corner from our hotel.
Kwak – yummy
After a short afternoon rest we went for a walk past the parliament buildings.
Yesterday I showed a picture of the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial, but I missed this plaque providing more context.
The buildings in this part of the city aren’t as pretty as some of the areas we saw yesterday, but there are some interesting examples, though they do seem to be a mix of architectural styles.
It was rainy and cold for much of our river cruise, but today was sunny and hot. Our hotel has air conditioning, but we discovered that it hasn’t been turned on because it isn’t hot enough yet. Some of us beg to differ, but there isn’t much we can do other than open the hotel window (fortunately that was possible). We had eaten far too much on the cruise, so we had a light snack and wine in our room, looking out at the architecture on the Pest side of the city.
The view from our room
We also had a view of a theatre just down the street from our hotel, and as it grew darker, the scene was quite grand.
Our river cruise is coming to an end with our arrival in Budapest early today. We spent the day getting an introduction to the city and its history. And we learned how the city’s name should be pronounced. I’ll give you a hint – the name doesn’t rhyme with “pest”. The name ends with a sound more like “pescht”. Before we could see the city, we had to climb more steps…
One of the first things we saw on our walking tour was a building with a horse theme – a lot of the statues echo that theme, to be honest. But the most noteworthy thing about it was that it was entered into a “roof contest” and it won for the best roof. Who knew there was even such a thing.
An Award Winning Roof
And of course there was a cathedral. Tiled roofs appear to be a thing here. Very pretty.
The tower in the next picture is black, which is a bit unusual. Apparently there are two reasons for this. The first is that it is supported by the roof trusses, and if it was made of stone, the weight would make it collapse, so it is made of copper covered wood. The other reason is that the bell in the tower is rung at funerals, so black seems an appropriate colour.
From the castle heights we had lovely views over the city.
We had some free time to walk around so we went looking for a coffee shop. Along the way we spotted this roof. I was fascinated by the way the tiles curved over the windows.
And then it was coffee and pastries.
Our tour guide told us that Hungarians have a long history of picking the loosing side in wars, so they never win. This is apparently a statue honoring a battle that they “almost won”. There must be an interesting story there, so I’ll have to look into it.
There were many statues, so I’ll give you a tiny sample. Starting with the first king, then the leaders of the seven founding tribes, and finally one honoring the common people.
On a more somber note, I’ll leave you with a memorial to holocaust victims. The shoes are from actual victims, though they have been bronzed. Each pair of shoes represents 100,000 deaths. It is hard to comprehend.
We had a brief tour of Vienna this morning, with the rest of the day free to wander at our leisure. There is so much impressive architecture in Vienna that I’m not even going to try to cover it. Instead, I’ll give you a single teaser.
And of course, Vienna was once a Roman fort, so I have to include a small picture of that.
We already saw one St. Stephen’s cathedral this week, but I like this picture because of the way it shows such a wide range of architectures existing side by side.
The roof was destroyed in the war, but the restoration is true to the original. I like the pattern detail.
It had been a while since breakfast, and there wasn’t a lineup, so we couldn’t resist.
Sacher Torte at the Sacher Hotel
I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Natural History Museum, where I barely scratched the surface. The exhibit that I found most fascinating was their very impressive meteorite collection. They had hundreds, but here you can see some of the larger ones – over 1,000 KG.
We woke up this morning to find that it was going to be rainy (97% chance of precipitation) and cold (3 degrees Celsius).
We had been booked to take the Durnstein walking tour, but decided we weren’t all that interested in getting stuck walking in the rain. So we walked on our own up to the Melk Abbey. We still had to walk in the rain, but we had the option of heading back anytime we wanted.
Melk Benedictine Abbey
We had the option of touring the abbey museum and chapel, but we opted instead to walk through the very extensive abbey gardens. I know, I know. I said we wanted to avoid the rain, but the rain was very light, the gardens looked intriguing, we didn’t have time to do the museum justice, and I’ve already shown you far too many pictures of chapels. And with the rain, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
Abbey Gardens in Melk
The gardens were a fascinating combination of areas for quiet contemplation, zen gardens, picnic areas, scenic views over the Danube, flower beds, and many, many pieces of modern art. These bird statues were amazing – equal parts mesmerizing and disturbing. Almost like something from an Edgar Allan Poe book or a Tim Burton movie.
Believe it or not, this was less than half of the statues. I found it difficult to stop taking pictures. There were also many other art attractions.
The Zen Gardens
And of course, so many trees with quiet paths to walk along.
270 Year Old Linden Trees
The tulips were just beginning to bloom. In a week or so, it will be gorgeous.
Today we decided to take the Passau Castle hike which involved hiking through the old town, then up the side of the hill to the castle, which dates back to at least 1499. This picture gives you an idea of the scale of the hike up stone steps that snake back and forth up the side of the cliff.
Passau Castle
We learned that most of the windows on the castle aren’t actually windows – they are painted onto the walls to add visual interest without compromising defense.
The view from the top is stunning. Passau is called the “City of Three Rivers” because … you guessed it … three rivers meet here. This pictures shows the three rivers meeting. The colour of the water is different for each river because of where they originate. Look closely at the water, and you should be able to see the three colours – black, to blue, to green.
Three rivers come together
It also provides excellent views of the old city.
Passau Old City
In medieval Passau, the colour of a house told people the trade of the occupant. Fisherman houses were blue, butchers were red, green grocers were green … you get the idea. One reason for this is that very few people could read, so signs weren’t always useful. The colour coding no longer applies, but the owners still need to maintain the legacy colour of the house. This picture clearly shows the various colours.
To give you an idea of the hike up to the castle, here is a look at the steps on the way down.
We had almost an hour before the boat was setting sail, so we wandered through the old city to look at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. I know I said that I don’t often post pictures from inside cathedrals, but I once again, couldn’t resist. Passau is a city of about 50,000, but it has 54 churches, 51 of them Roman Catholic. So it seemed you couldn’t really say you’d seen Passau if you didn’t visit at least one church. The outside of this cathedral is interesting because even though it is Roman Catholic, it has “onion domes” typically associated with Easter Orthodox churches.
We went inside to see the organ, which is the largest pipe organ, in a church, in the world. Almost 18,000 pipes.
Pipe Organ
Once I was inside, I couldn’t resist showing a picture of the gold plated chancel, where the bishop would preach. Having been built at a time when the people in the parish were very poor, I will admit to being a little bothered by this display of extreme wealth.
Golden ChancelSt. Stephen’s Cathedral
I’ll close with a picture of the local wildlife, brought out by this week’s rain.
We had a couple of options for tours today. One of them involved beer tasting, so guess which one I picked. We started with a local Sausage shop where we had a sandwich made with Regensburg sausages. Apparently every town and village in Germany has their own distinctive type of sausage, and every one of them claims that theirs is the best. For a bit of added character, the back wall of the sausage shop is part of the medieval city walls.
City wall from 1320
And then we visited one of Regensburg’s breweries. We were told it was one of many in the city.
Hefeweizen Pilsner Dunkles Weizen
For the record, these weren’t full size beers, just tasters. After our beer tasting, we were treated to pralines – very tasty. On our way back to teh boat we passed the old stone bridge, which is one of the Regensburg landmarks
Stone Bridge in Regensburg
We had excellent views from the bridge.
I get the definite sense that work, order, and timeliness have been very important here for some time. It seems that one is never far from a clock tower where you can check the time. I did find it interesting that even though Roman numerals were used on the clocks, the number four was shown as IIII rather than IV. I’m sure there is a story behind this, but I haven’t found it yet. If anyone knows the reason, please do let me know.
We are on a river cruise, but the first two days the boat was more like a floating hotel – it hardly moved at all. But this evening things finally got underway, and we sailied along the river during dinner. There will be a lot more over the next few days.
If It Was Today... 