This past weekend I went to Budapest, with these two lovely girls:
Where the money is for[e]i[g]nts, and the metros are adorably old (and less adorably, terribly marked)
Then went to our hostel, Avenue Hostel (two thumbs up, just how a hostel should be!)
And then Mia and I took a free city walking tour with a charming and charismatic young Hungarian, complete with a helicopter hat and a wide smile. We learned a bit of the history of the city, which was very interesting (for example, I didn't realize that the vast majority of the buildings on the Pest side are less than 50 years old, due to a devastating flood in the 1800s followed by the world wars in the 1900s; I also didn't know that Buda and Pest were two separate cities until the late 1800s).
This is the Buda side (hillier, much more upscale, less touristy):
And then we took the overnight train to Prague!
This is the oldest synagogue still in use in Europe
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Where the money is for[e]i[g]nts, and the metros are adorably old (and less adorably, terribly marked)
Started off at the Grand Central Market
Then went to our hostel, Avenue Hostel (two thumbs up, just how a hostel should be!)
And then Mia and I took a free city walking tour with a charming and charismatic young Hungarian, complete with a helicopter hat and a wide smile. We learned a bit of the history of the city, which was very interesting (for example, I didn't realize that the vast majority of the buildings on the Pest side are less than 50 years old, due to a devastating flood in the 1800s followed by the world wars in the 1900s; I also didn't know that Buda and Pest were two separate cities until the late 1800s).
This is the Buda side (hillier, much more upscale, less touristy):
Day 2, found the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen:
From the outside (attached to the train station):
Then we went to the Schneyi baths (a series of indoor and outdoor heated pools and saunas)
And then walked through the Jewish quarter
to one of the "ruin pubs"--an expansive bar built within a deteriorating building
We liked the restaurant from the first night so much that we went back for a second time, and were not disappointed. (On the first night, we each got a soup--goulash, cream of garlic, and pumpkin soup--and split schnitzel with potato salad. Truly excellent.)
(The "classiest" meal I've had abroad, and so cheap! Called "Spicy chicken", served with a strawberry salad, with watercress and a honey vinaigrette)
And then we took the overnight train to Prague!
Got into Prague on Monday morning, and hit the ground running,
starting with the Museum of Communism
And then to Old Town Square
with the Glockenspiel
And then Mia and I went on another free walking tour--this one led by a young expat with quite the flair for the dramatic. His stories were quite memorable. For example: the building below, which now houses the philharmonic, was at one point the Nazi headquarters in Prague. When Hitler's right-hand man, who was in charge of Prague during this time, found out that there was a statue of Mendelssohn, a Jew, on the roof (along with the other famous composers of the time), he ordered his soldiers to take the statue down and smash it in front of the building. The soldiers, not knowing what Mendelssohn looked like, figured that the best way to determine which statue was the right one......measured the nose sizes of all the statues, and picked the one with the biggest nose.
And smashed it in front of the building.
And it was Wagner.
A German and Hitler's favorite composer.
This is the oldest synagogue still in use in Europe
The next three statues are by a controversial Czech artist, David Cerny.
A statue alluding to one of Kafka's lesser-known works, but one that mentions Prague specifically.
Entitled "In Utero," the statue's torso is hollow and there is a hole in the bottom through which passerby can enter her "womb" (big enough to sit all the way inside)
"Piss": two figures standing in a pool that is in the shape of the Czech republic. Depending on interpretation, this is either representing how the Czechs "piss all over things" OR how previous occupiers of the Czech republic (the German Nazis represented in the left figure) piss all over Czech civilians' rights.
The statues' pelvises rotate, and their penises move up and down to simulate peeing as realistically as possible. Apparently you can also send a text to a certain number and the statues will spell out your message in the water.
Day two, headed across the river:
Charles Bridge
A Starbucks, perched right outside the castle wall
Within the castle walls (not what I expected when I heard "castle"; due to its continued construction from 880 to the 1900s, it is an often-clashing mix of architectural styles)
Including a Gothic cathedral
(It had some really incredible stained glass, creating vibrantly colored light that reflected on the walls of the cathedral)
