In constant search of San Marco

If anyone tells you that Mussolini made the Italian trains run on time and therefore they still do, that person is a massive liar! Firstly because he didn't (he just took credit for it) and secondly (and more importantly) because they DON'T! Trip yesterday from Venice to Nice was almost a false start as the train from Venice to Milan was 40 minutes late arriving in Milan and I almost missed my connection (thankfully they waited for us)- the train took 20 minutes to get from the outskirts of Milan to the train station stopping and starting along the way. Well in the end I got to Nice and I guess that is what really matters.

Before I left Australia, I was told by my mother that if I didn't like Venice then I wasn't her daughter. Venice is her favourite city and having seen it in many a film and TV series (most recently in the less than good The Tourist which unfortunately stuck in my mind...come on Clare just remember the Doctor Who episode set there or the David Tennant version of Casanova) I was keen to see if it lived up to the hype. Arriving at San Lucia station at night, I missed looking out over the sea as I arrived but as you leave the station it hits you. The station faces the Grand Canal so the first bit of Venice you see is an iconic view of the canal and the boats. My hotel was less than 200 metres from the train station and for all its cheapness (less than $100 (Australian) a night) and its teeny roomness, my room was at the very back of the hotel and afforded a spectacular view of the Grand Canal. I can strongly recommend the Hotel Continental to anyone going to Venice...cheap, free wifi and breakfast (including truly awesome blood orange juice and good coffee (I finally found it!)), close to transport and views of the canal. Awww hotel living....for three nights, I had my own room and my own control of the TV remote.

A few things struck me instantly about Venice:

• It is amazing beautiful especially if you are like me and like a bit of crumbling facade and tiny street action.
• It is VERY tourist-y. At least a third of shops are souvenir shops pending "genuine Murano glass" (it isn't and you can tell by the price), Carnivale masks (even when Carnivale is months away) and other Venice themed goods. Good if you are like me and need gifts for hoards of relos but it feels a little fake
• It is potentially very expensive. The tourist shops were cheap (possibly because it's winter) but another chunk of the shops were designer clothing shops. Amazingly I don't think I saw a H&M (the cheap clothing option of choice for the rest of Europe and the UK) but I did see D&G, Burberry, Valentino and Gucci amongst others.

The shadow of San Marco Bell Tower over the basilica and the piazza

After these initial observations, I did a lot of just wandering around and looking at houses and streets. I discovered that all the tourists (pretty much everyone in Venice) is constantly questing after the one thing. Is it coffee? Is it a rip-off of a gondola ride? No and No. It is Piazza San Marco. Piazza San Marco is the centre of tourist Venice but it is a bit of a ways from the station and many of the hotels...OK truth be told it is pretty much on the opposite side of the island. It was a good 30-40 minute walk from my hotel. There are signs on almost every street corner pointing people to Piazza San Marco and on some corners where there wasn't a sign, people have kindly graffitied "SM" and an arrow. Piazza San Marco is home to San Marco Basilica, the Doge's Palace, several museums and the San Marco Bell Tower. It is also ends at the sea and therefore it is take off point for gondolas up the Grand Canal (a rip off I hear, I didn't take one) and trips to the other islands that are technically part of Venice. On my first day, I visited San Marco Basilica (a very pretty church but they ring money off you at every opportunity- free to enter then 3 euro to see the Treasury, 2 to see the Altar, 3 for the crypts and 4.50 for the museum and balcony- that said it has the most awesome reliquary I've seen thus far in this trip- skulls!- still don't get it but kinda cool), San Marco Bell Tower (8 euros to go up but the view is worth it), the Doge's Palace (room of maps and globes for those interested- you know who you are) and the museums (at the bargain price of 12 euros, entry to the Doge's Palace and the museums are on the same ticket). That night and it was time for the "real" Italian food experience and I found it cheap. Just up from my hotel was a pizza and kebab place which was super cheap so I scored a slice of pizza (in the Italian sense so think over a quarter of an Australian pizza), a bottle of Coke Light and a two scoop gelato for 6.50 Euro. Bargain and the pizza turned out to be the tastiest of my entire trip to date (tomato, eggplant, goat cheese and spinach).

After a night of being able to watch BBC World News instead of Emmerdale, I was off wandering the Venetian streets when I overheard an American guy talking about visiting the fish markets and I thought hey that sounds interested so decided to do some American stalking. A silly move you may think but it paid off this once. I had to try and keep my distance from them so they didn't realiseVenetian streets when I overheard an American guy talking about visiting the fish markets and I thought hey that sounds interested so decided to do some American stalking. A silly move you may think but it paid off this once. I had to try and keep my distance from them so they didn't realise I was a-stalkin' them- easy in the tourist filled streets of Venice it turns out. The fresh food markets in Venice are definitely worth the visit especially if you have been further north in Europe and haven't seen anything in the way of fresh food in weeks. Pretty fruit and veg...smelly fish including live eels...and lots of meat and cheese. Market visit over and many photos later, and I was off to catch a boat to the other islands. I recommend that anyone in Venice takes a similar trip especially to Murano. You get to see some glass and some lace (on Burano) being made and it is all very pretty. I was boat trippin' in the afternoon so got to see sunset over the sea which was astoundingly beautiful. 

Artichokes at the markets

Final words from Venice...firstly while it is nice to be in city without cars, be wary of the dog poo. A blight on the streets of most European cities, it is amplified by the completely lack of grass in Venice. Secondly embrace the bar. Not in the sense of alcohol, in the sense of coffee. Coffee is good but if you sit at a table you will pay between 2.50 and 5.70 euro for it (the later at all of Piazza San Marco's cafés). If however you choose to stand at the bar to drink, it will cost between 80 cents and 1.50...bargain but you mustn't forget the rules and sit down. 

Sunset over the sea

It seems I am my mother's daughter as I quite liked Venice and I recommend everyone see it before it succumbs to age and completely falls into the sea.

Christmas Vienna Style

I fail to believe that anyone can live near or the Alps without constantly being in awe of them. They are massive and they are beautiful- I’d wager especially at present when covered in snow.  They just show you how tiny humans are in the scheme of things and as you descend them into the warmer climes near the sea and you watch the landscape change from heavy coats of snow to water and blue skies there is no way that people cannot be astounded by the diversity of the world we live in. It is so profound that I didn’t really mind that my train from Vienna went to Villach and then to Jesenice (in Slovenia) and then to Nova Gorica (still Slovenia) and then I had to make my own way across the Italian border to the neighbouring town of Gorizia (taxi with the nicest driver who spoke Slovenian and Italian but no English but managed to convey me from the train station in one town to the station in other via a bancomat (an ATM) and when he didn’t have change for my 20 euro note searched the train station for 15 minutes looking for someone who did- in the end I gave him the 20 even he looked like he was about to say that I could have the 9.80 euro ride for free) and finally to Venice!  At least I can now say I’ve been to Slovenia- what I saw didn’t excite me but supposedly the capital is historical and pretty and all.

Awesome ceiling art at the Kunsthistoriche Museum in Vienna

Christmas away from home is a little weird and it is the first time that I’ve done it. Arriving in Vienna on the 22 December, I was welcomed with an invite to Christmas lunch from people in the area which made one less problem for me as Christmas lunch on your own in a random cafe or restaurant is more than a bit pathetic (in the correct definition of the word). For the first time, my hostel was not in the city centre and was instead in the village of Hütteldorf which lies on the western edge of Vienna. Vienna thankfully has a brilliant underground system and Hütteldorf is the last stop on one of the U-Bahn lines which suddenly makes it a quick 10 min ride to the city. Hütteldorf being a little higher and less urbanised than central Vienna, the snow that was melting rapidly in the centre was still hanging round on the edges of the forest in Hütteldorf. The more I travel the more I understand that just as I cannot isolate accents when people speak in languages other than English (I’m getting better hearing them, though not picking, in German after the last couple of weeks- I think I could pick an Italian or French person speaking it but don’t test me), people from non-English speaking backgrounds cannot pick mine when I speak English. When I spoke to my American dorm mate, she clearly understood that I was from Australia and she from the States (California if I hazarded a guess). But just as the Chinese girl in Berlin, a German waiter on a train and the Korean guy in Prague had, the Taiwanese girls in my dorm asked if I was English or American and I had to confirm that I was Australian.  Our accent is so strong and so hideous I thought anyone could pick it but it seems not so much. The hostel got its own version of Christmas on with a tree and some decorations going up. On Christmas morning, we were given free eggs with our breakfast (eggs usually being 80 cents each) and on Boxing Day there were Christmas cookies available with breakfast (sadly I didn’t get any as the girls at the table next to mine stole about 20 each). As an added lovely surprise the Taiwanese girls in my dorm made Christmas cards for everyone in the dorm. See the Christmas spirit even creeps in the edges of the very un-Christmas-y world of hostel living.

My first day in Vienna and I was resisting the temptation to become the cliché film buff tourist that is lurking under my surface. I find film buff tourism (or other themed tourism- especially of the Da Vinci Code variety) a little odd and not the done thing. That said Before Sunrise has been a film very close to my heart since I first saw it about 12 years ago. For those unfamiliar with the Richard Linklater oeuvre beyond School of Rock, Before Sunrise is the story of two very Gen X individuals who meet on the train travelling in Europe- she is heading back to France from Hungry and he is an American tourist- he is catching a plane out of the Vienna but when the train stops there, he convinces her to get off the train and send the night wandering the streets of Vienna with him as his plane doesn’t leave until the morning. They spend the night walking the streets of Vienna and talking about life. If you haven’t seen it, I heartily recommend it and the sequel, Before Sunset, which is set 9 years later in Paris. Not just because I have a soft spot for Ethan Hawke who plays the American, Jesse, or because Richard Linklater is one of my favourite directors- the script is brilliant, the city is beautiful, the acting is great and you can see the brilliant Julie Deply (she is a profound actor and very underused- her directorial debut 2 Days in Paris will probably get more than a bit of mention when I get there). Plug for Before Sunrise done for the minute, I told myself I wouldn’t spend my time in Vienna tracking the film as many have done in the past.  My first morning, I noticed on the train that it seemed that the Film Museum was having a Howard Hawkes exhibit and was thinking awesome I can see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, To Have or Have Not or His Girl Friday in German tonight hopefully. Sadly it was closed for Christmas as was the musical I was thinking of seeing- Tanz der Vampires(yes based on the Polanski film). Instead I had myself some super tasty apple strudel with vanilla sauce and found museums devoted to the arts to check out. The Theatre Museum you can skip as, except the beauty of the building, it isn’t worth the 8 euro admission, but after it, hyperbole aside, I found the best interactive museum in the world. Haus der Musik in Vienna is an interactive music museum where not only can you learn about composers and how we hear sound, you can re-experience the sounds of the womb, conduct the Vienna philharmonic and mix natural sounds with music to name some of the exhibits. Especially if you are in Vienna with children, don’t go past this place, it rocks. Come the afternoon and I was thinking, for being in Europe, I’ve seen very few royal jewellery collections so off to the Imperial Palace and the Austrian royal treasury. I can now say I understood the concepts of reliquary even less. There were plenty on display and the idea of having a human (more likely another animal knowing the medieval relic trade) bone embedded in a crucifix around the house is bizarre and morbid. Those wacky Medieval Catholics!

Sucking the last marrow out of my Christmas market experience (yep I’m continuing the bone link), I was off to the Maria Therese Platz markets that evening and that the Schloss Schönbrunn ones the next morning. I think Schloss Schönbrunn in summer or spring would definitely be worth the visit as the grounds look beautiful or like they would be beautiful if they were green and less dead in the snow- that said there is something about imperial gardens in the dead of winter which is quite pretty and haunting. After this, back into town to go on the Kunsthistoriche (Art History) Museum. It was one of the few open on Christmas Eve and the building is spectacular- the rooms are all painted in the style of the exhibit in that area i.e. Greek themed in the Greek section and Egyptian in the Egyptian and the ceilings of the main hall are also very amazingly painted. Sadly I couldn’t see it all as it closed at 1. So what was left open on Christmas Eve? Churches! I went to look at Stephansdom, the cathedral, which is pretty when lit (as it was for mass the next morning), but not in darkness and gloom as it was the afternoon I went there. Also the bell tower is a rip at 4.50 euro as it isn’t tall enough so the roof of the cathedral blocks half the view. Then I caved and became the film tourist and visited Maria am Gestade which is a tiny church in central Vienna. In Before Sunrise, Celine and Jesse find it and sit inside to talk for a little while including about religion. Sadly I was in a rush so didn't go in. Even worse the thing I was in rush to see- The Votivkirche- was closed for renovations and yes it also appears in Before Sunrise. After this I met with people for a gluhwein in the Rathaus (Town Hall) Christmas Markets which had some truly awesome tree decorations I’ve seen thus far. Warmed by wine, I was off in the rain as the sunset to find the one sight from Before Sunrise that I was DEFINITELY going to see. It seems cemeteries and me aren’t mixing on this trip. The sight in question was the Cemetery of the Nameless. This cemetery has graves to those who washed up in the river but were not identified and it is on the southern most edge of Vienna- the film makes it look like it is right in the centre but no you need to take a U-bahn train, a tram and a bus to get there. I got the train OK but when I could off the rain was heavier and the dark was setting in, then thinking ‘well it’s the last station of the tram so it will stop there and stay there for a while’ I jumped on the back carriage of the tram. The back carriage sound system was shot and so announcements were just muffled noise and it turns out that the tram loops at the end in instead of stopping for a while so next thing you know (i.e. 30 minutes later) I look up and I’m back where I started. Being as it was after 6pm and pretty dark, I gave up- a sight for next time I guess. That night, I found someone whose German was worse than mine! After the novelty of a restaurant with a smoking section the night before, I went to one of the only open restaurants on Christmas Eve....a Japanese one. The waiter was Japanese and while I ordered in German (as much as that is possible when ordering Tempura Udon), he answered in German only to a point after which he would lapse into English...hilarious!

Lights and decorations at Rathaus Markets

Christmas Day and I kept up my Christmas traditions. I may not be a practising Catholic, but at Christmas I go to the Catholic Church with my family and then most years go to a late night service at the local Anglican Church. I did the former but not the later this year. I headed to Stephansdom for mass which was accompanied by a string orchestra and a choir (beautiful music). I made the mistake of running late and sitting up the back in the tourist section. Despite massive signs, the guard type guys were really bad at keeping tourists out during mass and so there was a constant flow of people in and out to take photos and some people in the service near me kept standing up to take photos which I found more than a less offensive and disrespectful- they need to steal the bossy guy from Dublin to keep people out. The people in my section were largely either tourism or C&E Catholics so had no idea when to sit, stand and kneel, and though I did know even with everything being in German, I just had to follow what they did to avoid looking weird. At the end of the service, I felt mighty proud of myself as I knew the carol that ended the mass in German! Thanks to high school German for teaching me Silent Night in the original language, I could sing along with everyone else. After this to lunch and it was great to be able to join in the whole Christmas vibe so far from home by eating lunch with people (one of my hosts called it dinner on the phone to an Austrian, as we would back in Australia, and was met with great confusion about eating dinner in the middle of the day- so I’ll stick with calling it lunch to avoid confusion). Lunch was tasty and filling as it should be and I was also gifted with some cheesy touristy Mozart head chocolates (chocolate balls wrapped in foil with a picture of Mozart on them)- these were my lunch on the train via Slovenia and they were tasty. As I headed back to the hostel, I witnessed the sad site of the Christmas market on Karlsplatz being all shut down. I will miss the markets as I travel onwards.

A Mozart Man!

 Last words from Vienna, beware the Mozart Men! No not some scary Doctor Who-isque creation (though the statues at the Opera House do look like Weeping Angels) and I can’t claim credit for the name either as I got it from my hosts for Christmas lunch. The Mozart Men are guys (I think I only saw one woman doing it but I saw at least 50 men) trying to sell tickets for “genuine” Mozart concerts in various locations in Vienna for cheap and they are ALL over the city and difficult to avoid (like charity collectors at Sydney train stations). After getting catch once but getting away sans ticket, I managed to avoid them. My hosts at lunch (who are musicians) said that shows are by ring-in orchestras who are often sight-reading the music so they can be a mixed bag but that the architecture of the buildings the shows are in is pretty. Their advice if you want a cheap concert in a pretty building, sure go to one but it might not be great. My advice, run away!

The world is a small place when you are down to your last crown

The bestest clock in the world

Art Nouveau action

A stained glass window at St Vitus- sadly not the Mucha window which I didn't get a photo of

How is it possible that you can NEVER completely free yourself from coins of currency from one country when you leave for another one? I’m just finished my lunch in the train and I thought I had calculated everything so that I had used the last of my Czech crowns, but no, in a mocking twist of fate, I have one of the stupid things (worth around 6 Australian cents) still rolling round in my wallet making friends with the 3 Swiss francs (about $3) that was also facing the same fate. I’m currently on what must be one of the only tourist trains leaving Prague as sitting right behind me are the Australian family who I met on the train to Prague who are on their way to visit relatives in Hungary for Christmas and in the dining coach I just saw an Australian couple in their 50s whom I met on my first day in Prague. The world, or at least the part of it currently on Czech trains, is very small.

The tale of my time in the Czech Republic is one of confusion, bad first impressions, disappointment and architectural love. Before I left Australia, I was handed 520 Czech crowns as a gift by someone who had them left over from previous trips to the Czech Republic. I was like “Whoa, isn’t that a lot of money?” and was assured “No it’s about $25” (it’s a little over $30 but still). As I leave the Czech Republic, I feel I still haven’t got my head around the money. The Czech currency has no concept of cents- the smallest amount of money is one crown which as I said before is currently about 6 cents in Australian money. People will tell you that the Czech Republic is quite cheap and in some ways it is (I paid the equivalent of about $3.40 for a cappuccino, a very large bottle of mineral water and a pastry) but only once you’ve figured out the currency and some Czech industries clearly exploit this. Never catch a taxi in Prague for one thing. I got lost on my first night and ended up taking a cab. The cost of the cab was more than the cost of all three nights of accommodation and came out at around $40. Other Australians I met were unwittingly levelled with similar cab charges- I heard of one cabbie trying to charge 920 crowns (about $55) for a short cab trip. Stay away from them, they are bad news or if you must use one, look for one of the fair cab points around the city which give you a list of recommended charges which the cabbies must comply with if they collect you there. The tourist shops and some of the restaurants in the tourist-y areas are the same (I paid over $10 for a pack of batteries and around $30 for one meal (it was a very good meal at a proper restaurant but still)). So try and do the maths and figure out the currency before you get there to avoid being tricked, or just hope that the Czech Republic wises up and switches to the Euro.

When my taxi pulled up in front of the hostel, I thought “OK this place looks a little dodge but it is probably better inside”. I walked past the skip in the entry way to get to reception and after I checked in I was given keys and a key code for a door and had to buzz through the door to get to the stairs to get upstairs. I’d been travelling all day and was tired to say the least so I was thinking I hope there is a lift....there was but it was busted so I had to carry my luggage from Floor 0 up the twisting stairs to Floor 3, and as I passed Floor 1, I started to smell the faint but growing tinge of stale cigarette smoke. When I finally got my floor, the word Soviet barely describes the chilly corridor and bathrooms (the shower area of which in the women’s did not lock nor did the door close properly) and I’m thinking ‘just forget that Hostel is set in the Czech Republic, it isn’t that bad you’ll be fine’.  Got to the dorm and was shocked....the worst thing yet, it was a mixed dorm and it was filthy as a couple of guys had left all their rubbish on the floor as well as clothes, socks and underwear under/on their beds. Now don’t take this to mean that I’m some crazy prude who won’t sleep in a room with blokes in it, this is definitely not the case, it is just that men (no offence to my male readers), especially the backpacking kind, tend to be less particular about hygiene and so it isn’t surprising to find rubbish and underwear all over the floor in a male or mixed dorm (I’ve also been in female dorms that are pretty bad but none as bad as this).  I decided to sit in the heavy cigarette scented dining area and make use of the hostel’s free internet to hunt for somewhere else to stay for the next two nights- a process that got more urgent when I met a random Russian guy who tried to read my screen over my shoulder. I tried to breathe slowly and calm down and not get overwhelmed by first impressions....breathe, just breathe...and cough in the cigarette tinged air (It was the tail end of my cold at this point). Ultimately I didn’t change rooms or hostels and it turned out that though I wouldn’t give the Prague Traveller’s Hostel a glowing recommendation, it isn’t that bad and it teaches me for picking the absolute cheapest accommodation on offer. The cigarette smoke smell didn’t go away (can’t wait to wash my clothes in Vienna and get rid of it), but the lift got fixed, the messy guys left and their junk was cleaned up, it turned out that all women in the hostel were pretty respectful about the broken shower room door and made sure only one person used that room at once despite the fact there were three showers in it, the Russian guy was a little odd but actually harmless (he ended up being in my dorm and deemed me the “Australian Girl Space Agent” after I wouldn’t let me see my computer and he saw I packed in vacuum bags which he didn’t understand), and the others in my dorm especially one Japanese girl were quite friendly and for the most part people who liked an early night.

Now to the disappointment, my whole reason for going to the Czech Republic was to see Sedlec Ossuary, the church decorated with bones in a village about 1 hour from Prague. The morning I was to go, I woke a little later than expected and saw that it was snowing quite heavily.  I then checked the opening hours on the net and found that a few tourist sites stated that it was only open by appointment in winter (the official website said it was open but it clearly hasn’t been updated in a while). I weighed my options and figured that I didn’t want to go all the way out there on a train that would probably be delayed to find it closed and then not having time to get back to Prague to see any of the things I had left to see. I guess that means I’ll have to go back another time to see it but I did get two good days out of Prague instead.

Leaving my hostel, which was in the Jewish Quarter of the “Old” Town, I found that old is a relative term in the Czech Republic. The Old Town of Prague is actually contains the newer buildings. Especially in the Jewish Quarter, a lot of the older buildings were torn down and replaced building in the Art Nouveau style in late 19^th century. I don’t know what the old building were like but their replacements are beautiful and it is worth just spending some time wandering the streets looking at the facets and the designs. After my positive experience of one in Berlin and considering I know only one word of Czech (prosim which means please), I decided to go on a Walking Tour. There seem to be about twenty difference walking tours most of them free that leave from the Old Square in Prague and you are constantly see people holding coloured umbrella in the air in the streets of Prague and saying loudly “Follow the [insert colour here] umbrella” in various languages. So to the Old Square in search of a tour guide, I went. The Old Square is a massive town square in the Old City (not surprisingly) and it turns out in December it is full of a MASSIVE Christmas market where you can get hot wine or grog (watered down rum) at 10am and which gives off the strong scent of meat from the spits set up all over the square on which ham was cooking. I found my tour near my new favourite thing in the world, the Prague Astronomical Clock- seriously it is spectacular! Walking tour done and quite worth the 100 crowns (just over $6) I tipped the guide at the end and after a climb of the tower which houses the Astronomical Clock (ramps not stairs- these Czechs are civilised), I headed deep into the Jewish Quarter and visited all of the five synagogues (except two, these are now just museums) and the Jewish Cemetery. The highlights were the Pinkus Synagogue which is painted with the names of Czech Holocaust victims and which has a display of the art of the children who were in Terezin concentration camp (A Jewish art teacher in the camp encouraged them to draw and write to keep their hopes up - many of the children died by the end of the war as was she (the children in Terezin at the end of the War, her in Auschwitz) - but for a while the art keep the children’s spirits high and it is lovely story in the midst of horror); the Spanish Synagogue which looks more like a mosque than a synagogue as a tribute to the peaceful co-existence of Muslims and Jews in Medieval Spain (it is amazing beautiful); and the Old New Synagogue which is still a working synagogue and so this poor old Czech Jewish lady on the door had to keep running around telling this group of blokes (from somewhere in East Europe but not the Czech Republic) to stop taking photos and to cover their heads (they wouldn’t listen as they didn’t speak Czech or understand her fractured English). Supposedly the Prague Golem is buried in the New Old Synagogue. After this and trip to find some English books, I was back in Old Square and so took in some Czech children’s Christmas play action and then went to the Dali/ Mucha exhibit in a small gallery there (not sure who the art gallery usually shows, I thought Mucha but a tour guide said Dali which is weird considering Mucha was Czech and Dali not so much- that’s Alfons Mucha for those not up on Art Nouveau and if anyone out there find a print or postcard of his months of the year series especially the November, please let me know or forward it to me). Through the windows of the gallery, I heard the Czech crowd outside join in the singing of “Come All Thee Faithful” in Czech and I felt the heart warming pull of Christmas Spirit. Later I checked it out and there was a Children’s (actually teenaged) Choir singing. I also caught them doing “You Raise Me Up” in English which was delightful to say the least.

The next day and there was more Prague to see. I visited the Decorative Arts Museum which was a very watered down V&A but did have an interesting graphic design, paper and book binding section, and is in this amazing old house/hall. It also had an exhibit which was supposed to show the decadence and extremes of modern art- to my mind, some of it yes, most of it no. Then walked across Charles Bridge (not stopping to touch the religious statues of good luck though) and visited Lennon Wall. After this I joined an afternoon tour of the Castle district run by the same group who’d given my free tour the day before (Discover Prague they’re called (I think)- they are quite good). The Castle is well worth the visit especially St Vitus Cathedral which took around 700 years to finish so has some quality clashing architectural design, men in suits craved on it, some beautiful stained glass and mosaic work, and an awesome painted glass window done by Alfons Mucha.  

After my time in Bohemia and suppressing the urge to sing some Queen, I think I’ll be back someday to gaze on its art nouveau vibe and spectacular clocks one day. I’ve now arrived in Wien (Vienna) and having not met Ethan Hawke on the train as I was promised in Before Sunrise (maybe I’m just not French enough), I’m on the look-out for Inspector Rex.

I am a cold and sick jam donut

As my hands gradually return to their natural colour and start to regain feeling (after about five minutes in gloves), I must say Berlin Hauptbahnhof in winter is without doubt one of the coldest places on Earth. That said I just saw the sweetest reunion happen when a young woman got off the train. You know that bit at the beginning of Love Actually where Hugh Grant’s character is talking about reunions at Heathrow- well none of them have anything on this one.  An older man (one assumes the young woman’s father) was walking down the platform with a yappy terrier and I was like what is that terrier barking about. When they reached the girl, the dog went nuts and started jumping all over her. Clearly it was her dog, who had been being dog-sat while she was away, and his barks were him saying “Get out of my way people! I can smell my mistress in this crowd and I have to see her as soon as possible! MOVE!” It was very cute.

So why am I a jam donut? Shame on you if you don’t know! JFK once gave a famous speech in Berlin which he ended with “Ich bin eine Berliner” and it had been mocked ever since. The people of Berlin do call themselves “Berliners” when speaking English but when you are speaking German, the word “berliner” translates as jam or jelly donut. JFK had therefore declared to the world that he was a jam donut.  I couldn’t find an actually berliner in Berlin (friends recently found them in Zürich) but I did make sure to eat a jam donut from Dunkin’ Donuts in honour of JFK’s infamous German gaff.

Berlin, for me, was largely marred by illness. I came down with a cold on my first evening there and, in the subzero weather, have struggled with it ever since.  This didn’t stop me for seeing some of the city but it did limit my ability to just wander and explore, and being limited in this way, my time looks very Third Reich centred which it would not have been had I had more chance to explore.

Vader roams the streets of Berlin- I have no clue why.

After a snow less time in Cork, Zürich and Amsterdam, I knew my luck was soon to run out. It has been bucketing down in Berlin (still is as I leave the city) with the snow probably thicker and more continuous than it was in Scotland (I can’t say for certain as the German are much better at clearing the stuff up). After struggling to the hostel in my sneakers, I was super happy that friends in Scotland had insisted that I take a pair of old hiking boots with me. The fun thing that came along with the snow was the temperature that did not pass the 0 mark during my stay in Berlin (I think the highest it got was -2 or -3) and trust me when I say jeans are OK in the cold to point but when it drops below zero you start to lose all feeling in your legs (but I mean who needs legs). The hostel much to my horror was overrun by European school children. As anyone who has gone on the traditional Sydney region years 5 and 6 camps to Canberra and Bathurst knows, schools often use staying in youth hostels as a means to cut the budget on these trips. This is the case with all European high school camps by the looks of things and, at risk of offending UK teachers I know (trust I’m not including the UK at present), let me say that European teachers completely SUCK at the idea of discipline and so every time I see high school kids at a hostel, a chill runs down my spine (especially after a previously trip in the UK when French school kids at one hostel triggered the fire alarm in the early hours of the morning twice and at another kicked the locks off all the toilet and shower doors). Well these ones didn’t do either of these (thankfully), but the room allocation at the Berlin Youth Hostel was such that my dorm was, on the first two nights, completely surrounded by the dorms of a few high school groups and these kids ran up and down the corridor making tonnes of noise until about 11.30 or 12pm and then started again at 6am (not fun if you are sick or when, thanks to being old (i.e. over 27), you have had to pay 5 euro extra per night for your room).  The last night was the possibly the worst as though there were less high school kids (it was a Saturday night), they made more noise (they were in the room right next door) later into the night (until around 1am). This was bad enough for me but in the room on the other side of mine was a couple with a baby, which of course wasn’t going to sleep. I almost morphed into a grumpy old lady and went downstairs to complain (mainly on the couple’s behalf). Every night, I kept waiting for the teacher to appear and tell them off but it never happened. That said, aside from their clear inability to sort their room allocations well and their charging extra for people over 27, Berlin Youth Hostel isn’t bad- internet is comparatively cheap (8 euros for 3 days- third cheapest thus far), breakfast is included, the bar is very cheap and the all you can eat dinner buffet (which is pretty good quality) is only 6 euros. On my first night there, I impressed one of the staff when asked him about a TV shows that was on and he was trying to explain that it was a “best of” from this year’s German competition to pick their Eurovision finalist. He was struggling to translate “Eurovision” into English and was shocked when I jumped in and said “I love Eurovision. The German girl who won this year wasn’t bad”.  Unfortunately I had Lena’s winning song (“Satellite of Love”) stuck in my head after that evening much as I had after watching the finals this year. On my last morning, I discovered another cool thing about the hostel- one of the German employees listens to Triple J (I asked him about it and he said he loves it). Soon enough Triple J will conquer the globe and no-one will have to listen to bad music at hostels again (also don’t forget it’s Hottest 100 voting time, people, I’ve voted have you?).

Memorial to the victims of War and Tyrrany

 First morning in Berlin and I foolishly made the decision to go on a 4 hour guided walking tour. Foolish not because the tour was bad, believe you me it was very good and if you are ever in Berlin you should check out the walking and cycling tours (available in English, Spanish, Italian and Hebrew) run by Insider Tours, I just did the really tourist-y one but there are themed ones and a nightlife one as well (they also do one out the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (which I would have done if I was in the city longer and was feeling better) and, in the summer, out to Potsdam). The guide, a fellow Aussie, was very good and, if she is anything to go by, the rest should be also. The tour had good amount of history pitched at the middle of the knowledge range (it was clear from early on that I was at the high end of the knowledge range (thanks to a lot of German/Soviet studies in my history degree) but, as an example of how little some people on the tour have known, the tour guide told us she had once been asked when Hitler built the Berlin Wall (‘cause it was only built 16 years after he killed himself and all)). The foolishness of my taking the tour was my health. After a few stops, I standing on Bebelplatz shaking (I’m sure quite visibly) and thought I was about to collapse. Needless to say, I powered on and thankfully the coffee and soup at the midway stop warmed and powered me up for the rest of the walk. The tour finished just near the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (sadly closed to visitors because of a recent security scare) and so after another coffee and my JFK honouring jam donut, I walked just down the road to the museum at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. A very stark memorial with no clear signage, the museum was built under it to ensure that people knew what it was all about. The memorial was rendered even starker by the thick coat of snow, however between the stones children were playing “hide and seek” which, while a little lacking in respect, was a great sign of hope amidst the stark landscape. The museum, which is free, was worth the visit especially if you, like me, don’t have the time to visit a camp, or, like many, don’t have the stomach to visit one. It is very touching testament to the Jews from across Europe killed in the Holocaust. There is one room with photographs and stories from several families and in each of the large photos it is identified which of the family members died in the Holocaust and where. It is very moving.

The next morning, after the activity of the day before and the loudness of the high school kids, I was feeling worse and my German which had been getting better seemed to fade as the cold clearly hit the language part of my brain. I went to the post office to post something to a friend and met the most unpleasant man I’ve most in a long time. He made me feel like I was an idiot who had no right to breathe his airspace- more on him in a later post.

To calm myself down after meeting this bloke, I did what I often do when I’m sick back home. I went to the movies. Unless seeing it in German made me miss something is there a reason Depp and Jolie are nominated for Globes for The Tourist? It is mildly entertaining but not award material to my mind. After that I went to the Topology of Terror. Behind the last remaining selection of the Wall (that hasn’t been removed and replanted), it is on the site of old SS and SA Berlin headquarters. The reason the Wall here wasn’t knocked down was that there were evacuations of the SS torture chambers under it going on at the time of re-unification. It is very interesting museum and unlike other museums that focus on the holocaust and the role of the SS and SA, it talks just the other victims of the Holocaust (the political objectors, the Romani, the gay community, the elderly and disabled, and the POWs) in as much length as the Jews. I recommend people visit it.

To cheer myself up after this, I stopped at the Weihnachtmarkt (Christmas market) at Potsdamer Platz for a gluhwein (mulled wine) and some tasty fried mushrooms served with an awesome cream sauce on my way back to hostel.

Potsdamer Platz Weihnachtmarkt

Berlin is an interesting city and a very new city for the most part. Germany as a country is only a couple of hundred years old in its united form. The buildings in Berlin itself are often only 20 years old at most. Nazi and pre war building were mostly bombed out of existence at the end of WW2, those Nazi building that survived the bombing in part were later torn down by the Soviets (architectural a good move- they were hideous- but then again Soviet building are pretty ugly too) and many of the old Soviet building have been torn down and replaced since reunification. Yet for somewhere that is relatively so young, it has so much history to deal with. I bought this great postcard there which has an old photo of two soldiers looking over the Wall, under their position someone has graffitied “God loves you” and I thought it beautifully summed up the history (both Soviet and Nazi) and the way Berlin will be grappling with it for at least another 20 years as it remains in living memory and then probably for many years afterwards as it gradually passes from living memory.

A guide to avoiding death...by bicycle

Yikes the snoan is really coming down outside the train. I know you’re thinking what is snoan, it is my new name of the weather conditions in eastern Holland at present. It was raining in Amsterdam and as the train heads east the rain is progressively turning to snow. I know you are thinking “stupid Clare that’s called sleet”- trust me I know sleet and this isn’t it, there are individual snowflakes and rain drops falling simultaneously, it is very weird. 

OK rewind three days. Here we go <<<<<

I arrived in Amsterdam at around 6.30 at night and was faced with a moment of confusion, where were the ticket machine for the trams? Would I actually have to talk to someone?!? Turns out Amsterdam (and from what I can ascertain much of the Netherlands) works on an oyster card system much like London except that they are called “Public Transport Chip Cards” (I think London wins on the name front). Unlike London, you cannot buy a normal ticket for a single trip- the smallest allocation is 1 hour on a chip card. I ultimately picked up a 48 hour city card which at a cost of 48 euros included all public transport, free entry to most of the museums, a canal boat ride, and discounts at the museums that weren’t free with the card and at numerous restaurants (the only museum not included at all was Anne Frank’s House as the proceeds go to charity). I recommend one to anyone spending a few days in Amsterdam as I didn’t use it as much as I could but still got well over 50 euros value out of the card- I left the voucher book that comes with the card with some American girls in my dorm so they’ll surely get even more value out of it.  Having sorted the public transport, I hopped on my tram to the hostel. Hopping off the tram, I quickly got my first lesson in Amsterdam transport. I already knew that the cars drove on the wrong side of the road (from an Australian perspective) and that tonnes of people use bikes instead of driving, what I didn’t know was that the bikes got their own lane which is sometimes separated slightly from the main road. I mistook one for a footpath and enraged many a cyclist as well as risking my own life in face of speeding metal famed death. I know you are thinking come on a bicycle hitting you wouldn’t kill you no matter how fast they are going. Well firstly you don’t know how fast and crazy these guys go on their bikes, and secondly and more importantly the bike lanes wasn’t just for bicycles, it is also for scooters and motorbikes, and, as I found out just before almost getting hit by one, overly small cars (I don’t know that this is actually permitted but that is where the guy was driving). Crossing road in continental Europe is difficult enough- what with driving on the wrong side of the road, not having pedestrian push buttons, drivers not stopped for pedestrians regardless of the lights and pedestrians just crossing whenever they feel like it- without the addition of the scary Dutch bike lane. The other dangerous thing about the bikes is how they are “parked”. I use the term “parked” loosely as they were often just stacked in random piles on the side of the road and you have to watch where you are walking in order not to trip over them. I feel I missed something of the “proper” Amsterdam experience by not cycling but next time I’ll definitely be jumping on a bicycle (of yes I'll definitely be revisiting Amsterdam- it's my new 3rd favourite city after London and Sydney, it is pretty close to stealing the number 2 slot).

Bike "parking"

Thankfully I got to the hostel without being killed or injured when crossing the bike lane. I was staying the hostel which is near the Holland Casino and a couple of blocks from the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. It was a good central location, very cheap, breakfast included, cheap bike hire, food and alcohol (if you wanted it) and, because I’d been moved from another hostel, I scored a free glass of wine on arrival.  On the first night, a French girl in my dorm stole the bed of a Spanish woman because she couldn’t be bothered asking reception why there appeared to be someone in hers (supposedly this was the case when she came to the dorm but there wasn’t anyone in her assigned bed when I got there)- the resulting argument in fractured English with some French and Spanish  thrown in along the way was quite funny especially as neither party really understood English- thankfully the French girl moved, and she and her friend left the next day. Actually with that exception and the presence of drunk Australian blokes in the bar (surely the patron saints of bogan tourism), the people at the hostel were a cheery crew- there was the girl from Brisvegas in my dorm who was in Amsterdam for the first time having lived in another part of the Netherlands a few years ago (she was travelling on her own too so we compared notes of where to go each day) , the Australian family whose son was questing after his HSC results (odd time for a family hostelling trip overseas if you ask me but they were lovely people), and the American girls in my dorm, who arrived on my last night, who were visiting Europe after a spending a semester on exchange in Oxford (they spent their first night sitting the dorm watching season 2 Grey’s Anatomy on a laptop which was a little strange but then again when I was in the UK a few years ago, I spend my one night in Bournemouth watching Torchwood so maybe I’m strange too- at least I had the excuse that it wasn’t on telly back home at the time).  The other thing about people in Amsterdam...they speak ENGLISH and in most cases very good English (some of the businesses even have signs in English) so you don’t need to worry about not speaking Dutch (that said if you speak any German, it’s not too hard to pick up a little Dutch as they are quite similar).

The next morning and I was museum bound again. Everyone who had ever been to Amsterdam or lived in the Netherlands kept telling me to go to the Rijksmuseum and see Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. So off I went (even though in my mind, the Van Gogh Museum seemed more exciting) and was ultimately very thankful that it was included in my card as part of it was closed. That said, The Night Watch was on display and it is a pretty spectacular painting- as are some of the others on display (there is a brilliant Rembrandt called The Jewish Couple of which Van Gogh said he would live on only bread and water if he could sit in front of it and study it for a fortnight (or something like that, my memory of the audio guide is getting hazy)). The other good thing about the Rijksmuseum is that the entry ticket gives you 15% off at nearby cafe which is quite good (another discount for Clare...score! That said after Zürich everything already felt like it was on sale).  Then I was off to the museum I was much more excited about the Van Gogh museum. I’ve been somewhat in love with Vincent van Gogh’s art for many a year and the collection at the Van Gogh museum is spectacular (it includes one of the sunflower paintings, a couple of the self portraits and his last painting, Crows Flying over Haystacks (or at least what is believed to be his last painting)). Personally I’d say go to the Van Gogh Museum before the Rijksmuseum but it really is a matter of taste. Both museums have some of the craziest security I’ve ever seen- metal detectors at both and an x-ray machine for your bags (like at an airport) at the Rijksmuseum- what I would be hiding in my tiny bag, I don’t know.  Then I was off on a canal boat trip. The captain was a useless guide but the audio track (in four languages- Dutch, English, German and French) was quite interesting and it really is one of the best ways to see Amsterdam so I recommend it. I’d also strongly recommend you eat some Indonesian food while in Amsterdam. Someone I know who is Dutch recommended it to me and I was sceptical to say the least, but turns out the Dutch (or more accurately the Indonesians living in Amsterdam) make brilliant food- I’m still a little concerned that there was fried bananas with my savoury food but somehow they worked.

Canals at sunset

I’m going to actually mess with time here and talk about my second afternoon in Amsterdam before I talk about the morning. That afternoon, I was off to the Willet Holthuysen museum which is quite an interesting restoration of one of the richer canal houses (that said the museum takes about 15 minutes to see, so if you don’t have a pass which lets you in for free, I wouldn’t bother) and the Handbag Museum (less interesting more because it was just down the road from the Willet Holthuysen museum and I had thought the first one would take longer). Then off to the Hermitage, Amsterdam to see my own bit of St Petersburg. The Amsterdam version of the Hermitage exhibits stuff that is on loan from the Russian one- the current exhibit is on Alexander the Great and was quite good. After that I was off for an early Italian dinner with one of my discount cards. It was cheap though not good but the lecture I got from the Egyptian waiter was worth it. He asked me why I was in Amsterdam and what I’d been doing, and I said I was travelling and that I’d been visiting museums. He told me that museums were boring and then proceeded to tell me that most tourists come for the Ice Bar, the coffee shops that give you pot with your coffee (this technically is now illegal but the cops turn a blind eye to it) and the red light district (which he called “Red Light Town”). I said that I liked museums and that I had no interest in the above (we have an ice bar in Sydney, I don’t want pot or hookers, and also what woman travelling on her own REALLY wants to go into the Red Light District at night). He refused to believe me and continued to tell me exactly here I needed to go and that the Red Light District was only a few blocks away. Needless to say, I didn’t visit the Ice Bar, any of the dodgy coffee shops, or the Red Light District that night (or at all), instead I walked back to the hostel along the well lit (without a hint of red) main streets grabbing some poffertjes (tasty Dutch mini pancakes for those not in know) at a Christmas market on the way.

Anne Frank statue

So why delay talking about that morning? I try to keep my blog posts largely happy with a hint of my kind of humour and that morning was not a morning for happiness. The morning of my second day in Amsterdam I went to the tourist sites related to the Dutch (in particular the Amsterdam) Jewish community.  I completed an entire history degree that was largely focused on Jewish History but not until I stood in Anne Frank’s House and watched a video of a woman who had known her (they went to school together and were in different section of the same concentration camp) that it really hit home. Though I read Anne Frank’s Diary when I was about 13 and I know her story very well, I was fighting back tears as I listened to this video and to another one of Anne Frank’s father made after the war. This girl was so young and, if her writing is anything to go by, smart beyond her years, and it just makes you think what would make someone so sadistic that they would want to kill innocent children. After Anne Frank’s House, I went to the Jewish Historical Museum which is housed in a rebuilt sector of the old synagogue (all the synagogues in Amsterdam but one were destroyed during WW2, and those that were destroyed have not been rebuilt as synagogues). The museum showed that the Jewish community (both religious and secular) in the Netherlands had been, even in its poorer sections, a strong and vital community but only 35 000 of a community of around 150 000 survived the Holocaust (that’s less than a quarter of the population). The thing that hit me hardest, aside from the despair and the horror, was the idea of hope. Anne Frank’s friend on the video said that she believed Anne had only died because she gave up hope after the death of her sister (not knowing at the time that her father was still alive), and it struck me that that is a long way to fall especially at such a young age, and that hope, or the lack there of, can be key to human survival. The Jewish Historical Museum is a testament to the gradually renewing of hope in the Amsterdam Jewish Community and the statements by Otto Frank that you hear at the end of the tour of Anne Frank’s house are astounding. Here is a man where lost his entire family, his community and his livelihood to the Holocaust and yet he has found hope. He planned Anne Frank’s House not only as a memorial to his daughter but more as statement against prejudice and an attempt to get those who visit to think about injustice. The final section of the Anne Frank’s House is an interactive section where people can listen to and vote on different injustices in the world today. Of everything I have seen thus far, Anne Frank’s House is the one thing that I would say everyone must visit (also, if you never have, read her diary)- in order to see not just the horror that humans can inflict but also that eventually hope can come out of despair and that we must be mindful of the emergence of injustice however subtly it starts.

Those poor Swiss people with their neutrality

Looking out over Lake Zürich

COW!

Christmas Markets

Hello again all! Far from the bright lights of Paris, I’m currently on a train between Basel and Frankfurt- neither are cities that I’m spending any time in but to get to Amsterdam, I have to go from Zürich to Basel to Frankfurt first. So far this morning Swiss/German trains are impressing me with their ability to a) run on time, b) not break down and c) do announcements in two languages I understand (there was one announcement in French as we arrived at Basel but I’m ignoring that). Why are all these things important you may ask...well that brings me to why I currently have very little love for France.  In my last post, I said I wouldn’t talk about my brief time in Paris/ France but as it consumed a day of my life I’ve changed my mind. After flying into Charles de Gaulle (truly the most hideous airport I’ve ever seen), I managed to navigate my way slowly to the centre of Paris. The walk from Paris Nord to Paris Est was chore enough- first I was confronted by a man selling the French version of Big Issue who helpfully gave me directions from one station to the other but unhelpfully wouldn’t let me get away despite my repeatedly stating that I was in rush to catch my train, when I finally got away from him and was almost at Paris Est a guy trying to get people to sign a petition for UNICEF (which I couldn’t read what with it being in French and I don’t sign things I can’t understand)  grabbed my bag in the guise of helping me down the stairs then wouldn’t let go and who also couldn’t speak English and therefore couldn’t understand I was in a rush- I had to shove him off my bag and run.  Finally I was safely on my train to Nancy which is where I left you thinking that the worst was behind me- more fool me

I successfully got to Nancy but then my problems really started. Suddenly my lack of French was matched with a lack of English from the French. No-one had been nice enough to explain to me that Basel in French is NOT Basel- it is Băle. I therefore couldn’t find my train and was in a state of mild panic as the time for the train passed and I was stuck at a station in a country where I didn’t speak the language in a part of it where many of the other people around me didn’t speak my language. I finally found an information person who told me my train had in fact broken down and that instead I need to go to Strasbourg and then change for Basel (she still didn’t explain that it had a different name) and then from Basel to Zürich. Following using my non-existent French to order a sandwich (it was a  cheese(Brie) sandwich and thankfully/oddly one of the few French words I know is cheese) and a Coke Light (Diet Coke in Europe), I jumped on the train she suggested (which as it turns out was actually going to Basel but which I didn’t realise at the time) and jumped off at Strasbourg where all the signs/announcements are in French, the ticket office was closed (it was about 9pm) and I still didn’t know about the name difference for Basel- safe to say mild panic was now a massive panic and my being on the verge of tears. Thankfully I found someone who spoke a little English who helpfully told me my train was 50 minutes late and that Basel was called Băle in French. It turned out the Basel train actually was going all the way to Zürich and though it was a train that I normally would have needed a reservation for, the train guards were nice enough to let me on without one. I finally got to Zürich at just after midnight and made my way to my hostel where I used a bit of fractured German to check in (clearly not too fractured though as the guy at the hostel asked if I was German- I think more because he’d spoken to a lot of people who only spoke English that day than that my German was any good).

The hostel was an unattractive 1970s style building on the outside but inside was very warm and very modern. I was soon to discover just how expensive Switzerland is- how about 7 francs for a key ring or 1.20 for a postcard, the inability to get meal for less than 15-20 francs and 15.50 francs for entry to an art gallery (1 franc= roughly 1 Australian or US dollar)-  and therefore was pleased to discover that breakfast was included at the hostel (breakfast was fruit salad (actual fruit salad unlike the UK ‘s apple salad), cereal, yoghurt, cheese (it is Switzerland after all though it turned out the Swiss cheese on offer was a bit strong but the Brie was tasty), very nice bread (with jam or very tasty local honey), tea and coffee (bearable coffee!! Being next to Italy has taught the Swiss something)). The rooms weren’t over heated and had this weird vibe of having a small wash basin area with lockers before you entered the main part of the dorm. The other thing about the hostel was that it was actually a ways south of the main part of Zürich and after my experience in France, I was less confident about my ability to get around and was quickly reminded that speaking was always the weakest part of my German at school so I found while in Zürich that I could understand when people spoke to me in German  but I couldn’t answer them well (which clearly made some of them think I was an idiot).  All this resulted in my getting lost early on my first morning in Zürich, but thankfully I found the lake relatively quickly and could locate myself from there and I also quickly learnt to say “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”or “Sprecht du Englisch?” as a conservation starter when I needed to speak to someone. It turns out most people in Zürich do speak English (I got only a couple of people saying they spoke only a little and only one who couldn’t speak it at all except to say that he couldn’t understand me).

So the first day, I went for a nice stroll by the lake and discovered that Switzerland has a profoundly large number of duck species that I’d never seen before. Then I found a cafe where I forked out 10.50 for a hot chocolate with a shot of coffee in it- very tasty (I’ve actually had a similar drink at the Lindt cafe in Sydney but never this tasty) so that slightly made up for the rip off cost of it all. I then rambled through the Alt Stadt (the old city i.e. the uber tousirty part of Zürich) looking for the Kunsthaus Zürich (the art gallery). Before I got to Kunsthaus Zürich, I found the Grossmünster, Zürich’s cathedral- the name translates as the Great Minister. Unlike churches in the UK and Ireland, entry was free (so I had no qualms about going in). The stained glass windows are the most spectacular that I have ever seen (some of them were redesigned last year and they are made from cuts of stones instead of glass) and the stonework was very pretty (actually the people responsible for the masonry around Zürich, in general, should be commended).  There was an old bible open on display so I got to read Psalm 23 in German. It cost 4 francs to climb one of the towers of the church which is totally worth it as it provides a brilliant view of Zürich and the lake. That said, if anyone out there makes a career of building cathedrals, lifts are a great invention! I’m so sick of climbing hundreds of stairs to see things- which you had to do pretty everywhere in Zürich (who builds cities in mountains! Really!).  I finally located the Kunsthaus where there was a great exhibit of Picasso (I’m getting some great exhibits by artists I like- I also saw a very good Gauguin exhibit at the Tate Modern) and also a bit too much modern art for my liking (how is a stuffed horse skin without a head art?). After that some Thai food for dinner...I had promised myself no Asian food in Europe but I was craving it and, though not cheap, Thai Bamboo in the Old City wasn’t bad- it did however take a while for the guy to understand that I wanted tofu and no chicken.

The next day and I was museum bound and was hoping for museums with cheap entry (I estimated that this wouldn’t be possible and withdrew 50 francs in case- stupid move it seems as 5 francs or less is coins and therefore not acceptable at a bureau de charge, and I still have like 12 or 13 francs in my wallet). In the morning, I made the massive climb to the University and visited the Zoological, Paleontological, Archaeology and Medical History museums. It turns out all of these are free but be warned all the signs are in German so if you don’t understand it you’ll struggle (not knowing German scientific words, I had to try and pull things together in my brain). I discovered at the Zoological Museum that smurfs come from South America and that I was right about Switzerland’s massive number of duck species. The archaeology museum had a great display of jewellery from a recent dig in Italy and the medical museum included an exhibit on AIDs which was just lots of condoms (also which clearly hadn’t been updated since the 80s or early 90s). The University is worth the visit in and of itself as it has some very pretty buildings and is so high up that it affords a great view of the city. After all this walking I was crazing Spätzli- i.e. German fried noodles and when prepared like they are at Löwenbräu in the Rocks (albeit called Spätzle there as that is the German name), they are one of my favourite food (if you are ever at the Rocks Markets, you should grab some). I found some, with a tasty mushroom cream sauce, and my one person who couldn’t speak English (my waiter) in a cheesy, very Swiss looking restaurant. Then off to the Swiss National Museum (only 10 francs entry) which is awesome- it is a bit of combo of a small design museum (think the V&A in London (my favourite museum) but downsized, more Swiss and with more Religious design stuff) and a historical museum of Switzerland. Definitely worth the visit and while the signs are in German and French, some are also in Italian and English (and there are English translations available). Sadly I couldn’t go down the slide in the centre of the museum (it was only for kids) but I did get the entertainment value of there being an exhibit completely on Swiss army knives.

I should mention while I was museum hopping, lunatics were running a marathon of the city (including up some of the mountain-y bits) and partially because of the interest in this and partially as part of Christmas markets, people had set up mulled wine, roast chestnut and wurst stalls all over the city. My walk back to the hostel last night was therefore through a very crowded city which smelt awesome!

This morning I was off early to the station and the trains have been kind to me (announcements in English and all- I love the Swiss and the Germans). I also discovered the cream cheese croissant- a brilliant invention!

So why poor Swiss? They have to carry power point plug converters everywhere as it turns out the Swiss have different power points to the rest of Europe. Neutrality is all well and good but it ain’t convenient.