Firenze 2006-2007: The End of Winter Break

Sunday, January 21, 2007

The End of Winter Break

Steven and I spent a day in Florence recovering from our New Year’s before heading out on a 9 day tour of Eastern Europe. On the evening of the second, we left on the night train for Vienna, Austria, and got in fairly early the next morning. We didn’t leave the train station in Vienna, but we did get some breakfast and then tickets to Bratislava, Slovakia before getting on that train.
After an hour train ride we were in the capitol of Slovakia, and after getting out tickets for Budapest the next day squared away, we met Katka- a friend of Steven’s brother who lives near Bratislava. She met us and showed us around the major sights of the city- including the presidential palace, the Bratislava castle that had a great view of the city as well as a bit of snow around the grounds. From there, we saw the main church there and walked around the pedestrian center of the city and saw several other churches and buildings of importance for the government of Slovakia. Perhaps the most peculiar thing about Bratislava were the silver statues that we saw scattered around the city. They were all of odd people and in odd places- one being a man half sticking out of a manhole, another being a gumby-like figure, another being a man taking a picture, and the last being a man looking like a colonial soldier leaning on a bench. After seeing all the main tourist sights of the city, we headed to the Danube river and saw the bridges before going to the Shopping Center of Bratislava to look around a bit. We had lunch at a Café that was decorated a lot like the Rainforest Cafes in the states, but it had Slovakian food so that was kinda cool to try. After eating and walking around the mall, we decided to see a movie, so we all decided on Casino Royale as none of us had seen it and as it would be in English with Slovakian subtitles. We saw the movie and then headed back to main town where we walked around a bit more seeing more of the minor sights of Bratislava before getting a light dinner at a Mexican cantina. I had Nachos Mole Poblano, which was actually pretty good considering we were across the world from Mexico. After dinner we said bye and thanks to Katka for showing us around and then headed to our hostel which was near the presidential palace.
The next day, we were on a mid-day train to Budapest, Hungary which took about 3 hours, so we got into Budapest at about 3. Once again, we got our tickets for the following day taken care of and then went to look for a suitable place to stay. We didn’t have to go far because we ran into people at the tourist info office renting our rooms in apartments, so we got one of those as it was cheap and in a good place. After stopping by the room to drop off our bags, we went to do a bit of sightseeing. We took the metro to the Parliament building, looked around the outside there, and then headed up to the castle and church at the top of the hill in Buda. We saw the castle and the church before looking around the Fisherman’s Baston and watching the city get dark. I’d already done all of this on my trip to Budapest a few weeks before so I’m leaving out some detail. From there, we headed out to a shopping mall a little ways outside the center of town. We got some dinner at a Subway, having been unsuccessful in an attempt to find a Hard Rock Cafe there before going to the movies. I should mention that the reasons we went to and continued to go to the movies were that a. they were about $4 per ticket including popcorn, and b. we were 3 months behind in our movie going. So we headed to see the Prestige, which was pretty good but confusing to work out all the details etc, and then we saw the Departed which was great. We left the theaters at about 12:30 which was a problem as the metro we had taken out the theater no longer ran. So we headed back in the direction of the main city, looking for a bus stop or something that would get us in closer to the center of the city and our room. We finally found a bus stop and took a pretty long ride back into the city before getting off and walking back to our room.
Next morning we got cleaned up and headed out to do a bit more sightseeing. We went to the Northern part of Pest and saw the Heroes’ Square and a castle with grounds which had been turned into a museum and a garden. We walked around there then headed over and saw the elephants and giraffes from the zoo- the only animals visible from outside the zoo before heading to another museum and seeing the Van Gogh exhibit there. We walked through it and saw the eighty or so Van Gogh’s there- mostly drawings and lesser known paintings, but there were several there that I recognized. After seeing the museum, we went to the island in the middle of the Danube, which was just a huge park with a tower and several hotels, but nonetheless, it was neat to see and something off the beaten track in Budapest. From there we headed back near the Danube, saw the main bridge of the city the Queen Elizabeth bridge and then headed to the main pedestrian area of Pest. We ate lunch at a Subway there and walked around the promenade a bit. It then started to rain some, and as we had seen pretty much all we wanted to in Budapest, and as we had several hours left before our train was to leave, we went to an internet café to pass a bit of time. After that, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up some food for the train as it would be a 17 hour ride. We then went back by our room, picked up our bags, and headed in the direction of the station. We ate a quick dinner at KFC before going to find our train. We had a bit of trouble finding which train exactly was ours because we got conflicting information from our tickets, the departure board, and a conductor, but we figured it out and made it onto our train for Bucharest, Romania.
Steven and I were the only two in our compartment for the ride, so we got to sleep in peace and move about as we wanted which is always nice. I had brought Macovaldo by Italo Calvino to read, but it is in Italian so it didn’t hold my attention all that much, so I bought the Rule of Four in Budapest to read. We read for a bit and then went to bed. When we woke up the next morning after sleeping in, we still had several hours left, so we ate and read some more before finally pulling into Bucharest. We walked from the station to the middle of town- which was no small feat as the town is pretty spread out. We tried several places but didn’t find a suitable place to stay until we came to the Hotel Hanul lui Manuc- the oldest hotel in Bucharest. It kinda looked like a Spanish Parador- at least the building did, but the rooms weren’t as nice. We then walked around the big plazas near us and wandered around, and found the Bucharest city mall, so we stopped in, and as it was kinda late we looked to see which movies were playing. We ended up seeing 3 movies that night- Borat, the Guardian, and we tried to see Apocalyto, but as the original language wasn’t English and the subtitles weren’t either, we had to see School for Scoundrels instead. It was hilarious, and better than Borat in my opinion. After the movies, we got a late dinner at a pizza place in the mall before heading back to the hotel and bed.
We saw pretty much all of Bucharest the next day. And we had all day. We first saw the Parliament building- the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon, and even though it doesn’t look that big from the outside, after taking the tour, I fully believe that it is the second largest building in the world- it’s enormous and every room seems to be some gigantic hall that is elaborately decorated. They said that it is only about 70% complete, so I would like to see it when it is fully done some day. On the tour, we learned that Romania had joined the European Union on the 1st of January- just about a week ago. After the tour, we looked around the grounds near the building and then headed up to the Arc d’ Triopumph- or at least the Romanian version of it. It was pretty much like the French Arc, but about half the size. On the way we walked past several important buildings for the Romanian government and several embassies. We then took a bus back to the center of town and had dinner at a cafeteria type place before heading back to get our bags before going to the train station. We made our train to Belgrade, Serbia with no trouble, and after the 17 hour ride we had taken previously, the 12 hour ride seemed like nothing.
We pulled into Belgrade mid morning the next day, and, once again after squaring away our tickets to Ljubljana for the next day, we looked for some tourist information before heading up to the Starigrad- or the old city. Walking up to the “touristy” part of the city I noticed something- the alphabet wasn’t completely the Roman alphabet- there were some Russian characters which made reading street signs pretty complicated over the next few days. We made it up through the city- which kind of reminded me of a smaller version of San Francisco with all the hills and just the layout of the city, and found the Hotel Royal- a place recommended to us by my travel book. We got a room there for pretty cheap and then went to find some food as neither of us had eaten. We found a café right next to our hotel so we stopped in and got some club sandwiches for a brunch before heading out to look around the city. First we went to St. Mark’s church- one of the main churches in Belgrade. The church itself was pretty, but the inside was plain, which may be typical of Orthodox churches, I’m not sure. There was a nice mosaic, much like the ones we saw in Sicily there, but that was about it as far as decorations or works of art go. Outside, there were a ton of beggars- most of the being children. We were tempted to give them money until we saw that one of them was smoking- a boy who could not have been more than six was smoking. It was really weird to see and kinda jolted both of us and made us realize where we were- or at least where we weren’t- the states. From there, we saw the Parliament building and the big squares of the city- most of them being on or near the pedestrian walkway named Knez Mihailova. We spent most of the afternoon looking around the shops there before heading back to the hotel to relax a bit before dinner. The café near us was so cheap and good that we decided to go back for dinner, and after eating a ton there for virtually nothing, we decided to keep our tradition of seeing movies going by seeing the Holiday. After that it was bed time with a full day in Belgrade to look forward to.
Our first stop the next morning was the Kalemegdan- or the citadel perched atop a hill overlooking the river. We spent an hour or so wandering around the grounds, climbing on the walls, and taking pictures at the view points that showed us a ton of Belgrade. We then walked down the path to the military museum that had tanks lining either side of it. We took pictures in and around the tanks before heading into the museum. It was interesting to see all the weaponry they had from history and to see how it progressed throughout the ages, culminating in stuff from the late 1990's that must have been collected during conflict in the area. After that, we walked by another big church in the area, but couldn’t get in due to a wedding there. From there we headed to find Skadarska street in the old town. We finally found the old cobblestone street lined with restaurants, and were glad we did. It was a nice part of town to look around, and something that we probably would not have seen if we had just been following the advice of our book. After walking down the short street, we came to a major street, and walked in the direction fo St. Sava church on the other side of town. It was getting to be mid-afternoon, so we stopped at a burrito bar that we passed on the way to the church. I had a burrito which had some ground beef in it- something I had not really had since August. After eating, we continued on our way to the church, finally finding it. The biggest Orthodox church in the world. It was gorgeous from the outside, but the inside was completely under construction and renovation, so it was completely bare and there were building materials everywhere. When we left, the sun was setting, and we still had several hours until our train so we headed back to the Knez Mihailova, walked around a bit and then got some dinner before heading off to the station. We got to the station in plenty of time which was fine until we learned that our train was about fifty minutes late. We had plenty of time to read and just lounge around before finally getting on our train and pulling away from Belgrade.
Once again, we had a couchette all to ourselves. This was a short ride- only about 11 hours but it was made longer, and we were awaken on 5 separate occasions for border crossings and customs inspections. Overall, it was not a restful night. We got to Ljubljana fairly early the next morning and got our tickets quickly, got some breakfast, and stored our luggage before heading out to see Ljubljana in our 12 hours or so. We walked to the center of the small capitol of Slovenia, saw the cathedral of St. Nicholas, the main town square, the dragon bridge, and then walked up the hill to the castle overlooking the whole city. We tried to go inside the castle, but it was closed as they were preparing for a festival that night, so we walked around the grounds and looked out over the city before heading to St. Jacob and seeing a part of the ancient Roman wall that once ran around the city. Then we went to a place called BTC city, a big shopping mall/ mini town that had a lot of interesting restaurants and stores. Most of their restaurants featured stuff with horse meat, something that we didn’t really feel like eating, so we choose a Mexican restaurant again. Like the others, it wasn’t bad. After eating, we looked around there for a bit, saw the micro-brewery there before heading back to the city center. We found the parliament building and walked around their small pedestrian center. We spent some time in the big bookstore there before going to eat dinner at Subway. Then, it was back to the station and Florence. We got a train to Villach, Austria and two hours later, we were there with a ninety minute layover. It turned out to be a two and a half hour layover because the train was late once again. We only had seats on the train, not beds, so it was not a comfortable night. Six hours of uneasy sleep later we were finally back in Florence. We got back to the villa at about 7am and said hi to everyone who was back. Now, its just a few days of relaxation and day trips before starting our new semester.
Overall, it was a good break, but it seemed so much longer than just the five weeks it actually was. I saw a ton of Europe, some stuff I’d always wanted to see, some stuff that I never thought I’d see and some stuff that I wanted to see again. I got to travel some with friends, family, and a bit alone. It was a great break, but I’m glad to be back in Florence and ready to be here for a while not have to worry about where I’m heading next and what time my next train is at etc.