Tarnaveni, Romania

Until November 1918, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and parts of Romania were all part of the one entity – the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So, in the Centenary anniversary of the start of the First World War, it seems quite fitting that we had the chance to explore some of these countries – though admittedly, we did restrict ourselves to predominantly Capital Cities.

Unfortunately for Bratislava, by the time we visited this old city, we were in Old Town – Castle – Museum overload, so we contented ourselves with walking around the old town, finding McDonalds (one of Nick’s requirements is to visit McDonalds in every new country), where we did use their free WiFi, buying a couple of souvenirs and trying to get a feel for it. We did see some quirky things like the “Man At Work”, which is a bronze statue of a man looking out of a manhole cover in the street. We were lucky to find somewhere to park Oscar whilst we explored and to get to the Old Town, we enjoyed a walk along the banks of the Danube, crossed over the EWFO Bridge, and explored.

Sadly, Slovakia just didn’t seem to ring any bells for us – maybe Czech Republic got the more interesting tourist attractions when the old Czechoslovakia was split into the two countries.

So now it was onto to Vienna. MJ had visited Vienna in 2008 with Di Sinden when they were doing their drinking tour of Europe, but they were only here for a night. This time, we were here for four nights and blew our budget every day!

On the day of our visit to the Imperial Vaults, it turned out to be our day of visiting the dead because we also visited the Weiner Zentralfriedhof (Viennese Central Cemetary), which apparently has more inhabitants that people currently living in Vienna. The Cemetery was opened 1870 and has some very famous inhabitants, especially in the field of Music – Beethoven, Brahms, Johann Strauss (Father) and Johann Strauss (Son), Franz Schubert, C W Gluck, Antonio Salieri, as well as a memorial to Mozart. We thought it was rather funny that, in death, Salieri was deemed to be a “nobody” – his grave isn’t with the rest of the musos, but in some remote and obscure corner of the cemetery. It is a great cemetery to walk around and it’s fascinating to look at the family names, the styles and lavishness of some of the headstones. There are also a number of memorials to the victims of the Nazi Regime, as well as the victims of the 1944-45 bombings.

We also discovered the newish Sissi Museum which gave us a joint entry ticket to Schönnbrunn Palace. The Sissi Museum is, of course, dedicated to the Empress Elizabeth and tells of her life growing up in Bavaria and then once she married Emperor Franz-Joseph and became the Empress. You can see examples of her poetry around the exhibit as well as the special exhibition of “Silk-Lace-Ermine” which has several pieces of her clothing on display – my goodness, she was obsessed with her shape and size and was constantly on a diet and did exercises every day. In the same museum, which is located in the Hofburg, which was the Hapsburg “town” Palace, there are the Royal Apartments of Franz-Joseph and Sissi, and the Imperial Silver Collection, which has the most amazing array of table decorations, tableware, glassware that was used in the Imperial Court.

After years of watching Kommissar Rex, we had to visit the Prater – this was a popular backdrop used in the series and the centrepiece for a number of episodes over the years. I managed to get Nick onto the Ferris Wheel, but this isn’t a Ferris Wheel like we are used to. The Radreisbahn is one of the oldest wheels that is still in use today. Imagine the London Eye built 100 years earlier. Get the picture?

When we were in Prague, we attended a concert at Prague Castle and enjoyed it immensely. So we decided that, if possible, we would try and find a concert in Vienna. Now, Vienna is world-renowned as the home of the King of the Waltz, Johann Strauss (Son), and so there are lots of options for concerts with the majority of offerings being either Mozart and/or Strauss. Sadly, most of the concerts schedules are set for the peak tourist season which isn’t Autumn/Winter, and most of the options available just weren’t what we were looking for. So eventually we settled for a concert in the Palffy Palace and offered music, singing and dancing. Great, we thought! The music was enjoyable, the singing was very good, though a little bit to operatic for Nick’s taste but the dancing wasn’t waltzing.

We are finding it a problem with most campgrounds being closed and because of the shorter days and colder weather, free camping has been rather restricted – not enough sunshine to recharge the batteries and difficult to replenish water as we find most places have the outside water turned off. But, we found a campground in Budapest and we were able to take advantage of the public transport system to get into town. With a 3-day travel card and a 48-hour pass on a Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus, we managed to see all there was to see in Budapest. We went to the top of the Citadel, caught the Funicular up to the Palace (now the Presidential Office), we explored the Heroes Square and the Parliament House, and did a River Cruise on the Danube. Actually, when I look back at the photos, I see that Nick has a bit of a thing for the Parliament House, he took so many photos!

We also found the Memento Park which is an outdoor museum with a selection of some of the “best” (?) examples of Soviet statues, friezes and plaques that had abounded in Budapest and suffered during and after the 1989 Revolution. The Park is well done and the guide book is fascination – it tells you the history of each piece, where it was originally located, the story about the subject of the monument and finally, if and how it was handled either during the failed 1956 Revolution or the successful Revolution in 1989.

I just want to make a comment about Public Transport in Vienna and Budapest – it is fantastic. You can buy a multi-day travel card which can be used on all public transport (bus, tram, train, metro) and the bus/train, etc come frequently. And I’m not necessarily talking about CBD transport, but from the suburbs, the bus to the nearest train station comes like every 10-15 minutes and the trains run every 10 minutes or so. Even, late on Saturday night, the trains were running every 20 minutes and there was a bus that would arrive not long after the train. It certainly put the Public Transport in Australia to shame!