Let me just come right out and say it -- I didn't care for Zurich. It's not that it was particularly bad or anything, but it wasn't particularly good either. The kicker for me was the expense!
I realize I was complaining about the exchange rate when we were using British pounds and was glad to start using the Euro. We heard that Switzerland didn't use the Euro, but little did I know how fiercely independent they were. The Swiss franc is about even with the US dollar, but damn everything is so expense. Just to give you a taste:
Paperback book - 22.00
McDonald's Happy Meal - 12.00
Plate of Nachos - 20.00
Bottle of Corona - 8.50
Cheapest bottle of wine - 50.00
Lunch on the train - 100.00
That lunch hit particularly hard. A plain chicken breast on top of some noodles with four beers shared among our friends. Ouch!
To make things even more interesting, our hotel was directly above a complex of gay bars. We should have been suspicious when each nightstand had a pair of earplugs free of charge. Nothing is free in Zurich my friends, but our room was pretty loud. AC had trouble sleeping because he kept hearing Madonna songs and got too excited to sleep.
We're now headed into Italy for our final leg of our European tour -- Italy. I've only been to Venice and all I remember is the dirty water and pickpockets. Let's hope for a pleasant surprise!
Zur-ick!
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Matterhorn
Saturday, July 12, 2008
AC had somehow heard of Zermatt Switzerland in the past and it really stuck with him. I think it was on the Today show on that 'Where in the World is Matt Lauer' segment. Anyway, we grossly underestimated the amount of time it was going to take to get there from Salzburg. In all, we had to take three separate trains and travel over 10 hours to get there.
If you ask me, it was well worth it. Zermatt is a tiny skiing village nestled at the base of the Matterhorn (you have to go through many small mountain towns to get there -- my favorite was Saint Niklaus). Zermatt is a very environmentally-conscious town, and there are no cars allowed in the city. The primary mode of transportation is golf cart! Unfortunately it was pouring rain when we got there (and 90% of our time there).
The whole golf cart thing got a lot less cute when our driver from the hotel came and picked us up. Three of us had to sit with our bags in the flatbed portion of the cart with just an umbrella to shield our legs from the rain. At every bump I was sure I was going to get ejected onto the street!
First thing in the morning, we tackled the Matterhorn. There are innumerable trams that go to various parts of the mountain, but because the weather wasn't cooperating with us a lot of the good ones were closed. We took it as high as it would take us and the view was pretty spectacular. We were just under the snow line, which ruined my snowball fight fantasy. In the end, it was a bit pricey to get up there and not get to the snow, but I'm glad we did it.
Our travel buddies were a less impressed by Zermatt and kindly asked if we could leave early and head for somewhere a little more populated. Since we'd been dictating the route thus far, it was only fair so we headed for Zurich.
The Sound of Music
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Salzburg is home to many interesting things that we're well-familiar with in the US. Mozart, The Sound of Music to name a few. Did we check out any of those areas? Heck no.
The first thing we did was take a tram up to the Festung Holzensalzburg castle, which is perched on the mountainside overlooking Salzburg. Not only does it house some historical information about the palace itself, but holds a few museums on assorted subjects. The stand out (for me) was the marionette museum. It could only be described as creepy - smelling of mildew and the various Sound of Music Characters and lines of can-can girls eerily smiled and stared off into space. The stuff that nightmares are made of, at least for me. It also contained the most colorful graveyard we'd ever seen, and catacombs that were carved directly into the side of the mountain.
Hands down, the nicest thing we saw were the Wierfen Ice Caves. It's about 40 minutes of hiking and a tram ride up to a sizable height of the Austrian Alps. The guide hands a select group of participants a small kerosene lantern, which promptly blows out as they open the door and you are blasted by an arctic gale of wind going anywhere from 60 - 100 km/hour and is -1C (~30F). As they relight all the lamps and your eyes adjust, you begin to see the sides and soaring ceiling of the cave and the ice that coats most of the walls. In all, you hike over 1000 steps through ice formations that look like polar bears, elephants, and one room that looked like it was straight out of Superman and the Fortress of Solitude. AC diligently tried to take pictures (even though it was strictly forbidden), but none of them really turned out.
After about an hour of hiking in the freezing cold, we were more than ready to get the heck out of there. My toes thawed out on our hike back down the mountain, as we reflected on one of the coolest things we'd ever seen - no pun intended!
Vienna
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Still somewhat recovering from being the host country of the EuroCup, Vienna was yet another beautiful stop on our trip. As we were down to just two travelers (AC and I), I felt a bit more comfortable dictating our tour stops. We made a beeline to the Albertina, which was the former home of the Viennese monarchy, and is now a fine art museum. In addition to an impressive permanent collection, they had very interesting exhibitions of Oskar Kokoschka and Paul Klee (both of whom we were unfamiliar, but really enjoyed!). The top floor of the building has been restored to its original palatial elegance, which was gaudy but neat to see.
I was not the only one excited by the local museums. AC is a freak about ancient Egypt, and we were lucky enough to catch the traveling exhibition of King Tut. It was totally mind-blowing. Beside the fact that you're looking at treasures from 3000+ years ago (many of which look good as new), he has an fascinating story I wasn't aware of.
King Tut was literally the boy king, assuming the throne at the age of 10. In ancient Egyptian culture, your transition into the afterlife was more important than your life on Earth. Typically a king immediately began to prepare for his death upon his coronation. Little did anyone know that his death would come so soon -- at the age of 19. It's unclear what happened, but what they do know is he must have seriously pissed someone off. In addition to speculation that his untimely death was a result of some shady dealings (scholars currently think, however, he may have died from a broken leg) they tried to wipe him completely from history. His name was removed from all records, all statues in his image were changed or destroyed and he was largely forgotten. This is particularly devastating in their culture because the more you were remembered the better you fared in the afterlife. Being forgotten was worse than anything.
But their plan backfired. Unfortunately, being a 'famous' dead king meant everyone knew where you were buried. Thieves often ransacked their crypts and stole all the precious items leaving very little behind. This makes archaeological discovery difficult -- but this was not the case for King Tut. Since they took such great pains to erase him from the history record, his crypt was kept in tact until its eventual discovery in the 1920s. Although his hurried burial made the crypt look like a rush packing job, it was the most complete find ever and took over 10 years to recover and catalog all the items.
Budapest Pride - HungAryan?
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Our friends that we made in the Czech Republic went to visit a friend in Budapest for the Hungarian Pride Celebration. We were originally going to tag along, but ended up going to Vienna instead.
We got the love parade (featuring the fastest dance music we'd ever heard!)
They got the hate parade!
I'm Going to Disneyland!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
"I feel like I'm in Disneyland," remarked AC as we strolled through the center square of Prague.
Truer words were never spoken. Largely untouched by the devastation and subsequent modern-looking rebuilding that we saw in Berlin, this city had much of its old-world charm remaining.
Our new friend Jamie (that we met on the train) had lived in Prague about 15 years ago teaching English. He made a college try at giving us a tour of the city, but the memories were a bit cloudy.
"I think they moved some stuff since I was here," he joked.
"The buildings weren't blasted in Prague in World War II" we replied. "It should pretty much be the same!"
"Well I was blasted pretty much the whole time I lived here! That's the problem." We all silently nodded in understanding.
He generously rented a car and driver to give us a tour. I'm no car-expert, but this car was an antique! So old that as we attempted the steeper hills he had to manually adjust the gas mix.
"You have to be both a driver, tour guide and mechanic with these old cars," he explained.
The tour of the city was beautiful. We then took a quick tour of the Jewish quarter of the city. Including the impact from the holocaust in WWII, the sites detailed the years of prejudice and persecution they suffered even before that. A highlight was the Jewish cemetery, which had the creepy feel I was looking for at Stonehenge but never got. Interestingly, space was at such a premium that there were literally buried on top of each other. In some places, they are buried 10+ levels deep.
At this juncture, we took a temporary split from our friends, Adam and I heading over to Vienna and Jamie and Kevin to Budapest to rejoin, maybe, at a later date.
Southern Comfort
Our train ride to Prague was one of the more memorable parts of our trip thus far. As we shuffled into our assigned seats, I began to tuck away my backpack straps in preparation for lugging it into the overhead compartment. As I began to do this, a loud ruckus in the distance began to draw closer and closer. I likened it to a bull charging through a china store, only it spoke with a very strong southern accent. Right as I was about to hoist my bag into the compartment, I heard the "bull" say,"all riiight! Here's a spot for mah bag!" as he hoisted his huge suitcase into the spot right above my seat. Grumpily, I then drug my bag to another section of the train that had some free space.
AC and I ended up sitting facing these two other Americans. Eventually, the dreaded question came. "Where ya'll from?" It came from the quieter of the two, with a slighter accent to boot. Small talk gradually turned into a conversation filled with roaring laughter. One by one, our closest neighbors on the train moved to other parts to avoid our increasingly boisterous conversation.
In the end, we all made the best of friends. In fact, we've been traveling together pretty much non-stop with a small exception of their excursion to Budapest -- one we are very glad we didn't undertake. But more on that later ...