Silver Map: Places, People, Impressions: February 2014

Visiting Mozart and Sisi in charming Vienna

22:34

An extremely posh capital. First impression was : an ultrawhite city, which has so much to show and offer!

Vienna city centre, Wien Stadtzentrum, angels of Vienna

One of the major memories about my sojourn in Vienna was subway. Subway all the time. Wherever we wanted and didn't want to go -subway. Subway, subway,subway. All. The.Time. We used it a lot, nevertheless, we really liked some stations that reminded us the Platform 9 3/4.

The first place we visited was, of course, the city centre. We walked around the main square Stephanplatz, where we tried the best Viennese Apple Strudel in one of the cafes, visited Stephansdom, where a lot of Mozarts were inviting us for the performances and moved to the Hofsburg, where we were amazed by this purely white beauty of the buildings, had a glimpse at the royal horseriding school and relaxed on the stairs inside the National Library. Wandering around those streets, we could easily imagine the royal dance balls, kings and queens, and started the whole "dreaming" topic "Someday in the future I will..."

One of the best things we had visited was Sisi's palace (Schönbrunn). My friend was very much fond of her, so we didn't have other choice than to go there. Besides, some of the best chocolate candies of Vienna were Sisi's Tafeln. The ticket cost 12-14 Euros, but it was totally worth it! We were impressed by all luxurious things we saw there - each room was adorned in a different and special way and there was a vast territory with a gorgeous garden outside.

Mozart's House

Vienna is very proud of being a Mozart city. It can be felt everywhere, if you didn't know it before coming to the city. All of my friends that visit Vienna usually bring some souvenirs that are concerned with: a) Mozart (Mozartkugeln (supertasty chocolate candies with marzipan) or Mozart liquor) b) Sisi's candies.

They made a whole museum out of one of the apartments a young genius used to live in. The entrance ticket cost 10 Euros and we had audio guide, saw manuscripts of the music sheet, written by Mozart himself and found out interesting stories about naughty Mozart and his wild young years. The apartment had a few floors, and was so cozy ( and I was so exhausted) that I fell asleep right on the stairs, waiting for my friend to complete her tour.

Stadtpark.

One of the peculiarities of Vienna - whenever we went, we ALWAYS bumped into some place of interest. We didn't have a normal cityguide and decided to discover the city on our own. In Vienna we surely couldn't fail with that. That's how we bumped into the city park, which was, as my friend said, well-known to her because of the movie "Before Sunrise".

wenn's wirklich wichtig ist, dann lieber mit der Post

On our way to the city centre we found some interesting views, which assured us that we didn't really need any tips - it's about going , feeling and enjoying this amazing city and everything you see would please you.

The Rathaus (City Hall)

We saw just a glimpse of it at the daytime - it was beautiful as all the major buildings in Vienna, but it really stands out at night.

The interesting thing about Vienna was that if in Prague my Spanish friend didn't have problems with communicating since almost everyone there was Spanish-speaking, I had the same situation in Vienna. We bumped into so many Russian speakers.

There was so much we saw and so much that is still to be seen. I've been in Vienna 2 times and every time I visited different sights. The remaining things I want to visit are at least Belvedere Palaces and Freud museum.

The songs of the day:

Astronomical Clock

Establishing tradition in Prague

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Probably one of my favourite capitals!

It happened so, that I established a tradition of visiting Prague on the 1st of September. Two years in a row I was there at the same time and each time I discovered domething new there.

Backpacker's hostel, St Christopher's inn

After Brno I went to this amazing capital and reunited with my Spanish friend. The very first night of our arrival there we bumped into friendly Welsh guys who helped us with the way to our hostel. Despite its name "St. Christopher's inn" very interesting and unusual people stayed there. We lived in the room with 9 more girls from Great Britain, Germany and China. One of the hostel staff was a spitting image of Lana del Rey and each time I spoke to her I wondered the similarity between them. The hostel was exclusively for young people, who wanted to hang out and meet other people from other parts of the world. The hostel had a hall for the parties, but honestly speaking, we'd never attended them, because we were ~~grannies~~ usually too tired.

Here we also joined free tours, which I liked more and more every time we took one.

A real surprise for me was that I didn't hear Czech language that much, but Spanish one was heard from everywhere. I didn't need my English to ask someone to make a photo, for example, because my Spanish girl could easily ask for it in Spanish. Walking round the city we went to see the ceremony at the Astronomical Clock. Luckily we had to wait just 5 minutes, because I wouldn't call that process a ceremony. Anyway, the clock itself looks very interesting.

We used to have the favourite cafeteria with tasty deserts and coffee on our way from the hostel to the main square. Usually I eat at home, so it felt as if we were in a movie.

One of the coolest places we had visited was
John Lennon's wall. It was rioting with colours and we had difficulty to find the picture of John Lennon himself, since there were a lot of different signs and quotes in different languages. I was very surprised and pleased to see the sign of "Glory to Ukraine" on the wall, too.

We were also lucky enough to visit the street market that was taking place near that Wall. There were many French dishes to offer.
The next day we went to the towers of Prague, its "Eiffel" one, where we had a stunning view upon the city. There was a whole territory with a mirror room, where people could mock at themselves looking into distorted reflection. Going down was also a challenge for us, since we didn't know exactly the path, but we were lucky to watch a marvelous skyline, though we were really tired by the time we reached the Charles' Bridge again.

bricks from all over the world in Prague

Walking through the city we found this interesting thing, made of bricks, that are signed by people all over the world.Of course, the main place of tourists' "pilgrimage" was Charles' Bridge. It was full of people any time of day, so there were some traffic jams, made by pedestrian themselves. There were stalls with souvenirs and may artists, who were ready to draw your portrait or make a caricature. Some souvenir shops offered Becherovka (traditional Czech beverage) with Cannabis and even lollipops with Cannabis. At first I wanted to buy it, but then thought that officers at customs might misunderstand :)

In the evening we couldn't keep from climbing the tower in the Staromestska Namesti. We spent almost an hour there, relaxing, taking pictures and enjoying watching the city as the first lanterns begin to light uo the streets and the evening covers the top of the Church of Mother of God in front of Týn. Every evening there were some street performances to amuse tourists, like street bands or single singers, dancers and fire show.

Prague Opera House

We also visited a famous Dancing House. It was only some 10 minutes walk from our hostel. It looks nice, but we spent there some 10 minutes in general.We enjoyed another free tour in the Castle. It is considered to be one of the biggest and it is also the residence of the President of Czech Republic.

My Spanish friend waving "Hi" to Czech President

The guard at the entrance of the Castle.

I don't know why , but I really got attached to this city. It has something special that keeps me wanting to come here again and again. It never let me get bored and I'm sure that there are still so many places I haven't visited yet.

The song of the day:

AIESEC

5 facts about visiting Brno

14:10

01.09.2013

After finishing my internship in my dear Lublin, I followed my travelling spirit and the next destination happened to be Brno. The farewell was quite "crying" and even then I understood that I already missed my internship family.

I bought my tickets at Eurobus and relaxed, knowing that I have some 16 hours of a ride. I was completely fine till 8pm, when suddenly everyone left the bus and the driver told me he wasn't going any further than Opole. Okeeey. I left the bus,too and saw a big crowd of people, who were standing on the station. I approached the lady who seemed to be the head of the station staff and she told me that we had a transfer to another bus, who wasn't going to arrive because there were only 4 travellers in my direction: 2 to Brno (including me) and 2 more to Vienna. To say that I was shocked was to say nothing. To find myself on the bus station of the city I never heard of before with my broken suitcase and no idea about the other bus in the evening was not what I had expected.
However, I found my group of 3 more "lucky" guys. One of them was Ukrainian, too, so she told me what was going to happen next. After some half an hour we were "added" to the bus heading to Germany, which brought us to another station - Katowice. That was already 11 pm. After big comfortable bus we had a mini-one and rather chilly. Sleepy and cold I found myself on the station of Brno at 4am and the "best" thing was that everything opened only at 5 am, so I had to stand there for another half an hour to find a taxi.

Eventually, I had opportunity to sleep and start hanging around the city. My hostel "Jacob" was the best I've ever been before. The staff were very friendly, the rooms were big, clean and airy. It was situated right behind the Jacob's Church.

Fact №1. One can't get lost in Brno. Like, never. I have a brilliant map in my head when it comes to my hometown, but when I'm in some other city I'm constantly lost. Here I tried a few times, but whenever I went I always ended up with returning to a place I'd been before.

Fact №2. It has an unknown big black thing on the central square, which is supposed to be a piece of art, but in fact this alien UFO is far from being such.

Fact №3. It has a lot of tiny little streets, that branch from the main one, and one can see many interesting cafes, statues, churches there.

Fact №4. Czechs are really fond of beer. My two dear friends took me to the local pub and I was just wondering if I take my Polish friends and my Czech friends : whose extra Beer-stomach would be bigger and who will win in drinking it?

Fact №5. They have a system of very comfortable buses that can take you to any point in Czech Republic.

So, after enjoying the city and meeting my 2 old friends I set off to Prague to reunite with my Spanish girl.

A view from the castle

Deutschland

Exploring Germany: Goethe Atmosphere in Frankfurt, eating strudels in Mainz and visiting a fairytale in Heidelberg.

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Frankfurt am Main

"Interesting" was the first thought I had when we went out of our bus in Frankfurt. We were told that it is the main port and business centre of the country. One of the stereotypes that Germany is superclean was totally destroyed in the first 10 minutes of walking through the nearest streets. Frankfurt is one of the best-known cities in Germany, since here they have the main Euro bank and the biggest airport in Europe. ( as I was told a bit later, every 30 seconds some plain lands or sets off there)

First thing we did was crossing the bridge with a lot of "Love locks" to the other side. We headed towards the main bank of Europe, where we found a bunch of protesters, who were surely angry with something.

After having heard the story of the bank and finding out that the protest was against raising taxes, we went to see something more peaceful. That was Goethe House. As far as I understood that was the exact house he was born in. Its interior was perfectly designed and decorated due to the fashion of 18th century.

After, we finally went to the main square Römerplatz. I liked it since it had my favourite Fachwerkhaüser (those white buildings with wooden framing), that were assotiated for me only with Germany. There were loads of tourists, souvenir shops and strange "magicians" to attract people's attention.

Mainz

The firts thing we did when we arrived to Mainz was feeding swans. Those cute creatures were so used to people's attention , that they weren't hesitating even for a second to come closer to people and eat right from their hands.

We were to be quite in a hurry, because we had only some hours in the city and after we had to return to Darmstadt again.

Nevertheless, we tried to take the best out of the trip.

We visited Mainz Cathedral, that was over 1000 years old. It looked more like castle rather than a cathedral. We also visited St. Stephan's Church, which amazed us by its unique blue-glass windows. When there was sunny outside, the whole church was lit up by amazing blue light and created a mysterious atmosphere.

Wandering through the city centre I accidentally found "my prince" :)

After leaving Mainz itself we went to the Lorelei Hill. The hill was also called a "murmuring rock". Lorelei is a fictional character, that became an inspiration for Clemens Brentano and later, in 1824 was adopted by Heinrich Heine in his famous poem "Die Lorelei". The view from the hill was hilarious.

Heidelberg.

Probably one of the most picturesque places I've visited. Heidelberg was a very green city and the most remarkable landmark of this city was its castle from which we had a stunning view upon the valley. Heidelberg Castle represented the ruins since the 18th century and was built in Reneissance style.

Heidelberg was quite expensive due to its popularity with tourists. The main street reminded me of one in my hometown.

Zwingenberg

We visited this little town on our way to Darmstadt. It was tiny, indeed, but very interesting. There wasn't much life on the streets, but streets themselves were as ones in fairytales. Here they had shops with different sorts of wine. I had never knew till that time that one can make a wine jelly. It was completely non-alcohol, but turned out to be a tasty thing!