I'm actually not too fond of Hungary. It seems sort of trapped in a second-world frame of mind. I bet it's just Budapest that is so grubby and needful, and that the countryside and smaller towns are great, but this isn't my favorite place on this trip. The bootstraps the Budapestians are pulling themselves up with are the tourists', not their own, and even the grubby hostels are expensive. I got warned about scams by almost everyone I met.
I did like seeing all the copper statues. They're everywhere, and they tell the history of the town if you can read them in the right order. Instead of puzzling it out, I went to the Hungarian History Museum. They started with the Romans in the basement and worked their way up to the fall of the Iron Curtain and modern times. Either I forgot everything except the Austrio-Hungarian Empire at the end of my history courses, or Hungary's getting largely skipped. I learned a ton. Every exhibit had something else to say about Hungary, something I didn't have any idea about. They've done a great job with their museum.
I also stopped by the synagogue and the incredibly Gothic Parliament building before crossing over to the Buda side of town to climb up to the Citadel. I think it was a fortress for a while, but now it's a museum and tourist trap. It does have great views, though. I hiked over to the castle afterward and checked out the National Art Museum. If you stay out of the downtown area, Budapest has some decent places to go. I don't think I could find anything for a second day, though, so I'm going to catch a night train to Kraków. I'm a bit wary of security and my ability to sleep on a night train, but they seem like a good deal and a great way to skip some travel time. I do like watching out the windows on trains, but these trips are such long distances that I probably couldn't stand that much countryside.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Kooooonst!
Today was all about art. I dumped my bag at the train station and started in the Belvedere. There were these fabulous character heads, though I forgot the artist. I can't imagine modeling for this guy. The expressions were all so extreme, with bulging platysmal folds and scrunched eyebrows and noses. I enjoyed Max Oppenheimer's works, though I got a little sick of Klimt by the end of the exhibit. His Kiss is there, though, so I could see what all the fuss is about. It's difficult to tell, sometimes, when you're looking at a picture. Happily, they also had a lot of Egon Schiele.
I spent the afternoon in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Words cannot describe the wonders within. I need to come back to Vienna, pitch a tent in the museum, and not leave for at least a week.
And then maybe I'll see an opera and check out the Schönbrunn, the Hapsburg's larger estate. It's kind of like their version of Versailles and sounded like too much for me to take on. Oh, and the Wienerwald, and the wine gardens, and the sculpture at the Leopold Museum.... I've got to catch a train to Budapest now, so the rest of Vienna will have to wait until I return.
I spent the afternoon in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Words cannot describe the wonders within. I need to come back to Vienna, pitch a tent in the museum, and not leave for at least a week.
And then maybe I'll see an opera and check out the Schönbrunn, the Hapsburg's larger estate. It's kind of like their version of Versailles and sounded like too much for me to take on. Oh, and the Wienerwald, and the wine gardens, and the sculpture at the Leopold Museum.... I've got to catch a train to Budapest now, so the rest of Vienna will have to wait until I return.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Dodging east.
I went to the Sacher Café this morning, and then to the WW I/II monument across the street. It's not a serious boxy one, but rather a powerfully moving one, with people struggling to escape from the rock and guns poking out here and there. I thought about it all the way down to St. Stephen's church, which was huge and captured my thoughts. You can see the outline of the old graveyard around the church, where it was before some Kaiser (Franz Josef I, perhaps?) moved it out of town, and I wonder what it would have been like to walk through the aisles, those huge towers looming above. It would be nice to see all these churches and cathedrals without any other tall buildings around. No skyscrapers, no offices, just humble little huts and one HUGE church. Instead, the area where the cemetery was is a giant square, chock full of shoppers and tourists.
Vienna also has the Kaisergruft, where the famous people are buried. Clearly, only the commoners are a contagion risk. Wealthy people can be buried in the middle of town. There are giant pedestrian shopping boulevards, and there are tiny little squares where you can find a great Biesl, a local coffeeshop, and chill out with some pastry. The square with the Jewish memorial (Judenplatz, naturally) is a good one for that. The memorial is nice, too: it's a cube covered in books, kind of like a library built on revolving theater stage walls that have been flipped outward. Yet another giant pedestrian street is the Graben, which as the name implies, used to be a huge ditch. The Romans used it for defense. This street has Vienna's plague monument. I've noticed that a lot of cities have one. The survivors were so excited to be alive that they all built fancy statues and columns all over the place. Understandable. I ended up back next to the Imperial Palace, where I found some Roman ruins I had overlooked the first time. I don't think I made it all the way around the palace to that particular square before. I treated myself to a smoked salmon, strawberry, sprout, and vinaigrette salad before hopping on another train. It was crispy and delicious.
I figured I could use a break from all the opulence of Vienna, so I popped out to Bratislava for a little while. It was fantastic, all onion domes and towers and crooked little old town streets. You can really see the influence Vienna has had on its neighboring city. When you hike up to the castle and look across the Danube, you can also see another architectural influence: the dull, squat, concrete housing blocks of the Soviets. I really liked seeing all the contrasts in Bratislava. Also of note: Bratislava had signs all over the place advertising its "twin cities" relationship with Vienna, but I saw only one such sign in all of the latter city. Poor little sib.
I had dinner in Bratislava, since I wanted to try Slovakian food and I figured it would be a lot cheaper than in Austria. It was. Though it cost 283... um, Slovakian currency units, it amounted to about twelve dollars for a large, rich, and garlicky fish soup, flamed crepes stuffed with walnut paste and lounging with some fruit in an orange zest sauce, and a huge Czech beer. That would easily have been double the price in Vienna, if not triple. The waitstaff were also very attentive in Bratislava. In Switzerland and Austria, they basically ignore you, thinking that they are letting you savor the meal and not feel rushed to pay. I savor, yes, but when I'm done eating I want my bill and I want to get out of there so I can see something else.
When I got back from Slovakia, the Österreich-Polska match was on. I joined the crowd standing outside the Fan Zone (they pat you down and take your water and all that if you actually go in), since we could see the huge projection from there. Poland led for the entire game, but both sides' fans kept up the cheering and good mood. In the 92nd minute, during the last bit of makeup time, Österreich's captain scored. You would have thought the guy had won every single gold medal there is at the Olympics. The match ended in a tie, but you couldn't tell the Austrians that. (I think their team usually loses.) They cheered and hollered and jumped for at least fifteen minutes straight, then went off on parades around the Hofburg Palace and through Stevensplatz and all along the pedestrian avenues. Naturally, I tagged along.
I'd ended up watching with a group of architecture students. They adopted me into their fold for the evening, striped facepaint and all, especially after I used my best German to say hi and ask questions. One of them proceeded to explain every single football cheer and pulled me off to the side when she thought she saw some Polish hooligans coming. She says they felt like the game was stolen from them and the Polish hooliganism is second only to that of the Brits. The architecture students and I stomped around chanting and cheering for a while. I tried to duck out when they headed for a pub, but the one girl made me come to a different pub for just a few minutes more. A guitarist was singing famous Austrian songs, and I just had to hear a few. She was right. They were great.
The football cheers are still cycling through my head. One translates to "Austria, now and forever," while another brags about how they're going to win their next game, against Germany. (Deutschland, Deutschland, alles historie!) Not likely. Another is pure Viennese slang: they shorten the captain's name down to Ivo and then uses contractions that supposedly mean "kicked a goal" afterward, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It sounds like "Da Ivo pitta manna, dunh dunnnnh dun-dun dunnnnh dun da!" The one that really stays in your head is to When the Saints Go Marching In and just consists of nonsense cheering about Rot, Weiss, Österreich!. All in all, a great day.
Vienna also has the Kaisergruft, where the famous people are buried. Clearly, only the commoners are a contagion risk. Wealthy people can be buried in the middle of town. There are giant pedestrian shopping boulevards, and there are tiny little squares where you can find a great Biesl, a local coffeeshop, and chill out with some pastry. The square with the Jewish memorial (Judenplatz, naturally) is a good one for that. The memorial is nice, too: it's a cube covered in books, kind of like a library built on revolving theater stage walls that have been flipped outward. Yet another giant pedestrian street is the Graben, which as the name implies, used to be a huge ditch. The Romans used it for defense. This street has Vienna's plague monument. I've noticed that a lot of cities have one. The survivors were so excited to be alive that they all built fancy statues and columns all over the place. Understandable. I ended up back next to the Imperial Palace, where I found some Roman ruins I had overlooked the first time. I don't think I made it all the way around the palace to that particular square before. I treated myself to a smoked salmon, strawberry, sprout, and vinaigrette salad before hopping on another train. It was crispy and delicious.
I figured I could use a break from all the opulence of Vienna, so I popped out to Bratislava for a little while. It was fantastic, all onion domes and towers and crooked little old town streets. You can really see the influence Vienna has had on its neighboring city. When you hike up to the castle and look across the Danube, you can also see another architectural influence: the dull, squat, concrete housing blocks of the Soviets. I really liked seeing all the contrasts in Bratislava. Also of note: Bratislava had signs all over the place advertising its "twin cities" relationship with Vienna, but I saw only one such sign in all of the latter city. Poor little sib.
I had dinner in Bratislava, since I wanted to try Slovakian food and I figured it would be a lot cheaper than in Austria. It was. Though it cost 283... um, Slovakian currency units, it amounted to about twelve dollars for a large, rich, and garlicky fish soup, flamed crepes stuffed with walnut paste and lounging with some fruit in an orange zest sauce, and a huge Czech beer. That would easily have been double the price in Vienna, if not triple. The waitstaff were also very attentive in Bratislava. In Switzerland and Austria, they basically ignore you, thinking that they are letting you savor the meal and not feel rushed to pay. I savor, yes, but when I'm done eating I want my bill and I want to get out of there so I can see something else.
When I got back from Slovakia, the Österreich-Polska match was on. I joined the crowd standing outside the Fan Zone (they pat you down and take your water and all that if you actually go in), since we could see the huge projection from there. Poland led for the entire game, but both sides' fans kept up the cheering and good mood. In the 92nd minute, during the last bit of makeup time, Österreich's captain scored. You would have thought the guy had won every single gold medal there is at the Olympics. The match ended in a tie, but you couldn't tell the Austrians that. (I think their team usually loses.) They cheered and hollered and jumped for at least fifteen minutes straight, then went off on parades around the Hofburg Palace and through Stevensplatz and all along the pedestrian avenues. Naturally, I tagged along.
I'd ended up watching with a group of architecture students. They adopted me into their fold for the evening, striped facepaint and all, especially after I used my best German to say hi and ask questions. One of them proceeded to explain every single football cheer and pulled me off to the side when she thought she saw some Polish hooligans coming. She says they felt like the game was stolen from them and the Polish hooliganism is second only to that of the Brits. The architecture students and I stomped around chanting and cheering for a while. I tried to duck out when they headed for a pub, but the one girl made me come to a different pub for just a few minutes more. A guitarist was singing famous Austrian songs, and I just had to hear a few. She was right. They were great.
The football cheers are still cycling through my head. One translates to "Austria, now and forever," while another brags about how they're going to win their next game, against Germany. (Deutschland, Deutschland, alles historie!) Not likely. Another is pure Viennese slang: they shorten the captain's name down to Ivo and then uses contractions that supposedly mean "kicked a goal" afterward, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It sounds like "Da Ivo pitta manna, dunh dunnnnh dun-dun dunnnnh dun da!" The one that really stays in your head is to When the Saints Go Marching In and just consists of nonsense cheering about Rot, Weiss, Österreich!. All in all, a great day.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tiring.
I stayed up late to watch the end of the Switzerland-Turkey match. It was tied till the 92nd minute, when Turkey scored a second goal. Most of the crowd was for Turkey, so they´re all out dancing singing and and drinking and honking their car horns.
Before that, I went to the ballet at the Vienna Opera House. Before that, I spent three hours in the Albertina Museum: Rubens, Albrecht Dürer (wow), Michelangelo (also wow), Egon Schiele (whom I love), Renoir, Monet, Degas, Toulouse-Latrec, Cézanne, Matisse, Signac & company, Giacometti, Kandinsky, Chagall, Miró, Picasso... they also had a huge Klee show, and some of the state rooms were still open and as they were when the wing was built. The Albertina Museum is part of the Hofburg, the Hapsburg city residence, aka the Imperial Palace. It was built for some queen-type person. The really nice-looking (neoclassical?), semicircular wing is my favorite, though. Franz Ferdinand built it while waiting for his turn, but he was assassinated (WWI!) before Franz Josef I finally died of old age. Anyone else miss AP Euro? Anyway, it was a nice addition to the palace.
Before the Albertina, I was having a Viennese lunch. They put potatoes, corn, and lentils in their green salads, then drown them in dressing.
Prior to that, I spent all morning in the inner sanctum of the Hofburg, looking at all of Emperor Franz Josef I and Empress Elizabeth´s belongings. I cannot begin to describe the size and complexity of the imperial dinner service. They had between eight and thirty-something courses per meal, depending on whom they were impressing, and I lost count of how many different types of plates there were. The decorated porcelain services were outstandingly well painted, but the silver and gold sets were jaw-droppingly shiny. I can´t think of any better way to show off such massive wealth.
The staterooms were neat, too. The exhibits reminded me about the lives of the Hapsburgs, then took me through the daily life of FJ I and his wife. It turns out she was fanatical about exercise, unheard of for a woman in those times. She had a pull-up bar and gymnastic rings in her study, between her writing desk (poetry, mostly) and her massage table (for after all that exercise, of course). Rings are ridiculously difficult. I had a hard time imagining an empress up there, doing all those shoulder and ab exercises, and it only became more difficult to picture when I saw her workout skirt.
Before that were a few churches, including the one they built as thanks for a failed assassination attempt on FJ I, and the Parliament, which is tying their tour into EuroCup 2008 to try to get people in the door.
So. I´m somewhat tired from staring at things all day. But I´m still excited for tomorrow.
Before that, I went to the ballet at the Vienna Opera House. Before that, I spent three hours in the Albertina Museum: Rubens, Albrecht Dürer (wow), Michelangelo (also wow), Egon Schiele (whom I love), Renoir, Monet, Degas, Toulouse-Latrec, Cézanne, Matisse, Signac & company, Giacometti, Kandinsky, Chagall, Miró, Picasso... they also had a huge Klee show, and some of the state rooms were still open and as they were when the wing was built. The Albertina Museum is part of the Hofburg, the Hapsburg city residence, aka the Imperial Palace. It was built for some queen-type person. The really nice-looking (neoclassical?), semicircular wing is my favorite, though. Franz Ferdinand built it while waiting for his turn, but he was assassinated (WWI!) before Franz Josef I finally died of old age. Anyone else miss AP Euro? Anyway, it was a nice addition to the palace.
Before the Albertina, I was having a Viennese lunch. They put potatoes, corn, and lentils in their green salads, then drown them in dressing.
Prior to that, I spent all morning in the inner sanctum of the Hofburg, looking at all of Emperor Franz Josef I and Empress Elizabeth´s belongings. I cannot begin to describe the size and complexity of the imperial dinner service. They had between eight and thirty-something courses per meal, depending on whom they were impressing, and I lost count of how many different types of plates there were. The decorated porcelain services were outstandingly well painted, but the silver and gold sets were jaw-droppingly shiny. I can´t think of any better way to show off such massive wealth.
The staterooms were neat, too. The exhibits reminded me about the lives of the Hapsburgs, then took me through the daily life of FJ I and his wife. It turns out she was fanatical about exercise, unheard of for a woman in those times. She had a pull-up bar and gymnastic rings in her study, between her writing desk (poetry, mostly) and her massage table (for after all that exercise, of course). Rings are ridiculously difficult. I had a hard time imagining an empress up there, doing all those shoulder and ab exercises, and it only became more difficult to picture when I saw her workout skirt.
Before that were a few churches, including the one they built as thanks for a failed assassination attempt on FJ I, and the Parliament, which is tying their tour into EuroCup 2008 to try to get people in the door.
So. I´m somewhat tired from staring at things all day. But I´m still excited for tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
EuroCup2008 madness.
Salzburg is all a whirl of yellow and blue and white. I arrived last night in time to watch the Polska v Deutschland match, and all the Sverige and Hellas supporters were out in their garb. The official Fan Mile had been hijacked by Sweden before I got to town, but the hardy Greeks had set up their own on a street right by my hostel. I watched the above match from a Greek tavern, and got to see a group of guitar players belting out traditional Greek tunes during half time. They even had a Swede up there with them, clapping along. I was on the lookout for hooligans when the EuroCup first started, but all I've seen everywhere is good cheer. Probably because the Brits didn't make the Cup. Heh.
I got up early this morning to see as much of Salzburg as I could before it got swamped with tourists and EuroCuppers. In addition to regular fans absolutely everywhere, I met a fancy Swede in a full tux, bow tie and all, except that the shirt was replaced with a signed, yellow Swedish replica jersey. It looked quite nice. I will have to try that if ever I get invited to a ball. At any rate, we both went for the local second breakfast of a light pint. I had my Trumer Pils with a Brezl (pretzel, natch) and apricots from the farmers' market in the square (Universitatsplatz).
I also saw lots of old streets with elaborate gold signs, Mozart's home and birthplace, the park from Sound of Music, and churches with tons of graves. I'm getting sick of church art, but I will press on. Also in the squares and streets were French schoolchildren doing their darndest to incite football violence. They chanted their little lungs out every time they saw a guy in a Sweden shirt. Most of the Swedes and Greeks just chuckled, but a few Swedish youths chanted back while grinning madly. My favorite find of the day was a local Schnapps maker. He must have had thirty or so kinds in the storefront. I wish I had tried a few--it was ten in the morning when I passed by, and I didn't think I could take them to go. I forgot to go back until too late in the day.
I got up early this morning to see as much of Salzburg as I could before it got swamped with tourists and EuroCuppers. In addition to regular fans absolutely everywhere, I met a fancy Swede in a full tux, bow tie and all, except that the shirt was replaced with a signed, yellow Swedish replica jersey. It looked quite nice. I will have to try that if ever I get invited to a ball. At any rate, we both went for the local second breakfast of a light pint. I had my Trumer Pils with a Brezl (pretzel, natch) and apricots from the farmers' market in the square (Universitatsplatz).
I also saw lots of old streets with elaborate gold signs, Mozart's home and birthplace, the park from Sound of Music, and churches with tons of graves. I'm getting sick of church art, but I will press on. Also in the squares and streets were French schoolchildren doing their darndest to incite football violence. They chanted their little lungs out every time they saw a guy in a Sweden shirt. Most of the Swedes and Greeks just chuckled, but a few Swedish youths chanted back while grinning madly. My favorite find of the day was a local Schnapps maker. He must have had thirty or so kinds in the storefront. I wish I had tried a few--it was ten in the morning when I passed by, and I didn't think I could take them to go. I forgot to go back until too late in the day.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Return of the Alps.
It's official: I love Austria.
Everyone is nice, the tortes are delicious, and it's all mountains and rivers and lakes and farming again. I think also I might be homesick for Schweiz.
I arrived in Innsbruck at about 18:30 last night. The Austrian team kicked off its first match of the 2008 Euro Cup at about 18:00 in Wien. The 2008 Euro Cup is being held in Austria and Schweiz this year. Needless to say, the whole town was a swirl of red and white: facepaint, flag capes, t-shirts, crazy hats, and various banners and scarves. I had meant to get a Hopp Schweiz scarf before I left; perhaps I will pick one up right before I fly home. Innsbruck's main street is the official Fan Meile for the whole month. (Ha ha, take that, metric system! Fan Kilometre sounds stupid and isn't as long.) The whole street is swarming in tent pubs, pretzel stands, and young men. The Croat supporters held their own parade in the middle of all the Austrian pride, and were fairly well tolerated. I tried to check out the major touristy sights for a few minutes, then gave up, donned all my red clothing, and watched some of the game from one of the ubiquitous street monitors.
I Skyped home during the Germany-Poland game, but I stayed long enough beforehand to witness a flurry of Deutschland supporters jumping around to the blasting pre-game music. On my dusk wander through town, there were still enough fans out to elicit chants as they passed each other on the streets. My favorite starts "Ohne Deutschland!" as bold as can be, but I lost the rest in a garble of drunken Austrian-flavored German.
I found a great hostel/bed and breakfast, above a fancy cafe. Yep, that means the included breakfast was superb, which was especially welcome after Italy. The swirly, creamy bread delighted me, but then the owner came by to drop off my torte and it was all over between me and that roll. Breakfast dessert! What a great country. I chatted with the owner a bit over the pastry case afterwards. You get something different each morning, if you stay a while, and it can be anything they make. That case had dark and milk chocolate, hazelnut, strawberry, passionfruit, vanilla creme, orange, raspberry, and all sorts of Austrian wafer cookies combined in various ways. They had Sachertorte, of course, but I am holding out for the time being. Besides, the cheese torte I had at breakfast had filled me up.
I saw Frederick IV's Goldenes Dachl, a fancy, gold-roofed balcony he built to watch his people dance in the square, climbed the Stadtturm (town tower) for a better view of the Olympic ski jump and city, looked at the column and arch along main street, strolled along the Inn river and through the town park, and visited three churches. The Jesuit one has Leopold V's and some of the Medicis' tombs. The Hofkirche held a huge monument to Maximillian I, complete with oversized bronze statues of all his most important relatives (mostly also royalty). The Dom zu St. Jakob pealed out its daily carillon just as I arrived, the bells somehow both jangling as well as light and wistful. This one had mostly stucco, thank goodness. The Jesuits were big on gold, and I'm sick of looking at it all after the Basilica and Ca' d'Oro in Venice and the Goldenes Dachl this morning.
I need to come back to Innsbruck again. I want to ski and hike, I want to try the bobsled and luge runs, and I want to see the folk museums. There are a lot of castles not too far from here, in very southern Germany, Bavaria really, that are probably best reached from this area. I also want to see the archeological and especially anatomical and apothecary museums. I could do with some more Tirolean history as well. A number of last night's revelers had flags proclaiming their love of Tirol or t-shirts and stickers insisting that Südtirol ist NICHT Italian. I faintly remember Austria regaining some of this region from Germany, then losing some to Italy.
Everyone is nice, the tortes are delicious, and it's all mountains and rivers and lakes and farming again. I think also I might be homesick for Schweiz.
I arrived in Innsbruck at about 18:30 last night. The Austrian team kicked off its first match of the 2008 Euro Cup at about 18:00 in Wien. The 2008 Euro Cup is being held in Austria and Schweiz this year. Needless to say, the whole town was a swirl of red and white: facepaint, flag capes, t-shirts, crazy hats, and various banners and scarves. I had meant to get a Hopp Schweiz scarf before I left; perhaps I will pick one up right before I fly home. Innsbruck's main street is the official Fan Meile for the whole month. (Ha ha, take that, metric system! Fan Kilometre sounds stupid and isn't as long.) The whole street is swarming in tent pubs, pretzel stands, and young men. The Croat supporters held their own parade in the middle of all the Austrian pride, and were fairly well tolerated. I tried to check out the major touristy sights for a few minutes, then gave up, donned all my red clothing, and watched some of the game from one of the ubiquitous street monitors.
I Skyped home during the Germany-Poland game, but I stayed long enough beforehand to witness a flurry of Deutschland supporters jumping around to the blasting pre-game music. On my dusk wander through town, there were still enough fans out to elicit chants as they passed each other on the streets. My favorite starts "Ohne Deutschland!" as bold as can be, but I lost the rest in a garble of drunken Austrian-flavored German.
I found a great hostel/bed and breakfast, above a fancy cafe. Yep, that means the included breakfast was superb, which was especially welcome after Italy. The swirly, creamy bread delighted me, but then the owner came by to drop off my torte and it was all over between me and that roll. Breakfast dessert! What a great country. I chatted with the owner a bit over the pastry case afterwards. You get something different each morning, if you stay a while, and it can be anything they make. That case had dark and milk chocolate, hazelnut, strawberry, passionfruit, vanilla creme, orange, raspberry, and all sorts of Austrian wafer cookies combined in various ways. They had Sachertorte, of course, but I am holding out for the time being. Besides, the cheese torte I had at breakfast had filled me up.
I saw Frederick IV's Goldenes Dachl, a fancy, gold-roofed balcony he built to watch his people dance in the square, climbed the Stadtturm (town tower) for a better view of the Olympic ski jump and city, looked at the column and arch along main street, strolled along the Inn river and through the town park, and visited three churches. The Jesuit one has Leopold V's and some of the Medicis' tombs. The Hofkirche held a huge monument to Maximillian I, complete with oversized bronze statues of all his most important relatives (mostly also royalty). The Dom zu St. Jakob pealed out its daily carillon just as I arrived, the bells somehow both jangling as well as light and wistful. This one had mostly stucco, thank goodness. The Jesuits were big on gold, and I'm sick of looking at it all after the Basilica and Ca' d'Oro in Venice and the Goldenes Dachl this morning.
I need to come back to Innsbruck again. I want to ski and hike, I want to try the bobsled and luge runs, and I want to see the folk museums. There are a lot of castles not too far from here, in very southern Germany, Bavaria really, that are probably best reached from this area. I also want to see the archeological and especially anatomical and apothecary museums. I could do with some more Tirolean history as well. A number of last night's revelers had flags proclaiming their love of Tirol or t-shirts and stickers insisting that Südtirol ist NICHT Italian. I faintly remember Austria regaining some of this region from Germany, then losing some to Italy.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Escaping the trains.
I like Italy, but I am honestly excited to be out. After living in Switzerland for so long, I started taking public transportation for granted. I am actually sort of surprised that the Swiss don't use seconds as well when writing out their train schedules.
Italy? No. Not a single train was on time, and they have all sorts of secret rules. There are about twelve different types of train, depending on their makeup and how fast they're going to go, and you have to remember which ones require reservations. Inevitably, every train I got on did. I got on one train in Cinque Terre at slightly after 16:01, on track one, expecting it to be the 16:01 track one train that stopped at each of the towns along the coast. Ohh, no. This was the previous train, late, not my train, also late, going in the same direction. This train wasn't stopping until the last town, and it only had little cabins, none of which I was allowed to sit inside. And I needed to pay an extra thirteen Euros for the reservation I needed for the privilege of going to the wrong town late. I grumped at the ticket collector while he yelled at me in Italian. Eventually, he gave up and I jumped out at the first stop.
I had trouble again when going to Pisa and Firenze, and I had trouble again on my way to Venezia. In Verona, the ticket office woman yelled at me when I asked if I needed a reservation for the train up to Bolzano (NO RESERVATIONE!), since it was the exact same train as the train to Innsbruck (SI RESERVATIONE!) and the ticket guy on my previous train, the Venezia-Milan run, had informed me that I needed one even if I was only going a couple stops, to Verona. She snatched back the reservation she had sold me for the Innsbruck train, refunded my Euros, and informed me that that sort of question should be directed to the station info people, not the ticket people. Even though the info people seemed to be touristy stuff like hotels and sights, and I would need to be at the ticket window anyway if I did need a reservation. I dutifully trekked to the info people, found that I did need a reservation, and bought it again from a different person back at the ticket office. Even the train station people don't know what's going on with their trains.
Verona smelled like vomit, by the way, so I spent less time than I had allotted for the city. (I also arrived late because guess what: my train was late.)
Oh, and another point: the Swiss have organized their train schedule so that the trains going in directions you might ostensibly want to go in after hitting a hub leave five to ten minutes after you get to the station. You just get off, flit over to the schedule board, get on the next one only a track or two over (or possibly on the same track, pulling in four minutes after your previous train leaves), wait three minutes, and you're off. Italy, on the other hand, has optimized missed connections and waiting times. I think they must anticipate late trains in this scheme, too, planning their departures to cause the maximum possible aggravation. It worked, or at least it did until I left the train station to wander in a new city.
Not Verona, though, because as I said, it stunk. The Dolomites and Bolzano were a pleasure as I rode north, up to Austria and away from ferriovia hell. I shared a cabin with a mother and her early-teen daughter, the latter heading up to boarding school in Germany. As the mother left the train, she appointed Anastasia my little sister for the duration of my trip, sealing the deal by handing me the rubber dinosaur that had come inside Anastasia's chocolate Kinder egg. I was happy to hang out with Harry-Potter-reading Anastasia, especially because she was able to converse in both Italian and German.
Italy? No. Not a single train was on time, and they have all sorts of secret rules. There are about twelve different types of train, depending on their makeup and how fast they're going to go, and you have to remember which ones require reservations. Inevitably, every train I got on did. I got on one train in Cinque Terre at slightly after 16:01, on track one, expecting it to be the 16:01 track one train that stopped at each of the towns along the coast. Ohh, no. This was the previous train, late, not my train, also late, going in the same direction. This train wasn't stopping until the last town, and it only had little cabins, none of which I was allowed to sit inside. And I needed to pay an extra thirteen Euros for the reservation I needed for the privilege of going to the wrong town late. I grumped at the ticket collector while he yelled at me in Italian. Eventually, he gave up and I jumped out at the first stop.
I had trouble again when going to Pisa and Firenze, and I had trouble again on my way to Venezia. In Verona, the ticket office woman yelled at me when I asked if I needed a reservation for the train up to Bolzano (NO RESERVATIONE!), since it was the exact same train as the train to Innsbruck (SI RESERVATIONE!) and the ticket guy on my previous train, the Venezia-Milan run, had informed me that I needed one even if I was only going a couple stops, to Verona. She snatched back the reservation she had sold me for the Innsbruck train, refunded my Euros, and informed me that that sort of question should be directed to the station info people, not the ticket people. Even though the info people seemed to be touristy stuff like hotels and sights, and I would need to be at the ticket window anyway if I did need a reservation. I dutifully trekked to the info people, found that I did need a reservation, and bought it again from a different person back at the ticket office. Even the train station people don't know what's going on with their trains.
Verona smelled like vomit, by the way, so I spent less time than I had allotted for the city. (I also arrived late because guess what: my train was late.)
Oh, and another point: the Swiss have organized their train schedule so that the trains going in directions you might ostensibly want to go in after hitting a hub leave five to ten minutes after you get to the station. You just get off, flit over to the schedule board, get on the next one only a track or two over (or possibly on the same track, pulling in four minutes after your previous train leaves), wait three minutes, and you're off. Italy, on the other hand, has optimized missed connections and waiting times. I think they must anticipate late trains in this scheme, too, planning their departures to cause the maximum possible aggravation. It worked, or at least it did until I left the train station to wander in a new city.
Not Verona, though, because as I said, it stunk. The Dolomites and Bolzano were a pleasure as I rode north, up to Austria and away from ferriovia hell. I shared a cabin with a mother and her early-teen daughter, the latter heading up to boarding school in Germany. As the mother left the train, she appointed Anastasia my little sister for the duration of my trip, sealing the deal by handing me the rubber dinosaur that had come inside Anastasia's chocolate Kinder egg. I was happy to hang out with Harry-Potter-reading Anastasia, especially because she was able to converse in both Italian and German.
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