As this trip has progressed, I’ve developed a calendar system based around the start of our cruise. Day zero is the start of our cruise (October 15). Days before departure are known as BC (before cruise). Days after departure are known as AD (after departure). For example, October 5 is 10 [days] BC.
For those who are interested, below is a list of the remainder of our planned travels BC:
Today’s train ride from Praha Hl. N. to Wien Meidling took about five hours. It took us another hour or so to navigate Vienna’s maze of trams, U-Bahns, and S-Bahns to get to our hotel. After we checked in, we took a walk around Vienna, through the gardens at Belvedere Palace and around part of the inner ring to the Opera House. Along the way, we stopped by a very touristy Austrian restaurant and tried some Austrian “favorites”: haunch of ham and goulash.
(From what I’ve read, Praha Hl. N. station used to be named after Woodrow Wilson. There are statues of him and plaques with his name all over the place. After the communists took over, the station was renamed to “main station” or Hl. N.).
I love how relatively inexpensive everything in Prague is compared to the rest of Western and Central Europe. For two nights in a row, we’ve been able to have nice 3-course dinners for two with drinks for under $25 (about the same cost as soup, salad, and breadsticks + a drink at the Olive Garden).
Today, we visited some of the main tourist sights in downtown Prague. We started our day at Old Town Square where we gawked at the famous Astronomical Clock for a while (but always managed to be just out of sight whenever the hour struck). Next, we headed across the Charles Bridge and hiked up the Prague Castle. The castle (despite its name) is not really a castle as much as a collection of buildings within some walls. Valerie has been looking forward to seeing castles all trip and I think she was disappointed by this non-castle castle. Before leaving the castle area, we stopped by the Lobkowicz Museum, which details the long and somewhat tragic history of the House of Lobkowicz. (If you are planning to visit Prague Castle and the Lobkowicz Museum, you can buy a discounted ticket package at the Lobkowicz Museum if you don’t mind going through the castle in the reverse direction as everyone else.)
No matter where we go in Europe, one constant is an H&M advertisement featuring Lana Del Rey. From short-loop videos in Norway to walls of giant posters in Berlin, she is everywhere. In major train stations, along the side of the road, in malls, at landmarks, she constantly looks down at us with her large eyes and poofy hair. Valerie calls her the “scary lady”. Given her almost big brother-like omnipresence, I’d have to agree with that description.
On today’s 5 hour train ride from Berlin to Prague, we chatted with an interesting couple from the States that were seated next to us. Bob, former CEO of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and his wife retold the stories of their many trips to Europe and other places around the globe. I think Valerie was very excited to hear about all the marvelous places she hasn’t visited yet. During the conversation, Valerie kept remarking how we should visit these places during future vacations.
Our guide Alex from yesterday’s tour highly recommended the German History Museum, so we decided to check it out. The museum covers the history of Germany from about 100 BC to the 1990s. We arrived at the museum around 12:30 and didn’t leave until almost 17:00. Originally, we were planning to visit some other Berlin sites like the Topography of Terror or Checkpoint Charlie after the museum, but we were so tired from experiencing the entire history of Germany that we just headed back to the hotel room to pack up for tomorrow’s journey.
Valerie was feeling better today, so we took a 4 hour walking tour of the city. Our guide Alex led us from Museum Island to Humboldt University to the Brandenburg Gate to just above what once was Hitler’s bunker.
After the tour, we got some lunch and then headed over to two chocolate stores. The first was Ritter Sport where customers can select custom ingredients for a chocolate bar, come back 30 minutes later, and then eat said bar. We chose sour cherry, caramelized almonds, and biscuit pieces. It was delicious! The second was Fassbender & Rausch which has scale models of the Titanic and Brandenburg Gate made of chocolate.
Valerie might be getting sick, so we spent most of the day resting.
In the evening, we took the S-Bahn to Museum Island. We took a walking tour with free audioguide (German museums seem to love audioguides) of the Neues Museum. The Neues was displaying the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti. We got lost trying to find it, but eventually found our way there and then out of the museum.
Next, we walked through the Pergamon Museum. Shortly before WW I, some German archaeologists discovered a ancient temple (Pergamon) in Turkey and decided to ship as much as they could back to Berlin, where it was eventually reconstructed and put on display. In a similar manner, archaeologists also shipped back a large portion of the walls of Babylon to Berlin for the same purpose. The Pergamon Museum was built to display these ancient buildings. It’s quite impressive to walk through the city walls of Babylon. To think an ancient civilation was able to construct such an engineering marvel is amazing.
Valerie’s been feeling very tired since the train ride from Zurich. We spent most of the day resting. In the evening, we took a bus to Charlottenburg Palace where we took a walking tour (with free audioguide) of the old palace. The palace was quite large, but it seems small in comparison to some of the monstrous palaces in the older European monarchies. Maybe we’ve just seen too many palaces recently.
We asked the owner of the bed and breakfast that we’re staying at about good restaurants in the area. He mentioned some places with Vietnamese, Italian, Austrian, and Irish food. We asked if there were any good German restaurants. After thinking about it for a while, he mentioned that there was a place that he couldn’t remember the name of next to a bus stop. Based on his response, I have a feeling that German food may not be particularly good.
Today was another train day. We’re took InterCity Express trains from Zurich to Hanover and then onward to Berlin. Both Valerie and I are worn out by the pace of this trip. Hopefully, a rest day in Berlin will help us recover.
While reading WikiTravel, I discovered that tap water is not served in restaurants in Germany. This is a bit disappointing since tap water is usually our beverage of choice. To see what all the fuss was about, I tried some of the tap water at our hotel. It tasted almost as bad as the Bath Spa water. I think it may actually be worse than San Jose water. Luckily, there’s a Kaiser supermarket across the street that sells 1.5L bottles of water for less than a euro.