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Central European Tour
after the 2008 Prague International Puzzle Party
Tuesday August 5th
For many puzzlers from around the world, with IPP 28 over, it was a day of final farewells, as airport taxis were booked, bus timetables finally checked, and last minute promises to visit were made. Everybody seemed to have a lot more luggage than they had had, just three or four days earlier! It wasn't just a question of the redistribution of exchange puzzles, but we had all expanded our luggage in the puzzle shops of Prague!
While it was goodbye for many, it was the start of a whole new adventure for about 100 of us, at the outset of our trip around Central Europe. I am sure that I wasn't the only one unable to point to some of our destinations on the map. Even those of us who studied history and geography at school were probably perplexed by some of the political upheaval in Europe in the last 20 years.
For example, our first destination, a lunchtime stop, was the Moravian town of Mikulov. Writing on a cold winter's day in England, I can remember reading the itinerary and seeing the name of Moravia. I didn't know if it was a country or region within a country. It is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, one of the former Czech lands. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region. Mikulov is a small but very charming town on the southern edge of the region, on the border with the Lower Austria.
Driving through the low hilly country of the Czech Republic the countryside seemed to vary between now-harvested corn cob fields, and acres and acres of wilting sunflowers soon to be ripe for their seeds to be harvested. Our two coaches, each carrying about 50 puzzlers, made good time as we headed for lunch. Most of the party was booked into a restaurant for lunch, although a few intrepid explorers chose to spend more time visiting the town.
Although I invariably take many, many photographs on a holiday, the town square in Mikulov was so quaint and photogenic that I think I wasn't the only one to go totally over the top! As with many ancient town squares across Europe, there was a wide variety of architecture to appreciate. And as if the of the town square was not sufficient to entertain everyone, it was only necessary to to raise your head above the rooftops to see a fine church on a distant hill top.
After our various lunchtime activities we met up again at the coaches, before starting a gentle climb from the square up towards Mikulov Castle, where we had a guided tour including a visit to the wine cellar where we saw some extremely large barrels. The Castle Terrace offered excellent views over the surrounding countryside. At this point I should mention that each coach had a tour guide from the Czech Republic. Unfortunately the high-pressure schedule caused one of the guides to go absent without leave part of the way through the tour. The remaining guide, Milan, who claimed the Italian city of the same name was named after him, had to work doubly hard to compensate, aided well by our own Jaroslav Fleberk. Milan remained efficient and cheerful throughout the week. He made a magnificent job of herding his charges around Central Europe, despite our strong wills and dedication to additional sight seeing.
I am sure that everybody on the tour wanted longer to stay at every single destination en route. One of the advantages of digital photography is that your pictorial records can accurately show the time at which a photograph was taken, and I see that we arrived in Vienna, the Austrian capital, at 1725. All the members of the party had elected to enjoy different activities during our stay in Vienna, and our first afternoon activity was spent enjoying aerial views of Vienna from the magnificent Prater Wheel, an elderly but still functioning Ferris wheel, as featured in the film of Graham Greene's spy novel set in Vienna, "The Third Man". Other members of our hundred-strong group enjoyed this excellent ride, over the next couple of days.
We were able to spend two full days and three nights in Vienna, one of the most beautiful European cities we have ever visited. Both days were very full of activities, and evenings were free, with optional concert visits being very popular with many of our friends. Day one in Vienna started shortly before 9 o'clock in the hotel reception with a heated debate between our coach guide, Milan, and our vibrant and ever entertaining Vienna tour guide, Cornelia. I should point out that we were split between two hotels, owing to the size of our party, and the fact that central hotels are not particularly large, so half the group missed this interesting altercation.
Wednesday 6th August:
We started the day with a coach tour and guided walk around the historic centre of Vienna.
We visited the truly magnificent Belvedere Castle with its art collections and immense and stunning gardens. We spent the afternoon at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (English: "Museum of Art History") with the famous Arcimboldo pictures, and jewels of European art.
Thursday August 7th
Our next destination was Schönbrunn Palace, one of the most important cultural monuments in Austria and since the 1960s it has also been one of the major tourist attractions in Vienna. The palace and gardens illustrate the tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs.
The gardens also contained two hedge mazes, one of which was home to various incidental entertainments as one struggled to find one's way around the maze. For example, a jet of water was triggered by any unsuspecting puzzler who happened to pass. Some of us seem to get much wetter than others... There was also a very interesting children's play area with various music-based attractions which caught my attention. The best of these was a cylinder with various xylophone-like keys fixed to its inside. The cylinder also contained about a dozen golf balls, and when this cylinder was revolved the golf balls played merrily on the xylophone keys!
As well as an excellent zoological garden, visited by some of our party, there was also an excellent woodland walk which eventually led out on to a nearby hilltop where the magnificent Gloriette, or summer house was to be found. From here there were magnificent views down over the palace, grounds and the rest of Vienna.
Thursday afternoon was free for individual visiting, and Alice and I chose to visit a local park, containing a fine restaurant where we were able to sample one of Vienna's culinary delights, sachertort, a wonderful type of chocolate cake. The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate cake (traditionally a sponge cake) with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing with shreds of chocolate on the top and sides.
Friday August 8th
After yet another very early start we travelled to Leopoldsdorf to visit a Games Museum.
The owners, Dagmar and Ferdinand de Cassan, prepared a special exhibition for us with puzzle items from the collection. Several of us enjoyed a short walk around the village, which was so small that there was grass growing through the train tracks at the station!
Bratislava, our lunchtime destination, is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 427,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two countries. It and Vienna are also two of Europe's closest national capitals, at less than 60 kilometres (37 mi) apart.
Time here was very limited so our sight-seeing was brief, but Bratislava is a beautiful city, one I would recommend to any traveler. We enjoyed a hearty lunch in a restaurant offering excellent views over the River Danube. Sadly we had to leave Bratislava only too soon, as we were expected in the Hungarian capital of Budapest that evening. We really only had time to leave our luggage before getting back on the coaches to travel out into the middle of a Hungarian Forest, to a chalet-style restaurant. Here we were entertained with traditional Hungarian music, dancing and song, and liberally plied with a variety of interesting drinks. This for me was one of the highlights of the week. One of my lasting memories of this holiday, will be that of having breakfast in Vienna, lunch in Bratislava, and dinner in Budapest. There can be very few jet-setting travelers who can claim to have eaten three separate meals in three different European cities on the same day!
Saturday August 9th
A rather damp Saturday morning was the prelude to a visit to the Hungarian parliament building, whose interiors were only rivaled by views of the outside from different vantage points around the city. The wethaer disgraced itself during a coach tour of the city, with heavy rain. Then we meandered along various streets before visiting the walls of Fishermen's Bastion with its views over Buda and Pest, the two halves of the city, and then we went on to St. Matthias' church. After lunch, we all had fun in the city's Science Museum, the House of Miracles. The rest of the afternoon was freed for private sight seeing.
Alice and I decided to explore the island in the middle of the river. We walked all way up one side of it and back down the other enjoying many, many interesting sites. In the evening there was a dinner in the hotel preceded by exhibitions and talks, but our adventure that afternoon meant we missed the lectures! Just as we were walking off the island up to the bridge which spanned the river, our route was blocked by Hungarian police. Apparently an unexploded World War Two bomb had been found at one end of the bridge. While deciding which route back to our hotel to take, we were entertained by various people trying to evade the police cordon! Ultimately our only option was to walk back along the island before getting a bus to the top of the island and then two metro trains and a 20 minute walk back to the hotel. We still wonder if anyone actually believed our excuse for being late for dinner!
It's possibly not unusual to some well-travelled friends, but I should point out that our hotel in Budapest was circular rather than the more common square or rectangular shape. Consequently the corridors in the hotel were curved rather than straight, creating quite a bewildering experience.
Sunday August 10th
Sunday started with quite a long drive back towards Prague. However we were able stop for a long lunch followed by a visit to Lednice palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The surrounding park is laid out in an English garden style and contains a range of Romantic follies. Sadly, an hour or two was just not long enough to do justice to that magnificent garden.
For me the highlight of the whole holiday was that Sunday afternoon. We travelled via Bohemia, the western two-thirds of the Czech Republic, visiting Punkva Caves on the way. I would not remotely want to spend any time potholing, but to be able to walk through large, spacious, caves full of exotic rock formations, all beautifully lit, was so very enchanting. Although there were some steep climbs and tricky descents, often requiring a lot of head-ducking, I think everybody in the group will remember that afternoon for a very long time. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better we arrived at a small jetty, where we all climbed into small electric boats, before drifting through the eerie underground river tunnels.
We stayed overnight in Pardubice. I, probably like many others on the tour, had never heard of this town. Pardubice is an important industrial city, home of Synthesia, a chemical factory (manufacturer of Semtex, a plastic explosive). The Great Pardubice Steeplechase (Velká Pardubická) has taken place every autumn (second Sunday in October). It is said to be the toughest horse race on the continent. The Czech Open Chess Tournament is the biggest in Europe, with roughly 1200 players from all over the world competing in the main groups, and many side-events such as a team championship and Go-tournament. Sadly we only spent one night there, a memorable evening mainly as we were all struggling to find a restaurant, before coming across one which accommodated many of the party.
Monday August 11th.
In the morning we visited the Sedlec Ossuary containing approximately 40,000-70,000 human skeletons which have been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the centre of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vaults.
Later we visited the five-naved Gothic cathedral, St.Barbara of Kutna Hora, with its magnificent flying buttresses, the stylish arches supporting it from the exterior.
Suddenly our week-long odyssey through Central Europe was over, leaving us with just a short drive back to Hotel Diplomat, where we all said our final final goodbyes, amidst promises of meeting in San Francisco in 2009.
The week which I have just described was a different adventure for everybody in the group. We all made new friends. We all met up with old friends. To be on a coach trip for a week with friends was so marvellous, because wherever we found ourselves we could share that experience with each other. Finally I'd like to thank everybody that made this trip possible and so memorable.
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