Levitating towards Spis Castle

Driving in Central Europe is nothing like driving in Western Europe. Highways are practically non-existent and rest stops are not so easy to find. The drive from  from Budapest to Levoca took us quite a while, and we were glad when we finally arrived in Levoca.

We spent a night in Levoca as it was the nearest town to Spis Castle. It was quite an experience arriving in Levoca since we got there really late. The town was really really tiny and we were lucky that the hotel owner was nice enough to wait for us to arrive. If not, we might have had to spend the night in the car instead!

Other than being located near Spis Castle, Levoca also had a tourist attraction in its own right, St James Church, which has the largest Gothic altarpiece in Central Europe. There was a school excursion when we were there, but even without the school kids, we wouldn’t have managed to see it. It was under restoration so it was covered up and you can’t see the full height of it.  In any case, it was just somewhere we dropped by before heading to Spis Castle, the appetizer before the main course so to speak.

Spis Castle

Spis Castle is one of the largest castle complex in Europe and also on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites. It was a bit of a hike up from the car park but totally worth it. We also got to whip out our hiking sticks. Since it wasn’t summer yet, it wasn’t crowded which was nice for exploring the place. Still it was a pity that it wasn’t summer, cos apparently that’s when the castle has night tours and people dress up as in medieval times. Nevertheless, it was pretty pleasant to walk around the castle and enjoy the view. It may be in the middle of nowhere but definitely worth paying a visit for.

Our hiking sticks

Bathing like the locals do

We visited Memento Park the next day as part of our Communist tour and it was a major disappointment. First, the agency screwed up and thus we only managed to do the tour on our second day instead of the first. Next the tour guide didn’t actually offered any interesting information and only did a short spiel so we actually spent a lot of time traveling to hear basically nothing. Memento Park was really just a park filled with statues from the communist era, and even then, there weren’t that many statues and it wasn’t even that big. The only thing that was mildly exciting was the film ‘Life of An Agent’ which explains communist secret service operations. They also had the Trabant, the East German people’s car but it wasn’t very well maintained so it was a bit disgusting to get in to take photos.

Communism's dream car

We followed that up with a walking tour which was really good, so the day wasn’t spoilt at least. We learnt that when the communists took over, they only built over the areas which were destroyed in the war, but left the rest of the buildings untouched, which was lucky for everyone I guess.  Our walking tour covered both the Buda and the Pest area so we covered quite a bit of ground.  It was worth it though and we were lucky to have a good guide.  We ended the tour up at Castle Hill, but it was late so we couldn’t enter any of the buildings to have a look-see. Our guide did recommended that we do the Labyrinth of Buda Castle as they had a special evening session where you can walk around with an oil lamp in the dark. It was a bit freaky but also quite fun, we had a few scares and a few laughs so still worth it in the end.

What's left of Stalin

We finished the day with a cruise down the Danube River. There were a few companies running cruises but we went with Legenda Cruise as it provided personal headsets as well as 2 glasses of champagne. The evening cruise was definitely a good idea as it provides a very different view of Budapest and it was wonderful to see the buildings all lit up at night. Parliament, which was supposedly modeled after Westminster, was really grand and absolutely stunning. Gellert Statue up above on Gellert Hill was also pretty imposing at night. The only thing about an eveing cruise was that we didn’t have time to visit Margaret Island, which was a pity. Oh well, perhaps next time.

Romancing down the River Danube

Hungary's answer to Westminster

One of the very last things we did before leaving Budapest, was of course to visit its famous baths!!! There were two famous baths, Gellert and Szechenyi. We chose Szechenyi partly cos we couldn’t find Gellert, haha… Szechenyi is the largest thermal spring bath complex not only in Budapest but in Europe as well. We went there early but apparently not early enough, it was crazy crowded and almost impossible to book a massage with them. In the end we managed to find some other massage within the complex but it was privately run so it was a bit more expensive than what Szechenyi charges. The massage was weird though as they had only one woman masseur with the rest being men. Obviously I requested for the woman since it would have been too weird to get a guy masseur. There were supposed to be three outdoor pools, with two for soaking and one for serious swimming. One of the soaking pools was closed for maintenance so it was a bit crowded at the other pool. There were also fifteen indoor pools so while it was fun to keep dipping into different pools, it also got a bit confusing walking around the place. We seemed to be the only Chinese there and sometimes people were really staring at us, still it was a pretty fun thing to do. Definitely recommended to buy tickets beforehand (you should be able to buy them from any hotel) to avoid the queues, otherwise just go really early or late.

With one last dip in the pool, we ended our journey in Budapest and headed for Levoca for some knights in shining armor!

Spellbinding Budapest...

Budapest has always conjured up images of mystery, romance, and a little bit of horror to me, so I was pretty excited when we finally reached there. I was definitely looking forward to the mystery and romance though not so much of the horror, I definitely did not want to see or encounter any vampires while we were there!

The first thing that struck me about Budapest was how lovely the city was, in spite of its previous communist history. Sure there were the usual communist buildings which looked totally horrible but there were also buildings with lovely neo-Gothic architecture interspersed throughout the city.

We spent our first day just wandering around the city and taking in the sights. We had gone into the tourist office to get some information and ideas on what to do but it was staffed by a man who looked like he dragged himself to work, and decided to spend the rest of the day being grumpy so we got out of there in a hurry and decided to just explore it ourselves.

Walking around Budapest was kind of like walking around Paris, but cleaner and less crowded.  We wandered into the Hungarian State Opera House but they didn’t have any tours running. Then, we went into the Museum of Fine Arts as we read that there were tours of the exhibit, but again the tour wasn’t running. We decided to just view the exhibits, which was lucky for us as they had a section called ‘Hands On!’ which allowed the public to handle original artifacts and learn more about them. The artifacts we were allowed to handle were from the Egyptian collection and we had to put on gloves and use one hand to hold it and the other to touch. It was fairly exciting and I was pretty terrified that I would somehow drop the artifact and have to pay them millions in compensation, lol… That was actually the highlight of the museum for us, with nothing really standing out.

Hungarian State Opera

 The next stop was Heroes Square which was built in 1896 to celebrate a millennium of Magyar presence. The weather was a little dreary when we were there, which I suppose makes a rather dramatic backdrop to the impressive monuments around.  One interesting event we stumbled upon was Critical Mass. Hundreds of cyclists biked past us to raise awareness of cyclists rights on the roads and within the city. It was rather festive and there were lots of ringing bells as they cycled past us.

Heroes Square

Critical Mass Movement

We also took the metro to get around, which was an experience in itself. It’s the oldest underground, after London, in Europe and nothing has changed since then. While we may have shiny new MRT stations in Singapore, I think there’s something to be said for stations that have been around since 1896.

Our first day in Budapest ended with us walking back to our hotel, from Pest to Buda, enjoying the lovely view of the Danube river.

The Blue Danube

Overlooked Slovakia

Slovakia was our next stop after Vienna. Bratislava, where we were headed, was literally across the river from Vienna, I guess you can swim there if you are really short of cash, haha…

The perfect bun

Followed by the perfect beef salad

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and former coronation city of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, thus it has played host to quite a few important people in its heyday. When we visited though, it was playing host to VIPs of another kind, namely the sporting kind as it was hosting the Ice Hockey World Championships, alongside Kosice. We didn’t catch any matches though and if any of the players were to walk past me, I wouldn’t have known any better. The whole town was rather festive though and there were various sculptures of players from the different nations which was quite fun for us to spot.

Ice Hockey World Cup!!! Woohoo!!!  

We did a walking tour of Bratislava with the tourist office which was pretty alright. The guide committed a boo boo at the beginning of the tour and she never seemed to really recover from it. It was still an interesting tour though and we learnt a bit of history like how the separation from Czech Republic was fairly amicable, unlike some other countries where it was more chaotic. The buildings were interesting but nothing really stood out for me. What I did enjoy though were the sculptures placed all over the city centre. There is Čumil the workman, also known as Rubberneck, who emerges from a manhole at the junction of two streets, protected by a 'Man at Work' sign; a paparazzo who spies on passersby through his camera lens, and a rather relaxed looking Napoleonic soldier lounging over a bench, and many more quirky sculptures. There was a busker there who did the exact same pose as ‘Rubberneck’ and it was quite hilarious to see people’s reaction when the busker moves. You have to give it to the busker though for being clever enough to station himself there.

Right place, right time...

Other than the walking tour, we also visited a castle. Bratislava had 2 castles, Bratislava Castle as well as Devin Castle and since we didn’t have enough time, we opted for Devin Castle after seeking the advice of the tourist information office. The lady there was really nice and what was most surprising was that she visited Singapore many years ago! It is quite a rarity for us to meet someone who actually knows where is Singapore and visited it, so it was a rather nice moment. In any case, Devin Castle was situated outside of Bratislava and there was only one bus from Bratislava to Devin Castle which runs rather infrequently. The castle was kind of in ruins but the view was pretty awesome. Though the castle was in ruins, the authorities still managed to have a pretty good exhibition about war in medieval times in one of the intact areas. The people working there were also pretty friendly and helped us understand a little about what the castle was like then. If not for the fact that we had to catch a bus back, it would have been nice to walk around a little longer.

Along the walls of Devin Castle

Food Glorious Food!!!

Bratislava was definitely a good introduction to Eastern Europe with its friendly locals and absolutely wonderful food. This is our first foray through the "Iron Curtain" and you immediately get a sense of how life changes, not necessarily for the worse, but definitely different. And from there, its on to Budapest!

Spotless in Vienna

If you thought Singapore was clean, you ain’t seen nothing yet til you’ve been to Vienna. It was totally spotless and all the buildings have been cleaned til they looked shiny and new even though they were built hundreds of years ago.

One of the many grand buildings of the Habsburg empire

As is our practice by now, we took a guided tour by the tourist office to get a brief overview of the city/ country and also to decide which sites were worth paying to enter.

We visited the Imperial Apartments which I felt was about the same as the State Apartments we visited in Innsbruck, nothing really stood out for me. There were 19 state and private rooms of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, aka Sisi which we were allowed to view. In its entirety, it is a whole lot bigger than the one we saw in Innsbruck but because we are only allowed entry to those few places, the things we saw were more or less the same. Most of the apartments today house a range of museums as well as offices, government ministries and the presidential chancellery, so at least they are making full use of the really huge buildings.

We also visited the Sisi Museum which I felt was rather small. There were only six rooms for the public to explore the personality and life of the empress, who was apparently quite the sensation in her day. The exhibits included a copy of the dress she wore at the ball given before her wedding, her jewellery, parasols, fans etc. From the exhibits and write-up, I kinda got the impression that modern day Austria doesn’t like her much, though people back then were probably quite captivated by her. She did look rather pretty from the various portraits of her though she probably suffered from some type of depression. She was probably a bit like Princess Diana, thrust into the life of a monarch from a young age and unable to cope with it.

Beautiful sunset

Other than walking around and doing the usual touristy stuff, one of the more interesting things we did was to watch opera at Wiener Staatsoper. They sell standing tickets for only 6 euro! It was definitely an affordable and easy way to try out opera and see if you enjoy it. I must say people there really dress up for the opera, it was really obvious who were in the cheap seats, or in our case, the standing seats. Of course this doesn’t mean that everyone was lovely, we witnessed this lady who was late in entering but who insisted on getting to her seat though she should have waited til an appropriate break. The usher was helpless and it just goes to show that all the money in the world cannot buy someone manners. It was really horrible for a while cos she just refused to listen and kicked up a fuss. In any case, the opera we caught was Parsifal which was super long, clocking almost five hours in total, and not very accessible. Needless to say, we didn’t stay til the end and left after catching 2 acts (or at least I think it was 2 acts, I could be wrong). Perhaps next time, we should choose a more accessible opera like Carmen or La Boheme and give it another go.

Inside the opera house

On the whole, Austria was pretty enjoyable and it was nice to have that as our last stop before we ventured to Eastern Europe.