European Holiday, Willard Style
I never in a million years would have picked the Czech Republic and Slovakia as my first European experience. But I'm so glad it worked out that way. Slovakia is a lot like Oregon, except all of the castles and insane driving (no really, I mean INSANE) and communist housing. It's gorgeous and lush and fairly untouched by Western tourism. Here's a play by play of some of the highlights and Things I Learned While Traveling to A Foreign Country in Eastern Europe.
Day 1 and 2: Up and Away
Travel, travel, travel. Fly, fly, fly. Austrian Airlines is the way to go with Uber-German/Austrian style and hospitality. Plus, cheese for breakfast! Due to a snafu, our friends couldn't make it to pick us up in Prague, but having no phones, we had to just wait it out at the airport and then navigate the bus/metro to get to our hostel in Old Town Prague. We made it, our friends made it, but I'll have to say it was one of the more miserable days of my life. Plus, my ankles swelled up like an old lady's which made me very cranky.
Day 3: Prague and All it's Trappings
We went to Slovakian mass in this beautiful "chapel", St. Vitus' Cathedral. We had no idea what was going on, so we just watched the chap in front of us and stood, kneeled and bowed heads when he did. I think the nuns behind us were totally on to the American Protestants. After this, we were utterly ripped off at a charming sidewalk cafe. The extra 100 crowns on our bill (about $5) was for ketchup. Yes, KETCHUP. Ketchup that was sitting at our table when we came! I spent about two days being pissed off about it (and still get a little miffed every now and again), but hey, live and learn. I'd rather just have free condiments. The rest of the day was spent on very touristy things like Prague Castle, St. Charles Bridge, the Astronomical Clock and pizza, Czech style. This means huge, with sheep cheese and only about $4 (plus another buck or so if you'd like to use the parmesan that's sitting at your table).
Did I mention $5 KETCHUP??!
Day 4: Slovakia and Barely Making It There Alive
I have mentioned the insanity of drivers in Slovakia, but this really does not do it justice. In one day, you can expect to be in about 4 very-near head-on collisions with people trying to pass while you're driving straight toward them. We had our first experience of Tesco, the Slovakian Wal-mart, but better. And there I had my first Slovakian string cheese. We finally found our hostel in a little villiage called Ludrova, as about authentic Slovakian as it gets. We drove around asking the locals "AB Hostel??" being met by blank stares. We resorted to knocking on the door of a house that shared the address we had for the hostel, and sure enough, it was an apartment in this man's home. It was beautiful, minus the Annie Hall sized spider in the bathtub drain. And, Villiage Radio! No kidding, over loudspeakers attatched to telephone poles, Slovakian music and sports updates would just come on for all the world to enjoy. It's a leftover from the days of communistic propaganda put to darn good use.
We also visited Orava Castle with our own private English tour. This is also a good place for a free bathroom and cheap little knight figurines.
Day 5: Enough Eeriness to Go Around
After ending up driving through someone's dairy farm, we finally found our way to this old abandoned castle. It required a hike through another dairy farm and some steep hilly terrain (had we looked 20 feet over we would have seen the trail) but it was well worth it.
We made our way to this beautiful town called Banska Stiavnica. We ended up staying in an old Scout House, right behind the Old Castle. When I say old, I mean 600 years old. And apparently haunted, as the man checking us in nonchalantly informed us. "Yes, it's haunted. They come around 1 to 3 in the morning, but are gone by 4 or 5." Uh, ok. This would be cool and all, but we were the only people in this gigantic haunted place. I stayed awake waiting for my first ghost encounter, but they never showed. I was kind of disappointed. We did, however, have a mouse friend eat some of our breakfast roll. So I guess that counts for something.
Day 6 and 7: Nitra and the Lesson of Calling Ahead to Make Sure That Your Reservations Have Not Been Cancelled Because You Failed to Respond to the E-mail Sent While You Were Traveling and Had No E-mail Access.
That pretty much sums it up. Our hotel receptionist said "Oh, we didn't think you were coming, but we made you reservations at such and such". Hmmm. When we reserve a room online, that means to me that we'll be coming to stay in that room. Our friend told us that he thought the one they reserved for us was pretty crappy, so we checked in next door at a very nice hotel for the same price. Plus, lots more cheese for breakfast (I love this place!!). And all the Slovakian music videos we could handle on the Music Box station. This actually means all the random American 80's and 90's videos we could handle. I have never heard "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and "Gangsta's Paradise" so many times in so few days.
Nitra is one beautiful city. Apart from the smatterings of communist housing on the outskirts, there are all sorts of castles and churches and glories to behold. One of my favorite things in Nitra, besides the incredible architecture, was the Kofola. Think coca-cola plus licorice and some other spicy goodness. And cheap, about 30 cents for 1/3 liter. By the way, when you leave the States, you realize that Coca-Cola is actually taking over the world. Pshaw to Pepsi.
Day 7.0-7.8: On the Road Again and Again (AKA 10 Hours of Bus Riding at Its Finest)
Taking the bus in Slovakia isn't all that bad. It's like a dollar per half-hour and they're the nice charter buses with the fancy seats and a TV up front for who knows what. However, trying to buy a bus ticket when you don't speak the language can be a little dicey. Nathan said "Two for Cesky Krumlov". What we heard was "No Cesky Krumlov. Cesky Budojovice blah blah blah, blah blah blah." Uhhhhhh. Ok. We crossed our fingers and hoped we got to Cesky Krumlov. My favorite part of the ride, I think, was when Nathan pointed out that the lady getting off the bus in a small village had a stack of Smurf videos. So THAT'S who is still wathcing the Smurfs... they're probably also the ones still reading the Ziggy cartoons.
One problem is that they don't announce the town that you're stopping in, so good luck with that if you just happen to wake up and the bus is stopping. We got off in the right city, but not at the right stop, which left us hauling our baggage all over the dang city looking for the bus terminal. At that point I was cursing the Czech Republic and myself for packing so much. We finally squeezed our way onto the ciry bus headed for Cesky Krumlov, only to watch in horror as a little girl with rotten front teeth was gnawing on the seats in front of her. You could almost hear everyone's hands fold up quietly in their lap and the heightened sense of not-touching-anything was thick in the air.
Day 7.8-8: Fairytale Central and the Best Pension Ever
Cesky Krumlov is what Prague would be without all the drunk frat boys, traffic and trash. It was beautiful beyond belief, one of the most idyllic places I've ever seen. The Vltava (Elbe) river running through the heart of town was almost perfect, giving the city a very natural feel despite all of the touristy attractions. We stayed in this ancient little B&B called Pension Ve Vezi, a tower that used to be part of the city wall in the days of Way Long Ago. They even served us breakfast, complete with, yes, cheese and a soft boiled egg in a little egg cup and a tiny spoon to crack it with. It was so very European and I was smitten.
We paid about $11 for a Slovak tour of the Old Theatre up at the Castle. Our logic for going to the tour in Slovak was that the English tour was going to be a little too late for us to chance and hey, we'll just walk around and look and then read about it later. However, it wasn't so much a "tour" in Slovak as it was a 45-minute lecture in Slovak. There was no touring to be had. Just sitting on hard benches in the dark and listening to a language we didn't understand. It was a serious Charlie Brown moment, minus the cute beagles or football shenanigans.
I also had a tick friend that I found on my leg from who knows where. It's a difficult thing to try to remove a tick in an old medieval tower with nothing but matches and a bobby pin. MacGyver would be proud. Ticks being one of my biggest fears (acutually, being ALONE and having a tick in an unreachable place is one of my biggest fears), I was able to remain relatively calm and collected.
The Evening of the 8th Day: A Day that Will Live in Infamy, or Really, You Should Really Always Call When You've Made Online Reservations to a Hotel Because They Proabably Won't Have a Room Reserved For You and You Will Have to Stay in the Creepiest Apartment in Prague and Eat McDonalds For Dinner, So Just Call Ahead and Confirm. Please.
The way that the accomodations liason in Prague works is that they take in poor, dumb tourists who didn't call to confirm reservations and find them last minute accomodations. At the dumpiest place ever, making it look and sound like a great deal and making you pay a deposit before you check in so that you can't walk quikcly away from the sketchiness once you get to the place. The guy who was helping us was super nice, but also super loose in his definition of "comparable".
Do not be fooled by the pictures and think "Oh, that's not so bad..." For $75, yes it was. And the carpet was not barefootable. Thankfully we only had, oh, about 6 hours there.
Days 9 and 10: The Value of Giving up Your Seats on United Airlines
Two free round trip tickets and a night in the Hyatt. Worth all the jetlag and airport food in the world.
posted by Jess @ 5:58 PM
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