One Night in Wien

For most of my Uber ride from the hotel to the Bratislava central station today, the song on the radio was One Night in Bangkok. Which couldn't have been more perfect a theme to send me off for my overnight stay in Vienna.

When I was planning my trip, I wanted to go from Bratislava to Krakow, but you can't fly direct and the trains are all way too long and/or require a stop at some small town in between. I finally determined that a stop in Vienna was the smart way to go, even though I wasn't particularly convinced one way or the other about this city when I visited it last. On visit number two, my impressions are about the same. It's a city. The stuff worth seeing is so overrun with tourists as to be almost a theme park, but DAMN this place is beautiful. Just effing gorgeous everywhere you look.

So early this afternoon, after a brief (but hot, no AC, and the weather continues to emulate the pits of Hell) train ride, I arrived in Vienna and headed out to make something of my short time here. My hotel is right on one corner of the Stadtpark, so I started by taking a walk across it, soaking up a nice dose of nature, and occasional shade, en route to Albertina. On the way, I stopped in briefly at Annakirche, which is nothing much to look at from the outside, but if you step inside, you'll find a very pretty church in active use.

But Albertina was the star of the show. It's an old Habsburg palace turned into a museum of art and Habsburg domestic life, and I loved it. The staterooms featuring how the House of Austria may have lived there were fine, but even with all their ornate gold and crystal, they paled in comparison to the art.  While everyone else was gaping at the Andy Warhols down the hall, I was falling in love with the work of Anselm Kiefer (my favourite of which is at right). It's an awesome collection. If you're a modern art lover and you find yourself in Vienna, GO TO ALBERTINA. Well worth the ticket price.

On the way out, I picked up a pack of note cards featuring works of Henri Matisse from his book Jazz. Because a) how fantastic are those prints?, b) I love stationery even though I don't remember the last time I mailed anyone a damn letter, and c) it was 50% off. Also, he was probably my gateway drug into the world of truly interesting modern art. As a dancer growing up, everyone was always pushing the Degas ballerinas or some kind of soft Monet lily on me, but when I was 14 I got a poster of a Matisse from his cut-out phase and stuck it up on my bedroom wall next to the rock bands. And I had totally forgotten about it until relatively recently when I was in a museum and saw the original in front of me.

But I digress. After my art viewing, I walked outside and realised that the statue out front looked familiar. In fact, it's in one of my photos from the last time I was here, with Jody. As I continued my walk back, I passed a fountain we paused to view, a souvenir shop we failed to buy something in, and even the Strauss statue we both Instagrammed. It was a bit of deja vu, since we were also here in August, it was also meltingly hot, and we stayed just on the opposite corner of the Stadtpark. So as I enjoy the cool of my (city view! check it out!) hotel room tonight, I'm remembering how we spent our evenings last time: escaping the heat indoors, Jody drinking his Almdudler (Austria's favourite soft drink) and teaching me the basics he remembered from German class.

Wo ist Dame Zwei? Österreich! 
(For one night only!)

Bratislava

As my only full day in Bratislava ends, I have a slight sunburn and am overly tired from the heat, but I think I did okay seeing the town.

My first order of business today was to hit the drugstore around the corner and pick up some sunblock, which I forgot to pack, and which has been desperately needed to keep me from completely bursting into flames the last 3 days. Unfortunately, even SPF 50 wasn't enough to last all day in the August heat. The temperature while I was out was 33 C (around 92 F), which is good weather for nothing but being in a climate-controlled building.

Anyway. After applying my newly acquired sunscreen liberally, I took a walk down to the Slovak National Gallery, which houses an interesting collection of random art. Sadly, only 2 floors were open today -- one of the closed ones was an exhibit on Slovak fashion that I really wanted to see -- so I enjoyed the small amount that I saw, but was a bit underwhelmed and didn't spend long wandering through.

After my art viewing, I crossed the road and walked along the Danube for a while, my second visit to its shores this week. I must say, in both cases it has been pretty green, and I have to declare Johann Strauss a liar. One of the bridges across it is the Most SNP, which was built in the 1970s and looks like a concrete Socialist mini-Space Needle. But on a bridge. I read that the prices to go to the viewing deck were ridiculous, though, so I decided against visiting the tower and kept walking.

From there I wandered in the Old Town a bit and stopped at St Martin's Cathedral, which is under renovation, but still had some very picturesque angles. And then I started up the climb to Castle Hill. I don't know what makes me suddenly feel like being a tourist when it's a million degrees out and there are a thousand stairs to climb, but it just keeps happening. So I made my way up to Bratislava Castle, and view did not disappoint. The Castle was okay, but the views over the city are the real reason to endure the climb.

I spent quite some time wandering around, seeing everything on Castle Hill, and then slowly meandered back down to spend a lot more time just shopping and generally checking things out in Old Town. It's clear that it's a very touristy area, but it's also bustling and has a lot of interesting little shops. In general, the buildings in Bratislava remind me of Prague, in that it's a mix of shabby and beautiful, no matter where you go. But also in that it's just a cool city, not too expensive, and has a lot of good stuff to see.

At this point in the day, I was planning to head to a restaurant that had been suggested that I try, but after walking for hours, I was overheated and sweaty, and my feet hurt from wearing my (normally very comfortable for walking) sandals with thin leather soles on the jagged rock paths of Castle Hill. But more importantly, I wasn't hungry. So I decided to head back to the hotel just to clean up and and cool off in the air conditioning, before going out to eat later.

Well, here I am at nearly midnight and I haven't made it any further than the drinks terrace 2 floors below my room. But in my defense, it's so comfy in here. And so air conditioned. I'm okay with missing out on a big Slovak feast for dinner, because I think my day was generally a success.

So my evening may have been lazy, but I didn't miss anything I really wanted to see, I tried yet another delicious local rosé, and ya know what? I haven't sweated or climbed any stairs for hours. So I feel good about it.

Budapest

My visit to Budapest was too short, and went too fast. So fast that I'm just now getting a chance to sit and pull my thoughts together about the city, and I'm no longer there. As I write this, I'm in a nice boutique hotel in Bratislava -- my second stop along the Danube River this trip -- sipping a Slovak wine and listening to old Take That hits. By the way, I had no idea that Hungarian and Slovak wines were a thing I should seek out, but I've tried 3 different local rosés so far, and they've all been lovely. Who knew?

Anyway. Budapest. I'd been meaning to get there for a few years, but had never managed to fit it into the travel schedule. Then when it became clear I wouldn't be able to use my ticket for the Robbie Williams show in Edinburgh this June, the Budapest stop on his tour became a perfect excuse to plan a trip. Of course, I never spend more than a couple of days in any single place when I travel (god / Elvis forbid I actually relax and sit still for 5 minutes), so Budapest was just the first of a few stops on a two week journey.

I arrived at my hotel on the edge of the Józsefváros part of town -- supposedly a rough area at night, but I never saw or felt any indication of that -- at around 8pm on Tuesday, after about 20 hours of travel. It could have been shorter, I'm sure, but I took British Airways through Heathrow because I'm addicted to my gold member perks. But even with perks, I can't sleep on airplanes, so I was too exhausted to do anything but eat, watch some TV, and pass out for the night, with my alarm set nice and early to make the best of Wednesday. Ah, the best laid plans. 

My jet lag and I got out of bed, very well rested, just before noon on Wednesday, leaving only a few hours to sight-see before it was time for Rob and Erasure. Because of that, I got out the old guidebook and found a few places to visit within walking distance. First, I walked across the Liberty Bridge over the Danube, and up to the Cave Church, aka a lot of other things, including the Gellért Hill Cave or Gellérthegyi Barlang. Essentially, it's a chapel carved into the side of the mountain, and the main entrance looks like a cave. Very cool. Then after taking a photo of the statue of St Stephen outside (he's a big deal in Bupapest, apparently), I started ascending the winding paths and stairs up Gellért Hill.

After making a few stops for photos of the views, I determined I was only halfway to the Citadel and Liberation Monument that I could see up top... and that I wasn't going any further. Between the hot day and my bad knees, I'd touristed enough. My trusty, rusty Fitbit indicated that I'd already been up the equivalent of 20 flights of stairs when I gave up, so I officially take issue with the place being called a hill and stand by my decision to quit while I could still use my joints well enough to get back down.

I descended the same way I went up, then took a walk on flat ground, along the front side of the Cave Church and the monastery which accompanied it, down to the other end of the hill (mountain). There I found a gigantic statue of St Gellért himself, above a waterfall, giant crucifix in hand, looming over me as I crossed the Elisabeth Bridge. Back on the other side of the Danube, lunch, a bit of shopping, and a stop at the hotel awaited me before the night's entertainment. 

I won't get into fangirl mode over Robbie here, but I will say that the Groupama Arena is a great stadium, and the show was fantastic. Erasure sounded perfect, and I never knew that they don't bring a band on tour... it's just Vince Clark back there with his electronics and occasionally a guitar. Wow. 

Rob was his usual brilliant showman, but the crowd took a lot of the fun out of it. I'm too old to stand for hours, pressing my way through the standing section to get close enough to see, which means I pay for one of the front seated rows at these stadium gigs. But even so, when Let Me Entertain You blasts from the speakers, we all stand up, and stay there until the last note of Angels. We sing along. We dance. We cheer. And when Rob commands that we put our hands in the air, you can damn well bet that we do as we're told. This has been true in London (both times), Munich, and Barcelona. But not in Budapest. A small portion of the standing crowd played along, but everyone else just kind of listened politely and clapped once in a while. In other cities, Mr Williams will start the crowd singing Angels, and then just sit and listen... and we will sing the whole rest of the song. The Budapest crowd barely finished the lyric in progress when he went quiet. I don't get it. I assume it's a cultural thing. And I wasn't going to stand up and dance around and have a bunch of people shout at me in Hungarian that I was blocking their view. So even though the atmosphere was shite, as Jody might say, I enjoyed myself as always and was buzzing long after I got back to the hotel. 

Which meant that I pretty much just dragged myself out of bed and straight onto the train this morning, no more adventures. But now that I'm in the next city of my journey, well... to be continued...

Belfast

Three years or so ago, I had a conversation with Jody about our shared desire to visit Dublin. I had always planned that if I were to go to the Republic, that I'd also want to visit Northern Ireland, because the island can't be fully understood without seeing both. It went something like this:

"You are NOT going to Belfast. You'll get blown up."
"Maybe years ago. There's none of that anymore."
"Aye there is! I'll show you the news story from last week..."

So when Jody magically forgot about his unfound worry and asked if I'd like to join him here for a UFC event, I jumped at the chance.

We arrived yesterday at Belfast International Airport, which is well out of town, but got lucky in randomly being picked up by a good-natured taxi driver willing to give us a wee tour and a history lesson on the ride to our hotel.

He drove us through one of the areas most impacted by The Troubles, describing the bombings, the marches, and the police presence that had been there, in both long gone by and recent years. For much of the city, the division is represented by Shankill Road (the Protestant / Unionist portion) and Falls Road (the Catholic / Republican side). These two major streets run parallel and many of the cross streets have large gates in the middle that the police close at night in a symbolic attempt to keep the combatants apart. The incidents our driver described from recent years sounded less like the war waged in earlier times, and more like organised crime: things like coordinated control of businesses and transportation, beatings and intimidation. But while the tactics have shifted, the emotions and reasons behind it have not.

Our drive also took us by a few of the famous murals, beautifully turning events both proud and sad in the bloody sectarian battles to lasting art. Some of the murals near schools are being repainted by the children these days, in an attempt to help the battle lines blur and the hatred to turn to understanding. But of course kids are a product of the adults around them, so within this hope, there's also a resignation to the fact that you can only shrink the problem; it will never really go away.

The lesson ended with our arrival in the city centre, of which our taxi driving friend said, "It's like any city centre; no trouble, people just get on with it." And I've found that to be the case. Belfast is another enjoyable British city, with lovely people, and unwelcoming weather. Because it's been around freezing the whole time we've been here, Jody and I have tended to hole up where it's warm and not go out too much. I skipped the 20 minute walk to the Ulster Museum today, opting to stay nearby and instead visit the Titanic Memorial Garden, the (just opened for the year) Continental Christmas Market at City Hall, and the Victoria Square Shopping Centre... with just a quick break for a pint of Guinness at Fibber Magee's.

Now I'm back in the hotel room, keeping cosy and watching sports all night while Jody's off writing about a bunch of fighting that makes no sense to me. And we're both heading back out of town tomorrow, sadly.

Sure, there are reminders of Belfast's dangerous past here and there -- we can see the Europa Hotel, famously the most bombed hotel in Europe, from our window -- but generally there's a great spirit in this town. I'm glad I made it here, and I hope to get a chance to come back.

Zurich

Zurich makes me happy. Funny how Italy's leisurely culture made me feel angst and irritation, but the stereotypical land of punctuality and seriousness has me totally relaxed and contented.

The train ride here took 4 hours, almost exactly, and had some lovely Alpine mountain and lake scenery out the windows. Unfortunately, every time I got ready to take a photo, we'd pass a building or a bunch of trees, or go into a tunnel, and I'd miss it. A couple of times I just snapped away with my phone at random, and the results look like grim hills with a grey sky. Or a glowing sky because the clouds were so reflective. The one at right auto-adjusted the exposure so dark that it looks like it should be the cover of the next single by Modest Mussorgsky. So I guess I'll have to rely on my memory for the views. At least that way when I think I spotted a couple of glaciers in the distance, and saw some ibex grazing in a valley, there's no evidence to prove me right or wrong... so by default I'm right about what I saw.

Since I arrived in Zurich, I haven't done a whole lot. The downtown area is all easily walkable, so mostly I've just done that. I checked my guidebook when I got settled last night, but it informed me that all the museums are closed on Mondays, and I was too late to get into them before closing time Sunday. So there wasn't much left but to enjoy the city.

And enjoy it I have. It's so refreshing to be in a bustling city, to have busy people, going about their daily lives, doing their jobs, and being happy because this is a good place to live, not a good place to laze around on vacation. It's exactly the kind of place I like. People are in a hurry. The food is good, and made to be taken on the go. And nobody wants to talk to me or sell me anything. They couldn't care less what I'm up to. I love it here.

Today I took a good long walk all around downtown, took some photos along the water -- I don't know exactly which water... all of the water, there's a lot of lake/river/whatever-front in this town -- and then just sat and relaxed. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book, feeling the nice cool breeze, listening to the trams go by. And it was fantastic.

I have very little planned for tonight, and then tomorrow it's flights back to Seattle and real life.

I don't have the stamina for solo travel that I used to; I still love it, but I tire of it much more quickly now than I used to. I guess Jody's just made me more homey in general. So I'm glad that just as I was getting worn out with this trip, Zurich managed to recharge me.

(Too Sexy for) Milan

OK, the title's clearly not true, but the stupid song has been in my head since I got here, and I couldn't resist.

Right before I left Edinburgh, Jody and I watched an episode of The Ricky Gervais Show in which Karl Pilkington said that if he could be any nationality, he'd be Italian, because it's so much more of a laid-back lifestyle. In England everyone's rushing around, but in Italy you can sit outside a café all day and nobody thinks it's at all strange.

Maybe that's why I'm not loving it here. I don't want to sit outside cafés all day. I like rushing around. When I first started travelling, I didn't have a lot of money, so I did it as cheaply as possible. I'd go out and walk around seeing the sights that didn't charge admission, and all my food would come from the supermarket. Or maybe some cheap takeaway, but I'd never spend time sitting around a restaurant, lazing over a meal. And it suited me. It's how I still like to travel. Maybe it's just habit, but I think it's more that it's just how I am. I may stay in nicer hotels now, but I still eat on the cheap, and I'll still only pay for admission to something I really want to see, which isn't much.

So Italy, I'm just not that into you. I don't want to go out to a café for proper coffee, I just want a quick cup of instant in my hotel room, to give me enough caffeine to start the day. I don't want to sit around slowly eating a big meal and sipping wine for hours, I just want to grab something and get on my way. And I want to walk quickly, to get to my destination, not take a leisurely stroll down the road like I've nowhere to be, and no one behind me does either. Also, when I went looking in my guidebook for places to visit in Milan, I immediately noticed that everything costs money. The Last Supper is a must see; it's amazing! It costs 8 Euro and you can only get in by booking in advance or taking an official tour. Nope. Thumbs down. I get why people love taking their vacations here, but it's so not me. My favourite cities in the world are London and New York, and this is pretty much the exact opposite of those places.

Which means that I didn't find much I wanted to see here, and nothing that I felt like paying for. It didn't leave me a whole lot of sightseeing to do.  So with the sad realisation that Italy and I want totally different things from a Saturday, today I slept late, and then took the subway to the Duomo, because it's evidently the main thing to see in Milan. And it was gorgeous. And surrounded by lots of other great photo-worthy stuff. But I could barely move in the square from all the football fans crowded into it.

Fans, fans everywhere

Turns out Milan is hosting the Champions League Final tonight, between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. I love some good football fanaticism, and don't grudge these folk supporting their teams in such a big game. For about 3 minutes it was fun watching them wave flags and sing all their football songs. But then it became less fun. Because I couldn't go anywhere without running into scads of them, blocking the passage ways, taking in bottle after bottle of booze, and constantly increasing the volume of their singing. In every public space. I'm staying right by the Central Station, and needed to catch the subway there... but the square in front of it is hosting a celebration for the big game and swarming with drunk people. The subway cars were all crammed with shouting, laughing, singing dudes in their team tops. The Piazza del Duomo was an official fan zone, packing them in shoulder to shoulder despite the massiveness of the area.

I tried walking a few blocks away from the Duomo where there's a lot of shopping, but there was no let up of the crowds, and I'd had enough of the sun and 29 degree heat. So I made my way back to my nicely air conditioned hotel room, and am now trying to determine what to do with my evening.


If nothing else, the game'll probably be on TV...

Venice

Italy. Of all the places in the world I've had on my list to visit, this wasn't one of them. It always seemed a bit too cliché, too Standard Issue American Tourist for me. My only real interest has been Sicily, since it seems to have its own particularly cool character, impervious to the tourist industry. But even that was mainly when I was studying Italian in college and thought I might have some minor hope of actually understanding what's going on and conversing with people.

Like in many universities, my undergraduate Arts & Sciences degree required a year of a foreign language in order to graduate. It could be anything you like, as long as it was different to what you studied in High School. I'd taken French from grades 7 to 9, but due to a clerical error, my transcript said that I'd taken German. So I could have taken French again for an easy A, but my real desire was to learn Latin. The basis for all the romance languages, the tongue used throughout all academia until relatively recently, who wouldn't want to study that? OK, what complete and total word nerd (ie me) wouldn't want to?

I made the mistake of mentioning this to my uncle who had been forced to take Latin as a young fella, and he set off on a tirade along the lines of only a complete and utter moron would study a nonsensical dead language when they didn't absolutely have to! What can I say, I was young and impressionable, so I believed him and went for Italian instead. Incidentally, years later my (just as nerdy as me) brother did take Latin in college, and loved it. 

Anyway, here I am in good old Venezia, and I don't speak a damn word of Italian. A friend of Jody's in Edinburgh a few days ago said, "I'm sure when you get there it will come flooding back." It hasn't. At all. I hear words that sound vaguely familiar and know that I used to use them easily in class everyday, but I can't grasp the meaning, no matter how deeply in my brain I dig for even that one single word. I only remember one phrase from class -- which I may be butchering here -- Tu rompi le palle! It literally translates to something like you're breaking my balls, but colloquially it means... well, about the same thing we use it to mean in English. And I don't really think throwing out that particular line will get me very far around here.

So what was my original point? Oh, right, so I never planned to visit Venice. I always assumed it would be sort of cheesy and touristy, not at all my cup of tea. But I went ahead and booked it because I was already planning Milan and Zurich, so why not take a wee detour? Since then, people have been telling me how it's not anything like you'd expect, it's so beautiful, and not touristy at all. But I gotta say, I don't see it.

This place is touristy. Touristy as fuck, even. It's clear that the entire economy runs on people flocking here for their holidays and being very willing to part with their cash. It's exactly like Las Vegas, only older and wetter. Sure, there are some pretty things to look at and photograph, but there's much more dirt and graffiti and crumbling buildings. And the air smells like sewage all of the time. People complain about the scent of New York? New York is a cupcake shop compared to much of what I've walked through today.

On the plus side, I haven't seen a single car in the 24 hours I've been here. Just loads of people walking and boats! boats! boats! I very much like that aspect of it. The Grand Canal is right outside my hotel window, and while a lovely view, it sounds like a busy highway day and night. Which is essentially what it is, given that it's the fastest way for people move about the city.

I personally haven't really moved by water, apart from the Water Bus that took me from the airport to about 10 minutes walk from my hotel. Instead, the trusty rusty Fitbit tells me that I walked about 7 miles around the city in today's wanderings.


My plan was to walk to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which would be about half an hour's trek across the city, and stop for anything pretty along the way. As it turned out, I stopped for a pretty church 8 minutes in, and then became hopelessly lost. Google's directions through the winding streets of Venice were only marginally helpful, so after an hour (and a few more photos of churches), I finally made it to the gallery. 

The Guggenheim Collection is the highlight of Venice, for me. It's nicely arranged with indoor galleries around a sculpture garden, and a terrace looking out over the canal. My favourite was the special exhibition of Italian art from the 1960s, called Imagine. I'm always keen on modern art, but I really loved some of what they had in that collection. I spent a long time there.

Afterward, I found my way back across the city, making a few stops along the way, got some pizza and wine for dinner, and am now out of energy. It's beautiful weather today, but all that walking in the sun and the heat sapped my energy. So in my hotel room I sit, watching the sun go down over the Grand Canal, and listening to the band in the bar above me play muffled lounge covers of 30 year old pop songs.

As Thursday evenings go, it's really not bad.