Brussels and Conclusion of Trip

Our next stop after Austria was Belgium, and specifically to the capital city of Brussels, a distance of 717 Km northwest of Salzburg.  It was almost a full day of travel to get there; 8 ½ hours of travel time split between three trains!

Belgium is historically a Dutch-speaking country, however in the late 19^thcentury there was a shift to French.  Brussels is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, however French is the main language with over 90% of the population.  English is spoken by nearly a third of the population, so language was never a barrier for us here.  The population of Brussels is about 2.1 million.

Our first tourist destination was the central square in Brussels called Grand-Place.  It is surrounded by magnificient buildings including the tallest spire Town Hall building. All the buildings surrounding the square have some gold gilding on them, giving them a vey opulent look.  It was actually quite breathtaking.  This square if considered one of the most beautiful squares in Europe, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998.  The square is alive with crowds milling about; sightseeing and photographing. Buskers are everywhere. Nearly all commercial premises seem to be souvenir stores, bars, restaurants, chocolate shops or waffle stands. You can hardly move in some places.  I took quite a few pictures but I didn’t think any of them truly captured the essence of the place.  The one I posted below I thought was the best, but the gold gild on the various buildings doesn’t stand out and that is what made it amazing in appearance.

One of the must see sights in Brussels is the bronze statue entitled, Manneken Pis, meaning “Little Pisser” (in Dutch).  It is of a naked little boy peeing into a fountain.  This statue is the icon of Brussels.  Souvenir stores are filled with images of this on magnets, keyrings, postcards, plates, T-shirts, and they even sell little statuettes.   The original statue dates to 1618 and is kept in the Museum of the City of Brussels, what is erected is a replica from 1965.  I was expecting this statue to be fairly large and was quite taken aback when I saw it, as it was only 24” tall.

The people of Brussels have a lot of fun with this statue.  Several times a week the statue is dressed in costumes.  Since 1954, the costumes have been managed by the non-profit association The Friends of Manneken-Pis, who review hundreds of costume designs submitted each year, and select a small number to be produced and used. His wardrobe consists of around one thousand different costumes.  As you can see, he was wearing a costume on the day we saw him.

As a counterpoint to this statue, located not all that far away, is a 15” statue, Jeanneke Pis, of a little girl with her hair in short pigtails, squatting and urinating on a blue-grey limestone base.  This statue was erected in 1987.

While here we took in a museum with works dedicated to the 20^thcentury Belgium surrealist artist, René Magritte (21 Nov 1898 – 15 Aug 1967).  He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images, often depicting ordinary objects in unusual context.  His work is known for challenging observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality.  I had never heard of him and was not really familiar with surrealist art, but have to say I enjoyed many of his pieces.

I think I may have mentioned before that Europe has some great clocks and Brussels did not disappoint.  We came across this large ornamental clock that had recessed figures for each hour. On the hour, bells announce the time and then the figure associated with that hour comes out for a few moments.  Loved it!

The air in Brussels has a very distinctive smell, particularly around the tourist areas. Have you guessed what that might be? …..Belgium Waffles!!  There are many waffle shops all over selling waffles with all sorts of amazing toppings; fruit, caramel sauce, nuts, whipped cream, etc. Tourists, and I expect many locals, are clustered around the stands or sitting on the curbs, indulging in their favourite confection.  We, of course did try one and that did us for the rest of our time in Brussels.

In closing:

From Brussels we headed to Dorset, England, and then onto our final stop in London. In Dorset we have a good friend that we visited with and London was just a staging point to be close to the airport for heading home.  Because I have been to these two places before and posted on then, I will not be posting on them again.

So this is my last post for this holiday.  The day after tomorrow, Sanford and I both head home; me to Canada and he to Australia. After being away for so long, I look forward to getting back to family and friends.

This trip was for 3 ½ months and in that time we covered nine countries and changed accommodations 27 times!  It was a great trip but now I’m looking forward to getting home and to my own bed.

Take care.

Austria – Part 2

Vienna

Our next stop, after Graz, was Vienna.  Vienna is the capital of Austria and has a population of 1.8 million, making it the 7th largest city by population within city limits in the European Union.

Here are just a few fun facts about Vienna:

• Vienna is often called The City of Music, or the World’s Capital of Music, as more famous composers have lived here than in any other city in the world.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss and Johannes Brahms are just a few who called Vienna home.
• Have you ever had Pez candies?  They were invented in Vienna in 1927. The name Pez is an abbreviation on the German word “pfefferminz”, meaning peppermint. Because the original PEZ candies only came in that one flavour. The dispenser was invented in 1949, designed to look like a lighter. Smoking was prohibited at that time, so the Pez slogan was “No Smoking – PEZing Allowed.”
• Snow globes were also invented here, in 1900, by Erwin Perzy.

We were looking forward to Vienna because we were  meeting up with friends of Sanford’s; Jacek, and his partner, Eva.  They live in Warsaw and when they knew we were going to be in Europe, decided to meet us for a weekend here.  I had met them previously, the first time, when we were on our honeymoon we stayed at Jacek’s home for a few days and the second time, was a few years ago when we were on our Spain, Portugal and Morocco trip, they met us in Madrid.  So it was nice to meet “old” friends and have someone to chat with, other than Sanford.

They travel very much like we do, in that they also like to wander around and aren’t that much into guided tours.  So that is exactly what we did.

While in The City of Music, we decided to attend a concert.  Virtually every street has a vendor selling tickets to concerts in the main tourist area.  The choices were infinite and in the end we decided on one that featured the music of Mozart and Strauss.  The concert was performed by 5 instrumentalists and also included some operatic singers and ballet dancers.  It was definitely a performance geared for tourists; they played mainly excerpts from popular classics, but it was well-done and I quite enjoyed it.

Still with the music theme, we went to see the Opera House, called Staatsoper, a beautiful large edifice, with lots of statues.  Much to our delight, a stage was set up outside in which an orchestra was having a rehearsal for a future performance.   We sat on the steps of the Opera House, with many other tourists, and listened for a while.

The Schönbrunn Palace is Austria’s most frequently visited tourist attraction and is a Cultural World Heritage Site.  So we decided to take this in and even took the “Imperial Tour”, covering about 25 rooms of the palace. The tour was an audio self-guide. Because of the sheer volume of tourists who visit, we had a timed ticket and our tour wouldn’t start for a couple of hours so we took a look at the extensive landscaped gardens and grounds, which were immaculate.

Once inside the palace, the Hapsburg interior was as lavish as the grounds. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed to be taken inside, so cannot post anything from the interior.

There are great clocks in Europe.  Here we saw the Ankeruhr clock which brings history and time together.  Over the course of 12 hours, each of twelve famous historical figures, made out of copper, moves across the front of the clock.  This clock was built between 1911 and 1914 and forms a bridge between two administrative buildings of the Anker Insurance Company.

We visited several churches, but the most impressive was Stephansdom and is Vienna’s Gothic masterpiece.  The current cathedral was built in the 14th century and stands on the ruins of two earlier churches dating as far back as 1147.  This church is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna.

 

Salzburg

Our final stop in Austria was Salzburg.  It is located in central Austria, near the German (Bavarian) border and has a population of around 150,000.  Salzburg has two claims to fame, one is that it is the birthplace of Mozart and second, it is where The Sound of Music was filmed.

While here we had horrible weather.  It rained throughout our entire three days!  However, that didn’t stop us from wandering around!

We stopped by the Schloss Mirabell, a beautiful castle, not located on top of a hill, with wonderful landscaped gardens.  One of the more interesting gardens here was called “Garden of Dwarfs”.  The Zwergerlgarten is the oldest dwarf garden in Europe and was built around 1695.  When I read this my thought was  “What?!  This is a thing?”   The dwarfs are made of marble.  The original collection consisted of 28 dwarfs but they were all sold by auction in 1811.  Since the early 20^thcentury, most of the dwarfs have been recovered.   The garden consists of about two dozen metre-high dwarf statues in various poses and with various accessories.

Inside the Mirabel, only one section is open to the public and that is the “Marble Hall”. There is a very ornately sculptured staircase leading to the hall which is said to be “the world’s most beautiful wedding hall”.  Apparently if you plan to marry there, reservations should be made at least a year in advance.  Weddings in English are only held on Tuesday and Friday.  If you don’t speak German, you can’t get married any other day!

We went to see the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which, naturally, was located on a hill, and required a 20-minute strenuous climb.  We wandered around looking at walls, ramparts, viewpoints etc. This fortress, at one time, had a prison.  The executioner for the prison lived close to the fortress.  Apparently it is bad luck to live near the executioner and even to this day, the house he used to live in, is all by it’s self in the middle of a field.  There were a number of small museums located here and we took in the Weapons and Armoury, Medieval Toys, and Marionette Museums, among others.

To the right of the picture of the fortress is a large field with one house in the middle, that is the executioner’s house.  Lower right is a view of Salzburg from the top.

The last site I will mention is St. Peter’s Church, Cemetery, and Catacombs.  St. Peter’s was founded in the 7th century and is considered the spiritual heart of the city.  The Cemetery and Catacombs are a must-see for fans of “The Sound of Music” as this was used as a filming site.  I’m not sure if “pretty” and “charming” are appropriate words to describe a cemetery, but to be honest, these were the words that came to my mind as soon as I saw it.  The gravestones were quite ornate and had a lot of intricate metalwork, there were flowers all around, the catacombs are carved into the nearby cliffside, and the grounds were nicely kept.    

That was Austria, next is Belgium.

 

 

 

 

Austria – Part 1

Yikes!  I’m way behind on my posts.  Presently we have been through Austria and Belgium and are into our final stops in England before heading home next week.  I originally intended to post about Austria while in Belgium but we had no internet access in our accommodation, so I need to catch up now.  Because we did quite a bit in Austria, I will break it into two posts.

Before I begin this post, I also need to give a lot of credit to my wonderful hubby.  He is a disciplined recorder of what we do from day to day whereas I tend to just record when I start my blog.  But since I left it for far too long, I was at a real loss for remembering what we had done and seen.  So I have borrowed heavily from his notes and added a spin of my own.  Thanks Sanford!

I’m finding as we continue our travels we are tending to do way more wandering and looking from the outside, which my pedometer can attest to, and far less of actually visiting museums or entering sites.  We will walk to a site and then decide if we really want to go in.  Do we really want to go into the museum that starts with flint heads and stone tools and works its way up to modern times…..again?  Maybe not.  Do we really want to pay an admission to go into this church and climb to the top of their tower for the view…..again?  Maybe not.  Even though we are not spending a lot of time entering sites, I don’t feel we are missing out on anything.  If anything, it is more relaxing to just wander here and there and not have a lot of “must sees”.

Time to talk about Austria.

Austria is a landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of 8.8 million.  The official language here is German but Croatian is also commonly spoken.  The terrain is highly mountainous as it is lying within the Alps.  Only 32% of the country is below 500m.

While here we visited three cities – Graz, Vienna and Salzburg.

Graz

Although Graz was only a short 73 km away from Malibor, what a difference. We went from old forts, small churches and tiny museums to grand palaces, immense ornate cathedrals and wonderful statues and architecture.

Graz is Austria’s second-largest city, with a population of about 300,000.  It is a beautiful city with a lot of wonderful architecture.  It was one of the few cities to have escaped heavy WWII damage and it shows.

Some of the sites we saw:

Kunsthaus They have a very interesting building here called Kunsthaus.  It was designed by British architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier and is considered a world-class contemporary-art space and is known as the “friendly alien” by the locals.  The description of the building by Lonely Planet is “a photovoltaic-skinned sexy biomorphic blob that is at once completely at odds with its pristine historic surroundings but sits rather lyrically within it as well.”  It serves mainly as a function and performance centre with temporary art exhibitions changing every few months.   Other than going into the gift shop we didn’t explore this building any further from indoors.  It’s hard to get a good picture from the street, but when we were at a higher viewpoint, I got a good shot of the top of the building.  I usually enjoy unique architecture but, to be honest, I really didn’t care for this one, it just looks like a bulbous oddly shaped balloon.

Murinsel Another odd structure, built on the river Mur, is the Murinsel, a small metal-and-glass artificial island, a “floating shell” in the middle of the river, with a cafe and amphitheater, accessible by bridges from either bank.  This was originally a temporary project during 2003 for the Cultural Capital of Europe celebrations, however, people liked it enough so it stayed.  I think it looks like a cocoon!

I just can’t seem to get away from hills that need to be climbed!  In Graz is Schlossberg Hill which is topped with, are you ready….. Schlossberg Fortress.

There is quite a lot to see around the top of this hill and in the Fortress.  Located on the hill is the Urhturm, or clock tower, the symbol of Graz. It has been so loved by the inhabitants that they actually paid Napoleon a large ransom not to destroy it. Other sites around the hill included a Turkish Well, a Chinese Pavilion, Cannon Bastion, Stable Bastion, Hackher Lion (statue in honour of the last defender of the fortress), Gothic Gate, Bell Tower, and the Kasematten Stage (now used for performances).

Some of the more minor sites we saw included:

The Glockenspiel, a carillon clock now designated as a World Heritage site.  At 11am, 3pm and 6pm it comes to life with bells and rotating dance figures.  We were lucky enough to catch it at 6pm!

An unusual tourist attraction is the double spiral staircase found in the Burg, a castle complex, built between 1438 and 1453.  This stone stairwell has two adjacent spirals intersecting with each other at each level; fun.

There is a stained glass window in the church Stadtpfarrekirche that is quite controversial.  On one of the panels is a scene from the Passion – the Flagellation of Christ, and there are images of Hitler and Mussolini watching.

Here are a few other pictures from Graz:

Next post will be about our other two stops in Austria – Vienna and Salzburg.

Slovenia

Slovenia is located in southern Central Europe, bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest.  It has a population of just over 2 million people.

While here we visited three places:

Ljubljana – Located in the centre, Ljubljana is the capital and largest city in Slovenia.  The current population is 285,000.

Maribor – Located in the northeast, Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia. It has a population of just under 100,000.

Putj – Located about 25 Km from Maribor, it is the oldest recorded city in Slovenia. It was developed from a Roman military fort but has been inhabited since the late Stone Age.  The current population is just over 17,000.

I find myself at a loss of things to say about Slovenia.  I have truly enjoyed my time here and would even rate it as one of the nicer countries we have been to, but to be honest there is not a lot of stuff to see or do.  There are not a lot of museums, nor historical sites and there is limited tourist infrastructure.   I found these cities charming but difficult to find things to do to fill the time if staying past two days.

I was talking to my son about this and he said that I was probably also suffering from the ABC’s.  I’d never heard of that.  He said it’s when you have done so much sightseeing that you feel like when you see a site it becomes…. “another bloody castle” or “another bloody cathedral”.  I don’t know if I would put it quite that bluntly, but there is some truth in what he says.

So instead of writing about each place individually, here are a few pictures from Slovenia with a few comments:

Ljubljana

Museum of Puppetry explores the world of puppetry, from the manufacture of marionettes and glove puppets, to the staging of the shows.

Ljubljana Castle  Located 375 meters above the Old Town, this castle dates from the early 16th century when it was largely rebuilt after a devastating earthquake. There were a few museums located here, including the Museum of Puppetry.

Of course there is an Old Town and one of the bridges across the river is adorned with dragons.  These dragons have been integrated into the city’s coat of arms and as a result there are dragons to be found all around Ljubljana.

I found someone to chat with in Trivoli Park.

Maribor

Old Vine Along this building in Maribor, is it’s most celebrated attraction, the so-called Old Vine, which still produces between 35kg and 55kg of grapes and about 25L of red wine per year, despite being planted more than four centuries ago. The wine produced is  bottled in 0.25L bottles.  It can’t be bought and instead is given to visiting dignitaries as ‘keys’ to Maribor.

The Plague Pillar in the centre of Maribor’s marketplace was erected in the Middle Ages, and is considered to be one of the most extravagant found anywhere in Central Europe. A plague pillar was often erected by towns to commemorate the end of the plague.

In the castle of Maribor was a display of armour vs police gear.  It was interesting.  Pieces are almost identical, just made of different materials.

Ptuj

Ptuj Castle is an agglomeration of styles from the 14th to the 18th centuries.

The castle had a display of traditional carnival costumes and masks from the area of Ptuj.  The most popular and well-known mask is the Kurant or Kurent, pictured above, who, according to oral tradition, chases the winter away and heralds in the spring.

Couldn’t resist putting this picture in.  My knight in shining armour (minus the armour)!

At this point we have been on the road for 11½ weeks and have 3½ more weeks to go.  In the remaining time, we plan to visit three more countries and have six more room changes, so I may be suffering from the ABC’s a bit longer.  Next up – Austria.

 

 

 

 

Sarajevo

I so loved Mostar and was really looking forward to Sarajevo.  However, I found that our experience there was very frustrating (more to me than Sanford) from beginning to end.

Our first full day, when we set out for the day, we found that we didn’t have the proper keys for the property we were lodging at.  We had a room key, a house key and a third key that didn’t fit anything but was supposed to be for the gate into the property.  So, if we left, we didn’t know if we could get back in.  We don’t travel with sim cards in our phone so had to rely on email through the booking site to send an email to our host, which is not the best way to communicate for this type of thing.  We basically left for sightseeing, not knowing if we would get back in.

To continue, that morning we were heading to the bus station to get our tickets to our next destination.  We overshot our tram stop and had to walk a fare distance back.  At the bus station we were given the run around about the tickets and how the tickets we wanted were not sold in that place.  In the end we did find the right place, but by then we had pretty much wasted the entire morning between the issues with the key and purchasing our ticket.

Next challenge, we wanted a tourist map of Sarajevo and that too, took at least an hour to find the tourist info place.  We wandered around a bit and then wanted to go to a museum. There were two museums I really wanted to see, both top picks in the Lonely Planet travel books, and neither of them were on the tourist map!!  We went home, that was enough for one day.  Lucky for us, the father of the owner was at our place and sorted out our keys, so that at least, ended well.

The next day, we headed to a park and then having checked Google maps, went to one of the museums I wanted to see…it wasn’t open yet. The second museum was  not where I thought it was, so we thought we would go back to the travel info office we were at yesterday for directions…they were closed in spite of having posted hours indicating they should have been open. Ack!  I just wanted to go home.

I pouted at home for a few hours and then we went back to the first museum and I had checked the location of the second one and we found it next.

I was very happy to be leaving the next day.

However, as I was sitting on the bus, an all day journey, I realized that Sarajevo did have a few interesting things and was not as bad as I thought.

So here goes…

Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a city with an interesting East-meets-West atmosphere.  This is because Bosnia was influenced by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled from the late 1400’s, and then Austrian-Hungarians took control for a short period of time in the late 1800’s.

Sometimes called the “Jerusalem of Europe”, this city is famous for its cultural and religious diversity; having long been the home of people from different faiths – Islam, Orthodox, Judaism and Catholicism have traditionally coexisted here for centuries.

It is the history of Sarajevo that captures my interest.  During the 20th century, two violent events thrust Sarajevo into the world’s consciousness: the assassination which sparked WWI, and the brutal almost-four-year siege of the city in the 1990s.  Both events figure prominently here and make up a number of the tourist attractions.

World War I and The Latin Bridge

On June 28, 1914 as Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, rode in an open car across the Latin Bridge toward the Town Hall. Gavrilo Princip, a Serb assassin, stepped forward and shot and killed them both. This assassination at the Latin Bridge triggered the start of WWI.

The incident led Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, which in turn led to the declaration of war between the Central Powers of Europe and their allies, and hence the First World War had begun.

Picture on the left is of the Latin Bridge which is one of the oldest Ottoman bridges in the city, thought to have been built sometime in the mid-16th century.  Picture on the right is a commemorative plaque marking the spot of the assassin.

Bosnian Civil War  

Sarajevo was one of the key battlegrounds between Serb and Bosniak forces during the civil war, which started in the early 1990s.  The city of Sarajevo was under siege by Serbian forces for 1,425 days, with 11,541 men, women and children losing their lives there. Those trapped inside the city faced constant artillery strikes with an average of 330 shells hitting the city everyday.  Combined with harsh winters without electricity, and limited food and water supplies residents faced a terrible struggle to survive.

There are many shells of buildings here, as in Mostar, cemeteries filled with victims from this time, commemorative fountains and museums.

War Childhood Museum  This museum had its beginnings from a 2013 book by Jasminko Halilović, in which he asked a simple question of survivors of the Sarajevo siege: ‘What was a war childhood for you?’ Of the hundreds of replies received, 50 short written testimonies are presented, each illustrated by personal effects donated by the writer, such as diaries, drawings, toys and ballet slippers.  This museum was set up exactly like the Broken Heart Museum we saw in Zagreb.

Sarajevo Rose  A different type of memorial, present throughout the city, is a Sarajevo Rose.  They are the concrete scars on the sidewalk caused by a mortar shell’s explosion that was later filled in with red resin.  When mortar rounds landed on concrete during the Siege of Sarajevo, they created a unique fragmentation pattern that looks almost floral in arrangement, and has therefore been named “rose”.  There are around 200 “roses” in the entire city, and they are marked on locations where at least three persons were killed during the siege.

Kovaci Memorial Cemetery   This cemetery, also known as Martyr’s Cemetery, is specifically for the Bosniaks that were lost their lives during the siege while defending themselves from Serb aggressors.

Fountain in Park  I don’t know anything about this fountain but it was a beautiful memorial to the fallen and fresh flowers were laid there.

The Srebrenica Massacre

In July of 1995, Srebrenica, a city located 112 Km east of Sarajevo, was the site of one of the most horrific mass murders since WWII. Some 20,000 civilians were expelled from the area while more than 8,000 mostly Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops in the space of just a few days. It was supposedly a UN “safe haven”.

Galerija 11/07/95  Besides the War Childhood Museum, this was the second museum I wanted to see.  I have no pictures from it, but it was a worthwhile museum.This gallery displays photography, video footage and audio testimonies of survivors and family members to create a memorial to the 8372 victims of the Srebrenica massacre.  It tells the story of what has now been declared genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia through the eyes of those who experienced it.

Other sites

Baščaršija  Turkish for “main Market”, Baščaršija is Sarajevo’s old town.  It is centred around what tourist’s call Pigeon Square, with its ornate gazebo-like drinking fountain (built in 1891).  The area is filled with the usual tourist stalls, cafes and coffee shops, clock tower, and mosques.

 

That was Sarajevo.  Next we are leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina and heading to Slovenia to our first city, Ljubljana.

Mostar

When we left the Adriatic coast we headed 218 Km northwest to Mostar, a surprisingly long 6 ½ hour trip by bus.  We left behind Montenegro and crossed into Bosnia and Herzegovina.  This country was ripped apart by civil war in the 1990s and although many of the damaged buildings have been restored, there still are many visible signs from that time.  We will only be visiting two cities while in this country; Mostar and the capital, Sarajevo.  Our first stop, Mostar, is located in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, straddling the Neretva River, and is the largest city in the country.

I’m finding Mostar a nice change from the coast; the ground is flatter which makes for easier walking, and the architecture is different.  On the coast, there was a heavy Roman influence with lots of walled old towns, here there is more of an Ottoman (Turkish) influence.   Mostar also has a large Islamic population and throughout the day the call to prayers can be heard throughout the city.

The site to see in Mostar is the Stari Most, meaning Old Bridge.  The bridge’s swooping arch was an engineering marvel when originally built by the Ottomans between 1557 and 1566.  It is typical of Islamic architecture.   Unfortunately the original bridge was destroyed during the civil war in the 1990s, but a convincing 21^st century rebuild returned it to its former glory.  It was painstakingly reconstructed using 16^th century building techniques and stone sourced from the original quarry.  It reopened in 2004 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In one of the towers by the bridge is a War Photo Exhibition of pictures taken in Mostar by New Zealand photojournalist Wade Goddard, during the civil war.  We spent some time trying to get a sense of the history of the civil war but it is quite complex and I feel we only scratched the surface.  At the bottom of the building housing the exhibition is the “Don’t Forget” stone, which serves as a reminder of the civil war.

Continuing with the war theme, we went to Spanish Square, a small square at a busy intersection.  One of the streets bordering this square served as the front line during the civil war.  Surrounding this square are several shell-pocked and destroyed buildings as a reminder of the war and on another side Stara Gimnazija, a beautifully restored and painted high school, symbolizing the recovery.

Close to Stari Most is the Kriva Cuprija or Crooked Bridge which crosses a tiny tributary off the Neretva River.  The original was built around 1558 and was considered a test run for the larger Stari Most.  This bridge was weakened by the civil war assaults and washed away by floods on New Year’s Eve in 1999; it was rebuilt in 2002.

Like a lot of the places we’ve been to lately, Mostar also has an Old Town filled with shops, eateries, museums, and souvenir stores.  Noticeable right away is the walking paths.  Up to now we had been walking on stone slabs that were reasonably level, here however, they are small rocks embedded into concrete and it is more difficult walking.  So although there were no hills, walking still was not easy! Please note, I say that from the perspective of having a bad knee, I doubt Sanford even noticed.

I meant for the picture on the right to show how uneven the ground is with the rocks but the picture does not do it justice!

We took a day tour from Mostar with 4 other world travellers and a very interesting tour guide.  I won’t go into much detail other than to say we saw the Krevice Falls, a Dervish Monks Monastery from the 16th century which is nestled at the foot of a cliff, and and an old Ottoman Fort from the 15th century in the town of Počitelj.

A couple of interesting facts about Mostar –

• It has the hottest weather in the summer of all of Europe. There summer temperatures are as high as 45 C.  Our tour guide told us that they are surrounded by limestone mountains that hold the heat and so they have a saying that it is “hot from above, and hot from below”.  He also told us that although it is very hot, it is quite tolerable as they do not have a lot of humidity.
• One of the oddest things we saw while here was a statue of Bruce Lee. Again, the tour guide was able to explain. Apparently they wanted to put up a statue of someone else who some felt was a hero in the recent civil war and others felt he was very evil.  There was so much controversy that eventually they just decided to put up a statue of Bruce Lee as he would not be controversial.  It was thought that everyone loved Bruce Lee, regardless of whether or not they were Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian.

I really enjoyed my stay in Mostar.  It is right up there with Moscow for me.

Here are a few last random photos:

Next stop is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina – Sarajevo.

Montenegro

Where am I? What town are we in?  What town did we just come from?  Where was it that we saw…..?

I’m having real problems remembering where I am, where I’ve been, and what I’ve seen, where.

We were in Montenegro for 10 days and stayed in small towns along the Adriatic Coast. We spent time in Herceg Novi, Kotor, and Budva and did day trips to Perast, Risan and Cetjine.  These towns were following Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, also along the shores of the Adriatic. They are all lovely places on their own; each has either some or all of the following: an old town, an old fort, a few very old churches, interesting cemeteries, a wonderful walk along the water, scenic beaches, lots of outdoor coffee shops and restaurants, and perhaps a climb up a mountain.  The problem is that when you go to so many of them, they virtually all blend together.

However, that being said, I would like to tell you a bit about Montenegro.

Montenegro is officially the smallest Slavic country and one of the smaller countries in Europe.  Its population is under a million and is approximately 629,000.  The name of the country comes from the dark mountain forests that cover the land.  The name breaks down into two words, “Monte” and “negro” (mountain, black).   Besides the black forests, there are 117 beaches along the Adriatic coast.

Our first stop was in Herceg Novi, only 49 kilometers southeast of Dubrovnik.  Herceg Novi is a challenging city to walk around in if you have any physical issues or are just unfit.  It is a city of steps, steps and more steps!  I thought I had taken a picture of some of the staircases we had to climb, but alas, no, I did not.  You will just have to take my word for it.

According to Lonely Planet, a must see here is the coastline along the 6 km Pet Danica Walkway.  The walkway is named after five young women named Danica who died during WWII.  It’s lined with summer bars, shops, concrete swimming platforms, a few rocky coves and in places ducks in and out of tunnels.  This promenade is the centre of action during the summer months, however, as you can see from my pictures, we are a bit ahead of the “action”.  One thing we noticed on our walk along here are the sheer volume of 1Euro stores, a telling sign that Montenegro is a struggling economy.

Herceg Novi also has a couple of stone forts, a monastery, an old town, a clock tower, several small but pretty churches, lots of plazas and terrace restaurants and many nautical-themed souvenir shops.

Here are a few more pictures from Herceg Novi:

Our next stop was Kotor, 45 km further east along the coast.  Of all the places we visited in Montenegro, Kotor was my favourite.  Kotor is located in the Bay of Kotor and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We had a great accommodation in that the owner’s mother, for a reasonable fee, would provide supper.  We did this twice, dining with other lodgers, and it was wonderful.  Beef and pasta soup with bread, beef, baked fish, vegetable stew, a red pepper dish, wonderful roast potatoes and rice, all accompanied by a red wine and later tea. These turned out to be wonderful evenings of good food and conversation.

Kotor is an attractive seaside town and at its core is the compact medina-like Old Town, wedged between steep hills and the sea, and set within fortress-like 9th to 18th century stone walls, with the walls also snaking up the hills in the back. The Old Town is a labyrinth of squares and narrow alleys, populated by churches, restaurants, museums and shops.  We found a charming restaurant here that served wonderful walnut crepes and had them twice during our stay.

The highlight of our stay in Kotor, dare I say it….was climbing up another mountain.  Behind the Old Town, up the hill partway is a small chapel and further to the top are the ruins of an old fortress, Castle of St. John.  It wasn’t your typical climb up a mountain because this climb had a staircase…of about 1500 steps!  It took us slightly over an hour to get to the top.

The top left hand picture is of the mountain we climbed.

The Old Town in Kotor is home to hundreds of stray cats; they are everywhere!  Although homeless, they are not uncared for.  They are all looked after by the locals (and tourists) and look healthy and well fed.  As we wandered around we often spotted bowls of food and water for the cats in many shops and restaurants and often times saw tourists feeding them from their food.  Apparently cats are a symbol of good luck for Montenegro and it is said because they are a town between the sea and mountains with lots of rats, mice and snakes, it is necessary to have the cats in the town to protect it.

While in Kotor we did a day trip to two smaller villages – Perast and Risan.

In Perast, we took a small boat over to the Lady of the Rock Island, a 15th century artificial island with a church and lighthouse.  The church was also a little museum with a seafaring theme.

Risan’s claim to fame is a small Roman excavation site, now a museum, consisting of the foundations and floors of several rooms, each with mosaics.

Our final stop in Montenegro was Budva, a further 22 km east.  Unlike the other places we have been to, Budva is under construction with lots of new resorts and other tourist infrastructure.  This is a real party place.  Budva is a young person’s mecca, with loud thumping music along the coastline and a wild nightlife.  Sanford and I feel a little bit out of place.

Here too is a walled old town, lots of historic buildings, narrow winding lanes, old churches, quaint squares, lots of coffee shops, restaurants and souvenir shops.

From Budva, we took a day trip to Cetjine, the old royal capital of Montenegro.  Here there are a number of museums, of which we went through the History Museum, three large parks, of which we walked through them all, and a pedestrian friendly street we explored that is home to former embassies.

That’s Montenegro.  I had a hard time picking pictures for this post as I didn’t take that many, I guess because the sites were somewhat all the same.  But I did enjoy my time here.  It was restful and in spite of the places being small, we never had trouble filling our days.

Next stop is Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Croatia – Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik

Croatia is a scenic country.  It is home to several mountain ranges, a beautiful coast along the Adriatic Sea, and more than 1000 islands!

While here we spent time in three cities:

Zagreb – the capital and most populous city with approximately 800,000 people; it is located more inland in the northeastern part of the country.

Split – located on the Adriatic Coast; it is the second largest city in Croatia with a population of around 200,000.

Dubrovnik – located on the Adriatic Coast; one of the most popular tourist sites in Croatia, has a population of around 42,000.

We enjoyed our time in Croatia.  It was a relaxing country for us.  Enough to see but not an overwhelming amount and the tourist areas were more compact so everything was pretty much in easy walking distance.

Zagreb is Charming!

Zagreb got its start as two medieval fortress towns atop hills overlooking the Sava River.  Today it is divided into an upper town and a lower town and has a charming medieval look with a blend of medieval towers, open-air markets, ancient cathedrals, and cobbled streets.

One of the best features I found here was a gorgeous little park close to our accommodations.  It is not a ‘tourist site’, but I fell in love with this park the first time I saw it. What I found so unusual about it was that it was so much lighter than the surrounding buildings, which is very unusual.  The reason for this was because the park is populated with liquid amber trees, which have a white bark.  We walked through this park everyday that we were in Zagreb and it was always full of people or had an event going on.  I spent an hour or so there one afternoon with my puzzle book and just hung out and watched people go by.  Just a comment – this park was the first we came across that had the fountains going!  It was actually thrilling to see as up to now we have just seen a lot of empty fountains due to the weather. Zagreb, being further south is a few degrees warmer than Budapest and we are now getting the occasional day in the 20s.

There were two really interesting museums here and the best part was, after The Hermitage, in St. Petersburg, that they were small.  We could easily see each museum completely within an hour or so!

Museum of Broken Relationships

This is a quirky museum.  It explores the mementos left over after a relationship ends.  Some are quite funny like a toaster one took so their ex could never make toast again, to a parachute from a former lover that died when it didn’t open.  The displays are all donated from people around the globe and accompanied by a brief story about the item.  The museum in Zagreb is the original, but in 2016, a Museum of Broken Relationships also opened up in Los Angeles.

Museum of Naïve Art

Never heard of Naïve art?  Well neither had I.  What is it?   The following is taken from Wikipedia:

Naïve art is usually defined as art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing).

The characteristics of naïve art are an awkward relationship to the formal qualities of painting, especially not respecting the three rules of the perspective (as defined by the Progressive Painters of the Renaissance):

1. Decrease of the size of objects proportionally with distance,
2. Muting of colors with distance,
3. Decrease of the precision of details with distance,

The results are:

1. Effects of perspective geometrically erroneous (awkward aspect of the works, children’s drawings look, or medieval painting look, but the comparison stops there)
2. Strong use of pattern, unrefined color on all the plans of the composition, without enfeeblement in the background,
3. An equal accuracy brought to details, including those of the background which should be shaded off.

The Croatian Museum of Naïve Art is the oldest museum of Naïve art in the world and was founded in 1952.  I found that I really liked this art form.  Below are some of the pictures we saw.

We saw a number of churches here but compared to the ones we saw in Russia and Budapest, these were not as impressive. However, I did find the restoration work being done at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary interesting.  This church has two gorgeous twin spires but over the decades, adverse atmospheric conditions have eroded the stone.  The reconstruction has been going on since 1990.  What is being done is each eroded and damaged stone is being removed and then replaced with a new one, carved after the original.

The picture on the left is of the church with the spire being worked on covered.  The picture on the left shows a worn out section of the spire and how it is being reconstructed.

One of the top sites that the Lonely Planet book on Croatia recommends is Mirogoj Cemetery.  It is located in the north of the city and was opened in 1876. The cemetery is a vast complex, over a number of hills with thousands of graves and crypts. It’s recommended for its history, its stately tree-lined avenues and the relaxing ambiance. We spent a good hour or so wandering the paths and looking at graves. Some were old but most were modern.

We saw lots of other sites that I won’t talk about, but here are a few pictures from around Zagreb.

 

Split is relaxing!

To get to Split required a 6½ hour bus ride (409 Km) southwest of Zagreb.  Split is located on Croatia’s Dalmation Coast and is known for its beaches and its fortress-like complex at its centre.

The fortress, known as “Old Town” or as the Diocletian’s Palace, was built for the Roman emperor, Diocletian,  at the turn of the 4^th century.  It is an UNESCO world heritage site and one of the world’s most impressive Roman monuments. We enjoyed walking around looking at the stonewalls, the Corinthian columns and other sites within this area, but in between the sites, it is a vast tourist area.  Every available space is filled either with a restaurant, souvenir store, tourist tour company or a bank machine.  I found this aspect took a little away from the sites.  In particular there was one square that was a few steps down compared to the surrounding area; the stairs were a nice place to sit for a few minutes and take a break from walking around.  However, the minute we sat down a waiter came by and asked if we wanted a drink.  We didn’t, and were then told we could not sit on the steps unless we bought something….sigh!

It is the stairs around this square that you can only sit if you order something!

Just outside the palace walls is a statue of Gregorius of Nin, which is one of the most famous images of Split.  This bishop fought for the right to use the Croatian language in religious services in 926AD,  Although the statue is rather dull in colour, he has a shiny big toe.  This is because believe if you rub this toe it will bring good luck.

Other than the “Old Town”, the only other real attraction is the coastline.  It’s breathtaking!

 

Dubrovnik is very hilly!

Our last stop in Croatia, a 4½ hour bus ride southeast of Split, is Dubrovnic.  It is much smaller than Split and to get around was quite easy. Although we used public transport once, it wasn’t really necessary.

Dubrovnik is very hilly and to get anywhere often requires going up or down long staircases.  My legs got quite the workout.  We’ve been doing a lot of stairs since being in Croatia as it seems our accommodations in the first two places were always in buildings with no elevator and we were never on the main floor.  I thought I had it tough then, but Dubrovnik has been particularly challenging.

We were here for two full days.  The first day we took in the “Old City” and the second day we explored Mount Srd.

The “Old City” is somewhat similar to the one in Split.  We took in a few of the exhibits within some of the old buildings and found a wonderful coffee shop for ice cream and tea.  We wandered up and down a lot of the smaller streets off the main drag, in search of churches and lookouts.  Sanford preferred the Old Town in Split and I preferred the Old City here.  Below are a few of my pictures.

While exploring some of the buildings in the “Old City” we came across two interesting sites; both involving hands.

The picture on the left was taken in a church and shows a hand coming out of a pulpit which is holding a cross.  Sanford commented that it had an Adam’s Family feel to it.  On the right is a picture taken in the Rector’s Palace and they had hands securing the handrail to the wall.  Both interesting.

In Dubrovnik is Mount Srd, a small mountain just behind the walled city.  It has a height of 412 metres and at the top is a large white stone cross and a fort. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know that when there is the possibility to climb a mountain, that is exactly what Sanford wants to do.  See mountain, climb mountain!  Wait! What?! This time it was my idea to climb the mountain!  I’ve been hanging around Sanford too long.

It took us a little more than an hour to climb up; it is not a straight path up but rather a zig zag path.  It was actually a fairly easy climb.  There was a small museum at the top about the conflict in 1991 when Croatia was fighting for its independence, plus a restaurant and, of course, great views.

My plan was to walk up and take the cable car down. You might wonder why I would choose to do it that way; it is because I have osteoarthritis in my right knee and as Sanford says “you use muscle climbing up and joints going down”, so it is easier for me to climb up than down.  We saw the cable cars working as we were climbing but when we went to buy our tickets to go down, this is what we saw:

In cast you can’t make out the sign, it says “Cable car is closed due to bad weather conditions”.  So we had to climb down.

One last comment about Dubrovnik.  We had a hamburger one evening and they do something different that I have never seen…they put kernel corn on the buns along with the meat, cheese, tomato, lettuce, etc.  It was a nice treat.

Next up is Montenegro.

 

 

Budapest and Travel Fatigue

I’m tired! Sanford and I had met in Hong Kong on February 28^th, which at the time of writing this post, is 6 ½ weeks ago. In that time we have covered Hong Kong, three cities in China, one stop in Mongolia, two in Siberia and two in Russia and now our first in Europe.  So we are onto our 10^thstop.  We are not quite half way through our trip.  We have another 8 ½ weeks to go.

When we travel, a typical day in a destination for us is as follows: Get up in the morning and have tea, generally work on the computer for a bit and then have breakfast.  Usually we have breakfast in-house, making our own.  By 10am, we are usually out the door and start our sightseeing.  We generally go for 6 – 8 hours; walking, visiting museums, having lunch or a snack, etc.  When we get back to our hostel we usually rest a bit and then either go out for dinner or Sanford cooks a meal.  In the evening we are usually back on the computer doing travel notes or reading or watching TV.  Usually in bed by around 10pm and then the next day we repeat again.

On travel days, we have the same morning routine, pack up, and then head to the airport or bus or train station.  Once at the new destination we head to our next hostel, unpack, find out where the nearest grocery store is and stock up on breakfast and or dinner items and if there is time, explore the surrounding area a bit.

Over the years of traveling, we now take it easier than we used to. We stay in cities a little longer and sight-see a little less per day than we used to.

However, I’m still tired!  I’ve felt this way for the last week or so but once we hit Budapest, I could tell I needed a break.  This is a beautiful city with lots of great things to see, but whenever we got to a church I chose to stay and sit on a bench outside instead of go in, I decided I couldn’t be bothered to tour the amazing Parliament Building, I didn’t want to bother with the audio guide at the Terror Museum, and I hardly took any pictures.  Most of the pictures in this post are from Sanford.  So, on our final day in Budapest, I took a day off.  I pretty much stayed in the hostel all day except to go out for tea and later for dinner.  I got caught up on some emails, I talked to the kids, I did this blog, I did some journaling, and I watched some TV.  It was a very welcome rest.

Now that I got that out of the way, let me tell you about Budapest.

To get here, we flew, first to Moscow, and then to Budapest.  In all, we travelled approximately 2070 Km southwest of St. Petersburg.

The most striking thing we noticed while on the bus heading from the airport to the downtown area was just how green it was.  Up to now we have been traveling in early spring surroundings, with snow, ice on the river, brown grass, bare trees, etc.  But here it is definitely quite a few weeks further along into the season.  The trees are budding, there is absolutely no snow to be seen, and the grass is mostly green and there are even flowers! The temperature, when we left St. Petersburg, was 4 degrees and it had snowed the day before and here in Budapest, when we arrived, it was 20 degrees.  It was however cooler for the rest of our stay, usually in the mid teens.

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe.  Budapest is the capital of Hungary and its largest city with a population of 1.8 million.  This city is bisected by the Danube River, and previous to being united into one city, Buda was located on the west bank and Pest on the east bank.  The two, along with another town, Obuda, became unified in November 1873.  Budapest is cited as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe; the central area of the city along with the Danube River is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Despite my lackadaisical attitude, we did see many wonderful sites.

The Hungarian Parliament

This is one of Budapest’s defining landmarks.  When it was built in the late 1800s it was the largest Parliament in the world.  This building stretches 268 meters along the Danube, has over 12.5 miles of corridors, has a 96-meter high dome, and houses 691 rooms.  It is presently the largest building in Hungary and the tallest in Budapest.  There were tours available to see the inside, but we did not go.

There are a number of memorials and museums dedicated to the 500,000 Hungarian Jews killed during the holocaust of WWII, and we saw a number of these.

The most touching statue, which we saw, was the Emanuel Tree, on the grounds of the Great Synagogue, the largest synogogue in Europe and second largest in the world (only the one in New York is larger).  The Emanuel Tree, a weeping willow, was funded by American actor Tony Curtis, whose father, Emanuel Schwartz, was a Hungarian Jew.  The names of 30,000 Holocaust victims have been inscribed in the tree’s metal leaves. Upside down, it resembles a menorah. In front of the tree are the Tablets of Stone, symbolically stripped of their content. The area where the tree is located is called Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park, named after the Swedish diplomat stationed in Budapest, who saved thousands of Jews from concentration camps.

Another, Budapest Holocaust Memorial, was of an angel being attacked by a German eagle.  This statue, unveiled in 2014, is very controversial.  The government’s purpose for this memorial was to lay the blame of what happened to the Jewish population entirely on the Germans. However there is a lot of proof that the Hungarian government and people played an active role in sending its Jews to their death.  In protest, the jewish population have placed photos of dead family members, personal memorabilia, and written stories, in front of the memorial. They have in fact created their own Holocaust memorial. It’s a powerful statement.

The picture on the left shows the statue, the picture on the right shows the line strung with pictures and stories of victims.

We also visited one museum, the House of Terror, dedicated to this period in history.  The museum in housed in a building that was used for interrogation, torture and killings.

St. Stephen’s Basilica

It is the second largest church in Hungary and capable of holding 8500 people!  Of interest, this church holds the Holy Right of St. Stephen, the mummified right fist of Hungary’s first king.

The lower picture on the right holds the mummified fist of St. Stephan.  I wasn’t in the church, but Sanford said you really couldn’t see much through the glass and that the picture was as clear as what he was able to see.

Buda Castle

It was a long climb up to get to this site as, to be expected for us, the funicular was not working!  Once there, we spent our time wandering around the grounds looking at the various statues, the views across the river, some castle ruins, and the beautifully sculptured, pointy-spire Matthias church.  This church dates back to 1051 when Hungary’s first king, St. Stephen I, built a Romanesque church here.  In the 14^th century it was transformed into a Gothic church; but it was King Matthias (1458 – 90) who greatly extended it n the 15^th century, hence its name.

Pictures above from around the castle and views from there.  Picture below is of Matthias Church.

Heroes Square

A grandiose square and a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The Millennium Memorial dominates the square and is made up of a Corinthian Column with a Gabriel statue on top holding St Stephen’s crown, flanked by two semicircular colonnades with 4 statues on top (War, Peace, Work/Welfare, Knowledge/Glory).

Great Market Hall

The Market, built in 1897, is a vast and fascinating place.  There were two levels and several aisles with stalls selling all manner of food, clothing, souvenirs and the usual market fare. The heady aroma of cured meats permeated.  We visited here one day and went back a few days later to have a meal at one of the food stalls.

Other

• Up to now in our travels, finding someone who can speak English had, at times, been difficult.  However, here many people speak English.
• The dessert to have in Budapest is a chimney/funnel cake. It is a sweet dough covered with sugar.  It is then grilled above charcoal and in the process, the sugar is caramelized.  Once cooked, it is rolled in either a nut, cocoa, cinnamon, or vanilla flavourings.  They can be eaten like that or sometimes it is filled with ice cream.  Sanford and I shared one filled with ice cream.  It was tasty but my preference would be the blintzes in St. Petersburg.

• We saw this interesting vessel floating on the Danube River. Hard not to watch it go by.

• I loved this statue, entitled Anonymous.  It is named for the first medieval Hungarian chronicler who was a nameless storyteller.  Apparently his work was always signed as “the notary of the most glorious King Béla”, but with four kings called Béla in the 12^thand 13^thcentury, it is not enough to accurately identify him.

• We were following a printed 3-day Budapest City Guide while here and I was in charge of keeping track of where we were going and reading the blurbs on the sites.  This picture is of me being “Tour Guide Margaret” holding up my “flag” so Sanford could follow me.

Next stop is Zagreb, Croatia.

St. Petersburg – Another fabulous city!

We left Moscow, bright and early, on Friday April 5^th, and four hours later, thanks to traveling on a high-speed train, we had covered 717 Km northwest, and arrived in St. Petersburg in early afternoon.

St. Petersburg is Russia’s second largest city, after Moscow, with a population of 5 million inhabitants.  It is a port city, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea.  Tsar Peter the Great founded the city in 1703, and in the past it has served as the capital of Russia until the central government moved to Moscow in 1918.

St. Petersburg is considered one of the most beautiful places on earth due to its large, well-kept, historic centre and has sometimes been referred to as the “Paris of the north”.   I think that is a pretty accurate description because this city reminds me a lot of Paris with the exception that in Paris most of the buildings are white, here they are a variety of pastel colours.

We really enjoyed our time here, doing what we always do, walking around, seeing the sites, and taking in a few museums.

Highlights:

The Hermitage Museum

This Museum was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great, one of the greatest art collectors of all time, acquired an impressive collection of paintings.  Nicholas I enriched the collection and opened the galleries to the public for the first time in 1852.

After the Louvre Museum in Paris, this museum is the second largest museum in the world.  It is housed over five buildings including the Winter Palace of the Romanov Dynasty.   It is reputed to have more than 3,000,000 items, only a fraction of which is on display at any one time. Artwork such as “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rembrandt, sculptures, Egyptian & classical antiquities, the famous gold “Peacock clock”, the Throne room, a gold chapel, military artefacts, royal carriages…everything you could possibly dream of is located here.  Above and beyond the art collections are the buildings themselves. There are many gorgeous rooms!  I think I took more pictures of the museum than any pieces I saw there.

The Hermitage

This gallery is massive; 233,345 square meters of building space of which 66,842 square meters is exhibition space, which is spread over 360 rooms of displays. There were three floors of room!  We made it to the third floor, and I have to say it was pretty empty up there. I think most people had enough by the time they were done the second floor.  It really is a shame, but there is just too much to see and with the space being so massive and without a clear straight forward line through the gallery, there is a lot of walking to do.  We saw many people, ourselves included, who after a time, were just walking through the rooms, with the layout of the place in hand, trying to find their way to, perhaps, a specific exhibit of interest or looking for an exit, and paying little attention to the displays. It is said that if someone were to look at every exhibit for a minute each, it would take 8 years to see it all, and I believe it!!

 

Palace Square

The Hermitage museum faces Palace Square, a grand, open space, with the impressive Alexander Column (the tallest granite column in the world) in the centre.

 

The Peter and Paul Fortress

This was the first structure to be built in St. Petersburg after being founded by Peter the Great in 1703.  Although a fort, it never served as its intended defensive function.  Instead it has had a varied history as a military base, a home of government departments, and a forbidding jail that held some of Russia’s most prominent political prisoners.  At the centre of the fort is The Peter and Paul Cathedral which has a 122.5 m bell-tower and a gilded angel-topped cupola.  The Russian Imperial family is buried here including the remains of Csar Nicolas II and his family, which were re-interred here on July 17, 1998, the 80^thanniversary of their deaths.

Bottom picture is the fortress from across the river, top left is the grounds within the fort, top right is the fort gate.

Peter and Paul Cathedral

The location of this fort is on the smallest island in the Neva River called Zayachy Island which when translated means Hare.  Thus, throughout the island are numerous rabbit sculptures.

Surprisingly, the outside of the fortress wall along the river has a sandy beach that is quite popular, no matter what the time of year.  In the winter, so called “walruses” use the beach to sunbathe and swim in ice-holes.  While we were there, it was about 10 degrees and there were several men (no women) in their tight speedos, with nothing else on, leaning against the fortress wall, sunbathing. A bit of a disturbing site!  We went to the fort a second time and saw one fellow actually go into the water.  He lasted a minute before getting out.

Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood

Officially this church is called the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, but its far more striking alternate name references the assassination of Tsar Alexander II here in 1881.   The Church’s construction was ordered by the Emperor’s son, Alexander III, and completed in 1907.  It is a traditional style Russian Orthodox Church with its five colourful onion domes, gold accents and opulent exterior façade. The main attraction is its magnificent interior; nearly every wall and dome surface is elaborately decorated with over 7000 square metres in mosaics of religious motifs.

Other –

On the Neva River, there were a few bits of ice still around and we enjoyed watching them float down the river as gulls would sit on them and go for a ride, rather than swim, and every so often, the gull would take flight and move to an ice island farther upstream.

One day for lunch, we enjoyed a traditional Russian favourite – Bliny pancakes.  They are essentially crepes that can be stuffed with either savoury or sweet fillings.  We had a bacon, potato, and pickle savoury, a chicken and potato savoury, and an apple and caramel sweet bliny.  Wonderful!

Tomorrow we fly to Budapest, Hungary.