dangermouse.net

We had another lazy wake-up, followed by the usual muesli breakfast. We had a couple of hours free after that before needing to pack overnight bags and leave for our train to Budapest, where we are spending two nights before returning to the same apartment in Vienna. We decided to make the most of it by walking over to Karlsplatz and the park there to look around.

We didn’t quite know what to expect from the Karlskirche which faces the park, so we were impressed to find just how big it was.

We went inside the entrance and found that there was a charge of 9.50€, which we paid. The fee included entrance to the main church area on the ground floor, as well as access to a wide stone spiral staircase that led up first to a small room with a large cut-away model of the church showing the interior and exterior. There were also historical drawings, photos, and information about the building of the church. Across from this room was the organ balcony, overlooking the nave and towards the main altar from the rear of the church. So we got close to the organ itself, but the view out into the church was amazing. It was richly decorated, with detailed paintings, carvings, statues, and gold filigree.

From the organ room we continued climbing up another level, where there was a room full of clerical artefacts such as old robes, mitres, stoles, a dozen or more gold communion cups, crosses, and so forth. Then we continued up the stairs again, which eventually led us out to the roof of the church, behind the row of statues above the front door, and with a very close view of the great cupola dome, covered with green copper. We had a decent view over the surrounding area of Vienna, although in some directions it was cut short by taller buildings. After taking some photos we descended again all the way down to the ground floor and then toured around the inside of the main area of the church. It was very impressive. I especially liked that above some of the side chapels the ceiling had an elliptical hole cut in it, giving a view to the main ceiling above, where a matching shaped painting was located.

We left the Karlskirche and walked back to our apartment to rest out of the heat for a bit and pack our bags for the trip to Budapest. On the way we bought a couple of additional snacks for the train trip: a pumpkin seed bread stick and a salted pretzel. We made sandwiches using the bread and cheese bought yesterday and took them in the plastic bread bag to eat on the train. We also took some grapes and blueberries.

While doing this, I checked my email and found an update from ÖBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen) about our train. It said that because of a shortage of train cars, our train would be missing carriage number 414, so we might not have any assigned seats any more. I checked, and sure enough, 414 was the car in which our seats had been assigned. The email said to contact the train attendant to see if we could get new seats. We decided to leave as soon as we were ready and check at the ticket office at the Hauptbahnhof to see if we could get new seats assigned there. So we walked back to Karlsplatz and caught the U-bahn to the Hauptbahnhof.

There we went into the ticket office and had to take a number and wait a good 15 minutes or so before I saw a staff member. I explained the email I’d received and the woman said I had to see the attendant on the train. I asked if she could find new seats for us, and she said yes, and then I asked if I’d have to pay for new seat reservations, and she said she’d do it for free. I’m not sure why she didn’t just do that to start with, but anyway, she gave me a new seat reservation in a different car, and everything seemed fine.

Then we went outside to check the departure board to see if our train had an assigned platform yet, only to discover that it was marked as being 20 minutes late. To kill time we wandered around some of the shops and stopped in at one that was a combined lingerie shop and cafe, where my wife got an iced coffee and we sat at one fo the tables there. I took a quick walk around and discovered that they sold not only lingerie and coffee, but also coffee machines, bicycle gear such as locks and gloves, and kitchen utensils. It was a very odd mix of things.

When we emerged we took a quick look in a newsagent where my wife checked out some small notebooks, since she’s trying to buy a small sketching book from each city we visit on the trip. I suggested we needed to head to our platform for our train, but when we checked the departures it was now delayed by 30 minutes. We were getting hungry, so we found a table near the food shops to sit and eat our sandwiches. I sent a message out our contact at our accommodation in Budapest that we’d be arriving about half an hour later than I’d previously told him.

We went to the platform to wait for our train. There was an announcement that it was now expected 40 minutes late. And then another saying 50 to 60 minutes late. We continued waiting. The announced delay became 60 to 70 minutes. Then 70 to 80 minutes. We gave up standing around and grabbed a seat in the small glass-enclosed waiting area on the platform. The delay seemed to stabilise at 75 minutes, and eventually our train pulled in.

We climbed aboard and found our seats; two adjacent ones facing backwards across a table at two forward-facing seats. But the train wasn’t full and nobody sat there. The train just stayed at the station though, not moving, until an announcement are over the PA system that departure would be in 10-15 minutes. In fact it was something like 20 minutes later that the train finally began moving, a good hour and a half after the scheduled departure time. I sent another message to our accommodation contact to say we’d now be arriving more like 90 minutes late.

As the train took us out fo Austria and into Hungary, the information display screen listed arrival times at the stops along the way, and gave an estimated arrival time in Budapest of 17:22, almost two full hours later than our originally scheduled arrival. At times we sped across the landscape, but as we got towards Budapest the train slowed down to a crawl. We pulled into Bicske just before 17:00. After a couple of minutes stopped there, the PA system announced that the train had broken down and all passengers had to alight and catch a bus the rest of the way to Budapest!

We were slow to get our things together and follow everyone else off the train. We slowly walked up the platform, following the stream of people going down stairs at the end to go out to the street and presumably wait for whatever buses they’d arranged to carry us the rest of the way. As we began walking, another train pulled into the opposite platform. It was a local train, bound for Budapest-Déli station. This was on the west (Buda) side of the Danube, rather than our intended Budapest-Keleti station on the east (Pest) side. But I figured this was close enough and suggested we jump on board. So we hopped on and managed to get seats. I checked the Budapest train system map on board and found that Budapest-Déli was on the same M2 metro train line as Budapest-Keleti, the one we wanted to take to Deák Ferenc Tér, the closest stop to our accommodation. So this was fine. The only issue was this was a suburban train with several stops, instead of an inter-city express, so the trip took an extra 20 minutes. I messaged our contact once again to say our train had broken down and we were now on a local train, expected to be another 20 minutes late, arriving after 18:00 (as opposed to our original estimate of 16:00). He wrote back saying, “Ohhh! I am sorry! This is Hungary!”

So after an eventful journey we eventually arrived at Budapest-Déli station. From here things were easy. We bought metro tickets and hopped on an M2 train the four stops to Deák Ferenc Tér, from where it was just a few minutes walk. But, oh! I’d assumed our contact would be inside and we’d buzz the right door, but we didn’t see any matching name labels on the door intercom. So I contacted him again through Booking.com and he said he’d be right over in about 15 minutes, and suggested we wait in the adjacent cafe, which had air conditioning. He arrived with his wife and the two of them showed us inside, gave us the key, and also gave us a quick tour of the apartment we’ll be staying in for the next two nights, and gave us recommendations for nearby restaurants and sights.

After this we freshened up a little and then went out for a walk. My wife had wanted to check out an art shop nearby named Rododendron, but it closed at 19:00, and by the time our hosts had finished and left us alone it was too late to get there. But we decided to walk past it and check out the neighbourhood quickly, before finding a place for dinner. We’d seen glimpses of the Gozsdu Udvar courtyard, an open area in the middle of a block lined with restaurants and bars, and decided to walk through it. We found a bistro called Spiler Original, which had some a decent sounding vegetarian burger special, and we were getting hungry, so we sat at a small table by the bar, inside away from the smokers. There was also a roasted cauliflower with crispy broccoli dish on the regular menu that my wife decided sounded better so she chose that, while I decided to try the most traditional Hungarian thing and went with the goulash and potatoes, washed down with a dark Hungarian craft beer. The food was actually really good – better than I expected from a place that seemed in the middle of a tourist area.

After eating we decided to make the most of the cooler evening air by going for a walk into the centre of the town to see some sights in the twilight. Out first stop was a kurtosh cart, selling the traditional funnel cakes, either plain of filled with ice cream and various flavours. I got a nutella and ice cream one, which was okay, although honestly I’ve never much liked these kurtosh cakes—we have a place near my home that makes them and I’ve tried them there and was similarly unimpressed.

We walked over towards Erszébet Park, which contains the Ferris Wheel of Budapest.

We figured why not, and paid the fare for a ride on the wheel, since the queue was very short. We had a short wait, and then entered a cabin and were whisked up into the air above the city. The view in the early twilight was perfect and we got several photos in all directions from the top.

After the ride, we walked north towards Szabadság Tér (Liberty Square), passing along a street lined with numerous busy restaurants, with a good atmosphere of lights and people. Along the way we got a view of St Stephen’s Basilica, down a long plaza perpendicular to the way we were walking. We reached the square and turned around, coming back down a parallel street, passing right in front of the Basilica this time. Again, a beautiful photo opportunity in the twilight.

This led us back to the area close to our accommodation and we wandered back home for the night. We stopped in at a few small food markets on the way, but none had the muesli we wanted to buy for breakfast. We decided to get up and go to the large supermarket on the corner after it opens at 07:00 tomorrow.

We woke up lazily this morning, having a bit of a lie-in. We decided to go to the nearby Naschmarkt to get something to breakfast, and then pick up some groceries form the nearby Billa supermarket on the way home to make lunch for later in the day.

We arrived at the Naschmarkt just after 08:00 and were surprised to find that most of the stalls weren’t open yet, despite the market being advertised as open from 06:00. This was rather disappointing. The few stalls that were open were mostly either sit-down cafes, fresh fruit and vegetables, or stalls selling sweets, nuts, or baklava. So much baklava. It was like every second stall had guys pushing baklava or “free” samples of nuts or dried fruit at us. We stopped at a cafe to get some bites for breakfast: a sort of thick flaky pastry filled with nuts for my wife, and one filled with poppy seeds for me. They were pretty good.

We walked the length of the market and decided to head back via the supermarket. We stopped in there to buy some muesli for breakfasts for the rest of the week, with milk (real milk this time, not buttermilk), yoghurt, and we also bought some fresh fruit: bananas for me and grapes and blueberries for my wife. We also got a box of tissues since there are none in the apartment, and a small tube of toothpaste.

Back in the room we had second breakfast with the muesli. While we did this I checked out public transport tickets for Vienna. We’re half an hour’s walk from the centre of the city, and normally we’d mostly walk everywhere, but with the hot and sunny weather we don’t want to be out and exposed to the sun all day, so we decided to try getting transport to and from places. I found that they use validated paper tickets, but you can buy a 7-day pass which can be loaded into the WienMobil app on a phone for a discount. This was perfect since we’re here for a week (apart from our overnight side trip to Budapest tomorrow). So I set us up with the app and we bought the 7-day passes online.

For our first venture out we walked just a couple of minutes to Kettenbrückengasse U-bahn station and caught a U4 line train to Schwedenplatz. Here we emerged and walked roughly south-west, through streets lined with shops and cafes, zig-zagging to see various sights such as the Ankeruhr historical clock, which is mounted on a bridge between two buildings over the road beneath.

We also visited the Peterskirche, a baroque Catholic church with an extremely intricate decorated interior. We walked along the Graben, Vienna’s busy main plaza, which we’d only really glimpsed yesterday. It was bustling with people and interesting sights everywhere. I was taking photos of statues, fountains, buildings, and all sorts of things.

Eventually we reached the St Stephen’s Cathedral again, which we saw briefly last night. This time we went inside to have a look at the interior. It was actually a bit plain and disappointing compared to the Peterskirche. And there was a mass in progress so we couldn’t go in very far, so we only spent a couple of minutes before leaving again. We looped around west again, behind the rear of the Peterskirche, heading towards the Herrengasse U-bahn station. We’d decided to head back to our room for lunch, and to take the train again rather than walk all the way. We took the U3 line to Volkstheater and changed to the U2 line to Museumsquartier, from where it was a short walk to our apartment.

I let my wife go inside while I dashed around to the supermarket to buy some tomatoes to add to my sandwich. We had rye bread with emmenthal cheese, and I sliced a tomato to go on mine. I also ate one of the bananas I’d bought. We rested for a while in the air conditioning and my wife did some sketching. We did some online research to try to find some interesting neighbourhoods a bit out of the city centre and tourist-heavy areas. We thought we might find somewhere fun to walk around and find a nice quiet restaurant for dinner. Some searching led me to Hietzing as a likely candidate, while my wife suggested Neubau.

We decided to try Hietzing and caught a U4 bahn from Kettenbrückengasse in the other direction, past Schloss Schönbrunn, to the Hietzing station. My research suggested this was a fancy neighbourhood with perhaps boutique shopping and funky cafes and stuff, but it turned out to be rather dull and small. Google Maps indicated another commercial hub in the area around Jagdschlossgasse, so we caught a tram out there, but if anything this was even less interesting, being just a short string fo dull businesses and a handful of tired-looking restaurants. My wife checked in a bookshop for sketchbooks, but otherwise we didn’t spend much time here before catching a tram back.

We continued on the tram all the way to Westbahnhof, at the western edge of Neubau. Here we walked east along Mariahilfer Strasse, which turned out to be an amazing and lively wide mall lined with busy shops and food places. By now it was after 17:00 and we were getting hungry enough to consider dinner. I searched for somewhere nearby that might do Austrian food and have vegetarian options, and I found a place just a block away called Gasthaus Zum Wohl, which was 100% gluten- and lactose-free, with Austrian style dishes and several vegetarian and vegan options. My wife liked the sound of it, so we walked the short distance there and were given a table outside on the side street, where it was thankfully shady by now and had a mild breeze blowing to keep us a bit cooler than if we’d been inside (the waitress said there was no air conditioning).

We ordered some baked tomato risotto balls with pesto and salad for a starter, then my wife had spinach dumplings in spicy tomato sauce, while I had the Wiener schnitzel with potato salad.

My wife really liked her food, while I thought the schnitzel was okay, but not as good as the one I’d had in Berlin. The gluten-free breadcrumbs probably didn’t help, unfortunately. The starter was quite big, and I worried that we would be too full for the mains, but thankfully they weren’t enormous and we managed to finish, but we had no room for dessert. At least not yet… My wife decided to buy a slice of apple strudel from an Aida outlet on the main street that we walked past, to take home and eat a bit later in the evening. That was nice, but quite different from strudels I’ve had at home. This one seemed to be baked longer, making the pastry brown and crisp, rather than paler and softer.

We continued walking the length of Mariahilfer Strasse until we reached our apartment, where we showered off the heat and sweat of the hot day, and then relaxed into the evening.

Our main job this morning was to catch our train to Vienna. We got up and had breakfast, finishing off the muesli we’d bought. I tried Google Translate on the not-milk that we’d accidentally bought, and found out it was soured buttermilk. Which was surprising, but not bad, as buttermilk is pretty good.

We went for a short walk so I could take some photos of the main square and Astronomical Clock with a long lens, and my wife could get a morning coffee. We found a small Italian cafe just off the square and she got a flat white there. They also has focaccia sandwiches and we bought two caprese ones to take with us for lunch on the train. They kindly packed them in a paper bag for us, with serviettes.

Coffee done, we went back to our room and grabbed our bags to check out, leaving the key in the lockbox as requested. Then we walked back to Prague’s main station for our train. When we got there, the departures board indicated that no platform had yet been assigned for our train. The station was very busy, with a lot of people standing around watching the board to find out where their trains were leaving from. The morning was hot and it was pretty warm inside the station. They had a large Lego version of the station building in a glass display case, which was pretty cool.

After ten minutes or so of waiting, the departure platform was announced and joined a horde of other people streaming the same way. Once on the platform I tried to find any indication of where our car number might pull up, but couldn’t find any. So we had to just hope it would be nearby. As it happened, when the train pulled in our car was just a few steps away, and we were right at the front waiting to get on. A lot of people got off though (the train had come from Berlin), and it took several minutes. And as we waited, a man drove a small cart pulling a trailer up and started beeping to get people out of the way. It was tricky with people trying to get off, people crowded around trying to get on, and this cart trying to move everyone away. It looked like the trailer was delivering food for the adjacent restaurant car or something, and slowly the guy pulled forward until the cart was almost blocking the door we were waiting to get in. This forced people waiting on the opposite side of the door to retreat to provide a way out for the people still climbing off the train. So when eventually the stream of people stopped we were the first ones to climb aboard.

Our seats were almost in the centre of the carriage. We were supposed to have facing seats on the aisle, but a woman and man were sitting in the forward facing seats, so we took the window and aisle seats opposite them. The train pulled out for the four hour trip to Vienna, stopping at Brno and Břeclav. The man opposite us got out at Brno, but the woman stayed all the way to Vienna. She had earphones in and was doing stuff on a laptop and didn’t talk to us. Across the aisle from us was a very chatty Asian Australian guy, travelling with two kids, who during the course of the trip told his entire life story to the young British woman sitting next to him.

During the trip we both worked on our sketchbooks. I drew a few scenes from Prague, while my wife filled in her ink scenes from yesterday with watercolour.

We arrived at Vienna Hauptbahnhof just before 15:00. We disembarked and descended the nearest stairs from the platform, which led us to a quiet area with exits in three directions. Using a map to get our bearings, I realised we’d come out the far eastern exit of the station, whereas the best way to our accomodation was from the west (main) exit. But there was no way to get there without either going back up to the platform and walking along it, or exiting the station and walking around outside. We did the latter, reaching the main part of the station, which was huge and busy. From here we walked towards Naschmarkt, which is near our accommodation.

But when we got there, it seemed clear that this was another small set of guest rooms to be accessed by a key code at the door, and a lockbox inside with a key. But I hadn’t received any instruction for how to get inside or access the room key. I searched through my messages from the accommodation and didn’t find anything. So I tried phoning the contact number, but nobody answered. I sent a message through the Booking.com app, and hoped that someone would see it and get back to us. We waited several minutes, with no responses. I scanned the QR code on the accommodation sign at the door, but it said the URL domain was vacant! We started to fear that the accommodation had stopped business and taken our advance payment without informing us!

A man came out of a door next door, pushing a trolley with bottles on it, and we stopped him to ask if he knew anything about the accommodation there. He said as far as he knew it was there and pointed at the sign to suggest we contact them, which we’d already tried. Then an older couple emerged from the door, and we stopped them to ask if they knew anything about the accommodation. It turned out they were staying in one of the other apartments run by the same guy, and they had an SMS message chain with him, and said they’d just contacted him an hour ago. The woman tried phoning (the same number I’d tried), and got through! She explained to him (in German) that we were here and didn’t have check-in information. She listened and then told me to phone him again, and hung up. I called the number again and the guy answered straight away. Phew!

He said he’d sent check-in details to me via WhatsApp. I’d noticed WhatsApp on my phone giving me notifications a day or two ago, and from the notification summary it looked like spam because the guy had sent several messages and the one that was summarised was restaurant recommendations, so I’d ignored it and actually deleted the app, because I don’t ever use it and didn’t want more spam notifications. So he did actually send the check-in info, but I’m a bit surprised that he used WhatsApp as the medium. Anyway, he sent me the details via iMessage, now he knew my phone number, and within a couple of minutes we were safely inside, finally.

The apartment we have for the next week is very nice, with a kitchen, a separate bedroom, and a balcony overlooking a central courtyard. Once we dropped our bags, we went out to get a quick cold drink. One of the places the owner recommended was a cafe just on the corner of the street, so we went there. It was closing at 17:00 and by now it was 16:30, so we had just enough to to get drinks. My wife had an iced caffe latte, while I tried their home made pear and ginger lemonade. It was nice, though I’d hoped for a little more of a ginger kick to it.

We returned to our apartment and looked for some place to have dinner. We felt like something simple and easy, with guaranteed good vegetarian options, so chose a Thai place called All Reis, which was abut 20 minutes walk away in the Inner Stadt area. We stayed in the cool air conditioning until after 18:00, then ventured out into the sultry evening air to walk there. We passed a lot of amazing sights on the way. It looks like there’s a lot to see in Vienna!

When we got to All Reis, there were half a dozen outdoor tables, all occupied, and we were shown to a table inside, and near the back behind a partial dividing wall. There was no air conditioning and it was very warm, with a rotating floor fan blowing air around. We were so warm we moved tables to get closer to the fan. We ordered some vegetarian rice paper rolls to start, then I got a chicken pad siew and my wife got stir fried morning glory in soy chilli sauce with rice. The food was good and very filling, with generous serves, which was good because we were both hungry after our simple sandwich lunch on the train.

After eating we walked back to our apartment via a different route following our noses at first down interesting looking streets and discovering amazing sights at each turn. After a while we ended up at the main St Stephen’s Cathedral.

From there we turned to a more direct route home, passing through the Burggarten, a lovely grassy and tree-filled park looking onto the Hofburg palace.

Then past the historical art museum and back towards our accommodation.

We’d planned to do a load of laundry tonight using the apartment’s laundry room, so we checked that out on our way in. We saw that a completed load was in the machine, and thought we could bring down our laundry and take that load out onto the table there while starting our load. But five minutes later when we returned with our bag of dirty laundry, two other people were there and had just started a load! The machine has 1:38 on the timer to run. So we had to go back down later at almost 22:00 to start our load.

We didn’t set an alarm this morning, but still woke up before 07:00. We had the muesli we bought last night for breakfast. However the “milk” we got turned out not to be milk, but a sort of drinking yoghurt. I’d scanned two different bottles of milk with Google Translate and determined that both of them were apparently full fat milk (so I don’t know what the difference (was). But then we spotted another carton next to them that looked to be the same amount for a slightly lower prices we grabbed that and went. We didn’t bother to scan it to translate the Czech text, and so ended up not getting milk at all! Nevertheless, it was fine and delicious.

The first stop this morning was Havel Market, supposedly touted as the best street market in Prague. It was only a couple of blocks away. We got there just after 09:00, but they were still setting up lots of the stalls, even though the market is supposed to open at 07:00. Also the variety of stuff there wasn’t great and the whole market was pretty small. Overall it was pretty disappointing and we finished scanning up and down the stalls in about 20 minutes or so.

My wife had also found a Saturday farmers’ market, held on the bank of the Vltava River, a bit of a walk away, past last night’s restaurant. We went there via a different route and ended up walking along the river bank on a promenade near the water, below street level, which was nice. This market was much better than Havel. It had many more stalls, all actively preparing food or selling items, and a buzzing crowd of both locals and tourists walking to and fro. My wife stopped for a coffee at one of the first stalls. They gave her a plastic cup which had a 50 koruna deposit, so we walked down and came back later to drop it off.

Across from there was a stall which had a huge queue, maybe 30 or 40 people long. They were lining up to buy bread spread with pesto. They had five or six different types of pesto and most people were having a huge slice of rye bread with stripes of the slightly different greens spread on them. It must have been good! There were also stalls selling bread, cakes, nuts and dried fruits, meats, cheeses, fruit and vegetables, and cooked food including grilled meat, sausages, potatoes, and things like tortilla wraps, pizzas, and so on. And there were craft stalls, clothing, beer, wine, mead, chocolate and other sweets, and more. The stalls went for maybe 300 metres along the river. We bought a large chunk of a slice made with seeds, nuts, and dried fruit as a snack to keep us going.

At the end we turned around and walked back the way we’d come. We exchanged my wife’s used coffee cup for the 50 koruna deposit and then went looking for a stall where we could spend the coin on something. We found a guy with baklava who had a chocolate and pistachio version for 48, so we gave him the whole coin for it and shared bites. It was melty from the heat, but delicious. We walked back to our room via a (mostly) different route. M. stopped in at an art supply shop that we’d spotted on our way out near the Tesco’s, to briefly look at sketching and watercolour books.

We rested in our room for about half an hour out of the heat of the day and prepared for our afternoon expedition to Prague Castle. On the way walking there we stopped to get some more sustenance. I got some hot chips with cheddar cheese melted on top from Fæncy Fries Kaprova, while M. grabbed an iced coffee from an adjacent Starbucks. Then we continued, walking across the Mánesův Most bridge, north of the more famous Karlův Most. From there it was an uphill hike to Prague Castle, mostly against traffic of people coming down. As we figured out, most of the people visiting the castle were going in the opposite direction to us, entering by the gate we exited at, and departing by the gate we entered.

Once we had climbed the hill we entered at the eastern end of the castle. I didn’t realise that anyone could enter the castle grounds freely. You only needed to buy a ticket to gain entrance to specific attractions within. We had the basic ticket, which allowed us into the Golden Lane, St George’s Basilica, St Vitus Cathedral, and the Old Royal Palace. The first one we came across was the Golden Lane, but unfortunately it seemed all the attractions had been routed to be convenient for people coming from the west entrance and leaving the way we’d come in. We had to walk in a fair way, then backtrack around through the Golden Lane and then retrace our steps again to continue.

The Golden Lane is a narrow laneway lined with tiny medieval houses which apparently housed precious metal and gem workers. A few of the houses had been converted into shops, while some had been made into museum displays of old tools and furniture, as though the workers still lived and worked there. It was cramped in there and we had to wait for others to shuffle in and out. And I banged my head on the low lintel coming out of one.

From here we went to the Basilica of Saint George. The exterior is a rich salmon pink colour and of a style that looks only a few hundred years old, but the interior is obviously much older, being mostly bare limestone, pitted with age. It was consecrated in 921, so is well over a thousand years old. It was a very interesting look at a medieval style basilica, with faded paintings on some of the walls.

Next was St Vitus Cathedral, a much larger Gothic style cathedral, the largest church in the entire Czech Republic. I took photos of several of the external gargoyles before we headed inside. This was very impressive, with some amazing stained glass windows, some of which looked quite modern, and a soaring ceiling high above the vast interior. Around the back of the main altar was a giant reliquary or something made of enormous amounts of silver.

Our final call was the Old Royal Palace, attached to some buildings that looked like a more modern palace. The old palace also looked close to a thousand years old, and consisted mainly of the large Vladislav Hall, with some adjoining rooms. One of these contained the window where the two Catholic lords regent Count Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice, Count Vilem Slavata of Chlum, and their secretary Philip Fabricius were defenestrated in the 1618 Defenestration of Prague, triggering the Thirty Years War.

After touring these sights, we left the Castle via the west entrance and walked back down the hill towards the river. We crossed on the Charles Bridge (Karlův Most), taking our time to admire the statues and views from this historic bridge. It was pretty full of people walking in both directions and the sun was hot in the afternoon. Just before crossing we stopped at a gelato place and got cups of gelato to cool ourselves down and stave of any hunger until our dinner.

We rested in our room for about half an hour and then it was time to go out for our dinner. We had an early reservation for 17:30, since the Restaurant Zvonice said that they were booked out later. We walked over to the Jindřišská Tower (or St Henry’s Tower), a clock and bell tower, the tallest in Prague. The restaurant is on the 8th floor, surrounding some of the bells, making it a really unique location, with old medieval wooden beams and views through the partially shuttered windows to the rooftops below.

The place served traditional Bohemian cuisine, and also had some decent vegetarian options. We chose the goat cheese terrine appetiser, my wife had the truffle risotto, while I had wild boar with blackberry sauce, potatoes, and mushrooms. The food was really good and the atmosphere couldn’t be beaten. Definitely a good choice for our last dinner in Prague!

On the way home we took a slight detour to go see the Old New Synagogue. This is the one where the legendary Golem of Prague is supposed to be slumbering in the attic. There is an external ladder on the side of the synagogue leading to the attic, which made a good photo. After this we returned the short distance to out room for the night.

While waiting for our connecting flight from Singapore to Frankfurt, I checked the departures and found that it had been delayed by 35 minutes. I hoped that this didn’t presage another 25-hour delay like when we travelled to Frankfurt three years ago! An announcement came over the PA system, that our flight was delayed because they changed the plane, presumably for mechanical reasons. So with the early arrival into Singapore and the late departure, we had about an hour more time here than we expected.

There were no further delays, and at the appointed time we left for the departure gate, cleared through another security screening, and boarded the plane.

Our flight from Singapore was half an hour longer than the scheduled flight time, because of having to route around various conflict zones such as Iran and Ukraine. Apparently Donald Trump decided to bomb Iran while we were flying right past it, so that might have complicated matters. Added to the half hour late departure, we arrived in Frankfurt almost an hour later than scheduled, touching down at exactly 08:00.

We got off the plane very quickly, and it looked like everyone ahead of us was either continuing on the same flight to New York or transiting elsewhere, as we were the first ones to go up the escalators to the customs and exit areas. However we weren’t the only flight to arrive at this time and there was a long queue for the border control checks for non-EU citizens. The EU passport holders whizzed through automated gates while we had to wait with everyone else in a long queue to be manually processed. The border officers took their time with some people so the queue moved very slowly.

While we were waiting a few passengers came through behind us, desperately waving boarding passes for connecting international flights, which meant they had to clear immigration and get to their gates for flights leaving very soon. Staff ushered them through, jumping the queue ahead of the res of us, meaning even more waiting time. Eventually we got to the front and the official didn’t even ask us anything, but merely stamped our passports and waved us through. We’d seen them ask previous people detailed questions about there they were travelling and staying and so on, and having to show them things on their phones – presumably hotel bookings or something. Once through there was more walking. Frankfurt Airport is huge and there’s a lot of distance to be covered. We went through customs and ignored the badge claim area, heading to the train station.

There I used a machine to buy tickets to Berlin. It was 09:15 by this time. There was a departure available quite soon, but I selected a later one, departing at 09:45, to give us time to buy some food and drinks. I also made sure to book seat reservations, so we wouldn’t have to stand up for over four hours to Berlin. The machine printed four dockets: a fare ticket from Frankfurt Airport to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, a credit card receipt for my payment, and two sets of seat reservations, one for a train from Frankfurt to Erfurt, and one for a connecting train from Erfurt to Berlin. I looked at the seat reservations and they seemed to say that the train leaving Frankfurt departed at 10:14, not 09:45 as I’d expected. I thought that was weird, but it seemed like we had more time than I thought.

We relaxed a bit and went to go get some food, going to a chain bakery that we’ve used before at Frankfurt Airport station. We sat down and ate some sandwiches, and also got some extra food in paper bags to take with us. While we were eating, I puzzled over the tickets. I decided to check the route on the Deutsche Bahn app. I searched for trips from Frankfurt Airport to Berlin and found our journey… and discovered that it did indeed leave Frankfurt Airport at 09:45, catching a regional train service to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, to connect there to the ICE service departing for Erfurt at 10:14!

So all of a sudden we realised that we only had 15 minutes to get from the Frankfurt Airport long distance train station to the Frankfurt Airport regional train station to make the regional train in time to get our express train! I realised this while my wife was buying drinks, and waved her over hurriedly so we could race over to the other train station. She’d only bought a bottle of water and hadn’t had time to get some coffee like she wanted. We ruched across to the regional train station, which fortunately is only a few minutes walk away, but we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss the train as then we’d also miss our express train. We had just enough time for my wife to grab a cup of coffee at a place adjacent to the platform before we went down to get the train.

We caught the regional train, which took 15 minutes to get to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, giving us an easy 14 minutes to find the long distance platforms and where we needed to be. Along the way, on older Chinese couple asked us in English if they were on the right platform for the train to Leipzig. I looked at the ticket the woman was holding and saw it was the same train as ours, and in the adjacent carriage, so I assured them they were on the right platform and showed them how to find where their car would stop. It turned out our train was a few minutes late, and departed about 10 minutes late.

This was a problem, because our connection in Erfurt gave us only 6 minutes to change trains before the other one departed. So there was a chance we’d miss our connection. But strangely, the train we were on was also going to Berlin! Just by a different route. I’m not sure why the ticket machine decided to have us change trains in Erfurt if the first train was going to Berlin anyway. The only thing I can think of is that beyond Erfurt it didn’t have any seat reservations free, so had to switch us to another train.

As we passed through the other stops, Fulda and Eisenach, the train began making up time. It was a close run thing, and by the time we left Eisenach, the projected arrival time in Erfurt was just 4 minutes late, giving us 2 minutes to make our connection. We were arriving on platform 10 and our connecting train was departing from platform 9, so we were hoping that they would be opposite sides of the same platform and we could dash across and hop on. If we had to race down the length of platform 10 to the end to move across to 9, we might not have had time – assuming they didn’t hold the train for us. As it happened, we pulled in and could see ICE 800, our train, waiting across the platform with doors open. When we stopped, we jumped off and dashed over and into the nearest door. We had to walk down one car to find ours and our seats, and the train had begun moving before we got there. Phew!

While on the trains we I did some sketching, using photos we’d taken on our phones as references. We both drew scenes at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, and my wife added in some drawings of pretzels and the bread rolls we’d bought for lunch. Here’s my sketch:

This train stopped at Halle, Bitterfeld, and Berlin Sudkreuz, before reaching Berlin Hauptbahnhof on time at 14:22. From here we went up I think four flights of escalators to the S-bahn tracks, where we bought short trip tickets (good for trips of 3 stations or fewer) and hopped on the next train heading west, to Zoologischer Garten station. There we finally left our transport and resorted to good old foot power for the final few minutes of our long journey. We walked the few blocks to the Crowne Plaza Berlin City Centre Ku’damm, our hotel for the week.

After checking in we had showers and cleaned up after the long journey. All told it took us just over 32 hours from the time our flight left Sydney to reach our hotel. Reception gave us a voucher for a free drink in the hotel bar, so we went down there and sat for a bit to think about what to do with the remainder of the day while we had our drinks, a rosé wine for my wife and a Bitburger beer for me. We also got some corn chips and salsa as a snack, since we were a little hungry and it was a while before dinner time.

While sitting, she did some sketching and I did some researching to find any sort of tourist attractions within a short walk, and also any restaurants with decent vegetarian options. It seemed that everything that Happy Cow listed was either Indian, East Asian, or Middle Eastern – nothing like a place with traditional German food with vegetarian options. In the end we selected a mid-range looking Italian place, something classier than a cheap pizza or pasta bar, called Il Sorriso (“the smile” in Italian).

Before then we decided to go and get my camera and take a short walk around the block to go past the entrance gates of the Berlin Zoo, which has a couple of photo-worthy sights: a fountain made of fossil-bearing shale, and concrete elephant statues supporting the main gates of the zoo. We also went past the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, or Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, originally built in the 1890s but partially destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943. The damaged shell of the foyer of the original church still stands, with a truncated part of the spire above it, but the main body of the church is gone. A new church was built in front of the old one from 1959, with a bell tower around the back, in the space formerly occupied by the old church. The new church is a striking modernist design, with an almost brutalist concrete exterior made of small square panels. It’s only when you go inside that you realise the panels are a brilliant deep blue stained glass, which flood the interior with blue light, contrasting a giant almost-Art-Deco gold statue of Christ above the altar and multi-coloured, multi-sized circular floor tiles. We went into the new and old churches to look around, before heading back to the hotel.

We had a brief rest, during which we both drew sketches of the church. I finished mine:

Then we emerged again for dinner at Il Sorriso. It looked like a very nice place, and we were hoping to have dinner inside a nicely air conditioned restaurant, as the day was very hot and we’d had enough of the heat. But like last time we were in Germany on a very hot day, we were frustrated by the fact that restaurants here just don’t seem to have air conditioning. We were offered a table outside, but chose one under the roof, although the windows were wide open and it was just as hot as outside.

The food was excellent though. My wife had tagliatelle pesto, and I had ravioli filled with salmon in a lobster sauce with salmon roe. The pasta and sauces were all obviously hand made and were delicious. For dessert I asked with the flavours of the “selection of sorbets of the day” were, and the waiter answered just “lemon”. But that was fine with me and I chose that, while my wife had a caffe latte.

After this we went back to our hotel to turn in for the night and hopefully get a solid sleep and wake up just before breakfast. My wife finished off her sketch with some watercolour. Hers was done from a reference photo from a different angle to mine.