Anything Exciting Happen While I Was Gone?

This morning at 6:30am London time, which was 12:30am in Chicago, as I was checking out of the London City Hotel, without any remaining WiFi availability, I asked if I could check something on an Employee-Only computer.

Whether my flight was still scheduled to depart on-time?

Sure, but only after I went to ESPN.com to see if the Blackhawks won, and upon learning the shocking way they did, to watch the highlights of the tying and winning goal.

I wish I had seen it live, and perhaps technically I could have had I found an all-night sports bar in London with satellite TV.

But getting some sleep before making my way to Heathrow was a good choice.

I was booked onto a 10:30am flight to JFK and would have had to get to LaGuardia for an evening flight to O'Hare. But once at Heathrow, I was able to get put onto a 12:50pm flight direct from London to O'Hare, schedule to arrive at 3:30pm.

I am writing this from a lounge in Heathrow, but as I already used my allotment of free wifi, won't post this until I am presumably safely back in Chicago.

- -

Anyway, though I'm sorry I missed the Stanley Cup, I'm glad the Hawks wrapped it up before I got back and have no regrets about being in Europe during this championship fortnight.

I had a wonderful time on this trip, which despite persistent pain in my heels--due to some combination of extensive walking, bad shoes, old age and too much weight--was more acutely pleasurable than other European expeditions.

Because I am intent on getting to as many sights as possible, and never content to just sit around, I have enjoyed past overseas trips more in retrospect and memory--both my own and the photos stored on my computer--than in the present tense.

Though at times a bit arduous, this was a really pleasurable trip as I was on it.

I greatly enjoyed all 5 cities I visited and would recommend them all to anyone. But I guess I'd say my biggest surprise was how much I liked Krakow.

I had read good things about it, but somewhat perceived it as a place to visit surrounding a jaunt to Auschwitz, which for some reason I wanted to see.

But though unlike London, Vienna and Paris, I saw no great art or iconically historic buildings, I really just loved being there and walking around probably more than anywhere else on this trip or in ready memory.

Of course, I loved London and seeing Springsteen at Wembley and Les Miserables and Matilda. 

In London I saw the royal family and in Vienna, I saw three grand palaces.

All told I visited 7 art museums.

While fine dining wasn't my focus, I enjoyed some nice meals.

I saw three cities--and many things--I've never seen before, and returned again to my beloved London and Paris.

So despite what I missed at home, I'm glad I went.

But I'm also happy to be home. That's how life should be.

Un jour en Paris, one night in London

Hello friends.

I am writing this from the London City Hotel where I have come from a day in Paris to fly out of Heathrow tomorrow.

It might seem folly, and somewhat counterintuitive, to spend just one day in arguably the world greatest tourist city (though I would argue for New York or London).

But with the return leg going out of London tomorrow, I had the option of spending today in Budapest (assuming I could've gotten a flight to London tonigh, London (assuming I could've gotten a flight from Budapest to London yesterday) or, well, Paris.

Ironically because my Paris airport (Beauvais) was a long bus ride to a Metro  to my hotel, which I got lost walking to, the time from the Paris airport to the Paris hotel was roughly the same as the time from the Paris train station, on the train plus the Tube, to the London hotel.

Because I have been in Paris three times previously--including just 18 months ago--though just for two days then, I felt no need to attempt to do absolutely everything one might do as a tourist in Paris.

I went to the modern art museum at the Pompidou Center, which I hadn't been to in 20 years, then strolled to Notre Dame nearby. I'd been inside it in November 2011, so didn't wait in line to get in, and noted that It is the venerated church's 850th anniversary.

I went to the Carousel du Louvre, which is a shopping mall under the museum--you can see the inverted pyramid there--and went and took pictures of the Eiffel Tower, with no need to go up it as I did the last time (actually the last three times). I also took some nice shots of Invalides.

I would say I had a nice dinner back near my hotel, but in Paris a "nice" dinner consists of what they call ribeye steak and fries. Essentially it's a flat piece of steak like you might get it Sizzler.

The train ride under the chunnel was pretty smooth and now I'm back in London. I tried to get a bite at the Trinity pub next door but they were no longer serving food. And I'm not thrilled that the London City Hotel put me on the fourth floor of a no elevator hotel but such is life.

If all goes as planned I should be home around 9 o'clock tomorrow. Like on the outbound trip I fly into JFK and then have to get to LaGuardia to fly to Chicago.

Depending on the Wi-Fi situation in New York, you may get a recap post but otherwise this may be it for this trip. I hope you enjoyed taking the journey with me.

Cheers,

Seth

Midnight in Paris, and I Feel Like William Tell

No, I didn't shoot an apple off anyone's head. But I was just pulling mussels from a shell...at Léon de Bruxelles, the closest restaurant to my Parisien hotel that I could find open after 11pm.

Anyway, for anyone who thinks traveling around Europe by one's self can be rather daunting, the last couple hours would not serve as an advertisement to the contrary.

Though in some ways, they should, as nothing bad actually happened and I was honestly more annoyed than frazzled.

But I can see where a first-time transcontinental traveler could be a bit intimidated. Heck. even Chicago can't be all that easy to navigate for the uninitiated.

I have arrived in Paris. Actually, I arrived--via Ryan Air from Budapest; remind me to rant at another time about travelers and their carry-on luggage--at an airport called Paris-Beauvais, which required a 1hr15min nonstop bus to get to the outskirts of the city proper. 

We were dropped off in a parking lot. i knew there was a Metro (subway) nearby, which the bus driver was able to point me to--it was still quite a shlep--but otherwise this would've been a "WTF?" moment as I didn't even see any taxis nearby.

This is my fourth time in Paris and I'm familiar with how the Metro lines crisscross, similar to the London Underground. So despite requiring a switch of trains along the way, getting to the Republique stop was no big deal.

But finding my hotel proved to be a pain in the ass. When I had been in Paris for two nights in November 2011, I stayed at the Hotel du Nord et de l'Est.

It's not the most luxurious of places, but it's fine, and its location near Republique is rather convenient. But Republique Is essentially a large memorial oval and all sides of it look the same.

Having booked the same hotel again, I did not have the hotel's address or a map handy (i.e. no Internet access). It's good that I basically remembered where it was, otherwise I would've really been up the creek, but out of the metro station I asked the first person I saw--he was holding a smart phone--if he had Wi-Fi and could look up hotel's address.

Luckily he was a Frenchman who spoke English and though a bit surprised, he was nice enough to do it. But the Google map of Republique was just as confusing as the real thing.

I wound up walking in one direction and then another, asking at a hotel that I knew wasn't mine, being pointed to a hotel called Hotel du Nord, which was in the area but not the correct one, and from there being directed correctly to Hotel du Nord et de l'Est.

Even with a rolling suitcase it wasn't exactly a fun way to spend 40 minutes. 

Just to kind of regain my bearings, I wandered out after checking in, and after stopping into a couple restaurants that were closing for the evening, wound up having some mussels at Léon, which is a chain out of Belgium.

The mussels were pretty tasty and now back at my hotel, I'm going to bed.

I have just one day in Paris and only till about 7 PM at that, but I think I'll go see some art at the Pompidou Center, wander over to the Eiffel Tower, perhaps get to Sacre Coeur and just kind of take it as it comes.

Bon soir.

Another Budaful Day in Budapest

It is only 11:47am as I write this, but after a nice visit to the Great Synagogue--the most beautiful synagogue I've ever seen--I was walking through the Jewish Quarter of Pest.

I needed a rest room and noticed a cute cafe called Mosaic (on Kiraly St.) and am now waiting to have some eggs.

After this, I intend to walk to Buda across the Chain Bridge, then go up the funicular to Castle Hill. If time allows, I'll go into Matthias Church, but need to be back at my hotel for a 3:00 taxi to the airport.

Despite predictions of rainy, it is another sunny day, 84 degrees, which is nicely cooler than the last 2 days.

Hope it's a Budaful day wherever you are.

I've Yet to Find the Al Hrabosky Statue...

...but otherwise I've had a rather pleasurable first full day in Budapest. Actually my only full day, as I need to leave for the airport about 3pm on Sunday to catch my flight to Paris.

Budapest, like any major city, had a number of suggested tourist highlights, but nothing that seemingly approached an iconic must see. Rick Steves only awarded ^^^ status to the Szechenyi Baths, a large communal swimming and soaking complex (one of several in Budapest). And I wasn't certain that was something I needed to get to.

My top two "intend to see" sights were tours of the Parliament Building and the Budapest Opera House. I got to both, as well as the baths, but opted to begin with the Great Market Hall, which was relatively close to my hotel and right near the Danube River.

As the name suggests, it is a huge marketplace, with produce, meat and fish stands, as well as some with pastries.

I opted for a cherry strudel, and also a good sized bag of cherries. This was largely because I had yet to have any cherries back home this year. 

They were good if not ideal for walking and photographing--down Budapest's prime tourist strolling street, Vaci--as you've got to do something with the pits.

Though a huge construction project detoured my route to the Metro station I needed to get to Parliament, I was able to get there--where I found another hurge construction project--and get on a 1:00pm tour. The building was pretty impressive and tour worthwhile (ironically, in 8 trips to London, I've yet to opt to tour Parliament there).

Using the Metro to save wear on my trip weary legs, I made my way to the Budapest Opera House. Though not as big as the Vienna Opera House--by decree of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, whose empire included Hungary--nor seemingly as famed, I thought it was more beautiful, particularly in the auditorium. And unlike Vienna's, it had air conditioning (though I did not see a performance there).

Although in "Best of Eastern Europe," Rick Steves mentions a couple opulent  cafés that I couldn't find, I happily settled to eat al fresco at The well named Callas, right next to the opera house with a full view of it. I had a forest fruits milkshake and a piece of strawberry cream cheese cake. Yum.

The street the opera house is on, Andrassy, is all one of Budapest most leafy. I strolled a few blocks up and down before the opera tour, but took the Metro to reach Heroes Square at the top of it. 

After snapping some photos of some fancy buildings--including a castle I chose not to tour (probably didn't have time anyhow--and can't spell at the moment; it starts with a V.

I strolled through City Park to the aforementioned Szechenyi Baths. I'm not much of a swimmer, though I did bring some trunks, and can't deny sitting in the warm soaking pool was both relaxing and good for my legs & feet. The whole operation, including the changing rooms, locker system and a bunch of smaller pools, was a bit confusing to a first-time visitor but I sorted it out. Luckily I had a plastic bag from a shot glass purchase so that I could carry my wet swim trunks in one of my cargo shorts pockets.

In the evening I took a one hour sitesightseeing cruise up and down the Danube River. There are several operators, but I went with one called Legenda, Because not only was it mentioned in Rick Steves' book, but I got a discount for mentioning that I learned about it there.

This was one of the best experiences of my trip so far. Despite some dark clouds, it never rained and and I was able to take numerous great photos from the open air deck as night fell on Budapest and its many picturesque buildings.

With some good hours spent sitting in a warm pool and on a boat, I was spry enough to walk back to my hotel alongside the Danube.

I was intending to eat at another of the cafés that line the street outside my hotel's door, but along the way I saw an interesting looking place called the For Sale Pub (not an Irish or British pub, though there are some of those around too). 

While listening to a female singer and male guitarist performing such songs as Imagine and U2's One, I had Hungarian Goulash soup. It was pretty good.

The punster in me would like to say that it was a Budaful day in Budapest, but I spent all day on the Pest side (Buda and Pest were separate cities across the Danube from each other that at some point were combined into Budapest).

Tomorrow after checking out the Great Old Synagogue in Pest, I intend to head over to the Buda side for whatever time I have remaining.

Let's see if the predicted rain holds off; so far so good on keeping my streak alive of never having a vacation day ruined by rain over at least 15 years.

Oops, I probably just jinxed myself.

The Train Kept a-Rolli--

I am writing this from a bus I am surprised to be on. (Note: That's when I started it. It is now 10:50pm and I am in Budapest.)

I left Vienna, as planned, on a 6:03pm train scheduled to arrive in Budapest at 8:49pm.

At around 7:15, the train stopped at a town seemingly named Gyor. That was no big deal, as the timetable had listed a few stops before Budapest, but it sure seemed like a whole lot of people were disembarking in Gyor.

But I remained rather clueless to the circumstances at hand until some train personnel ordered everyone off the train, without much English spoken.

As you can imagine I was a bit confused. 

But as was revealed in pieces over the last hour or so, from--

OK, hold the phone. I'm now off the bus, short of Budapest, and now back on a train.

By the time you read this, I've hopefully arrived at my hotel in Budapest (I have) and everything is fine and this hiccup has made for a good story.

But I think the story is this:

Because of recent flooding, the train tracks en route in Hungary became unusable. 

That's why everyone aboard the train had to get off at Gyor and switch to the bus (I imagine there were other busses for destinations besides Budapest.

We were cruising along an autobahn, save for an ad hoc pit stop requested by a passenger (not me). As I started writing this, the bus was about 70 km out of Budapest. That's like 42 miles and at 75 mph, we should have been there within a half-hour or so.

Now I've been on the tail-leg train for at least that long and it just now started moving. I'm not sure why the buses couldn't just finish the route.

--

The train arrived in Budapest about an hour later than scheduled. No big problem, but it seems we were making better time on the bus.

I was intending to figure out the Budapest metro to get to my hotel, which is right near a stop, but everything was all torn up at the train station, so I decided to hop the first cab I saw.

My hotel, the Ibis Centrum is part of a chain and not particularly distinctive, but I'm fine with that. It's well-located, less than $100/nt and has air conditioning.

And it is on the same street as a bunch of outdoor cafés. I just ate at one that was literally 20 steps from the front door of my hotel.

Now I'm ready for bed so I'll just quickly tell you that today in Vienna was spent mostly exploring the art of Gustav Klimt.

First I saw his Beethoven Frieze at the Secession building. Then I explored Belvedere, another palace but one devoted almost fully to art. 

It must have had at least 20 Klimt paintings, most notably "The Kiss" and "Judith." While those were what I consider typical Klimt--bright gold coloring and an almost mosaic like look--they had several other works, including ones that came later, that showed his gold/mosaic paintings were relatively few among his full oeuvre. 

There was a roomful of landscapes that he painted, which seemed somewhat like a mix between Van Gogh and Monet.

The other site I saw today was another ornate church, Karlskirche. It was spectacular inside, but as they're doing some restoration work there's a free elevator almost to the top of the dome. Yet I still had to walk 10 flights of stairs to get to the very top but I did. (You can see what I'm talking about on my Flickr page.)

When I was leaving the church, I saw a woman wearing a Clash t-shirt. I have no idea where she was from or what language she spoke but I assume it wasn't natively English.

I pulled out my iPhone and showed it to her, because my lock-screen image is the cover of London Calling (it has been for years; not done for this trip).

She smiled.

--

For those soccer fans out there: when the bus was rolling through Gyor (which is in Hungary, I noticed a stadium called Eto Park. You might want to look it up and see who plays there.

This Isn't Really a Vienna Beef, but Too Much Imperial Beauty Can Be a Royal Pain

You may need to turn the volume up on this post because my dogs are really barking.

But while I can say that pain from the soles of my feet and up my legs is enjoyable, it's a pretty standard barometer of a tourism day well spent. 

On pretty much every day on this trip, and basically all others that involve a great deal of walking--even if largely just within museums--I exhaust myself to not wanting to take another step by time I go to bed, and hope to have recuperated sufficiently by morning to do it all over again.

Actually, as I have started writing this post, I am not yet in bed but at the Kursalon, waiting to hear a classical musical concert featuring works of Johann Strauss and Mozart. It seems like a very Viennese thing to do, although I would guess everyone else here is also a tourist.

And walking three flights of stairs to the concert hall wasn't all that much fun.

But though I take being worn out as a good sign, I'm not certain that two days of touring palaces of the Hapsburg Dynasty--Austria's rulers for 600 years until 1918--has offered a high enough ratio of enjoyment had vs. energy sapped.

Which isn't to say that I haven't enjoyed Vienna. The number of truly breathtaking sights I've seen--and photographed, except in the palaces--would attest otherwise.

If fact, or at least cursory opinion, I don't think any city I've ever been to has offered this much overt grandeur.

--

OK, it's intermission at the concert. It sounds nice, with about a 12-piece ensemble accompanied by a couple opera singers--to sing Mozart arias--and a couple of dancers who perform to Strauss waltzes.

But it's sweltering in here. How can they corral the tourists with hawkers around the city--I paid €42 and that was supposedly a discount--and not have any air conditioning, ceiling fans nor even some open windows. Same thing happened last night at the opera house, where I saw a ballet. Or more correctly, 2/3 of a ballet for which I was half awake and could only see half of the stage.

Part of the point I was getting to is that Vienna, at least for tourists, seems like a city stuck in the long ago. This makes for pretty buildings, but how about some A/C for the tourists? I don't have any in my hotel either; at least I have a fan there.

--

I'm now back at the hotel and it's not too hot here, but the second part of the concert remained boiling. And I even tried stopping into an open restaurant I saw;in there too it was sweltering so I didn't bother.

You would think a city whose main tourist attractions are based on glorious excess would do a better job with basic creature comforts.

Anyway after going to the Hofburg palace yesterday and learning more than I probably needed to know about Emperor Franz Joseph and his posthumously mythologized wife Elizabeth a.k.a. "Sisi,"--something of an Austrian Princess Diana of the 18th century--today I went to the Habsburgs summer palace, Schonbrunn, located all of 10 minutes away (by subway).

I probably didn't need to go to both palaces (and I'll be going to a third one tomorrow), but they seem to be the prime tourist attractions by common consensus. I can't deny that there was certainly majestic beauty to be seen at both of--the Schonbrunn especially has  luxurious gardens--but I guess my point is that they wore me out without exciting me all that much.

More up my alley was the Kunsthistorisches Museum, a regal and ornate art museum with an outstanding collection, including masterworks by Raphael, Vermeer, Velazquez and others of a Renaissance ilk. I spent two leg weary hours there yesterday after the Hofburg palace, but at least what I saw  excited me enough to keep my energy up. 

Today before going out to Schonbrunn on the metro "the U," I really enjoyed just walking around central Vienna on the way to the magnificent St. Stephen's Cathedral. I wound up meandering around a good bit and saw another great church--St. Peter's--and went to the famous Café Demel to see how their Sacher torte compared to Cafe Sacher's. 

I also stopped at Buffet Trzésniewski, but a charming classic little place that has an assortment of finger sandwiches. I'm sorry I didn't take an iPhone photo to show on Flickr as the sandwiches and the shop are hard to exactly explain. But it was pretty cool and I liked it.

So it isn't like visiting palaces is all I've done in Vienna, and the one tomorrow--Belvedere--includes an art museum with a masterpiece by Klimt ("The Kiss").

Let's hope my legs hold up.

I check out in the morning and at 6pm catch a three hour train to Budapest. I think I have Wi-Fi there too, so until then, to quote Billy Joel "When will you realize Vienna waits for you."

Especially if you like palaces.

--

I meant to mention that on my way back to my hotel after the concert, I noticed that at the opera house they were showing--as I guess they always do--the opera that was going on within, upon an external screen. So while I couldn't get a ticket to the opera--Capriccio by Richard Strauss--I was able to see Renée Fleming sing an extended aria. 

But it's good to be off my feet and in bed. Good night whatever time it may be where you are.