From Prague we took a relatively short hop over to Austria's capital, Vienna.

We have to say that it's probably not one of the highlights of the trip for us. Vienna can really be summed up in one word - grandiose. It's as though someone decided a while back that they were going to build a city and they were going to make everything in it REALLY BIG! Everything there seems almost a little over the top - the parks are grand, the streets wide and the buildings are enormous.

Considering all that we had heard and knew of Vienna beforehand we decided to spend three days there on the assumption that there was a lot to see and do. So we started day one with a requisite walking tour - we try and include either a walking tour or hop-on-hop-off bus tour on the first day in each city so that we can get the lay of the land and some of the history, etc. Unfortunately the company that we have done walking tours with in other cities doesn't operate out of Vienna so we had to look for other options.  We looked on the internet and, quite frankly, the available choice of walking tours is crap.

Naturally we thought that the solution to the problem might be found at the official Vienna tourist office. They recommended a tour for us and off we went...big mistake - quite possibly the worst tour we have ever been on. Without getting into the details it didn't really show us anything special and certainly didn't give us the lay of the land, etc. We did get to see a garbage room in a residential building courtyard though!! We basically wasted 2.5 hours and the end of which were absolutely none the wiser about what we might or might not want to do for the rest of our stay.

Some fountain - believe it or not this was the one and only photo we took during our walking tour!

 
In addition to the less than average walking tour, the weather probably didn't help, but then again we had been so lucky with the weather on our tour to date that we were bound to get a little rain at some point. We tried to not let it slow us down though. We did, however, have a Vienna card which gave us free public transport for the duration of our stay. So we decided to take advantage of that and off we went out to Schonbrunn Palace & gardens. We managed to wander around the gardens, get lost in a maze and while away a few hours despite the rainy weather.

The main entrance courtyard of Schonbrunn Palace

And once more they installed some scaffolding for our visit - the entire building to the left & centre of this photo is in fact painted on some construction hoarding

The Pam House - a 19th Century glass house in the Schonbrunn Palace gardens

Cathy blending into her surroundings inside the Palm House. Who would've thunk that purple would be the new cammo...?

Steve Irwin...oh no wait...that's Cathy

  

Yet another fountain ruined by the curse of Adrian

The maze that we made our way through - this photo taken from the platform that is the goal of the maze

Yep, a bit damp

We decided to try a reset on day two and see if we couldn't get a better overall view of the city on the hop-on-hop-off bus. The short answer is yes. Just around the corner from where we had been walking the day before was a wealth of beautiful buildings and parks surrounding the Hofburg Palace, The Parliament, Town Hall, University, etc. We also popped over to the other side of the Danube River to see the sights and get some of the history about that part of the city. In hindsight this would have been the wiser choice for day one but c'est la vie.

After our bus tour we just wandered the streets, returning to some of the sights we had seen on the bus that we thought warranted some closer inspection and photography.

There are some wonderful examples of successfully juxtaposing modern architecture amongst old (sorry that's my architect speak kicking in)

Cathy on a Monet

St Stephen's Cathedral

Here's that Mozart fellow again

Nope not under attack, we just stumbled across some kind of military show . Various European countries showing off their wares and soldiers.

The Parliament building. It's so big it's impossible to photograph - like quite a few of the major buildings in the city

  

Some museum and yet another huge building

Don't know who this guy is but a fat lazy guy being pulled along by lions is still a fat lazy guy!

One of only two small buildings we found in Vienna - the other one is the mirror of this one & directly opposite. They were once the entrance pavilions to one of the metro stations, now this one is a museum to Otto Wagner (the architect, not the composer) and the other pavilion is a cafe.

A statue of Johannes Brahms (the composer). Not sure how he managed to get anything done if he slept all the time...

Adrian sizes up yet another inanimate giant

Where's Wally Part 1

Part 2

and Part 3

Day three was all about horses. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is one it's most famous tourist attractions. We had been told about the white stallions and thought we would go and see what all the fuss was about. The School is most famous for its performances which only happen on a weekend. Unfortunately were were there mid week so we were only able to see the morning exercises. For this the riders basically give 70 odd horses their daily exercise - not exactly the most exciting thing in the world but worth a look see - it helped having someone with a little bit of horse knowledge (Cathy) to give a bit of a commentary, other wise it would have just been horses marching up and down the square to me.

The one and only photo we were able to take of the morning exercises before being reprimanded by security

Then it was time for a short lunch break and what else does one have in Vienna than Vienna schnitzel...?

After lunch we had a guided tour of the riding school where we got to see in the stables and learn a little more about the school, the horses and the riders. The question that was on my mind was why it was called the Spanish Riding School when it was in Austria - the simple answer to this is that the Lipizzan breed of horse originated from Spain where the Austrian nobles found them in the 16th Century. The hall where we witnessed the morning exercises is a wonderful space which is also used for public functions, etc. This part of the day made up for the relative disappointment of the morning exercises.

The Winter Riding School. This is where all of the morning exercises as well as the performances take place. There is a summer school where the horses go for their holidays for seven weeks a year - but they each get "an understudy" to take their places whilst they are on holiday.

And that was about the extent of our adventures in Vienna. Now I'm sure that if we were more inclined to visit museums, palaces, cathedrals and the like we could have spent a whole lot more time there but we are not huge on museums, as I've said before and we've quite frankly seen our fair share of palaces and cathedrals over the last couple of years. Also unlike Prague, for instance, the tourist season in Vienna was well and truly over with many things closed, under repair, tours were not operating, etc. At least we can say that we've been there.

PRAGUE

After the somewhat "harshness" (for want of a better word) of Poland, arriving in the Czech Republic was quite a refreshing change. Comparing the two it's hard to believe that both countries were part of the USSR until the late 20th Century; Prague almost felt like being back in Western Europe - it had a more prosperous feel to it than either Warsaw or Krakow.  But then again poor old Poland has had a very difficult history, having been effectively occupied by Russia, Prussia and Austria more or less continuously from the late 18th century until the end of World War 1. They then had only a brief period of independence between World War 1 & WWII before being occupied once again by the Nazis only to be "liberated" by Russia and from then being annexed as part of the USSR for another 50 or so years.

Anyway I digress, this post is supposed to be about the Czech Republic, or more accurately, Prague.  Without getting into a great history lesson, mostly because I don't really know it all and Wikipedia would be a much better source if you're interested, the Czech Republic is today one part of what used to be Czechoslovakia. The country dates back as far as the 9th century when it was known as Bohemia, then it together with Slovakia, became Czechoslovakia after World War 1 up until 1993 when, following the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia (you can look that up on Wiki too) and the end of communism the two countries peacefully spit into what are today the two independent states of Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Today Prague is a bustling little metropolis with quite a lot of charm. It is now one of the major tourist destinations in Europe.  Even when we were there in late October the streets were still swamped with tourists - we would hate to see what it would be like in summer or during the Christmas markets!

We decided to start our stay with a walking tour.

On the way to the tour we were fortunate enough to see some Czech occupational health & safety in action - if you look closely you will see that there is a rather large blow torch just burning away into the street / footpath!

The old town square and Tyn Cathedral - the meeting point for our tour

 

A statue to commemorate the premiere performance  of Mozart's Don Giovanni in this theatre in 1787. This Mozart fellow keeps popping up a lot in our travels - he must have been famous...

The Powder Tower. The only remaining gate of the original  city walls. It gained its name after being used as a gunpowder store during the 17th Century.

This church has an real mummified human arm hanging over one of the chapels. There is a myth surrounding the arm about some guy trying to steal a charm that was hanging on the statue of Mary inside the church. When he went to grab the charm the statue came to life and took hold of his arm. The priest and police in their wisdom decided that the only way to free the guy from the statue's grasp was to cut off his arm with a sword. Immediately after having his arm chopped off the statue released the arm and it now hangs over the statue as a reminder to all not to steal (or some such). As for the rest of the guy...well we assume he was hauled off to jail.

You can't really see it but that's a giant metronome on the hill. It has some sort of artistic significance about marking time or something - it was installed in 1991 as a memorial to the Velvet Revolution. It stands in the place where the largest statue of Stalin ever built used to stand.

The astronomical clock, a 15th Century engineering marvel, the world's oldest astronomical clock still working and probably one of Prague's most popular tourist attractions.  It is incredibly complex and tells the phases of the moon, location of the sun, the date and even the time...somehow. On the hour the clock comes to life and characters swing in and out of the little doors, etc, hence the tourist attraction - hundreds of people crowd around in front of the clock to watch the hourly show. We are told that it is possibly the second most disappointing tourist attraction in the world, second only to the Mona Lisa; in terms of the reality not living up to the legend.

The easy way to tell the time.

 

Wenceslas Square - the main focal point of the Velvet Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered  here in 1989 to protest against communism

Our guide Martin explaining why this statue has a shiny willie.

The main entrance gate to Prague Castle

St Vitus Cathedral inside Prague Castle

A 14th Century mosaic of the Last Judgement. This entry portal is known as the Golden Gate in reference to the golden tiles used in the mosaic. Apparently to stop degradation of the mosaic the tiles are protected by the same coating used to protect the space shuttles - thanks to NASA. The crown jewels are kept behind the doors and are only displayed to the public every eight years. An ancient Czech legend says that any usurper who places the crown on his head is doomed to die within a year. In the eyes of some this was confirmed during World War II when Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of the puppet Protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia, secretly wore them believing himself to be a great king, and was assassinated less than a year later by the Czech underground.  

Prague Castle courtyard

Cathy at the back door to the castle

Cathy jumping in front of my photo

  

One of many decorative buildings in the castle area decorated in Italian graffito (or more correctly Sgraffito)

Me thinks someone is getting bored with this tour...

Prague even has its very own Eiffel Tower, well an (almost) exact copy of it on top of the hill.

Lucky for us we were there on Free ASS Day!

Some rather disturbing modern art

See that tower in the background? The same disturbing baby sculptures are crawling up the sides of it.  Don't believe me? Look it up on Wiki here

So that was our walking tour, well two in fact - we did one of the old town & Jewish quarter in the morning followed immediately by another of the Castle in the evening.

Day two we just strolled around the town on our own, mostly on the castle side which has a little more charm than the old town side.

A boat on the Vltava River

More boats on the same river

Penguins...on the same river

This guy was clearing out a drain or something with his sword. Oh well I guess if you have to stand around all day in a silly costume you may as well do something productive...

Cathy jumps in front of another one of my photos

We took a leisurely stroll across Charles Bridge, along with 400 million others.

In hindsight, the best way to appreciate Charles Bridge is from a distance...

No, no - she's supposed to be there this time

 

Traditional Czech food for lunch...I did finish it, really!

 

Pay back's a bitch!

And that was two days in Prague. From here we go to Vienna but we'll get to that tomorrow...