Eagles are popular symbols - this title could apply to Russia, although I'm using it for Austria and Hungary, once ruled by the Hapsburgs, the long-running dynasty that included Philip II of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. (Charles V was one of several Hapsburgs elected to rule the collection of German principalities famously neither holy, Roman nor an empire.) Beating a strategic retreat before Napoleon, the then-emperor retired the position, becoming instead Emperor of Austria, and in 1848 bowing to demands for independence from Hungary by declaring the dual-monarchy of Austria-Hungary, a construct that perished in WWI. It is remarkable that the Magyars, the people we call Hungarians, have retained not only the land but their language and customs through a thousand years of war and invasions.
The train from Barcelona to Milan was about as luxurious as they come. The train from Zagreb to Budapest was at the other extreme. I traveled on a Sunday, and the seven-hour 7:10 train morphed into the nine-hour 7:40, stopping at every station. Far from an air-conditioned Intercity, the rolling stock consisted of old-style corridor carriages, with eight people to a second-class compartment. Since it was another 90-degree day, I spent a lot of time in the corridor by an open window, attempting, but largely failing, to cool off.
Our route followed the southern shore of Lake Balaton, a major holiday destination, and the sweating passengers could watch the lucky locals cooling off in the water. As had been true for several weeks, by the end of the day I was in dire need of both a shower and dry clothes. And AC! While I did try to make it to the travel agency arranging my Budapest room before they closed, I was defeated both by the late arrival of the train and the closure of the nearest metro station. I arrived above ground instead much closer to the 24-hour room-finding service listed in my Lonely Planet, on a street just behind the river-front Marriott. I was very tempted by the Marriott, until I heard that it would cost 150 euros for one night, and settled instead for a nearby hotel at half the price. Many of the amenities in my cut-price room were broken, but the AC and bathroom both worked fine.
Next day I moved into a big room in an apartment on one of the main streets, half a block from the metro. Once again, the room stayed reasonably cool because of thick walls and a big shade tree. I reached it on an old-fashioned elevator with a wooden cage and iron doors. The apartment's main door was also protected by iron bars, locked and unlocked from outside.
It's been 15 years since the end of Communism, but looking at Budapest you would think it had been maybe five. Although some buildings have been renovated completely, others have only one or two stories with fresh paint, and off the main streets I saw plenty of dilapidated and even abandoned buildings. The metro system however, is fine. I could easily tell the first stations, just below ground level, from the later stations, built to double as air-raid shelters, where the escalators ran noticeably faster than those in London, since they had so far to travel.
Despite the air of decay in some parts I thoroughly enjoyed Budapest, and since I saw only a few of the many sights listed in my guide book, it's on my revisit list. I did tour the Opera House (second biggest in the world), beautifully restored, and was amused by the lavish use of fake marble, which was more expensive and fashionable than the real thing when the house was first built. I also made a pilgrimage to the world's second largest synagogue, Dohany Street. The one million forints that its renovation cost (80% from the government) were well spent: it's truly magnificent (http://www.budapesthungary.com/indexload.cgi?/english/hungary/synagogue.htm). The associated museum includes displays of both temple and home rituals.
I spent one evening at a surprisingly good display of folk-dancing, with the men in high black boots and the women in embroidered skirts. This seemed more authentic than most such events, and included a lot of Austrian-style slap dancing. The highlight of my time in Budapest was an evening river cruise on the Danube, with the city and bridges beautifully lit and reflected in the water, and a better-than-usual commentary. My afternoon at the House of Terror, the former secret prison, was a depressing but informative contrast, as I learned about the Arrowcross group that used the building between the Gestapo and the Communists.
Remembering the swimmers in Lake Balaton, I headed for the public baths in the park a couple of metro stops north of my room, taking my swimsuit with me and renting a towel. Each bather needed a cubicle in which to leave their clothes and a long line of women waited to enter, while men walked straight in. Once inside and showered I had a choice of three small indoor pools and three large outdoor ones, of varying temperatures (one outdoor pool was reserved for serious swimmers, in bathing caps). Jacuzzi-like jets enlivened the center of one outdoor pool, although the chess players promised by one of my guidebooks were, alas, not in evidence.
Hungary is now on the tourist trail, as I discovered when I took a very boring daytime boat trip (on the green Danube) to the totally touristy small town of Szentendre, (where the crowd included a Grand Circle tour group, identifiable by their name tags...) Later, after another hot train ride, I found that Eger, in northwest Hungary, was just as full of foreigners. I will remember Eger not so much for its baroque buildings but because the AC in my attic room quit at 4:00 am and I woke up in a pool of sweat. After moving to a less atmospheric but more efficient hotel I cooled off in the forested National Park at Silvasvarad, riding up a hill in an open cattle car pulled by a steam engine and then walking down.
While I was in Budapest I spent an entire hour in the MAV (Hungarian railways) office buying tickets for Budapest-Eger, Eger-Budapest-Gyor and Gyor-Vienna-Innsbruck. First, I had to queue to see the information guy to establish exactly which trains I would take, and then once for the domestic and again for the international tickets. So I think I can be forgiven for believing that I had tickets for specific trains, and that the ticket collectors would tell me if I boarded the wrong one. But no. Back in Budapest from Eger, I couldn't find a departure listing for Gyor for the right time, but did find one for Gyors. Unfortunately I didn't follow my usual practice of double-checking with someone on board, and I was nearly back in Eger before I discovered that I was on the wrong train, and that my ticket had been good for a given distance and not a given destination. Since I spent most of that day on hot Hungarian trains, with filthy toilets, my opinion of their railway system sank still lower. The day was only enlivened by two Mormon missionaries (has anyone ever seen just one?) who made only a half-hearted effort to give me a Bible.
Although Gyor was pretty enough town on a river I found it interesting principally because the center was virtually deserted on a Saturday night. And because it actually rained on me on my way back to the station to head to Austria. While I would like to revisit Budapest, and the countryside is attractive enough, I have to say that I felt that Hungary has a way to go to reach Western standards of consumer service. If something goes wrong it might - or might not - be fixed, but don't expect any kind of compensation.
At Vienna's Westbahnhof I changed money (Euros again), bought a suddenly expensive sandwich and settled gratefully into a window set on an AC Intercity train. On the ride to Innsbruck I gave some more thought to my evolving church spire theory of country identification. It seems to me that you can tell which country you are in most quickly from the church architecture. There is no confusing an English church tower with a Spanish belfry. In Austria the towers come in two flavors: tall slim cones and short bulbous domes - Protestant and Catholic, maybe? I suspect that even if I had gone straight from Italy to Austria I would have been struck by how clean and neat it was, but coming from Hungary it was quite a shock.
At Innsbruck station I was met by my nephew, his wife and daughter, and her friend (the family I stayed with in Germany last year). I hadn't been able to get my hair hennaed since I left home three months earlier, and Geoff didn't recognize me without red hair! (I finally got it done in Vienna, at the Marriott.) That evening Gill (the niece I stayed with in Edinburgh) arrived and all six of us shared a Youth Hostel room, although we had some difficulty getting in as the hostel had forgotten about us. The room and bathrooms were fine, but instead of a kitchen there was a restaurant with pricier food than I would have expected.
As soon as I saw that Innsbruck was ringed by mountains I knew I would like the town, despite the press of tourists around the famous "golden roof" (covered with 2,600 gold-plated copper tiles). A couple of streets of shops and cafes served the tourists (I must admit to enjoying the displays in the Swarovski crystal shop) but most of the center boasted pretty pastel buildings - all in good repair.
In town, Gill and I spent an afternoon happily browsing through the excellent folk museum: complete rooms from different periods, case after case of clothes and some quite remarkable festival masks. Our trips out of town were spectacular: one day we took the narrow gauge railway up the Ziller valley - steam engine, mountains, picture-perfect chalets with flower-bedecked balconies; one day five of us rode a cable car up a mountain south of town for great views and a ramble among the cows - complete with cow bells; and my last day there Gill and I (Geoff and Co. had departed a day earlier) took a bus to the foot of the Stubai glacier and then a series of three cable cars to the top (I was glad to find that I could ride the cars without vertigo setting in) where we walked with care across the ice to one of the cafes and watched the skiers - in July! It was quite a contrast to the baking temperatures in Croatia. I have always said that mountains are for hiking up, not skiing down, but after watching the graceful descents of the skiers at Stubai I am tempted to change my mind.
Gill went home from Innsbruck, and I set off to spend my birthday at Pertisau on the Achensee. Both my sisters and I grew up reading a series of school books, the first 15 of which were set in Pertisau, so once again I was visiting a place because I had read about it. The Achensee is a major tourist center these days, with skiing in the winter and hiking, sailing, paragliding and sunbathing in the summer. The little train up from Jenbach was filled with pre-booked tour groups, so I stood for the ride up the mountain - for most of the trip the steam engine pushed from behind, with help from the cogwheel track. The clickety-clack, with more defined pauses than usual, seemed to say "WILL we make it, WILL we make it". Of course we did, and when we reached the flat stretch beside the lake, the engine chugged round to the front and pulled us into Seespitz station. (http://www.achenseebahn.at/e/frames.htm).
At Seespitz I followed the crowd onto one of the two lake steamers for the short ride to Pertisau, where I had to trek into the village to find the T.I. (presumably sited for the convenience of motorists rather than pedestrians) to get help locating my hotel. My corner single-with-bath came with two windows and a full balcony, complete with flower boxes and great lake views. Most tourists seemed to take half-board at their hotels, but I ate out my first night. Given the extremely poor service I received at an expensive hotel (the Post), half-board is a better idea.
I stayed busy at Achensee - riding the ferry boats, walking most of the length of the lake, taking photos of places from the books, riding the cable car behind my hotel and then walking to the mountain guesthouse at Barenbadalm. However, for someone not making a pilgrimage, and not interested in hiking, there would be little to do besides sunbathe, eat, and admire the views.
I took a bus back down to Jenbach to catch my train to Vienna: more prosaic but quicker and requiring less effort - a good thing as my pension (the Hargita) was a fair hike from the train station. My single-with-shower was a good deal for Vienna, although just off a very noisy street. My principal objective in Vienna was to get my Chinese visa (Chinese tourist visas have a shelf-life of only 90 days). I just made it to the downtown T.I. before it closed (the one at the station only sold hotels and tours) and the helpful lady behind the counter looked up the address and roughly located the embassy on the map for me. I found it easily enough on foot the next morning, although the building was entirely nondescript. I had allowed five days for visa processing, but discovered that standard processing took seven, and had to pay extra for three-day service. Geoff had translated the online form for me in Innsbruck, and the procedure was quite painless.
Vienna proved to be another monumental city with wide avenues and plenty of baroque buildings. Once I had taken care of my visa and had my hair cut and colored I did a little shopping and some leisurely sight-seeing. The shopping was necessary because after the cooler weather in the Tyrol I was back to the Southern European heat wave, and the top I had bought in Dubrovnik was wearing badly. I bought a sturdier sleeveless top and lightweight skirt and was instantly more comfortable, although I avoided mirrors, which suggested that I should have bought a burkha - too much good food! I also bought a couple of books - Vienna was very well supplied with bookstores. I mostly spent my mornings drinking coffee and reading English-language newspapers (free with the coffee) and did the sights in the afternoon.
I found the Opera House less impressive than the one in Budapest, since it was largely rebuilt in the '50s in contemporary style, but the tour was more interesting as we were taken backstage to see the three big secondary stages where scenery was assembled for the main stage. The sprawling Hofburg Palace was more impressive, although I soon tired of all the gilding, and am not particularly interested in "Sisi" (a.k.a. the Empress Elizabeth), the centerpiece of the current exhibitions. The Treasury, however, was just stunning. I'm afraid the H.R.E. regalia, some dating back to the 10th century, make the British crown jewels look positively juvenile.
I was confronted by a lot more white and gold rooms at the Schloss Schonbrunn, a hot tram ride out of the center. Here Maria Theresa, who exercised power, and Sisi, who was famed for her beauty (think Princess Di) competed posthumously for attention. (Despite the hype Schonbrunn is not a substitute for Versailles.)
For once remembering that I am easily bored on boats, I took a train to Melk, a boat to Krems and a train back to Vienna for my Danube day trip. The abbey at Melk (regrettably rebuilt in baroque style in the 1700s) looks like a castle, and has the gaudiest church I've seen yet, with gilt everywhere, even including the grooves on the columns.
The Danube between Melk and Krems proved more interesting than the stretch outside Budapest, and I had a pleasant chat with a Japanese tour guide. Krems, however, was notable only for a wine shop that offered free tasting. The white Gruner Veltliner was very light and the single red almost undrinkable, but the Rieslings were good, and I took a bottle back to Vienna with me - where I discovered that the corkscrew on my Swiss army knife was almost useless.
Since I don't count the Balkans as Eastern Europe, and I think of Austria and Hungary as Mittel Europa, my next stop, Brno in the Czech Republic, would be my first in what I really consider to be Eastern Europe. I took the metro (U-bahn) and light rail (S-bahn) to Vienna Sudbahnhof with some regret - Austria made both my revisit and potential place to live lists.
As I mentioned, I have not yet lost weight on this trip, and neither Austria nor Hungary were of any help in this regard. Cutting breakfast back to orange juice and cappuccino, and eating sandwiches for lunch (several times a delicious selection of small, open-faced sandwiches - smoked salmon, cheese, pureed mushrooms...) was balanced by a couple of decadent ice-creams in Vienna (vanilla ice-cream, whipped cream, raspberries and warm raspberry sauce - I never can resist raspberries).
Memorable meals in Budapest included goulash soup, guinea fowl soup, roast goose breast stuffed with dried fruits in a cherry and citrus sauce (Jewish restaurant) and strawberry soup with cream and cottage cheese dumplings (Indian restaurant). Eger produced game soup and ham with blackberries, and Gyor steak with liver and mushrooms. But salads in Hungary arrived blanketed with mayonnaise.
Naturally I ate Weiner Schnitzel in Austria, and chicken schnitzel as well, with good fries, but my best meal in Vienna was less traditional. At the Palmenhaus Restaurant (yes, in a palm house) I enjoyed a first course of goat cheese remoulade with mango and pumpkin on assorted lettuce leaves, followed by guinea fowl breast with potatoes and curried fennel. It was also in Vienna, at the Levante near my pension, that I was served humus as soup rather than dip!
Also in Austria, I encountered the sensible breakfast time custom of providing a trash bin on the table - useful when butter and jam come in individual portions. It was also here that my napkin and cutlery started arriving on an extra plate, rather than being arranged beside the main plate.
Originally sent from Ulan Ude, Russia, 16 September, 2004
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