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The story begins at the end. The end of western Europe that is. In a little place they call Vienna. A Mecca for lovers of history, culture, style.....and coffee! Many of the Viennese buildings are several hundred years old but are so well preserved that they look almost new. They have been scoured and sand-blasted until every trace of dirt, chemicals and graffiti have been removed. You do get the sense of history from the style and architecture of the building/monument/statue etc. but the near pristine condition somehow takes away a lot of the mystique. One of the main attractions in the middle of town is a huge pillar commemorating those who died in the plague in the middle ages. Instead of being weather-worn, pollution-coated and disease-ridden, it fairly sparkled in the sunlight, not least because of its newly-painted golden dome on the top. And this erection is supposed to remind us of the millions who died a horrible lingering death Pride of place in the town centre is the Wiener Staatsoper. I went for a guided daytime tour. Visitors were divided up into language/creed/football team etc. and marched off behind their respective guides. The guy I had was positively android - not an ounce of feeling and a heavily accented staccato voice throughout..."Und ofer heer vi haff ze famous costumes zat vere vonce vorn by ze...." The one thing that did bring a smile to his face was when he proudly announced that no women were allowed to play in the orchestra of the Staatsoper. This raised a few cries of indignation from the more liberated of our number. He then admitted that there had been a couple of special occasions when a woman had played the harp for them but they had to hide her behind huge floral arrangements so no-one could see her. After 2 hours among the dusty annals of operatic memorabilia, I headed for one of Vienna's many parks and some fresh air. The Stadtpark is adorned with statues of Austria's composers and musicians. Pride of place has Johann Strauss, perched on a pedestal, violin akimbo. He had also been newly painted with gold paint and looked more like something out a James Bond movie than the archives of musical history. The next day I started off in St. Stefan's cathedral. So did 5,000 others ! They were charging up and down the aisles, clambering over pews, sliding down bell ropes.... a choir was singing in the background somewhere but they were completely drowned out by the whirring of video cameras, the buzzing of electronic zooms and the general hubbub of 5,000 badly hushed voices. Outside the cathedral was a line of ’Fiakers', the horse drawn open-carriages with drivers regaled in fancy waistcoats and bowler hats which are such a feature of Vienna. I guess it must be quite expensive to keep a horse in the centre of town because the price of a 20 minute drive was equivalent to a 6 month season ticket on the metro (or half the Bolivian national debt). The Vienna city council must employ professional 'pooper scoopers' because the tons of equine effluent lying in the streets at the end of the day are always gone by the next morning. Unless, of course they just swill it all into the Danube - which would account for the plethora of rose bushes I saw on the banks. I found a street that wasn't dotted with droppings and sat down at one of the many outside cafés. The menu was very thin but the waitress told me to go and look in the window and pick something out. I gazed in awe at the display of Viennese cakemaking. I defy you to find a country in the world that has better cakes than Austria. After much deliberation and salivation I chose 2 particularly artery-clogging specimens and went back to my table to order the coffee. In Vienna, coffee is not black or white, it is black or brown. It is also large or small with large being normal size and small being minute. So, if you want a normal white coffee you must ask for a ”grosser Braune bitte”, or ’a large brown one please’ (sic !). There are also many other variations involving the whipping of cream and various other equally salacious alternatives but I will not go into them right now. Then there is the price. A normal sized cup of coffee will set you back about $4! Having said that, you will not taste better on this planet so it is a small price to pay. The cakes I had chosen with my coffee were ’Quarkstrudel’ - a kind of flaky pastry with a whey-like filling and extremely difflcult to eat with decorum when you are armed only with a minute silver fork. Jets of quark shot out in all directions as soon as one tried to insert one's instrument in the thing. The pastry broke into a million pieces and, given the extremely blustery day, tended to blow off on to my neighbours' dumplings. Nevertheless, I managed to salvage at least part of it and, I must admit, it was delicious. The caffeine gave me enough energy to try a spot of shopping. The two most attractive shopping streets in Vienna are Kärntnerstrasse and Graben - both are pedestrian, apart from the odd Fiaker, and both filled with the kind of unaffordable goodies that are best viewed from outside the window. I did venture into one or two of these hallowed emporia, just browsing mind. In Vienna you will be greeted by the shop assistants both on entering and on leaving. This is common courtesy and quite irrespective of whether you purchase anything or not. The customer is king and should be treated with respect. I came across the Hotel Sacher - world famous for its chocolate cake, the ’Sachertorte’. I ventured in and glanced at the menu. I worked out that I could just about afford one slice but then I would have to be on strict rations for the rest of the holiday and probably have to walk most of the way home as well. At the side of the hotel was the takeaway shop. Here they could send your Sachertorte anywhere in the world in little wooden boxes. How well it survived the journey is another matter. Many other cafés have their own version of Sacher Torte but must use two words to describe it. Only the Hotel Sacher is allowed to call it "Sachertorte" in one word. Perhaps we should do the same with ”Cheddarcheese” ? The highlight of my time in Vienna was undoubtedly the visit to Schönbrunn Palace. Situated just a short metro ride away on the edge of town, this huge stately home represents all the pomp and circumstance ofAustria's glorious history. I knew I wouldn't be the only person there so I got an early start and arrived just after 9 o'clock, but already bus after bus was disgorging its load of passengers who headed up the huge driveway to the entrance. There are so many visitors to this palace that when you buy a ticket it contains the hour and minute that you are allowed to enter. I had 9.23 stamped on mine and the electronic tumstile would not let me in one second before - it will only admit you between 9.23 and 9.33 (you have 10 minutes grace after you allotted time in case miss your slot). This was all well and good but it wasn't explained terribly well when you bought your ticket and there was quite a bit of confusion and commotion around the turnstiles. What made it even worse was that some people had group tickets which meant that one ticket would admit a certain number of people before the sides of the turnstile clamped shut, often trapping the unfortunate tourist in mid-stride and cutting off his credentials. If your group leader had a ticket that admitted 10 people, then you had to make sure that the 10 who got in were from your own group and not some other turnstile crashers. It often ended up that parts of groups were stranded on the outside without tickets and a frightful hubbub ensued. Once you had successfully navigated the jaws of death, you were then given a portable speaking guide in the language of your choice (as long as your choice wasn't Norwegian) and you were off on your private guided tour. As the way round the castle was carefully roped off and signed, you just had to keep pressing the 'play' button on your little machine every time you came to a new room and you would get a complete description of the room's contents and history. The trouble was, there were often bottlenecks in some of the rooms and, if you happened to be a bit trigger-happy on your buttons, you got out of sync with your taped dialogue and what you heard bore no resemblance to what you saw. For example, when I heard Franz Josefs toilet described as the room where he spent 10 hours every day dealing with affairs of state. After absorbing hundreds of years of history, not to mention the body odour of 10,000 tourists, it was good to get out in the fresh air agam. Hordes of visitors were now descending on the palace and I'm sure that the tours inside must have been at snail's pace. Schönbrunn has huge grounds with beautifully tended gardens, a zoo, a butterfly pavilion and a palm house. I settled for an enormous ice cream under the shade of a chestnut tree as I watched other, more adventurous visitors, explore every hectare of this vast estate in the midday heat. In the evenings, I made sure I avoided the multitude of ethnic restaurants and ate nothing but Viennese dishes, starting with the famous Wiener Schnitzel. In Vienna of course you are guaranteed the genuine article. You always know when someone has ordered the schnitzel because you can hear the chef flattening it out in the kitchen a series of short, sharp thwacks with the side of a machete sending vibrations throughout the whole restaurant. When mine arrived, it filled the whole plate and even draped over the edges and there was barely room for the fries, lemon wedge and capers. And the taste...? It positively melted in the mouth. Whilst I have you drooling, let me tell you briefly about the other specialities I tried. First there was the goulash, which is actually Hungarian, but given the proximity to Hungary and the long, chequered history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has also been adopted by the Austrians. You could choose the beef or veal version together with something they translated as 'dumplings' but which in fact, came in small, undumplinglike pieces and was more like what the south Germans call "spätzle" and is cooked by shredding the dumplingesque mixture through a sieve into boiling water. I also had Wiener Rostbraten which was entrecôte steak served with both crispy and soft onions and fried potatoes. If you forget about the calories, the Viennese cuisine is delicious. I should also mention that, quite apart from the food, the service you get in the restaurants is excellent. The waiters are polite, attentive, patient, knowledgeable, and, not least, multilingual. Although I did have to take off a star in a couple of places for not segregating smokers and non-smokers, especially since many Austrians smoke cigars. Even though he was born in Salzburg, the Viennese tend to think of Mozart as one of their own. One of his greatest works, 'The Marriage of Figaro', was written in Vienna, in a little backstreet house that is now open to the public. Some of Wolfgang's original notes are on display there as well as various other bits of Amadeus memorabilia. All over town, young men and women dressed as Mozart lookalikes (but actually looking more like something out of "Blackadder") accost you in the street and try and get you to buy a ticket to one of the concerts For my final evening I had promised myself a trip to the ’Prater’, Vienna's huge, all-year funfair with the famous 100 year-old ferris wheel which has been used in films such as "The Third Man" and one of the James Bond films but I'm not sure which - might have been "Never Say You'll Only Live on my Secret Service Twice". Actually the funfair only forms one small part of the Prater, which is a park-like area stretching for several kilometres. I strolled around, looking at the amusements - most of them seemed very old and worn. All the traditional fairground attractions were there plus a few new additions such as the bunjee jump, where 2 suicide freaks could be catapulted high into the air and bounce back again. I waited 10 minutes to see if anyone went on it, but no-one did. Whether it was the price that put them off or the thought of losing the battle for continence I'm not sure, but nobody seemed willing to part with either their cash or their body waste while I was there. I stopped for a beer at the Gingerbread House restaurant which was right opposite the Magic Carpet ride. Here people came flocking, although I couldn't see why. The thought of being gyrated first forwards then backwards at breakneck speeds and the risk of losing my dumplings, did not really appeal to me. I watched the survivors as they walked off. I say ’walked’ but it resembled more of an intoxicated stagger with two steps to the left, then three to the right, one forward, two back...you get the picture. How people can pay good money to have their innards centrifuged is beyond me. After 3 days I felt I had sampled most of the delights Vienna had to offer and it was time to move on to the next stage of the trip, namely the boat to Budapest. The next morning I checked in at the Hungarian shipping company's office. There was just one guy who acted as ticket clerk, customs and immigration officer and porter and kept changing hats just like a sketch out of a Benny Hill programme. The boat was not a huge floating luxury cruiser with deck-chairs, casinos, pool etc. but a rather small-looking hydrofoil which the brochure said was capable of 60 kmh. As the distance from Vienna to Budapest is 300 km and the trip took 5 hours then I guess I should have realised that there would be no time for a leisurely cruise. I went on board and bagged a seat near the window on the shady side (a fatal mistake as it turned out because the first thing the boat did was to turn round and I had sun all the way). As we got out of the city, I could see that the water level was relatively high and the banks were slightly submerged. Otherwise, the scenery was pretty non-descript and I soon got bored with looking out of the window and went to explore the boat. As I mentioned, we are not exactly talking ”Goddess of the Seas” here, so exploring the whole vessel from stem to stern took only a matter of seconds. Apart from about twenty rows of seats there was a little window where you could order snacks and drinks and an open hatch in the roof where you could stick your head out and see the outside world. And that was it. No sun loungers, deck games, cocktail bar etc. After an hour or so, we reached the Slovakian border and had a brief stop in Bratislava before continuing downstream towards Hungary. The scenery was pretty much the same the whole way with dense foliage on both sides, broken only by the occasional fisherman's hut, dead moose etc. We had to pass through two sets of sluice gates during the journey. The first one was quite small but in the second one the water level fell by 18 metres and involved a 40 minute wait whilst they closed the huge gates behind us and pumped the water out. Talk about getting that sinking feeling As the day wore on, the temperature on the glass sided boat got hotter and hotter until I was forced to vacate my seat and stick my head out of the little hatchway to get some fresh air. And fresh it certainly was! Sitting in the lounge with the boat cruising along a flat, peaceful river you don't realise how fast you are going. When your head emerges out of the hatchway you suddenly feel the full force of the 60 kmh wind against your face. Hats, sunglasses, eyebrows etc. were blown off by the blast. Tears streamed and make-up ran. Some of the American ladies went back into the lounge looking like Alice Cooper. Eventually, almost 6 hours after leaving Vienna, I arrived in Budapest. Immigration was rather a hurried affair and then there was the rather more serious business of changing money. You are not allowed to take Hungarian currency either in or out of the country which means you will not get very far until you have a pocketful of forints. A makeshift counter had been set up comprising two orange boxes and a plank. I had been worried about buying obsolete or forged notes but, in the event, it was my Norwegian kroner which came in for scrutinisation. Eventually the guy grudgingly agreed to accept them and handed over a bucketful of forints in exchange. Laden down with my new-found wealth, I climbed into my pre-ordered taxi and sped off to my hotel. All the hotels on my route were three star which I thought would be adequate. However, the hotel in Vienna had left a lot to be desired…such as paint, wallpaper etc. Hence my apprehension towards the hotel in Budapest. But my fears were more than allayed when I arrived there. It was a charming ’olde worlde’ hotel, well decorated and furnished, with polite and efficient staff and excellent facilities. If you ever go to Budapest, stay at the Astoria. My room was enormous, with a bathroom that was so big it had a curved horizon. After staying in a Viennese closet for 3 nights, it was good to stretch one's ligaments. The hotel was also in the middle of town - good for shopping, bad for sleeping. It was still only early afternoon so I decided to have an exploratory foray into the wilds of downtown Budapest. Actually, only Pest, because the town is split in two by the Danube and I was staying on the Pest side. This is the flat side that contains most of the administrative buildings, shops, hotels etc. Buda is the hilly side where a lot of the historical sights are to be seen. More of that later. Everyone had warned me to beware of pickpockets, so I walked around with my hard-earned forints clutched firmly to my bosom. I trusted no-one and suspected everyone (all 2 million of them, which was perhaps a little unfair). I soon noticed that the danger wasn't quite that acute and began to relax my grip a little. Most of the shops were quite shabby although they did their best to look modern. I went into a couple of them but couldn't stay long as it was unbearably hot inside Some of the goods were a little old-fashioned but otherwise they could have been shops virtually anywhere in western Europe. Even the prices weren't that much different, which made me wonder how the locals could afford them. When I stopped at a pavement café however, prices were way below anything I was used to paying. I think I went from Europe's dearest and best coffee in Vienna to it's cheapest and worst in Budapest. Being in a country where I didn't understand one single word of the language, either written or spoken, was a new experience. Hungarian is rather unique in that it does not belong to any other group of European languages and only has a remote link to Finnish. So every TV programme, newspaper, advertisement etc. is completely incomprehensible to the Western visitor. This is of course all part of the fun but can be a bit frustrating when you want to communicate with the locals. German is their first foreign language followed by English, although very few of the cab drivers, waiters, pickpockets etc. that I met would admit to being conversant in either of these. There was, therefore, much use of gesticulations, body language and telepathy. By evening I was pretty well bushed after the escapades of the day and, rather than spend a lot of time and effort looking for a restaurant whose gastronomic prowess could match my expectations, I thought I'd eat in the hotel. I'd seen the menu pasted in the lift and it looked decidedly palatable. Furthermore, it promised live music every night. Oh yes, and it was very cheap. So, having completed my ablutions, I swept majestically down the main staircase and into the restaurant, from whence wafted the strains of a gypsy violin and the smell of garlic. I burst in through the swing doors to find a huge restaurant beautifully laid out and in the corner a violinist, a pianist and a double bass player serenading two solitary diners in the huge room. It 's lucky I booked a table, I thought to myself. The Maitre d' came rushing over to greet us and, with the merest hint of sarcasm, I asked him if he could squeeze me in somewhere. ”Oh yes sir, no problem, plenty room", he replied in deadly earnest So much for sarcasm. I chose a huge table for 4 and studied the menu. They had everything - 10 different kinds of fish, pork, beef, lamb, veal, venison, duck, wild boar, wildebeest, aardvark, you name it (I just threw in those last two for effect) and the most expensive item on the menu was about $6. Boy, was this going to be a fun evening I just kept on ordering until the whole table was groaning under the best that Hungarian cuisine had to offer. As the evening wore on, the restaurant gradually began to fill up and I attracted quite a few stares with the huge number of bowls, buckets and bones I had accumulated on our table. As I was masticating the last mouthfuls of boar's bristle, the violinist left his perch in the makeshift orchestra pit and began circumnavigating the restaurant, looking out for any romantically inclined female diners. He then swooped in and began serenading them whilst staring at their escort as if to say ”This woman will be putty in your hands when I've finished with her, so you'd better make it worth my while”. The men then duly stuffed some of the folding stuff under his violin strings, little realising that his partner's enamoured state would last about 3 nanoseconds after the guy stopped playing. When the bill arrived, it was about 5 pages long and yet still only around $30. With an air of feigned affluence, I threw a bundle of dog-eared forints on the table with vociferous instructions to keep the change. I eased my bulging stomach out from under the table and waddled out of the restaurant like a pregnant penguin, pausing only to cast a glance at the violinist who was trying to extract some ketchup-stained notes from his instrument. As I only had one and a half days in Budapest, I was forced to take a guided tours of the city if I was to see everything. I hate following middle aged ladies with their umbrellas in the air but, when needs must... and so it was that I was up early the next day to join a coach load of fellow tourists for the ’Grand Tour of Budapest’. As it turned out, my guide was remarkably young - in fact, she didn't look a day over 16. The tour began on the Pest side with various administrative buildings, the most impressive of which was the Hungarian Parliament which is built along the river front and appears on 9 out of 10 postcards (the 10th one shows a gypsy violinist pulling banknotes out of his catgut). Then off around the town centre where various hotels (induding my own), shops, museums, statues and squares were pointed out. We drove through the gypsy area and were told that 85 % of crimes in Budapest were perpetrated by 8 % of the gypsy population a very sad statistic and one that does little to enhance the reputation of the other 92 %. Then we crossed the Danube into Buda. This side was completely different, not least because it was one large hill and commanded beautiful views over the river. Our bus climbed to the top and we parked under the Fisherman's Bastion which resembled Disney style battlements and turrets. There was not a lot you could do there apart from take pictures. One couldn't actually see the view without first getting on to the battlements. The Hungarian tourist board had wised up to this and levied a charge for mounting the four steps. It wasn't much, but with thousands of tourists every day it certainly helped to fill the coffers. It's strange that other Tourist Boards around the world aren't doing the same thing. Why don't they build a fence around the Grand Canyon for example with sliding peepholes where you can put 50 cents in and it will open just long enough for you to take a picture ? It could wipe out the US trade deficit in a matter of weeks. We then drove around the Gellert quarter, named after the medieval bishop who was apparently rolled off the side of the hill in a spiked barrel. I'm not sure what he'd done wrong but it was obviously slightly more than reprimanding choirboys, singing risqué hymns or supporting gay marriages. Needless to say, he didn’t survive the fall and was sold to the tourists at the bottom of the hill as shish-kebab. The tour ended back on the Pest side at the pedestrian shopping area. There was also an interesting looking market with many hand-made Hungarian artefacts so I browsed my way through, stopping for a quick haggle here and there although it seemed that the prices were pretty much fixed. Even my hard luck tales of having 17 children to support and urgent need for eye operations etc. didn't earn me a reduction. I did manage to buy a couple of dolls, a string of paprika and a Bishop Gellert meat skewer set before heading off to the shopping precinct. However, as it was a scorching hot day and none of the shops had air-conditioning, my shopping spree was rather short-lived. I opted instead for coffee and cake at one of the many outdoor cafés where I could sit and watch the world go by. The ’world’, in this case, consisting mainly of overnourished teutonic tourists closely followed by nimble-fingered Carpathian nomads. The menu on the table was written in Hungarian and pidgin English so I tried to ask Boris, my waiter the afternoon, what everything meant. Unfortunately Boris was, how shall I put it, one sandwich short of a picnic. Having exhausted my repertoire of Indo-European languages, Esperanto, Aztec heiroglyphs etc., I tried resorting to sign- and body language in order to order. Suddenly, a light bulb seemed to come on and he shot off in the direction of the kitchen. Ten minutes later he was back with coffee and cake. Seems like my linguistic prowess combined with my acting ability (I was, after all, university ’Charades’ champion 3 years running) had somehow got through. Or, it could just have been that he saw me pointing to what the people on the next table were eating. The victuals were delicious and cost around $5, induding a $4 tip for Boris to go language classes. On my last evening, I went down to the river to have dinner at one of the many waterside restaurants. I took my seat just as the sun was starting to go down and give a crimson bue to the hills of Buda which I'd explored that same morning. A waiter came and lit the wick of the little oil lamp on my table as the Danube rolled sluggishly by in front of me on its way to the Black sea. Why, it was almost romantic. The poorly washed tablecloth, greasy knives and dog-eared menu detracted slightly from the mood but nevertheless there was a definite atmosphere. I carefully selected a very expensive (i.e. over $5) delicacy and summoned the waiter. ”Oh no, you no like that”, he said, with a wave of the arm and a click of the teeth. I was somewhat taken aback at the unabashed candidness of this Borat of the culinary world.. ”And why not, prey?”, I ventured to ask when I had regained my composure. ”Too fat, no good”, he said, clicking his teeth once more for added effect ”Alright then we'll take the Beef Szghetrfy” (’scuse my Hungarian) I said. ”Is no good neither. Too heavy sauce”, replied our friend. I then tried for the chicken but he claimed there was none left, even though the guy at the next table had one. I was getting a bit fed up of his honesty but played along a while longer. ”And what would you recommend? ”, I proffered meekly. ”Goulash ! Goulash very good, you like” he said with much gusto. ”But I've had goulash every day this week”, I lied. ”Is very nice, you like”, he repeated. I got the feeling that the chef had overestimated the day's demand for goulash and had instructed his staff to get rid of it at all costs. Well, not on me matey! I paid for the drinks I'd had and took my prized custom elsewhere - which in this case happened to be the restaurant next door. The menu here boasted slightly fewer possibilities - plenty of pork and lamb but no beef. In other words there was no bull - neither on the menu nor from the waiter. The next morning I was due to depart for Prague by train and, even though I had reserved a seat, I got to the station very early thinking there would be thousands of people and every available inch of luggage rack would be commandeered. As I had enough luggage with me to clothe the entire population of Budapest plus a few of their closest relatives, I didn't want to have to dump my bags in the aisle/luggage van/WC etc. As I entered the station followed by my 3 sherpas I saw that the whole place was almost deserted. Where were all the commuters, the tourists, the pickpockets? My train came in and I shoulder-charged my luggage along the platform up to the right carriage and manhandled it up the steps. I found my compartment (the only one with reservations), filled up every available space with luggage and collapsed into the badly-sprung seats. Departure time neared and still no-one else seemed to be getting on board. Was this the right train ? I had visions of ending up in some deserted Hungarian railway sidings and being attacked by hobos, glue-sniffers and the like. There was a metal plate on the side of the carriage that said Budapest - Sklfithvrhg - Kyrgygd - Bqiwerjje - Praha (not quite sure about the middle stops). At exactly 8 o'clock, my departure time, I started moving so I consoled myself that everything was 0K and sat back to enjoy the journey. One thing did bother me slightly though and that was the fact that the sun was shining in through the left hand window. I didn't mind the sun. It was more the ’left hand’ bit that bothered me. I should have been travelling northwards but, if the sun rose in the East and it was now on our left then it meant that, either there'd been some cataclysmic explosion during the night and the earth had been dislodged from its orbit or - I was heading South! I kept waiting for the sun to disappear, meaning that we had changed direction, but it didn't. Where were we going to end up? Zagreb? Sarajevo?? Tirana ??? Just when I was ready to start jettisoning my luggage and diving after it, I felt the train turn slightly to the right and the sun began to move slowly but surely away from the window. The curve continued for another 10 minutes until the sun was on my right, which meant that I was now heading northwards. Phew! A few minutes later the first of many inspectors came along. I asked him what time the restaurant car opened. He laughed quietly to himself and kept repeating the words. "restaurant...... restaurant ha! Then he looked at me and announced in a solemn voice ”Iisss no restaurant cchharr !" ”Where can I buy some food then?”, I asked, rather naively. ”Iiiss no fudd ”, came the reply. No fudd, er food. It was a 10 hour journey and the only digestible things I had with me were some travel sickness pills and half a bottle of water. I could starve. I could just see the headlines ”Budding author found dead in Hungarian railway sidings - suspected overdose of Eezytum tablets”. ”Does the train make any stops?”, I asked in near desperation. ”Iiss one more stop in Chhungary, 4 in Slovakia and 5 in Czech Republic”, he told me. I felt momentarily relieved that I would have the chance to stock up with comestibles. But wait a minute. I didn't have any Czech or Slovak money, only Hungarian. And the train was already slowing down for the last stop before the border. I couldn't imagine the station kiosks in Slovakia would take American Express, so it was now or never. As we came to a halt in the little station, I shot out of the carriage door like a bat out of hell. The poor country folk waiting to get on were somewhat taken aback to see a half-starved Englishman leap out from the top step clutching a wad of forints and then run up and down the platform like a headless chicken in his desperate search for nourishment. Luckily there was a little kiosk at the end of the platform selling sandwiches and rolls wrapped in cellophane and cans of drink. A little old lady in a headscarf was minding the store. It would have been too much to hope that she spoke anything but Hungarian. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the last of the passengers was getting on board. ”I'll take everything you've got !”, I shouted, accompanied by wild gesticulations. ”Sroijtrgfnfoirfwf!”, came the reply. I could just see myself getting stranded at this one-horse station as the tram pulled out with my wife/passport/money etc. ”Ich nehme alles was Sie haben”, I said again and tried to mime the action of gathering everything off the shelves. Then she twigged. ”Ahhhhh Gläirutjytrslkwé !”, she cried in triumph. ”Yeeees Gläirutjytrslkwé !”, I echoed, not knowing if it meant ’Now I understand’ or ’Who is this prat?’ No matter, she dragged all the sandwiches and drinks off the shelves and put them in a bag. The guard had his whistle in his mouth. ”How much do you want ?”, I asked, waving a handful of notes at her. She shook her head and waved her hand from side to side. The guard was just lifting his flag. I wasn't sure if I was offering her too much or too little. I didn't want to see my face on wanted posters at every station between here and Prague so I just threw down everything I had, which was about $10 worth of forints and sprinted for the nearest carriage door. As the train started moving away, I looked back to see if I could see her. She appeared to be doing some kind of Hungarian jig and throwing notes in the air. I'd probably paid her the equivalent of a month's wages but I didn't really care because a) it was better than starving and b) you weren't allowed to take forints out of Hungary anyway. Laden down with my newly purchased victuals, I found my way back to my compartment. I laugh about it now but at the time it was life or death. I emptied everything out onto the seat. I'd no idea what I had bought so I was hoping it was something edible and not stuffed hedgehog or pickled squirrel. It was some kind of meat, not instantly recognisable but palatable nevertheless. I ate with gusto. In fact it had only been 3 hours since breakfast but the thought of possible starvation had sharpened my appetite immensely. At the border there was a constant clanking of jackboots in the corridor. I couldn't see a lot of difference between the uniforms of the border guards and the ticket collectors so I never knew what to hold out for inspection. The scenery wasn 't much different after we crossed the border. The language was but, as it was all Greek to me anyway, I didn't really notice. What I did notice were the fields of sunflowers. Huge blankets of colour stretched out to either side. Otherwise the fields were virtually empty. Harvest time was already over and there was very little livestock so the sunflowers were a welcome relief to an otherwise barren landscape. I arrived at Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, which I'd also seen briefly from the boat a couple of days earlier. A lot of people got on, but by carefully spreading out the hundreds of undevoured rolls I still managed to keep my compartment to myself. More conductors came, until my ticket bad been punched so many times it looked like a paper doily. The train crossed over from Slovakia to the Czech Republic and stopped at a place called Brno which, due to its lack of vowels, looks like a typing error but is apprntly qite crrctly splt. The train was gradually filling up and so, after managing to maintain squatters' rights on my compartment for nearly 8 hours I finally had to let a few fellow travellers in. They looked at me and then at the mess in the compartment in disbelief. It was knee-deep in cellophane and breadcrumbs. I tried to mime the blame on someone else altbough it wasn't easy using body language to say ”6 hooligans were sitting here, messed up the whole compartment and have just got out at the last station”. I don't think they bought it. There were only a couple of hours left to Prague now although it was decidedly less comfortable with a full compartment. I could feel the intruders sizing me up. Nobody spoke, so we all sat in silence until the ticket inspector came round for the umpteenth time. I didn't bother getting my ticket out as I was sure be remembered me from his previous 25 visits. However, be insisted on seeing it again so I handed over what resembled shreds of the Dead Sea Scroll and be spent 5 minutes trying to find somewhere to punch it one last time. Finally, almost 10 hours after I set off, I arrived at Prague and was able to vacate the compartment that had become my home for the day. Stiff of limb and numb of buttock I climbed down from the carriage and out of the station to look for a taxi. Nothing. Not even a rickshaw. So I sat on my Samsonite and pondered what to do. I decided that there was nothing much I could do apart from wait in the hope that some mode of transport would turn up. This was the main station of a big city for Chrissake. Somebody must need ferrying from A to B. I decided to walk down the road a bit in the hope of flagging somebody down... a bus, a truckdriver, a cyclist. . . anybody. Then, on the horizon, I saw 2 taxi cabs parked. I ran towards them whistling and gesticulating. It was only when I reached the cab, laden down like a beast of burden, that I realised they were both empty. I hung around for a while, hoping that the drivers had just popped out for a quick smoke/errand/bowel movement etc. but nobody came. I was on the point of ringing the Samaritans when a little yellow taxi came screeching up. I rushed over and was about to start loading my luggage in when the driver asked me (in a series of gesticulations) if I was the one who had ordered the cab by phone. What was I gonna say? When you've just spent 10 hours half-starved in a mobile shoebox and you just want to get to your hotel and eat, bathe and sleep (not necessarily in that order), then a lie is the least of your worries. ”Yeah, that's right. I’m the ones who phoned”, I said, hoping he wouldn't ask for any kind of reference or language test. I slung the luggage in the boot and jumped inside and asked him to step on it (before his real passengers showed up). Inside the cab was a panoply of football pennants, dolls, good luck charms, wunderbaums (or ”Wunderbäume” for the German scholars among you). I could scarcely imagine that all these gadgets enhanced the luck of the driver as they blocked most of his view out of the window and probably endangered his life, and that of his occupants, several fold. Apart from all this he was smoking a foul smelling cigarette and had the radio on at 50 decbels. But I didn't dare complam in case he dumped me and went back for his original fare. I've heard of pirate drivers but never pirate passengers Thankfully, it was just a short drive to the hotel, which was pretty modern by Czech standards, but in a very run-down area surrounded by shabby tenements and factories. I showered off 10 hours worth of railway dust and breadcrumbs and set out to explore the town. The hotel brochure boasted ’just 10 minutes by metro to the town centre’. What they forgot to mention was that the metro station was a further 15 minutes walk from the hotel. Buying a ticket for the Prague metro was no easy task. There was no over-the-counter sale, only from machines and with no change given, so the first step was to obtain the right money. Not quite correct. The first step was to find someone who spoke a language you understood and didn't think you were panhandling. I must have asked at least 50 people but no-one admitted to speaking English or German. I finally met a guy who spoke Russian but as my Russian is limited to ”Hello, how are you, nice day, thankyou please”, it didn't get me very far. Finally, I met 2 young girls who spoke German. They were obviously on their way to a night on the town - one of them had nails like Edward Scissorhands and the other one had more make up than Michael Jackson. They changed some money for me and tried to show me how to buy a ticket but, after several abortive attempts, they admitted that they didn't understand the machine either. This was ridiculous. I' d been at the station almost half an hour and was still no closer to the trains. In the end I just pushed a button at random and hoped for the best. It was only 5 stops to town and no inspectors got on so I was spared the embarrassment of being thrown off for attempting to defraud Prague Metro plc. I emerged at Wenceslas Square, a name well known to all English carol singers but perhaps not to the rest of the world. There were literally thousands of tourists in town. Prague has become the world's worst kept secret when it comes to holiday destinations. I had a little blowaway map with me but I didn't really need it as I just went with the stream. It was already turning dusk but even in the half light you could see the incredible history in Prague's buildings. As one of the few major cities virtually undamaged during the war, it can now boast literally hundreds of intact castles, churches, cathedrals etc. The whole city is a living museum. With its proximity to the huge tourist catchment area, its culture, history and low prices it has become one of the most popular European cities. This is of course good news for the Czech tourist industry but bad news if you want to see the town in its natural state and not overrun by hordes of Vandals, Vikings and Visigoths. The evening trip into town was just a reconnaissance mission on my part so I could get my bearings for the next day when I would be making a serious sight-seeing attempt (checking out the Czech scene). The main purpose of the foray downtown was to eat. I'd had nothing but bread all day and now I was determined to stuff myself with the best that Prague could offer. I examined a couple of menus. It was even cheaper than Budapest. Nothing else for it but to pick out the most expensive place in town and gorge myself ’til the cows come home. So I chose a hotel on Wenceslas Square which boasted a particularly exclusive looking restaurant with a disgustingly rich menu, live music and complimentary doggy bag. Although I was hardly attired for such an establishment (Grateful Dead T-shirt, vomit green Bermudas and gladiator sandals) I strode in as if I owned the place and was shown to my seat by a tuxedoed Maître d'hôtel and a whole gaggle of waiters bearing serviettes, menus, breadbaskets etc. I didn't look at the food descriptions on the menu, just at the price column, and picked out the dearest items. Then I sat back in the plush armchair-like seats, unfolded the starched white serviette and buttered my bread (on both sides) as I listened to the strains (sic) of the live music. It sure beat Hungarian Railways Catering Service. Two and a half hours later, I was just mopping up the last morsel of Crépes Suzette and slurping down the last drops of VSOP. What a meal ! or ’Fabo Noshski’ as the Czechs say. I nonchalantly frisbeed my Amex card onto the waiter's silver tray and he returned in a flash with the bill, obviously mistaking me for some out of town philanthropist and humbly pointing out that tips were not induded. So I added a tip to the bill and wrote "Lose the orchestra !" As in Budapest, I had to just one full day to see the sights. After careful study of my guidebook and shoeleather, I decided that there was no way I would be able to cover everything under my own steam. So once again, somewhat reluctantly, I signed up for a coach tour of the city. Buses were divided up according to language. I got a nice littie mini bus with just 10 of us on board - 2 Brits, 4 Americans, a Zulu, 2 don't knows and a Samurai swordsman. The guide's name was Szyqrævrg, or something equally unpronounceable, a middle-aged lady who'd obviously learned her English from a mail-order course because her pronunciation was totally incomprehensible. We all duly looked right and left whenever she pointed at something but failed to understand exactly what it was we were looking at so we had to resort to our guide books, which did rather defeat the object of the tour. Many of the streets in the old town are too narrow for buses and have to be explored on foot. The main part of the tour took place in and around the Prague Castle area, or Hradcany as it is called. Within the enclosed walls are several courtyards and the famous St Vitus Cathedral (nothing to do with the dance of the same name I'm told - although some of the tourists seemed to be practising it) There were literally thousands of visitors there, most of whom seemed to belong to one tour group or another, all faithfully following their guide, usually distinguishable by a raised umbrella. We just about managed to stay within our groups, even though there was a lot of intermingling, eavesdropping, pickpocketing etc. But then it started to rain ! Ten thousand umbrellas went up simultaneously. This had the double effect of a) Removing the conspicuousness of your own guide’s umbrella and b) Covering up everyone's face so that neither guide nor group was recognisable anymore. It was every man for himself. Rain-drenched tourists ran this way and that in a vain attempt at regrouping. It was not a pretty sight. By the time the rain stopped the main courtyard looked like a battle ground. There were shreds of yellow plastic mac, buckled brollies, the odd welly and a coachload of lrish tourists looking for the Blarney stone. Luckily, our group managed to find itself again and Szyqrævrg led us off triumphantly to the next attraction. This was 'Golden Lane', a tiny cobblestone street, originally housing several apothecaries but now converted into small tourist shops. And when I say small.... The lintel was about 4' 6" above the ground so anyone of my athletic stature had to enter either with a quasimodic stoop or limbo in feet first. The interior of the shops could house about 3 tourists at once (only 2, if they were from Texas). Thus there was an inevitable bottleneck as all 10,000 of us tried to slalom in and out of every shop. The tour was due to finish up at the Jewish quarter but as there was another cloudburst when we got there, we contented ourselves with Szyqrævrg's description of it (combined with guide book sub-tiltles). One particularly morbid fact that came out was regarding the Jewish cemetery. It seems that, over the years, they began to run out of space to bury their dead. So, instead of getting rid of the oldest graves, they began to stack them on top of eachother so that now you can find up to ten coffins in a multi-layered grave. I'd hate to be in a bunk grave with nine others but apparently there are still a lot of people who are dying to get in there. Thus my trip ended in the ’dead centre’ of town so to speak and Szyqrævrg stood patiently by the bus door as we all piled out, hoping for a tip. So I gave her 10 koruna (50 cents) and told her to invest in bank stocks. It was early afternoon and time to explore the old town. It was like going back in time. Every single building looked to be hundreds of years old. There were dozens of spires and turrets plus facades and gables all intricately decorated. Even the thronging masses could not take away the beauty and the history. I made my way slowly to the Charles Bridge, the pedestrian bridge over the river Vlatava covered with fifteen statues on each side and full of street peddlars and student artists. From the middle of the bridge you could look out in either direction and see the historic Prague skyline. No high rise office blocks here - just gleaming spires and historic edifices. With most of its history still intact and on public display, Prague is truly unique among European cities. I sucked in all the culture and style of centuries gone by and then returned to the twentieth century to do some serious shopping. The shops in the centre of Prague are more expensive than the rest of the country but still relatively cheap by western standards so it is natural to go for the luxury goods - crystal glass, porcelain, T-shirts etc. Soon I was laden down with champagne glasses, mocca cups, chamber pots....you name it. When price is no object, your only limitation is how much you can carry. Finally there wasn't room for one more straw on the camel's back and I staggered into an outdoor café looking like I'd just won first prize in ”The Price is Right”. I was right across the road from the famous ’Astronomical Clock’. As the hour approached, the crowds in front of me grew bigger and bigger until at one minute to five there must have been several hundred people there. The clock began to chime as all the little figures came out and did their thing. The tourists loved it, especially the Japanese. Perhaps they don't have time for ’time’ in Japan ? Anyway, they all managed to get a picture of it with their respective relatives in front. Laden down with all my souvenirs and various other signs of blatant affluence, I must have resembled a sitting ducks as I took my final journey back to the hotel on the metro. Several adolescents crowded around me and made sure I could not move away from them. I smelled a rat straight away (which was difficult amongst all the odours prevalent in the subway carriage) and knew they were up to no good. Although they gazed straight ahead as if nothing was happening, their fingers were deftly trying to work their way into my valuables. With a loud shout, I flung my arms outwards and upwards to break through the ring of pimply youths around me. Nobody else paid the slightest bit of attention - I guess they had little sympathy for western tourists. The would-be muggers got off empty-handed at the next station, casting scowls back at us as they disembarked. The scowl of one particularly hirsute youth would have been even bigger if he'd known that I stole his watch when I flung my arms up. Although I'd been on a frenzied spending spree, I still found myself with bundles of koruna left as I arrived at the airport for my flight home. What to do? As the saying goes, ”You can't take it with you !” I thought about streaking through the departure lounge throwing out handfuls of cash to the poor people but most of those around me looked to be far better off than I was so I blew everything at the duty free instead, buying trolleyfulls of goods that would make me look, feel and smell better. With liquor and perfume bottles clanking unashamedly, I boarded the plane back to the future. Tags for this Travel Tip: fun history shopping boats trains food language |
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Comments (7)
2008-07-29 09:18:30
from orangetravel
Wow...So much details in one review. That's good. It only shows that you really enjoyed your travel.
Like your writing style!...but those opera guides are surely wrong about no women in the orchestra at the Staatsoper!!! I was just at a production of "Cosi fan tutte" where a woman in plain sight was playing the harpsichord....so clearly it is a myth!!! But nevertheless...I do need to pause for reflection about that orchestra...I am only remembering seeing men in the pit, but that could just be because I'm man crazy! :)
Hi Paul! Another novel? ^_^...As usual, reding this with delight. Very long though. I am not finished yet.. I guess am half-way. Will be back after dinner. ^_^
This was a very good story, very long too! I especially liked the part of Budapest because I have never been there.... yet.
By the way, I have to say that the Sachertorte is absolutely delicious.
this has got to be the longest review i ever read here in cosmotourist.
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