Sunday 29 June

Another slow start to the day. Our room in the roof is very hot, and the yobbos in the street were noisy. Heaven knows what they will be like tonight, after the final of the European Cup.

We went into town, and first made inquiries at the Opera Theatre, but tomorrow is the last performance of the season, and there is standing room only. Instead we booked for a Mozart concert.

We then caught the first of our series of hop-on/off buses, which took us over the river and back. We had our first sight of the Danube yesterday as we drove through Linz, more than 100km upstream from Vienna, and were surprised at how big it is, so far from its mouth way down in the Black Sea.

After lunch, we caught the inner city bus, and got off a couple of times. At the centre of the old town is St Stephen's Cathedral. (One of the houses where Mozart lived is a short walk away). The outside of the Cathedral has lots of scaffolding covering it, but the roof has some great patterns in the tiling. The inside has some strange hanging things which David read somewhere were supposed to represent angel wings.


By this time, 3pm, football fans had just about taken over the centre of the city - red and yellow (fewer from Spain) and black, red and yellow (masses from Germany) everywhere, hooters, chants, singing in good humour. Hope the losers don't get too uptight. (It is now 8:45, and the game has just started.)


We did our third bus trip, and went back to the hostel.

PS Spain won, 1-0. Yeah!! There is no noise in the street. It will be a quiet night.

Saturday 28 June

We had a lazy morning, catching up on the uploading of photos, and waiting for the bus, which was about an hour late. We crossed into Austria,


which is again more hilly and forested, and drove for about another 2 hours to Vienna.

We only had time to unpack in our attic room, do the washing, and wander the local street to find dinner.

Friday 27 June

We went to the castle, but decided against buying a guided tour. We did pay to go up the tower ....


then we walked through the 5 courtyards, and on into the gardens.


We had lunch by the river, then came back to the hostel to prepare for our rafting trip. The hostel bus took us 10k upstream, and 2 inflatable boats loaded with 16 busabouters headed off. There were a couple of pub stops along the way, and a couple of big water fights, and we all had a fun time.


We had tea in a restaurant in town, and took more photos.

Thursday 26 June

It took us about 40 min to drive through Prague's morning traffic, but then we zoomed along, through countryside more hilly and wooded than previously seen.

We reached Cesky Krumlov at about noon. This is a small town in southern Czech Rep., with a UNESCO listed mediaeval castle and town at the centre.



It is on a couple of bends in the Vltava River, which goes on through Prague. We have been given a suite of rooms in the owner's house, right down by the riverside. (Our window is the bottom left hand of the house on the left.)

We went for a walk around town after lunch. The river flows quickly, with some small rapids, and canoe and raft excursions are very popular.


After tea we walked through town again to take night-time photos.

Wednesday 25 June

We had a bit of a sleep in, then mooched around, taking the chance to catch up on bank accounts and computer finances. While having lunch, we talked to some TopDeck people in a bit of strife. One of their passengers had a slight disagreement with the hostel security guard, and now 2 of them are in gaol.

We headed off to the city and the river, and had a leisurely 2hr cruise, up and back.
All sorts of craft are on the river.

As is our luck with these things, we got the only boat on the river without a canopy, and the 'cultural program' - which I took to mean some sort of commentary - was non-existent.
But we had a nice time anyway, going twice through the lock.


A thunderstorm broke soon after we got home, and the resultant blackout sent us up the road for tea. The local Czech cafe was full, but we found another, and had a nice meal through the smoke haze.

Tuesday 24 June

Today we bought a 24hr transport ticket, and more-or-less retraced our walking tour, looking at things in more detail. We joined a huge crowd of tourists at the Astronomical Clock for its 11am striking, with 12 apostles processing past the open windows.


After lunch we caught the funicular railway up the hill for a different view of the city.


By now, the blisters I began acquiring on Monday were really causing trouble, and I didn't want to walk much more.


We went back to the hostel for a nanna-nap, then back up to the castle for an orchestral concert. The playing was good, but it was really an 11 piece string ensemble, and they played a lot of very abbreviated arrangements, so it was all over in less than an hour.


We walked and walked, trying to find a reasonably priced restaurant selling Czech food, and finally ate at 9pm. It was just getting dark when we finished, so we found a nice spot by the river for photos, and got home at about 11.30.

Monday 23 June Prague

We caught a suburban Metro train to the main station, then a regional train to the town of Kutna Hora. It is famous for its small church known by tourists as the Bone Church. This was established in 11th century, and periodically rebuilt after wars etc, finally in 1870. It is decorated with human bones - thousands and thousands of them.


It is quite macabre. They say it is to remind people that death is not the end.



We walked into the city, but without a map took a wrong turn, and it took us ages to find the way. My feet were very sore from blisters acquired yesterday. We found a sidewalk cafe for lunch, then went to the tourist office and at last got a map. We walked around the town some more,


found St Barbara's cathedral, then caught the local Connex bus back to the station.


Tonight we will eat in the hostel restaurant.

Sunday 22 June

We left the hostel to walk to the local metro station, but took the wrong road, and ended up at a station 2km further away. Once in town we went looking for a tourist info centre, but couldn't find one, so all in all a pretty wasted morning.


At 12:30 we met our guide under St Wenceslas' statue, and embarked on a 4 hour walking tour of the city, and as it was 30deg, we ended up pretty pooped. We saw old town, new town, Jewish quarter, lesser town and castle.


We walked across the Charles (4th) bridge, had dumplings for lunch, and lots of drinks. (Czech beer is very cheap and comes in 1/2 litre mugs. We were so hot and tired, it hardly hit the sides).


By the time we got to the castle we'd all had it, but once the guide left, we managed a quick dance through St Vitus' Cathedral, before staggering back to the hostel and collapsing on the bed for an hour.


So now it's time for bed.

Saturday 21 June

We packed up, walked to a different supermarket for bread rolls, and made lunch. The Busabout bus came at 11:00 on schedule. We drove through the Czech Republic border without realising it,


and stopped at Terezinstadt, where the Nazis had a concentration camp and ghetto. We had a guided tour of the camp for about an hour,





and reached Prague by about 16:00.

Friday 20 June

It started to rain while we were lying in bed, but didn't last for long. We caught the tram to town, in time for the first free guided tour which was offered with our bus ticket. However, we were told that there was no English speaking guide until 13:00. By this stage we had missed the free extra bus trip out of town to the castle, so we caught the same bus as yesterday.
This time we got off at a couple of places, including the suspension railway, which we caught up the hill and back.



We got back into the city in time for lunch, and the next set of guided tours, but, you've guessed it, no English speaking guide. So we wandered about on our own, looking in churches and shops. Dresden was 80% destroyed in Feb 1945, and the people still appear resentful that their city was picked on when the war was nearly over. So many of the city buildings have been rebuilt in the last 60 years, most in the last 20, since the East Germans did not care for such things. The much loved `Frauenkirche´ was re-consecrated only in 2005.

After walking our legs off we headed back over the river to catch he tram back to our part of town. On the way we passed 'the Golden Rider', one of the landmarks of the city and a good example of the Dresdners' love of gold on their monuments.

So we caught the tram back home, had tea, and prepared this post on the hostel's computer because they'd lost the WIFI log-in code, so we couldn't use our computer for internet, which meant we couldn't put any pictures on. (These were added later when we got to Prague).

Thursday 19 June

We left Berlin at 8:05, on board our Busabout, and got 20mins down the road before one of the passengers remarked to the driver that he thought we'd left our guide behind.


So we left Berlin past the East Side Gallery of the wall (again - with guide and much hilarity) at 8:50, and arrived in Dresden at about 12:00.
We did a load of washing, some grocery shopping and after lunch caught a tram into town. Wandered around a bit, and got tickets for the hop-on/off tourist bus. We only had time to drive around half of the route before 5pm, but our tickets will allow us to have another full day tomorrow.