We had a lazy start the next day; there was a pottery tour at 9.30 am which Toby and I decided to skip in favour of a sleep-in. It was the first full night’s sleep I’d had in days and I felt like a new woman when I woke up. We had been planning to explore some of the caves by ourselves but we ran out of time so we just met the rest of the group at 11 and left by bus to pick up Jen at the hospital, where she had been visiting our fallen comrade who ended up needing to be flown back to Istanbul for surgery. We were very sad to have lost one of our group in such awful circumstances, but I’m sure not as sad as she was. At times like this I think travelling on a tour is such a good idea; Jen was able to help deal with the insurance company and arrange for someone to fly with her, and also for some Istanbul friends to visit her occasionally so she wouldn’t go crazy. From Goreme we drove through rolling farmland until about lunchtime when we hit the Anatolian plateau, and then the landscape was full of flat nothingness. We hate at a roadside restaurant that was super expensive – my own spoonful of rice and salad cost 6 lira, while Toby’s plate of meatballs that half filled him up cost 8. Ouch. There was a little playground outside the restaurant so Toby and I played on the swings and monkey bars; it was nice to be outside in a T shirt and not cold, as up until that point the Turkish weather had not been much better than what we’d left behind in Scotland.
The rest of the drive was boring, although a couple of things caught my eye. One was that occasionally you would see families living in tents by the side of the road; I asked Jen about them who said they are semi-nomadic farm workers. It looked like a tough way to raise kids. The other was a man I saw in a field, kneeling under a tree in a seemingly random direction I assumed was towards Mecca. I loved the simple elegance of his position, and the ritual of it; the idea that in any day, no matter what you are doing, there is time to just stop and think about something bigger than you. But mostly I slept in the bus, until we hit what Jen called the lake district, which was much more interesting. Lake Egirdir, where we stayed, was incredibly beautiful and rather alpine-esque being ringed by mountains, some with snow, although parts of the shore looked very Mediterranean. After we got to our (not very nice) hotel we went straight out for a walk along the water, which looked clean and clear and wasn’t as cold as I expected. Toby skimmed rocks but I just couldn’t get it so I threw them instead. For dinner we were driven out to an ‘island’ on the lake that was mostly inhabited by Greek people until the population exchange in the 1920s. We had drinks on a terrace looking over the water but it got too cold so we moved inside to eat. Most of us got trout (a bargain at 6 lira); we also had dolmades, borek, bread and chips although we had to ask for the latter which didn’t arrive until we’d finished everything else. My stomach handled all the food which I was grateful for; the magic of Di’s pills.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Days 4-5: Goreme
We woke up on the train to farms and got off at Ankara, Turkey’s capital city (who knew?). It was not the most exciting of places; it probably has the same inferiority complex as Canberra. We were picked up at the station and drove until after 9.30, by which time we were well out of Ankara and it seemed the breakfast Jen had promised us might never come. There must have been a miscommunication between Jen and the driver, but we stopped eventually at a roadhouse restaurant that was strangely formal with stained satin tablecloths and waiters in striped satin waistcoats and bow ties. It was a bit much for 10 am really. Jen ordered us all the Turkish version of scrambled eggs, which were mostly tomatoes and peppers, with chilli and a bit of egg. It was delicious. That plus proper Turkish bread and two cups of black tea = perfect breakfast. Then we were back in the bus for another three hours, through rolling farmlands and tiny little villages off the highway. I slept a lot of the way although it didn’t do much to make up for my restless night.
Coming into Cappadocia was more interesting, as we started to spot the white rocks the region is famous for. I had no idea what to expect from this area, although I’d read descriptions and seen photos, but it absolutely did not disappoint. Goreme was amazing, a small village practically carved into the white rocks. There was a lot of building going on, I guess lots of people like the idea of living or staying in a cave. Our hotel was amazing; Toby and I were in a really cave-like room without windows. The terraces on the hotel had brilliant views down the hill. Once we were settled in the hotel we went to have lunch in a house that had been converted into a restaurant. Jen had ordered our food from the road so it had been cooking for hours in little terracotta pots. We sat around a low table on cushioned benches and ‘donkeys’ (small stools you straddle) and we ate bread, red cabbage, mini chillies and shepherd salad (the tomato and cucumber mixed with mint and other things). The waiters broke the tops off the terracotta pots, the way you do with a hard-boiled egg, and then tipped the contents onto a place with rice and cabbage. So good.
By the end of lunch I was ready to collapse from exhaustion (it had been a busy week) but people were ordering dessert and talking about visiting a carpet shop. I managed to escape from the group and went back to the hotel to sleep for two hours. I had a long hot shower and did some washing and was feeling much more human by the time everyone got back from their trip to the carpet shop.
For dinner we went to a nearby village to eat in a local family’s house, which was more a series of terraces, stairs and rooms carved into rock. Not the sort of family friendly house you would expect in Australia, considering they had a two-year-old. I am not sure how they stop him falling down stairs. They had a table set up for us outside with the most amazing view, but it was deemed too cold so we ended up inside in another cave room, sitting on cushions around a low table. The father of the family, Nazeem, took great pride in showing us the work he had done to his house and the things he has collected to decorate it. Dinner was (I assume cooked by his wife and then) served by Nazeem and his two older children. It started with salad and then burghal soup with lots of bread, and then rice and a chick pea and lamb stew. Dessert was a bowl of grape compote, although the grapes were nearly sultanas. It was light and syrupy and a good end to the meal. We also partook of Nazeem’s very boozy home brew red wine and felt very full and sleepy as we headed back to the hotel.
The next day started early; we heard the call to prayer a bit after 4 am and then got a wake up call we weren’t expecting at 4.30 am. We managed to doze a little longer and were ready for the bus at 5.15 am, although it was raining and our chances of getting up in a hot air balloon were looking slim. While we were waiting in reception Di heard a noise and we went outside to where one of the ladies from the group was sprawled at the bottom of one of the staircases. She was obviously in a lot of pain and seemed to pass out for a moment. Luckily Jen was awake (the night before we had joked that the day she didn’t get up early to meet the bus would be the day something went wrong) and she called an ambulance, as well as a local friend of hers to go to the hospital with them. They got her foot up on a cushion (they’re good for so many things) and covered her with a blanket and an umbrella. She’d slipped on the steps in the dark as the hotel didn’t have any lights on; I’d been surprised by that as well when we’d left our room. At this point we were cold and a bit worried and ready to go back to bed, but the bus turned up so off we went, minus one. We were taken to an office in town that looked a lot like those rescue centres you see on TV during fires or floods, full of people in outdoor gear looking apprehensive and tired. We were given tea and biscuits and told we were waiting for the wind and rain to die down; apparently it had been fine at 4.30 am when we got our wake up call. Jen had told us that by booking on our first morning we’d be able to go the next day if the weather was bad, but the woman running the company told us they were heavily booked and we shouldn’t get our hopes up. After an hour of waiting (which included being spontaneously serenaded by what I assume was a choir, which seemed very rude at such an early hour) we were herded onto a bus and assumed we were finally going back to bed, but no. The wind had calmed a bit, so we were flying. They took us to one spot that wasn’t quite right, so we ended up in another where they inflated the balloon while we all stood around taking photos. Everywhere you look in Cappadocia there is a great view, so you just keep taking more and more. Finally we climbed into the balloon (4 to a box, 4 boxes) and were shown the landing position in case it got rough (I got to lean back against Toby, which I liked) and then we were off. It was a very strange sensation as you really are just floating, and that’s exactly what it feels like. I was okay while we were close to the ground and the view really was incredible. I could see a balloon so high up they got lost in the clouds and I knew I’d hate that; Toby said he doubted we would go that high, so I tried to relax. I started feeling nervous as we got higher, but I concentrated on the horizon rather than looking straight down, which helped. But then we got higher still, and the clouds closed in beneath us and when I lost my focal point of the horizon, I panicked. It was snowing as well so on top of being tired and well out of my comfort zone, I was freezing. I concentrated on staying calm since there were so many people around who wouldn’t appreciate a screaming girl, but I have never been so glad to see the ground before. The pilot was great and in constant contact with other pilots as well as the trucks on the ground, so once we were further down I relaxed a bit for our final few minutes, although I couldn’t help thinking it was the most expensive panic attack ever. I was relieved when we finally landed (on the trailer of a truck, which I thought was impressive) and happy to guzzle the cherry juice and champagne we were given once we were down. We sang happy birthday to a girl who looked Chinese, spoke with an American accent and was translating for a group of Ukrainians, and had some cake and were given certificates with a picture of a balloon in perfect weather. I’m sure I would have enjoyed the experience more if we hadn’t ended up in snow clouds.
It was the best hot shower ever when we got back. The hotel manager told us the lady who had tripped had broken her leg, which seemed extraordinary given the distance she’d fallen. Jen was still at the hospital with her, but our local guide (a very cute Turkish man called Ali) showed up after breakfast to take us to the Underground City. By this time the weather had cleared up perfectly (of course), so back in the bus for a 40 minute trip to Derinkuyu. The Underground City is where they have excavated cities under Cappadocia dating back to the 6th century BC. They were mainly used to hide from invaders and provided a safe place for early Christians to practise their religion. There were 150 cities housing around 10 000 people, and we saw a tiny part of one. It had a kitchen, stable, storage areas, bedrooms, a church, a meeting hall and of course a winery (of sorts). There were tunnels running through the rooms for ventilation and communication, and rolling stone doors like what you see on old cartoons. In the walls were carved little niches used for lighting with linseed oil, and also for finding your way in the dark when enemies came. Sometimes the tunnels we walked through were large, but they got very low and tight at other times. We ended up about 45 feet underground. The worst part of it was that they don’t control how many people go down at a time, so it got very crowded with guides trying to negotiate their group’s turn up and down the stairs. Just an accident waiting to happen really, as all it would take would be one moron to create a panic, and it would be mayhem.
Luckily we got out alive and back in the bus and about this time I started feeling ill, as though something I ate wasn’t agreeing with me. I tried to ignore it and we drove to Panorama, a spot high on a hill with brilliant views (again). It was quite the tourist trap with lots of little stalls selling all sorts of rubbish, but I bought a coke to try and settle my tummy and Toby got some biscuits since he was starving. Our next stop was the Open Air Museum, an optional activity on the itinerary but everyone wanted to go so Ali agreed to take us along. I was glad we went, even though I was mostly concentrating on not losing the contents of my stomach. The museum is in a place where the early Christians built churches and other rooms right into the rock. Some are decorated with the most beautiful and detailed frescoes, although not all are well preserved since UNESCO and the Turkish government didn’t start caring until the 1980s. It was an incredible piece of Christian history in the heart of an Islamic country.
After the museum, we decided to walk back to town via Love Valley, which Ali said was about 2 kilometres and even though I was feeling pretty rotten at this point, I thought that would be about 30 minutes and I could probably manage. In hindsight I should have not been so keen to avoid a fuss and just asked Ali to get me a taxi then and there. It was kind of pleasant to be out walking in the countryside and to see the rocks we’d seen from the balloons at ground level. We went into Love Valley and I thought we must be nearly back to town, but then Ali said we had to follow the track back to the main road and keep walking. Grrrr. I started to walk back myself as the situation was getting dire. I walked very, very slowly and it was just getting ridiculous with Di having to hold my hand as I went through awful spasms and tried not to think about how humiliating this was about to get, so Ali ran back to the main road and called the driver of the bus for me. He wasn’t answering his phone and Ali asked if I wanted to go to the hospital; I said I’d be happy with a bathroom and he smiled knowingly. Joy of joys, the driver turned up very quickly and we were back at the hotel in no time, where I wanted to give Ali a big hug but I was in a rush so instead I left Toby to give him a good tip. I took some drugs Di had and went to bed for two hours, both of which worked a treat and I was ready to meet the group for dinner, although still a bit wobbly and fragile. It was weird being around 12 people who knew all about my digestive problems, but being experience travellers (not to mention grown ups) everyone was very understanding and really when I thought about the lady in hospital, it seemed very minor. Di and Jen bought me some mint tea and fresh mint on their visit to the lady in hospital, so I had that as well and then we went to a terrace bar for a drink where we toasted the broken leg’s owner and enjoyed sunset over the white hills. After a drink Toby and I went to a restaurant in the village with the other couples from the group (not on purpose, it just worked out that way). It was quite touristy but I loved it for the cushions, the artwork and the old guy playing a Turkish sitar (had a different name which I forget now) right beside us. I just had water and bites of everyone else’s food, but it was still a great evening especially when another guy with a drum joined the sitar player, and then the waiter sat down with some spoons and the three of them just went off. It was great; a good end to an otherwise emotional day.
Coming into Cappadocia was more interesting, as we started to spot the white rocks the region is famous for. I had no idea what to expect from this area, although I’d read descriptions and seen photos, but it absolutely did not disappoint. Goreme was amazing, a small village practically carved into the white rocks. There was a lot of building going on, I guess lots of people like the idea of living or staying in a cave. Our hotel was amazing; Toby and I were in a really cave-like room without windows. The terraces on the hotel had brilliant views down the hill. Once we were settled in the hotel we went to have lunch in a house that had been converted into a restaurant. Jen had ordered our food from the road so it had been cooking for hours in little terracotta pots. We sat around a low table on cushioned benches and ‘donkeys’ (small stools you straddle) and we ate bread, red cabbage, mini chillies and shepherd salad (the tomato and cucumber mixed with mint and other things). The waiters broke the tops off the terracotta pots, the way you do with a hard-boiled egg, and then tipped the contents onto a place with rice and cabbage. So good.
By the end of lunch I was ready to collapse from exhaustion (it had been a busy week) but people were ordering dessert and talking about visiting a carpet shop. I managed to escape from the group and went back to the hotel to sleep for two hours. I had a long hot shower and did some washing and was feeling much more human by the time everyone got back from their trip to the carpet shop.
For dinner we went to a nearby village to eat in a local family’s house, which was more a series of terraces, stairs and rooms carved into rock. Not the sort of family friendly house you would expect in Australia, considering they had a two-year-old. I am not sure how they stop him falling down stairs. They had a table set up for us outside with the most amazing view, but it was deemed too cold so we ended up inside in another cave room, sitting on cushions around a low table. The father of the family, Nazeem, took great pride in showing us the work he had done to his house and the things he has collected to decorate it. Dinner was (I assume cooked by his wife and then) served by Nazeem and his two older children. It started with salad and then burghal soup with lots of bread, and then rice and a chick pea and lamb stew. Dessert was a bowl of grape compote, although the grapes were nearly sultanas. It was light and syrupy and a good end to the meal. We also partook of Nazeem’s very boozy home brew red wine and felt very full and sleepy as we headed back to the hotel.
The next day started early; we heard the call to prayer a bit after 4 am and then got a wake up call we weren’t expecting at 4.30 am. We managed to doze a little longer and were ready for the bus at 5.15 am, although it was raining and our chances of getting up in a hot air balloon were looking slim. While we were waiting in reception Di heard a noise and we went outside to where one of the ladies from the group was sprawled at the bottom of one of the staircases. She was obviously in a lot of pain and seemed to pass out for a moment. Luckily Jen was awake (the night before we had joked that the day she didn’t get up early to meet the bus would be the day something went wrong) and she called an ambulance, as well as a local friend of hers to go to the hospital with them. They got her foot up on a cushion (they’re good for so many things) and covered her with a blanket and an umbrella. She’d slipped on the steps in the dark as the hotel didn’t have any lights on; I’d been surprised by that as well when we’d left our room. At this point we were cold and a bit worried and ready to go back to bed, but the bus turned up so off we went, minus one. We were taken to an office in town that looked a lot like those rescue centres you see on TV during fires or floods, full of people in outdoor gear looking apprehensive and tired. We were given tea and biscuits and told we were waiting for the wind and rain to die down; apparently it had been fine at 4.30 am when we got our wake up call. Jen had told us that by booking on our first morning we’d be able to go the next day if the weather was bad, but the woman running the company told us they were heavily booked and we shouldn’t get our hopes up. After an hour of waiting (which included being spontaneously serenaded by what I assume was a choir, which seemed very rude at such an early hour) we were herded onto a bus and assumed we were finally going back to bed, but no. The wind had calmed a bit, so we were flying. They took us to one spot that wasn’t quite right, so we ended up in another where they inflated the balloon while we all stood around taking photos. Everywhere you look in Cappadocia there is a great view, so you just keep taking more and more. Finally we climbed into the balloon (4 to a box, 4 boxes) and were shown the landing position in case it got rough (I got to lean back against Toby, which I liked) and then we were off. It was a very strange sensation as you really are just floating, and that’s exactly what it feels like. I was okay while we were close to the ground and the view really was incredible. I could see a balloon so high up they got lost in the clouds and I knew I’d hate that; Toby said he doubted we would go that high, so I tried to relax. I started feeling nervous as we got higher, but I concentrated on the horizon rather than looking straight down, which helped. But then we got higher still, and the clouds closed in beneath us and when I lost my focal point of the horizon, I panicked. It was snowing as well so on top of being tired and well out of my comfort zone, I was freezing. I concentrated on staying calm since there were so many people around who wouldn’t appreciate a screaming girl, but I have never been so glad to see the ground before. The pilot was great and in constant contact with other pilots as well as the trucks on the ground, so once we were further down I relaxed a bit for our final few minutes, although I couldn’t help thinking it was the most expensive panic attack ever. I was relieved when we finally landed (on the trailer of a truck, which I thought was impressive) and happy to guzzle the cherry juice and champagne we were given once we were down. We sang happy birthday to a girl who looked Chinese, spoke with an American accent and was translating for a group of Ukrainians, and had some cake and were given certificates with a picture of a balloon in perfect weather. I’m sure I would have enjoyed the experience more if we hadn’t ended up in snow clouds.
It was the best hot shower ever when we got back. The hotel manager told us the lady who had tripped had broken her leg, which seemed extraordinary given the distance she’d fallen. Jen was still at the hospital with her, but our local guide (a very cute Turkish man called Ali) showed up after breakfast to take us to the Underground City. By this time the weather had cleared up perfectly (of course), so back in the bus for a 40 minute trip to Derinkuyu. The Underground City is where they have excavated cities under Cappadocia dating back to the 6th century BC. They were mainly used to hide from invaders and provided a safe place for early Christians to practise their religion. There were 150 cities housing around 10 000 people, and we saw a tiny part of one. It had a kitchen, stable, storage areas, bedrooms, a church, a meeting hall and of course a winery (of sorts). There were tunnels running through the rooms for ventilation and communication, and rolling stone doors like what you see on old cartoons. In the walls were carved little niches used for lighting with linseed oil, and also for finding your way in the dark when enemies came. Sometimes the tunnels we walked through were large, but they got very low and tight at other times. We ended up about 45 feet underground. The worst part of it was that they don’t control how many people go down at a time, so it got very crowded with guides trying to negotiate their group’s turn up and down the stairs. Just an accident waiting to happen really, as all it would take would be one moron to create a panic, and it would be mayhem.
Luckily we got out alive and back in the bus and about this time I started feeling ill, as though something I ate wasn’t agreeing with me. I tried to ignore it and we drove to Panorama, a spot high on a hill with brilliant views (again). It was quite the tourist trap with lots of little stalls selling all sorts of rubbish, but I bought a coke to try and settle my tummy and Toby got some biscuits since he was starving. Our next stop was the Open Air Museum, an optional activity on the itinerary but everyone wanted to go so Ali agreed to take us along. I was glad we went, even though I was mostly concentrating on not losing the contents of my stomach. The museum is in a place where the early Christians built churches and other rooms right into the rock. Some are decorated with the most beautiful and detailed frescoes, although not all are well preserved since UNESCO and the Turkish government didn’t start caring until the 1980s. It was an incredible piece of Christian history in the heart of an Islamic country.
After the museum, we decided to walk back to town via Love Valley, which Ali said was about 2 kilometres and even though I was feeling pretty rotten at this point, I thought that would be about 30 minutes and I could probably manage. In hindsight I should have not been so keen to avoid a fuss and just asked Ali to get me a taxi then and there. It was kind of pleasant to be out walking in the countryside and to see the rocks we’d seen from the balloons at ground level. We went into Love Valley and I thought we must be nearly back to town, but then Ali said we had to follow the track back to the main road and keep walking. Grrrr. I started to walk back myself as the situation was getting dire. I walked very, very slowly and it was just getting ridiculous with Di having to hold my hand as I went through awful spasms and tried not to think about how humiliating this was about to get, so Ali ran back to the main road and called the driver of the bus for me. He wasn’t answering his phone and Ali asked if I wanted to go to the hospital; I said I’d be happy with a bathroom and he smiled knowingly. Joy of joys, the driver turned up very quickly and we were back at the hotel in no time, where I wanted to give Ali a big hug but I was in a rush so instead I left Toby to give him a good tip. I took some drugs Di had and went to bed for two hours, both of which worked a treat and I was ready to meet the group for dinner, although still a bit wobbly and fragile. It was weird being around 12 people who knew all about my digestive problems, but being experience travellers (not to mention grown ups) everyone was very understanding and really when I thought about the lady in hospital, it seemed very minor. Di and Jen bought me some mint tea and fresh mint on their visit to the lady in hospital, so I had that as well and then we went to a terrace bar for a drink where we toasted the broken leg’s owner and enjoyed sunset over the white hills. After a drink Toby and I went to a restaurant in the village with the other couples from the group (not on purpose, it just worked out that way). It was quite touristy but I loved it for the cushions, the artwork and the old guy playing a Turkish sitar (had a different name which I forget now) right beside us. I just had water and bites of everyone else’s food, but it was still a great evening especially when another guy with a drum joined the sitar player, and then the waiter sat down with some spoons and the three of them just went off. It was great; a good end to an otherwise emotional day.
Days 1-3: Istanbul
I must first apologise for the length of the following posts for our trip from Turkey...I kept a detailed journal for most of the trip, wanting to be able to remember everything. And now, everyone can remember everything. It also means I have no time to include photos but in any case, we have over 500 with which to bore everyone to tears when we are back in Oz.
We had an early start (4.15am taxi to the airport) and an uneventful flight to Amsterdam, and then another one to Istanbul. There were some lovely views over the Alps as we passed Salzberg, no singing nuns to be seen unfortunately. We had a long wait at customs; there were lots of people who had walked straight past the office with VISA written out the front, and a list of nationalities that needed one, and then had to back-track which added to our time. But our luggage arrived safely and we easily met our driver. Ever since I’ve been flying, I have wanted to come out into the arrivals hall and see my name on a little sign, and this time it happened, except it wasn’t my name exactly. We were being driven to our hotel with another lady on our tour, who was from Glasgow. The driver took our bags and hurried us out of the airport to a van, well two vans parked next to each other. One was plain white and the other was orange with NAKED TOUR painted on the side. Luckily we got into the plain white van and were hurtled into the city. The first things I noticed were all the trees and public spaces, especially children’s playgrounds, and lots of Turkish flags flying from windows and balconies on apartment buildings that looked rather poor and run-down. There were groups of men working in parks and flower beds; the whole city I found has a sense of urgency about it, everyone is doing something. The streets around our hotel, which was located just behind the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet, were crazy, very narrow cobbled stones streets with steep hills, and lots of tourists and honking of horns. There were shops selling hats and rugs and jewellery, with men standing outside smoking and yelling at each other. Around our hotel, there were a lot of crumbling stone walls and wooden buildings that had seen better days; the one on the corner up the hill was missing a top floor. It looked like a fire had destroyed it. Across the street was a building that looked derelict and abandoned, but later we noticed washing hanging from the line so I suppose someone must have lived there. It was a strange place; the whole street felt like one big flammable accident waiting to happen.
The hotel was lovely except they had lost Di’s booking; she ended up being put in what we assumed was the spare room, in the basement by the breakfast area. Better than nothing I suppose. After we settled in we went out in hunt of an ATM and some food, once we realised the driver had hurried us so much in the airport we hadn’t had a chance to stock up on lira. It was a long walk to find an ATM and when we finally did we were so hungry we went to the first café we found, which had a bain marie in the front window full of decent looking food. The man ushered us in and told us to tell the other man what we wanted piled on our plate; we had a bad feeling this would come back to haunt us and it did. The food was very edible although nothing special, but when the bill came we were horrified to discover we had just spent 60 lira on 3 plates of food and some water. Ouch. We walked around a bit more; the area around the Blue Mosque was incredibly crowded and I couldn’t understand where so many people had come from. There were a lot of Aussies who I assume had come up from Gallipoli as it was the day after Anzac Day; I am sad to say they weren’t exactly doing us proud, although there was nothing particularly wrong with their behaviour. After our wonder we went back to the hotel for a rest and then went for another walk down along the waterfront, although it started to rain and I had a general sense of uneasiness, probably to do with the crumbling shells of buildings and piles of rubbish being picked over by feral cats. On our way back to the streets near the hotel we stumbled onto a small bazaar where there were still some shops open, so we had a look at rugs and jewellery and pretty things before sitting down for dinner at a café where the waiter had earlier tried to point us in the direction of the ATMs (not his fault we got lost). Toby had a mixed kebab (Turkish version of a mixed grill) and Di and I both had a delicious lentil and mint soup since we were still full from our late lunch. We got some bread (you always get bread in Turkey) and also some free hummus, which ended up being the only hummus we ate the whole time, but it was chunky and garlicky and very tasty. The whole meal cost us half as much as our lunch had, and I ended the day feeling clean and well-fed and less overwhelmed than before.
I had a restless sleep that night; there was a lot of street noise and the hotel only provided one small, thin blanket between the two of us. And of course there was our introduction to the early morning prayer call from the Blue Mosque about 50 metres away, which you never quite got used to. We had breakfast at the hotel, which had a small selection of Western items (cereal, boiled eggs, bread to toast) as well as Turkish (sliced tomato, cucumber, olives and cheese) and then went for a walk through the Blue Mosque courtyard and then up the main road to the Grand Bazaar (which was closed, being Sunday) and then down the hill again to the water. On our way down to the water we passed a baklava and Turkish delight shop and stopped to look from the outside. As usual, a man from inside came out to tempt us with all his salesman flair; he tried to convince Toby that the two of us were having an affair and Toby had now caught us out. He asked us our names and Di said, ‘Well what’s your name?’ to which he replied, ‘I am Mr Delicious.’ We did buy some of his baklava (just two pieces, not a kilo which is how they are priced) and it was delicious, very flaky and fresh, and every time we passed his shop we would say there’s Mr Delicious. He was one of the less intimidating shop owners we came across; I never quite got used to being yelled at by strangers in the street who wanted me to look at their rugs/jewellery/baklava/spices/scarves. They always ask where you are from, and when Di said ‘Australia’ to one, he then asked if we were from Wagga Wagga. We burst out laughing; he tried to tell us why Wagga is famous in Turkey but none of us were paying any attention as we were just trying to run away. For lunch we went to a restaurant behind the hotel which was mentioned in the Lonely Planet; I ordered a bean soup which ended up being just a runny version of baked beans, which I guess is where the idea for baked beans came from. The bread in that place was like the Turkish bread we are used to in Australia, but without the doughy middle; just the crisp seed-covered outside. Yummy.
At 1pm that afternoon we met our tour group for the first time, in the breakfast room at our hotel. Our leader’s name was Jen, a young woman from Australia, Condobolin to be exact. There were 12 of us, 3 couples and 6 single women. All the couples were Australian and 3 of the single women were too; the other 3 were English, Scottish and American. I was almost certainly the youngest of the group. We had to fill in lots of forms with our insurance and next of kin details and medical information and then Jen sat down and talked to us for a while about her experience working in Turkey and things to know about the country, practical things like drinking water, squat toilets, avoiding shopkeepers, and the price of beer. After the meeting Jen walked us to Aya Sofya, the big mosque across the road from the Blue Mosque although it no longer operates as such and has been a museum since the 1930s. From the outside Aya Sofya is not as beautiful as the Blue Mosque; it is somewhat lopsided and the colours aren’t as nice. But inside it was an immense and impressive space, despite the (permanent) scaffolding holding up the ceiling and the huge crowds. It took my breath away. The number of people and the fact it hasn’t been a place of worship for so long meant it didn’t really have the peaceful feeling I normally feel in those places, but still it was a fantastic place to wander, especially upstairs where they had found frescoes beneath the wall paint (the Muslims had just painted over the earlier Christian paintings). They were really incredible.
We met up with the group outside the main gate, and bought some of the doughy pretzel-type things called simits (although we didn’t know that at the time). Jen took us on a walk through some narrow back streets to show us some other parts of Istanbul tourists normally miss, to visit Kocuk Aya Sofya (I think that means ‘small’ as it was based on the original) which she said was her favourite mosque in Istanbul. Once inside I could definitely see why; it was an incredibly clean, serene space. Toby put it well when he said it felt holy. It was all done in blue and white, and full of natural light. Having a scarf over my hair and no shoes on added to that hushed, awed feeling I felt there. It was lovely and I felt rejuvenated from the crowds and grot we’d been around in other parts of Istanbul. After the mosque we went to a local café which was just how would picture a Turkish café, as it was all dark and full of wooden tables with nargile and backgammon on them, and carpets hanging on the walls. It was rather cavernous but opened out in the back to a wonderful 180-degree view of the Sea of Marmara. The whole back of the café was open, which made the sweet-smelling nargile smoke easier to bear. We sat in a little private area and had hot drinks, and then Jen put us all on a tram to visit another mosque, Rustem Pasa. This one was entered via a stone staircase in a courtyard, which would have made it easy to miss if we weren’t with someone who knew the way. The Rustem is famous for its mosaic tiles, which were beautifully intricate, but it still didn’t have the same serenity as Kocuk Aya Sofya. Like in Japan with their temples, I can see that you would easily overdoes on mosques so it was good we only had one more to do.
After the Rustem Jen took us for dinner at a local kebab place where we ate cheap kebabs and bread (again) and then we walked back to our hotel via Mr Delicious, who waved at us through his shop window. Not sure if he actually remembered us, but it’s his job to be friendly.
Our final day in Istanbul started with a visit to the Blue Mosque, where my experience was ruined by the number of women without scarves and the number of people wearing shorts. It seemed so thoughtless and disrespectful. It was not hard to follow the mosque’s requests for appropriate clothing; they even had head scarves for women to borrow. I was particularly annoyed by three young guys wearing boardies (I assume they were Australian, shame on them) and an entire tour group of Japanese ladies without head scarves, which bothered me because of the rules they have in Japan for entering temples. It made me understand why so many mosques don’t open to tourists. The building itself was beautiful though. There was a women’s section at the back; during her morning talk about Islam Jen had told us that was because men couldn’t be trusted to not get distracted by women bending over during prayers, but why they felt the need for an actual wooden partition so women can’t see, I’m not sure.
After the Blue Mosque we went to the Grand Bazaar, via a cemetery full of relatively important people where Jen talked a bit about Muslim funeral customs. Some of us agreed that the lack of autopsies was probably a positive thing; you accept that the death was God’s will, and move on. No dwelling on the why or the how, which often seems such a devastating aspect to grief. The Grand Bazaar was mercifully uncrowded. We only did one corridor; Jen set us loose at one end and said she would see us at the other end in 10 minutes. There are apparently over 4000 shops spread across the maze so we planned to go back another time. There were lots of men standing outside their shops, yelling at customers and each other. I saw one well-dressed guy filing his nails as he leaned against his shop window. The men in Istanbul were quite fashionable and there is a lot of guy love (kissing of cheeks, linking of arms), although at first I kept thinking I was seeing a lot of open gay couples. Interesting.
From the Bazaar we walked down to Topkapi Palace, where it took ages to get in through security. Our first stop was the harem (which means ‘private’ or ‘forbidden’ and only refers to the area where the family lived away from prying eyes; it has less to do with multitudes of naked women peeling grapes), which blew me away. I think partly I was amazed because it was gorgeous, and partly because you got a sense of what it would be like to live there. After the harem we needed some lunch; there was only one place to eat at the Palace and although the view over the water was lovely the food was exceedingly ordinary and outrageously overpriced. There was also a 15 minute wait for the ladies’ toilet. We saw a couple more rooms of the Palace (which was really a group of buildings scattered through several courtyards and gardens), including a ‘treasures’ section full of stuff supposedly belonging to prophets (like Abraham’s turban, David’s sword, Moses’ stick, Mohammed’s tooth) but it was so unbearably crowded I had to skip most of it. I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of stuff and number of people. There are only so many intricate mosaics and beautiful rooms you can look at before it all starts feeling repetitive. The three of us agreed we’d had enough of the Palace, so Di went to spend the afternoon with a couple of other ladies from the tour group while Toby and I visited the Basilica Cistern.
The Cistern was amazing, and I imagine it’s one of the most unique things I will ever see. It is essentially an ancient water storage facility, and I’m sure the 6th century bureaucrats and engineers and workmen who put it together would be flummoxed by the idea of tourists paying to go and see it, but it really is brilliant. Horror movie material. They have coloured lights playing in the water and music on, so they have worked hard to make it as interesting as possible. After the Cistern we headed back to the hotel via a mini market that was the miniest market ever: no bread, no fruit, nothing. Not sure what the point of the market was, although they did sell flour to make bread. We bought water and half a dozen muesli bars to stock up for the train trip, and then went to Starbucks so Toby could have internet time and I could have journal time in a smoke-free environment. (Yes, we go to Starbucks when we are in foreign countries; but sometimes all you want is a cup of tea, minus the cigarette smoke. So shoot us.) We went to the spice bazaar once we were feeling refreshed, although the rain and number of people just got on my nerves so it wasn’t the best experience. I did love the neat pyramids of powdered spices, and the hanging herbs and blocks of Turkish delight with pistachios embedded in them. We didn’t try anything as we didn’t want the pressure to buy, but it was an interesting thing to see.
We had an early dinner at the same kebab place Jen had taken us to the night before, since we were in the area and knew it was cheap and edible. Back at the hotel, the group re-joined and we were loaded into a mini van and driven across the bridge to the ferry terminal. It took about 20 minutes for the ferry to get to the train station, which I spent not thinking about all the ferry disasters in Turkey you hear on the news. It was a nice way to see the lights of Istanbul though. We had a long wait at the train station, but I guess when you are transporting 12 people you need to make allowances in case something comes up. We had a good local beer in the restaurant at the station while we were waiting, and learnt how to say ‘cheers’. All our luggage was piled along a wall and at one point a homeless lady came over and started pulling out the bags that were in a particular corner so she could set up her bed for the night. She had a careful routine for getting ready, including putting her scarf on. Although Istanbul clearly had plenty of poor people, it was the first sign I’d seen of actual homelessness; everyone else on the street was always busy and working, trying to sell something even if it was only to stand on their scales and pay for the privilege.
The train was quite nice and new; our cabin had 2 bunk beds and a wash basin, plus a fridge with free chocolate. Mmmm. We spent the first hour of the trip in the dining car, drinking beer and playing magnetic Scrabble with a couple of our fellow Aussies (I won), before retiring to our cabin. I didn’t sleep well and wished I brought ear also didn’t sleep well but he put it down to the cigarette smoke coming through the vents in the ceiling onto his face. Yuck. We ended up sharing a single bunk, and amazingly we both slept better after that.
---------------------------------------------------
We had an early start (4.15am taxi to the airport) and an uneventful flight to Amsterdam, and then another one to Istanbul. There were some lovely views over the Alps as we passed Salzberg, no singing nuns to be seen unfortunately. We had a long wait at customs; there were lots of people who had walked straight past the office with VISA written out the front, and a list of nationalities that needed one, and then had to back-track which added to our time. But our luggage arrived safely and we easily met our driver. Ever since I’ve been flying, I have wanted to come out into the arrivals hall and see my name on a little sign, and this time it happened, except it wasn’t my name exactly. We were being driven to our hotel with another lady on our tour, who was from Glasgow. The driver took our bags and hurried us out of the airport to a van, well two vans parked next to each other. One was plain white and the other was orange with NAKED TOUR painted on the side. Luckily we got into the plain white van and were hurtled into the city. The first things I noticed were all the trees and public spaces, especially children’s playgrounds, and lots of Turkish flags flying from windows and balconies on apartment buildings that looked rather poor and run-down. There were groups of men working in parks and flower beds; the whole city I found has a sense of urgency about it, everyone is doing something. The streets around our hotel, which was located just behind the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet, were crazy, very narrow cobbled stones streets with steep hills, and lots of tourists and honking of horns. There were shops selling hats and rugs and jewellery, with men standing outside smoking and yelling at each other. Around our hotel, there were a lot of crumbling stone walls and wooden buildings that had seen better days; the one on the corner up the hill was missing a top floor. It looked like a fire had destroyed it. Across the street was a building that looked derelict and abandoned, but later we noticed washing hanging from the line so I suppose someone must have lived there. It was a strange place; the whole street felt like one big flammable accident waiting to happen.
The hotel was lovely except they had lost Di’s booking; she ended up being put in what we assumed was the spare room, in the basement by the breakfast area. Better than nothing I suppose. After we settled in we went out in hunt of an ATM and some food, once we realised the driver had hurried us so much in the airport we hadn’t had a chance to stock up on lira. It was a long walk to find an ATM and when we finally did we were so hungry we went to the first café we found, which had a bain marie in the front window full of decent looking food. The man ushered us in and told us to tell the other man what we wanted piled on our plate; we had a bad feeling this would come back to haunt us and it did. The food was very edible although nothing special, but when the bill came we were horrified to discover we had just spent 60 lira on 3 plates of food and some water. Ouch. We walked around a bit more; the area around the Blue Mosque was incredibly crowded and I couldn’t understand where so many people had come from. There were a lot of Aussies who I assume had come up from Gallipoli as it was the day after Anzac Day; I am sad to say they weren’t exactly doing us proud, although there was nothing particularly wrong with their behaviour. After our wonder we went back to the hotel for a rest and then went for another walk down along the waterfront, although it started to rain and I had a general sense of uneasiness, probably to do with the crumbling shells of buildings and piles of rubbish being picked over by feral cats. On our way back to the streets near the hotel we stumbled onto a small bazaar where there were still some shops open, so we had a look at rugs and jewellery and pretty things before sitting down for dinner at a café where the waiter had earlier tried to point us in the direction of the ATMs (not his fault we got lost). Toby had a mixed kebab (Turkish version of a mixed grill) and Di and I both had a delicious lentil and mint soup since we were still full from our late lunch. We got some bread (you always get bread in Turkey) and also some free hummus, which ended up being the only hummus we ate the whole time, but it was chunky and garlicky and very tasty. The whole meal cost us half as much as our lunch had, and I ended the day feeling clean and well-fed and less overwhelmed than before.
I had a restless sleep that night; there was a lot of street noise and the hotel only provided one small, thin blanket between the two of us. And of course there was our introduction to the early morning prayer call from the Blue Mosque about 50 metres away, which you never quite got used to. We had breakfast at the hotel, which had a small selection of Western items (cereal, boiled eggs, bread to toast) as well as Turkish (sliced tomato, cucumber, olives and cheese) and then went for a walk through the Blue Mosque courtyard and then up the main road to the Grand Bazaar (which was closed, being Sunday) and then down the hill again to the water. On our way down to the water we passed a baklava and Turkish delight shop and stopped to look from the outside. As usual, a man from inside came out to tempt us with all his salesman flair; he tried to convince Toby that the two of us were having an affair and Toby had now caught us out. He asked us our names and Di said, ‘Well what’s your name?’ to which he replied, ‘I am Mr Delicious.’ We did buy some of his baklava (just two pieces, not a kilo which is how they are priced) and it was delicious, very flaky and fresh, and every time we passed his shop we would say there’s Mr Delicious. He was one of the less intimidating shop owners we came across; I never quite got used to being yelled at by strangers in the street who wanted me to look at their rugs/jewellery/baklava/spices/scarves. They always ask where you are from, and when Di said ‘Australia’ to one, he then asked if we were from Wagga Wagga. We burst out laughing; he tried to tell us why Wagga is famous in Turkey but none of us were paying any attention as we were just trying to run away. For lunch we went to a restaurant behind the hotel which was mentioned in the Lonely Planet; I ordered a bean soup which ended up being just a runny version of baked beans, which I guess is where the idea for baked beans came from. The bread in that place was like the Turkish bread we are used to in Australia, but without the doughy middle; just the crisp seed-covered outside. Yummy.
At 1pm that afternoon we met our tour group for the first time, in the breakfast room at our hotel. Our leader’s name was Jen, a young woman from Australia, Condobolin to be exact. There were 12 of us, 3 couples and 6 single women. All the couples were Australian and 3 of the single women were too; the other 3 were English, Scottish and American. I was almost certainly the youngest of the group. We had to fill in lots of forms with our insurance and next of kin details and medical information and then Jen sat down and talked to us for a while about her experience working in Turkey and things to know about the country, practical things like drinking water, squat toilets, avoiding shopkeepers, and the price of beer. After the meeting Jen walked us to Aya Sofya, the big mosque across the road from the Blue Mosque although it no longer operates as such and has been a museum since the 1930s. From the outside Aya Sofya is not as beautiful as the Blue Mosque; it is somewhat lopsided and the colours aren’t as nice. But inside it was an immense and impressive space, despite the (permanent) scaffolding holding up the ceiling and the huge crowds. It took my breath away. The number of people and the fact it hasn’t been a place of worship for so long meant it didn’t really have the peaceful feeling I normally feel in those places, but still it was a fantastic place to wander, especially upstairs where they had found frescoes beneath the wall paint (the Muslims had just painted over the earlier Christian paintings). They were really incredible.
We met up with the group outside the main gate, and bought some of the doughy pretzel-type things called simits (although we didn’t know that at the time). Jen took us on a walk through some narrow back streets to show us some other parts of Istanbul tourists normally miss, to visit Kocuk Aya Sofya (I think that means ‘small’ as it was based on the original) which she said was her favourite mosque in Istanbul. Once inside I could definitely see why; it was an incredibly clean, serene space. Toby put it well when he said it felt holy. It was all done in blue and white, and full of natural light. Having a scarf over my hair and no shoes on added to that hushed, awed feeling I felt there. It was lovely and I felt rejuvenated from the crowds and grot we’d been around in other parts of Istanbul. After the mosque we went to a local café which was just how would picture a Turkish café, as it was all dark and full of wooden tables with nargile and backgammon on them, and carpets hanging on the walls. It was rather cavernous but opened out in the back to a wonderful 180-degree view of the Sea of Marmara. The whole back of the café was open, which made the sweet-smelling nargile smoke easier to bear. We sat in a little private area and had hot drinks, and then Jen put us all on a tram to visit another mosque, Rustem Pasa. This one was entered via a stone staircase in a courtyard, which would have made it easy to miss if we weren’t with someone who knew the way. The Rustem is famous for its mosaic tiles, which were beautifully intricate, but it still didn’t have the same serenity as Kocuk Aya Sofya. Like in Japan with their temples, I can see that you would easily overdoes on mosques so it was good we only had one more to do.
After the Rustem Jen took us for dinner at a local kebab place where we ate cheap kebabs and bread (again) and then we walked back to our hotel via Mr Delicious, who waved at us through his shop window. Not sure if he actually remembered us, but it’s his job to be friendly.
Our final day in Istanbul started with a visit to the Blue Mosque, where my experience was ruined by the number of women without scarves and the number of people wearing shorts. It seemed so thoughtless and disrespectful. It was not hard to follow the mosque’s requests for appropriate clothing; they even had head scarves for women to borrow. I was particularly annoyed by three young guys wearing boardies (I assume they were Australian, shame on them) and an entire tour group of Japanese ladies without head scarves, which bothered me because of the rules they have in Japan for entering temples. It made me understand why so many mosques don’t open to tourists. The building itself was beautiful though. There was a women’s section at the back; during her morning talk about Islam Jen had told us that was because men couldn’t be trusted to not get distracted by women bending over during prayers, but why they felt the need for an actual wooden partition so women can’t see, I’m not sure.
After the Blue Mosque we went to the Grand Bazaar, via a cemetery full of relatively important people where Jen talked a bit about Muslim funeral customs. Some of us agreed that the lack of autopsies was probably a positive thing; you accept that the death was God’s will, and move on. No dwelling on the why or the how, which often seems such a devastating aspect to grief. The Grand Bazaar was mercifully uncrowded. We only did one corridor; Jen set us loose at one end and said she would see us at the other end in 10 minutes. There are apparently over 4000 shops spread across the maze so we planned to go back another time. There were lots of men standing outside their shops, yelling at customers and each other. I saw one well-dressed guy filing his nails as he leaned against his shop window. The men in Istanbul were quite fashionable and there is a lot of guy love (kissing of cheeks, linking of arms), although at first I kept thinking I was seeing a lot of open gay couples. Interesting.
From the Bazaar we walked down to Topkapi Palace, where it took ages to get in through security. Our first stop was the harem (which means ‘private’ or ‘forbidden’ and only refers to the area where the family lived away from prying eyes; it has less to do with multitudes of naked women peeling grapes), which blew me away. I think partly I was amazed because it was gorgeous, and partly because you got a sense of what it would be like to live there. After the harem we needed some lunch; there was only one place to eat at the Palace and although the view over the water was lovely the food was exceedingly ordinary and outrageously overpriced. There was also a 15 minute wait for the ladies’ toilet. We saw a couple more rooms of the Palace (which was really a group of buildings scattered through several courtyards and gardens), including a ‘treasures’ section full of stuff supposedly belonging to prophets (like Abraham’s turban, David’s sword, Moses’ stick, Mohammed’s tooth) but it was so unbearably crowded I had to skip most of it. I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of stuff and number of people. There are only so many intricate mosaics and beautiful rooms you can look at before it all starts feeling repetitive. The three of us agreed we’d had enough of the Palace, so Di went to spend the afternoon with a couple of other ladies from the tour group while Toby and I visited the Basilica Cistern.
The Cistern was amazing, and I imagine it’s one of the most unique things I will ever see. It is essentially an ancient water storage facility, and I’m sure the 6th century bureaucrats and engineers and workmen who put it together would be flummoxed by the idea of tourists paying to go and see it, but it really is brilliant. Horror movie material. They have coloured lights playing in the water and music on, so they have worked hard to make it as interesting as possible. After the Cistern we headed back to the hotel via a mini market that was the miniest market ever: no bread, no fruit, nothing. Not sure what the point of the market was, although they did sell flour to make bread. We bought water and half a dozen muesli bars to stock up for the train trip, and then went to Starbucks so Toby could have internet time and I could have journal time in a smoke-free environment. (Yes, we go to Starbucks when we are in foreign countries; but sometimes all you want is a cup of tea, minus the cigarette smoke. So shoot us.) We went to the spice bazaar once we were feeling refreshed, although the rain and number of people just got on my nerves so it wasn’t the best experience. I did love the neat pyramids of powdered spices, and the hanging herbs and blocks of Turkish delight with pistachios embedded in them. We didn’t try anything as we didn’t want the pressure to buy, but it was an interesting thing to see.
We had an early dinner at the same kebab place Jen had taken us to the night before, since we were in the area and knew it was cheap and edible. Back at the hotel, the group re-joined and we were loaded into a mini van and driven across the bridge to the ferry terminal. It took about 20 minutes for the ferry to get to the train station, which I spent not thinking about all the ferry disasters in Turkey you hear on the news. It was a nice way to see the lights of Istanbul though. We had a long wait at the train station, but I guess when you are transporting 12 people you need to make allowances in case something comes up. We had a good local beer in the restaurant at the station while we were waiting, and learnt how to say ‘cheers’. All our luggage was piled along a wall and at one point a homeless lady came over and started pulling out the bags that were in a particular corner so she could set up her bed for the night. She had a careful routine for getting ready, including putting her scarf on. Although Istanbul clearly had plenty of poor people, it was the first sign I’d seen of actual homelessness; everyone else on the street was always busy and working, trying to sell something even if it was only to stand on their scales and pay for the privilege.
The train was quite nice and new; our cabin had 2 bunk beds and a wash basin, plus a fridge with free chocolate. Mmmm. We spent the first hour of the trip in the dining car, drinking beer and playing magnetic Scrabble with a couple of our fellow Aussies (I won), before retiring to our cabin. I didn’t sleep well and wished I brought ear also didn’t sleep well but he put it down to the cigarette smoke coming through the vents in the ceiling onto his face. Yuck. We ended up sharing a single bunk, and amazingly we both slept better after that.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Spring has sprung (sort of)
We are now facing our final few days of living in Edinburgh. It seems incredible that we are nearly at the end; time has gone so fast and of course we are filled with thoughts of what we need to do before we leave. Toby has finished up at Scottish Gas; he is enjoying two weeks of currency trading, going to the gym, planning our next adventure, and being a house husband. I have two more days of work to go at the NHS. The job has not gotten any more interesting or challenging, but I do feel that I have made a couple of good friends and had the opportunity to see how the public sector works here. Well, part of the public sector.
The last few weeks have been quite busy. We had a lovely, quiet Easter weekend with lots of hot cross buns and time at home. On Easter Sunday we went to the zoo with a couple of Toby’s workmates. It was cold and windy but otherwise a great day. The zoo is set up high on a hill not far from our place. They have a great penguin enclosure (which is what they’re famous for) and also a daily ‘penguin parade’ which turned out to be nothing more than a few penguins walking on the footpath while people took photos. I kept expecting them to burst into song and dance, like on ‘Happy Feet’, but it didn’t happen. The brochure said it was ‘voluntary’. I am not sure how they go about getting agreement from penguins but perhaps they have developed some kind of flipper signal language. Compared to the penguins, we were disappointed with the space given to their big cats which seemed sadly lacking, with the panther being given the same amount of room as a badger. They also have the only koalas in the UK so Toby and I got to sniff some eucalyptus leaves which made us a little homesick.
The last few weeks have been quite busy. We had a lovely, quiet Easter weekend with lots of hot cross buns and time at home. On Easter Sunday we went to the zoo with a couple of Toby’s workmates. It was cold and windy but otherwise a great day. The zoo is set up high on a hill not far from our place. They have a great penguin enclosure (which is what they’re famous for) and also a daily ‘penguin parade’ which turned out to be nothing more than a few penguins walking on the footpath while people took photos. I kept expecting them to burst into song and dance, like on ‘Happy Feet’, but it didn’t happen. The brochure said it was ‘voluntary’. I am not sure how they go about getting agreement from penguins but perhaps they have developed some kind of flipper signal language. Compared to the penguins, we were disappointed with the space given to their big cats which seemed sadly lacking, with the panther being given the same amount of room as a badger. They also have the only koalas in the UK so Toby and I got to sniff some eucalyptus leaves which made us a little homesick.
The non Happy Feet penguin parade.
This lioness was roaring her heart out at us. Poor thing.On Easter Monday we got the bus out to the airport to meet mum and dad, who arrived from London in the afternoon. It was great to see them and we took them home for a roast lamb dinner which promptly put them to sleep.
Toby went back to work the next day but I had two days off so I took mum and dad up to the Royal Mile and we did a walking tour by the same company we’d gone with in Berlin. It was the first tour I’d done in Edinburgh so it was good to hear some new stories and learn about the significance of all these buildings I’d seen so many times. We stopped in the Grassmarket for lunch and decided to go with the tour’s lunch ‘deal’ at a pub which was too small (the food that is, not the pub). Dad had to buy a bowl of chips to fill up, and then because we ran out of time had to load them all into a napkin to re-join the tour. When the tour finished I took them to Waterstone’s on Princes St, a lovely old bookstore with a Starbucks, so we replenished ourselves with coffee and cake and then browsed a little. Dad hadn’t had enough walking at this point, so he headed off to climb Arthur’s Seat while Mum and I went home to watch Neighbours with a cup of tea.
On Wednesday Mum and Dad went off to see the castle and I had some time at home and then met them in the carpark for lunch. Dad had made sandwiches so we sat under a statue and ate them in the cold, then went and found somewhere warm for a cup of tea and yes, more cake. Afterwards we visited the Writer’s Museum, which I’d been saving to visit with Dad, and then Gladstone’s Land, one of the oldest buildings on the Royal Mile which has been furnished to resemble different periods in Edinburgh’s history. My favourite room was the kitchen, which seemed very cosy and practical except for the servant’s bed in the corner. The museum was staffed by old ladies who loved telling stories and were always trying to explain things to you. On the way home we visited some second hand book shops as Dad was keen to find a copy of Scott’s ‘Waverley’. We visited four different shops and had no luck, so Dad finally bought another of Scott’s novels only to then discover ‘Waverley’ on the shelves. Never mind. That night I went to a salsa lesson with my friend Carole and then we came home to eat a dinner cooked by mum; I think my parents were pleased to meet the person who has helped make my stay in Edinburgh so much more enjoyable (not to mention social).
I went back to work on Thursday and Friday, so mum and dad took the opportunity to do some more sightseeing and also take a coach tour up to the Highlands which they raved about. On Saturday morning we took them to the farmer’s market which has become our weekly tradition since it’s the best fresh fish we have found (and the pies are good too). We all ate hog rolls for lunch (they actually had the head of the hog in the stall but I don’t think that’s what we were eating) and bought some things for dinner. Afterwards we split up and I took mum to visit Armstrong’s, the brilliant second-hand shop, so she could point to dresses and things and say ‘I used to have one like that.’ We also tried to find some tartan pants but had no luck; Mum did buy a lovely cashmere turtle neck that was on sale though. We met Dad at the museum a little later to have coffee and cake in the atrium restaurant and then spent a couple of hours wandering through. It was my third visit to the museum and I still don’t think I have seen all of it. On Saturday night they took us out to dinner and we went to Howie's, a (small) chain of Scottish restaurants where we had a delicious meal of what they call 'modern Scottish' food. It was one of the best meals we've had in Edinburgh so it was a good choice.
Toby went back to work the next day but I had two days off so I took mum and dad up to the Royal Mile and we did a walking tour by the same company we’d gone with in Berlin. It was the first tour I’d done in Edinburgh so it was good to hear some new stories and learn about the significance of all these buildings I’d seen so many times. We stopped in the Grassmarket for lunch and decided to go with the tour’s lunch ‘deal’ at a pub which was too small (the food that is, not the pub). Dad had to buy a bowl of chips to fill up, and then because we ran out of time had to load them all into a napkin to re-join the tour. When the tour finished I took them to Waterstone’s on Princes St, a lovely old bookstore with a Starbucks, so we replenished ourselves with coffee and cake and then browsed a little. Dad hadn’t had enough walking at this point, so he headed off to climb Arthur’s Seat while Mum and I went home to watch Neighbours with a cup of tea.
On Wednesday Mum and Dad went off to see the castle and I had some time at home and then met them in the carpark for lunch. Dad had made sandwiches so we sat under a statue and ate them in the cold, then went and found somewhere warm for a cup of tea and yes, more cake. Afterwards we visited the Writer’s Museum, which I’d been saving to visit with Dad, and then Gladstone’s Land, one of the oldest buildings on the Royal Mile which has been furnished to resemble different periods in Edinburgh’s history. My favourite room was the kitchen, which seemed very cosy and practical except for the servant’s bed in the corner. The museum was staffed by old ladies who loved telling stories and were always trying to explain things to you. On the way home we visited some second hand book shops as Dad was keen to find a copy of Scott’s ‘Waverley’. We visited four different shops and had no luck, so Dad finally bought another of Scott’s novels only to then discover ‘Waverley’ on the shelves. Never mind. That night I went to a salsa lesson with my friend Carole and then we came home to eat a dinner cooked by mum; I think my parents were pleased to meet the person who has helped make my stay in Edinburgh so much more enjoyable (not to mention social).
I went back to work on Thursday and Friday, so mum and dad took the opportunity to do some more sightseeing and also take a coach tour up to the Highlands which they raved about. On Saturday morning we took them to the farmer’s market which has become our weekly tradition since it’s the best fresh fish we have found (and the pies are good too). We all ate hog rolls for lunch (they actually had the head of the hog in the stall but I don’t think that’s what we were eating) and bought some things for dinner. Afterwards we split up and I took mum to visit Armstrong’s, the brilliant second-hand shop, so she could point to dresses and things and say ‘I used to have one like that.’ We also tried to find some tartan pants but had no luck; Mum did buy a lovely cashmere turtle neck that was on sale though. We met Dad at the museum a little later to have coffee and cake in the atrium restaurant and then spent a couple of hours wandering through. It was my third visit to the museum and I still don’t think I have seen all of it. On Saturday night they took us out to dinner and we went to Howie's, a (small) chain of Scottish restaurants where we had a delicious meal of what they call 'modern Scottish' food. It was one of the best meals we've had in Edinburgh so it was a good choice.
Me, Toby & Mum under the castle.Sunday was their last day with us, so we went to Camera Obscura which is a kind of lens that gives you a view of Edinburgh from very high. It was a cloudy, rainy day but we were reassured that there is no perfect day to visit. In the same building was a collection of visual sciency type things, a lot like what you can find in Questacon. We finished our outing with burgers and then headed home, the rainy weather having convinced us a visit to Queensferry was not ideal. Later on, Toby and I took dad to the gym and then Toby cooked up some fresh salmon we’d bought at the markets.
Looking down the Royal Mile from the top of Camera Obscura. Mum and Dad left on the Monday morning to pick up a car and start making their way down to Wales to get the ferry to Ireland. It was sad to see them go; the week had gone very quickly although there was never going to be enough time. We had another couple of quiet weeks at home, with farewell parties and some last minute sight seeing. My friend Carole and I spent a Friday night on the literary pub tour, where we were taken around to some local historical pubs by two actors who were keen for us to understand the dichotomous nature of Edinburgh and its literature. It was a good night and we met a lovely couple from LA and ended up having some drinks with them once the tour ended. They lived around the corner from Kevin Federline and had become mates with the paparazzi who are always on the lookout for Britney Spears, so they had some funny stories and asked us lots about Edinburgh as they had only been living here a week.
Now we are playing hosts to Toby’s mum Di who is here for a week before we head off to Turkey on Saturday. Although the weather has been rather unpredictable (sometimes it feels nice and summery, others it is just as windy and cold as we have come to expect), the flowers are out and there are daffodils everywhere, which is lovely. The Princes St Gardens are looking particularly gorgeous, and with the evenings getting longer it is feeling much more bearable to be outside. Over the past weekend we even managed to climb Arthur’s Seat, a difficult but short walk. At the top you could barely hear what the other was saying, it was so windy but the views were fantastic and we felt very local and adventurous. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with hog rolls and ostrich burgers from the farmers’ market for the last time.
The castle, from the top of Arthur's Seat.We are going to be on the road a lot for the next couple of months so I am not sure how many more updates I will manage. But for those who are interested, the basic timeline is thus:
2 weeks: Turkey
2 days: Edinburgh
10 days: Camping around Scotland & England
1 month: Camping around Western Europe
2 weeks: Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand
And then home.
I feel exhausted just looking at it. But excited too. We have a tent, and air mattresses, and a cooking set, so once we are dosed up on anti-malaria drugs we’ll be ready to go.
Tent practise run.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Fun in Prague
For those of you short on time/attention, here is the concise version, by Toby:
Got in earlish Friday and could not sit next to each other on the plane. Got to the hotel and a nice room with a big pole in the middle and no view due to the kitchen. Then found the super market and ate opposite the church. Went back to the hotel and snoozed. Went out that night and walked along the river, found the market square and ate in the restaurant having nice beer, food and I had boar. Saturday lots of walking we went to the amazing church, saw the strange statues, ate our yucky sandwich at the river, went to the Communist museum. Went to the pizza place opposite our hotel got smoked out in the clubs. Sunday back to the markets bought some presents, ate that big fried dough thing, saw the pigs on a spit, chess boards and had a nice walk around. Felt a bit done and went home :)
And for others who like long-winded descriptions and aimless musings, here is the extended version, by Dot:
I have wanted to go to Prague for a long time, ever since my friend Lara sent me an email during her gap year (a good 8 years ago now) saying what a wonderful city it was. So when we were planning a year in the UK, Prague was always at the top of the list of places to visit. I’m glad we finally did, even though in some respects it was a slightly disappointing trip.
We took the day off from work and were looking forward to a sleep-in before our flight, because sometime between booking the trip and checking the flight confirmation on Thursday, I had convinced myself we had a lunchtime flight. In actual fact we’d booked ourselves on a 9.30 am flight. No matter. Check-in at the airport went well although as we were a bit late, we were put on seats across the aisle from each other. Luckily it was a very smooth flight and I didn’t need to hold Toby’s hand once. However, it was a boisterous flight – Prague is firmly on the stag weekend circuit in the UK and we had lots of upbeat people on the plane (some of whom were already drinking at the airport, yuck). I was lucky enough to be seated next to a couple who seemed to be on their first dirty weekend together – first they giggled for about an hour, then they snogged for a good ten minutes before falling asleep. Toby got a chronic cougher/sniffler next to him. I think we were glad to get off the plane.
At the airport we got some money out (Toby had been told by ‘everyone’ that the Czech Republic only uses euros, just for the record, this is totally not true) and then found the desk to buy tickets for the bus. The man was very helpful and told us how to validate them. Sometimes public transport tickets can be tricky to work out, hence why we sometimes just don’t bother. I’d done a bit of research on how to get to the city from the airport so it was easy enough for us to get a bus into the city to connect to the metro for our hotel. The suburbs of Prague reminded me a lot of Berlin, I guess it’s that Communist love of grey square buildings coming through. Luckily when we got off at the metro stop for our hotel we came out (after going up an escalator I thought was unusually long – Toby thought I was being dramatic – but I read later that it’s one of the longest in Europe – more than 2 minutes from top to bottom) into a beautiful square (Namesti Miru), with a massive church in the middle and gorgeous buildings all around us. It was a lovely way to start our trip. I should mention here also that the sun was shining and although it wasn’t exactly warm (we needed our jackets) it was much more pleasant than Edinburgh's neverending wind.
The loooooong escalator. Hello vertigo.
Toby and his bucket of beer.
In the morning we ate breakfast in the hotel, which was a nice change from the usual stale bread and yoghurt we eat while travelling. There wasn’t a huge selection but that’s okay – I kept thinking of the massive buffet room in our hotel in Kuala Lumpur but really, who needs to be faced with that much food in the morning? They had a room set up in the courtyard of the hotel, no windows (luckily, otherwise our room window would look straight into the dining room) but the whole roof was a skylight which made it lovely. I decided I want all my breakfasts in a skylight room from now on. The funny thing that happened was when an American guy came in and obviously knew the two girls sitting behind us. At first I assumed they were friends, later on I realised they had probably just met in the hotel breakfast room previously. The girls were sitting at a table for two – no room for anyone else, clearly. The guy asked if he could sit with them, and they said yes, and then the three of them sort of just stared at the tiny table, the lack of a third chair, and finally the guy said, ‘Actually I will just sit here,’ and took a seat behind them. He continued to talk to them even though they weren’t really that interested and finally they said ‘Okay well we’re finished, bye,’ and left. Funny Americans, trying to be friends with the whole world. At least he owns a passport I suppose.
After breakfast, we picked up some pre-made sandwiches and water from the supermarket and then headed off for the day. First on the list was St Nicholas’s Cathedral, which I’d seen voted as Prague’s number 1 attraction on a random website. On our way we came across a crazy tourist street full of things tourists love (like McDonald’s, and jewellery shops) and also the Kafka museum, which we really only noticed because of the sculpture out the front of two men peeing into a pond. It really was eye-catching and if we’d had more time and/or money we probably would have gone to the museum as well. 
I suspect only naked Eastern European women would have done a better job of convincing people to go into this courtyard.
The alter in St Nicholas's.
Toby struggles through his Waldorf sandwich.
Inside the Strahov Monastery (complete with priest!) I couldn't help thinking that maybe I would be holier if I had somewhere like this to stride through on my way to things...
Yeah, ouch. The castle complex had a lot of buildings in it but by this point we’d had enough of paying for entrance fees and decided to just appreciate everything from the outside instead.
For lunch we went across the river (yes, the Charles Bridge again) to the markets in Old Town Square, determined to get some fattening fast food. We decided to forgo sausages in a roll (had lots of that in Berlin) and went for the pizza type things we’d seen other people eat. Essentially it’s fried dough, and you can have it with cheese and/or garlic and/or ketchup. I had cheese and garlic, Toby decided to go the whole hog. It was an interesting, greasy experience. I only ate the outside of mine, the middle was kind of cold due to the cold cheese. We also got another one of those donut things, because they were that good.
Toby enjoys his fried dough.
And here is when things start feeling…done. Toby had been fighting a cold all day (he blames the sudden flaring up on the cigarette smoke ingested the night before), so energy levels were not at their best. After time at the castle and surrounding streets, Charles Bridge and Old Town Square, Prague was starting to feel…crowded. Really, really crowded. We sat down on a wall by the clock tower and were soon approached by a lady with missing teeth asking for money. We said no and continued our conversation but she took a while to leave us alone. Things started looking dirty, and poor, and generally icky. We were tired, and out of money, and wanted to be far away from all those people. So we did what you would never think was possible, before you have travelled and you are still in that naïve phase where you think it’s impossible to actually get bored when you are somewhere like Prague: we went to the airport. Way too early.
The flight home was also full of chatty, loud buck’s night groups and it was delayed (which made our early arrival seem even sillier) but we got home in the end, slightly disappointed by our final hours. So for people who want to go to Prague: go during the week, and NOT when the Easter markets/any other festival is on. And make the effort to get away from the crowds. The best times we had were when we were in places that hadn’t been overrun by other people.
Since then things have been fairly quiet on the Edinburgh front. I went out for a Mexican dinner for my friend Carole’s birthday, and on Saturday we went to a fondue party for one of Toby’s workmates. I managed to catch the cold Toby had in Prague so have spent the last week nursing a sore head and wishing they sold butter menthols here. We have discovered the farmer’s markets and enjoyed our first fresh fish in months (yay). We are starting to think more about our Europe ride and also looking forward to visits from parents, starting with mine who arrive on Easter Monday. We won’t be doing much for Easter, but there is a possible trip to the zoo planned and of course I plan to indulge my chocoholism with relish. Toby doesn’t eat chocolate anymore, so I might boil him an egg for the occasion.
Got in earlish Friday and could not sit next to each other on the plane. Got to the hotel and a nice room with a big pole in the middle and no view due to the kitchen. Then found the super market and ate opposite the church. Went back to the hotel and snoozed. Went out that night and walked along the river, found the market square and ate in the restaurant having nice beer, food and I had boar. Saturday lots of walking we went to the amazing church, saw the strange statues, ate our yucky sandwich at the river, went to the Communist museum. Went to the pizza place opposite our hotel got smoked out in the clubs. Sunday back to the markets bought some presents, ate that big fried dough thing, saw the pigs on a spit, chess boards and had a nice walk around. Felt a bit done and went home :)
And for others who like long-winded descriptions and aimless musings, here is the extended version, by Dot:
I have wanted to go to Prague for a long time, ever since my friend Lara sent me an email during her gap year (a good 8 years ago now) saying what a wonderful city it was. So when we were planning a year in the UK, Prague was always at the top of the list of places to visit. I’m glad we finally did, even though in some respects it was a slightly disappointing trip.
We took the day off from work and were looking forward to a sleep-in before our flight, because sometime between booking the trip and checking the flight confirmation on Thursday, I had convinced myself we had a lunchtime flight. In actual fact we’d booked ourselves on a 9.30 am flight. No matter. Check-in at the airport went well although as we were a bit late, we were put on seats across the aisle from each other. Luckily it was a very smooth flight and I didn’t need to hold Toby’s hand once. However, it was a boisterous flight – Prague is firmly on the stag weekend circuit in the UK and we had lots of upbeat people on the plane (some of whom were already drinking at the airport, yuck). I was lucky enough to be seated next to a couple who seemed to be on their first dirty weekend together – first they giggled for about an hour, then they snogged for a good ten minutes before falling asleep. Toby got a chronic cougher/sniffler next to him. I think we were glad to get off the plane.
At the airport we got some money out (Toby had been told by ‘everyone’ that the Czech Republic only uses euros, just for the record, this is totally not true) and then found the desk to buy tickets for the bus. The man was very helpful and told us how to validate them. Sometimes public transport tickets can be tricky to work out, hence why we sometimes just don’t bother. I’d done a bit of research on how to get to the city from the airport so it was easy enough for us to get a bus into the city to connect to the metro for our hotel. The suburbs of Prague reminded me a lot of Berlin, I guess it’s that Communist love of grey square buildings coming through. Luckily when we got off at the metro stop for our hotel we came out (after going up an escalator I thought was unusually long – Toby thought I was being dramatic – but I read later that it’s one of the longest in Europe – more than 2 minutes from top to bottom) into a beautiful square (Namesti Miru), with a massive church in the middle and gorgeous buildings all around us. It was a lovely way to start our trip. I should mention here also that the sun was shining and although it wasn’t exactly warm (we needed our jackets) it was much more pleasant than Edinburgh's neverending wind.
The loooooong escalator. Hello vertigo.Our hotel was less than 5 minutes walk from the metro (even though it took us a bit longer to find it of course), in a nice residential district called Vinohrady. There were lovely buildings and we could see plenty of restaurants and bars, which pleased us. We were able to check in and then because we were starving, we decided to go to the small shopping complex over the road to find food. There was a swanky looking wine bar/café in the middle of the complex but the menus looked complicated (there was a lot less English in Prague than we expected) so instead we went downstairs and luckily found a supermarket. We stocked up on bread rolls, cheese, ham, fruit and water and took it all back to the park at Namesti Miru. We had a very leisurely, relaxed lunch sitting in the sun watching the people and the pigeons and generally enjoying being outside eating good food, something we hadn’t done for ages. We tried to remember the last time we’d eaten a meal outside. I think it may have been breakfast in Amsterdam, back in September. Gotta love the Scottish weather.
After lunch we went back to the hotel for what was supposed to be a short rest/freshening up but turned into a three hour nap. I guess we were tired. Seemed a waste of a fine afternoon in such a lovely city, but the big bed was just too good to pass up. Around 7 pm we ventured out and took the tram to a stop closer to the river. I’d read that the Charles Bridge was worth a visit at night – less crowded and great views of Prague Castle. So we walked up the river quite a way, but it really wasn’t necessary to go all the way to the particular bridge – you could see the castle from the whole bank anyway. We did go about halfway over the bridge, which is one of the oldest in Europe and has been decorated with some fantastic sculptures over the years. And the castle did look amazing all lit up like that. After admiring the view we headed into the Old Town, in search of dinner. Old Town Square looked great at night as well, if a little ghost town-esque with all the Easter market stalls closed up in the middle. We wandered some of the streets, doing some window shopping and thinking about where to eat and finally found a little place in a courtyard just off the main square. It served Czech food, it had some words in English (but not a menu in eight different languages like some of the giant hotel restaurants we’d passed), it had a couple of empty tables and best of all – a no smoking sign in the window. Brilliant. When we went in, the first thing we noticed was all the dead animal heads on the walls, and the gun above the bar. ‘This is a lovely room of death,’ as Ace Ventura would say. Never mind. Food is food, and nobody in there looked like the sort to actually use a gun on tourists. (Unlike the pathological villains in Hostel 2, which we had (stupidly) watched the weekend before.)
After lunch we went back to the hotel for what was supposed to be a short rest/freshening up but turned into a three hour nap. I guess we were tired. Seemed a waste of a fine afternoon in such a lovely city, but the big bed was just too good to pass up. Around 7 pm we ventured out and took the tram to a stop closer to the river. I’d read that the Charles Bridge was worth a visit at night – less crowded and great views of Prague Castle. So we walked up the river quite a way, but it really wasn’t necessary to go all the way to the particular bridge – you could see the castle from the whole bank anyway. We did go about halfway over the bridge, which is one of the oldest in Europe and has been decorated with some fantastic sculptures over the years. And the castle did look amazing all lit up like that. After admiring the view we headed into the Old Town, in search of dinner. Old Town Square looked great at night as well, if a little ghost town-esque with all the Easter market stalls closed up in the middle. We wandered some of the streets, doing some window shopping and thinking about where to eat and finally found a little place in a courtyard just off the main square. It served Czech food, it had some words in English (but not a menu in eight different languages like some of the giant hotel restaurants we’d passed), it had a couple of empty tables and best of all – a no smoking sign in the window. Brilliant. When we went in, the first thing we noticed was all the dead animal heads on the walls, and the gun above the bar. ‘This is a lovely room of death,’ as Ace Ventura would say. Never mind. Food is food, and nobody in there looked like the sort to actually use a gun on tourists. (Unlike the pathological villains in Hostel 2, which we had (stupidly) watched the weekend before.)
We ordered goulash with dumplings (for me) and a boar kebab with fries (for Toby) and two ‘large’ Czech beers. By ‘large’, they meant ‘bucket’, but the (cute) waiter conveniently forgot to mention this to us. He probably thought it was hilarious that two pale, not-giant people were ordering that size. It’s all part of the fun of travelling, and luckily it was pretty good beer. They also brought us a basket with enough bread for four people, which seemed odd at first but since the food took quite a while to arrive, it went down pretty well. Toby’s boar kebab was actually only one (not two like the menu showed), but he told me it was good (not really enough to share). I loved my goulash which had a nice peppery kick even though the ‘dumplings’ appeared to be more like circular slices of warm, moist bread (I have since discovered that these are what the Czech call dumplings - so I wasn't cheated). It sounds gross, and they weren’t what I was expecting, but they soaked up the goulash well and it was all tasty. I didn’t manage to finish my beer – the waiter pointed to what I had left and told me that was a ‘small’. Oh well. I tried. After that we got the metro back to the hotel and collapsed.
Toby and his bucket of beer.In the morning we ate breakfast in the hotel, which was a nice change from the usual stale bread and yoghurt we eat while travelling. There wasn’t a huge selection but that’s okay – I kept thinking of the massive buffet room in our hotel in Kuala Lumpur but really, who needs to be faced with that much food in the morning? They had a room set up in the courtyard of the hotel, no windows (luckily, otherwise our room window would look straight into the dining room) but the whole roof was a skylight which made it lovely. I decided I want all my breakfasts in a skylight room from now on. The funny thing that happened was when an American guy came in and obviously knew the two girls sitting behind us. At first I assumed they were friends, later on I realised they had probably just met in the hotel breakfast room previously. The girls were sitting at a table for two – no room for anyone else, clearly. The guy asked if he could sit with them, and they said yes, and then the three of them sort of just stared at the tiny table, the lack of a third chair, and finally the guy said, ‘Actually I will just sit here,’ and took a seat behind them. He continued to talk to them even though they weren’t really that interested and finally they said ‘Okay well we’re finished, bye,’ and left. Funny Americans, trying to be friends with the whole world. At least he owns a passport I suppose.
After breakfast, we picked up some pre-made sandwiches and water from the supermarket and then headed off for the day. First on the list was St Nicholas’s Cathedral, which I’d seen voted as Prague’s number 1 attraction on a random website. On our way we came across a crazy tourist street full of things tourists love (like McDonald’s, and jewellery shops) and also the Kafka museum, which we really only noticed because of the sculpture out the front of two men peeing into a pond. It really was eye-catching and if we’d had more time and/or money we probably would have gone to the museum as well.
I suspect only naked Eastern European women would have done a better job of convincing people to go into this courtyard.St Nicholas’s certainly didn’t disappoint; you bought your ticket in a little alcove and there was a swinging door so you couldn’t see inside, no knowing what you were actually paying for. But once through the door, it really did take your breath away. The first overwhelming sense I had was of gold and pink. There was a lot of pink marble and a LOT of gold. It really was an incredible church. We spent some time sitting in the (very wooden, very uncomfortable) pews just looking up. Even Toby, who is not keen on intruding upon others’ places of worship, thought this was a brilliant way to start our time in Prague.
The alter in St Nicholas's.After the church we decided to take advantage of the fine weather and find somewhere to eat our sandwiches. We ended up in a park by the river eating the most disgusting sandwiches ever. I have a love-hate relationship with sandwiches; when I was small I made my parents’ life difficult by complaining about what they were putting in my lunch box every day, and that is how I came to be making my own lunch when I was seven (or so). I have never been keen on sandwiches which have been made by someone else, several hours earlier, without my presence, with ingredients I can’t identify. I am getting better now – I can make reasonably edible sandwiches myself, even hours in advance, and I can eat most pre-packaged ones which is lucky as they are everywhere here. However, these Prague ones were an insult to the humble sandwich. The word ‘Waldorf’ in the title should have clued me in, but how was I to be prepared for a filling that comprised stringy chicken, sour cream, and DICED APPLE? Many of you will know my (recently relaxed but still in place) policy against meat and fruit together. This sandwich confirmed the reasoning behind the policy. It’s just not on.
Toby struggles through his Waldorf sandwich.With stomachs churning we crossed the Charles Bridge and walked across with all the other tourists; it was very different, full of people and stalls selling caricatures, photos and jewellery. We were glad we’d seen it the night before, empty and kind of creepy, since it takes on a real tackiness during the day. We ended up in Wenceslas Square where we bought ourselves some delicious sweet things. Very hard to describe but basically they make a dough, wrap it around a pole, cook it over a fire, pull it off the pole, then roll it in a cinnamon sugar mixture. What you end up with is like a thin donut that’s crunchy on the outside. Mmm, delicious. How the Czechs aren’t gigantic balls of lard rolling around those quaint cobbled streets I will never know.
Enjoying our nutritious snack. You can actually see a picture of it on the stall behind me.
From the square we found the Communist Museum. It had also been voted as a top attraction, and being that neither of us can claim to know much about Czech or Communist history we figured it would be a decent place to spend some time. The museum was on a floor in a casino building and was rather brief, but the funny posters alone were worth the effort. The interrogation room was also rather scary. I’m not sure I learnt much more about Communism (except how much the museum curators abhor it) but it was an interesting hour or so.
One of the posters tempting you into the museum.
After the museum, we decided to be lazy and get the train back to our hotel, which apparently was within walking distance. We rested up and then got dressed and went out again to try and find a restaurant mentioned in our guide, Bumerang. We have never been to an Australian themed bar anywhere on our travels and (for some reason) Toby decided we should. Unfortunately something went amiss in the address vs map war and we couldn’t find it. By this time we were hungry and it seemed silly to try and find somewhere to have a drink when it was really time for dinner, so we went back to the street where our hotel was and got a table at a pizza restaurant over the road which had been mentioned in the guide. It didn’t have a no smoking sign but luckily no one in there was smoking anyway. We ordered drinks – smaller ones this time – and pizza for Toby and gnocchi for me, both of which were plentiful and tasty. And cheap! Less than £10 for the both of us. Bargain.
After dinner we wanted a night cap and decided to try a few places in the immediate vicinity; one turned us off by making it sound more like a brothel, so we went to a tiny little one further down the street. We got Bailey’s and I’m pretty sure we were laughed at due to our odd habit of paying for drinks at the bar, but who cares? Unfortunately it was very smoky so we just drank and left, then we tried another place but the same thing happened. So it was an earlier night than we were prepared for, but a good end to our day.
The next day we had our nice hotel breakfast again and then back to the room to pack up before checking out. We weren’t sure what time we had to leave but figured if breakfast was until 10am then check out would be later. Yes? No. At four minutes past ten the phone rang and it was the snarly receptionist girl saying ‘Yes we ask you to check out now please.’ Um, okay. When we got to the front desk and apologised for our tardiness she acted like it was fine and she didn’t know what we were talking about. Strange. We decided to go and see Prague Castle in the morning, so we got the train to the tram stop and then tried to buy a new ticket. Which didn’t work, because the ticket machines didn’t take notes (even though their currency is all gigantic and you only really used notes) and the people didn’t sell the tickets we wanted. A rather strange system, so we decided to just risk it with the old tickets we had. We got on the tram with about 100000 other people and I wanted to get off at the stop mentioned in the guide book, where you started at the Strahov Monastery and then walked down to the castle complex through a beautiful residential district. I was watching all the signs but then everyone else on the tram got off too early, and I was a sheep and followed them. We got into the castle area but I was annoyed that we’d missed the monastery and nice walk, so we decided to get back on the tram and go further up the hill. It was the first time we’d been on a tram going uphill and it wasn’t pleasant. I don’t think trams like hills. The monastery was lovely, all white walls and beautiful courtyards. And the views were spectacular.
After dinner we wanted a night cap and decided to try a few places in the immediate vicinity; one turned us off by making it sound more like a brothel, so we went to a tiny little one further down the street. We got Bailey’s and I’m pretty sure we were laughed at due to our odd habit of paying for drinks at the bar, but who cares? Unfortunately it was very smoky so we just drank and left, then we tried another place but the same thing happened. So it was an earlier night than we were prepared for, but a good end to our day.
The next day we had our nice hotel breakfast again and then back to the room to pack up before checking out. We weren’t sure what time we had to leave but figured if breakfast was until 10am then check out would be later. Yes? No. At four minutes past ten the phone rang and it was the snarly receptionist girl saying ‘Yes we ask you to check out now please.’ Um, okay. When we got to the front desk and apologised for our tardiness she acted like it was fine and she didn’t know what we were talking about. Strange. We decided to go and see Prague Castle in the morning, so we got the train to the tram stop and then tried to buy a new ticket. Which didn’t work, because the ticket machines didn’t take notes (even though their currency is all gigantic and you only really used notes) and the people didn’t sell the tickets we wanted. A rather strange system, so we decided to just risk it with the old tickets we had. We got on the tram with about 100000 other people and I wanted to get off at the stop mentioned in the guide book, where you started at the Strahov Monastery and then walked down to the castle complex through a beautiful residential district. I was watching all the signs but then everyone else on the tram got off too early, and I was a sheep and followed them. We got into the castle area but I was annoyed that we’d missed the monastery and nice walk, so we decided to get back on the tram and go further up the hill. It was the first time we’d been on a tram going uphill and it wasn’t pleasant. I don’t think trams like hills. The monastery was lovely, all white walls and beautiful courtyards. And the views were spectacular.
Inside the Strahov Monastery (complete with priest!) I couldn't help thinking that maybe I would be holier if I had somewhere like this to stride through on my way to things......and a view like this to wake up to.
We walked down the hill towards the castle but unfortunately missed the entrance and so we had to walk up these steps instead.
Yeah, ouch. The castle complex had a lot of buildings in it but by this point we’d had enough of paying for entrance fees and decided to just appreciate everything from the outside instead.
For lunch we went across the river (yes, the Charles Bridge again) to the markets in Old Town Square, determined to get some fattening fast food. We decided to forgo sausages in a roll (had lots of that in Berlin) and went for the pizza type things we’d seen other people eat. Essentially it’s fried dough, and you can have it with cheese and/or garlic and/or ketchup. I had cheese and garlic, Toby decided to go the whole hog. It was an interesting, greasy experience. I only ate the outside of mine, the middle was kind of cold due to the cold cheese. We also got another one of those donut things, because they were that good.
Toby enjoys his fried dough.And here is when things start feeling…done. Toby had been fighting a cold all day (he blames the sudden flaring up on the cigarette smoke ingested the night before), so energy levels were not at their best. After time at the castle and surrounding streets, Charles Bridge and Old Town Square, Prague was starting to feel…crowded. Really, really crowded. We sat down on a wall by the clock tower and were soon approached by a lady with missing teeth asking for money. We said no and continued our conversation but she took a while to leave us alone. Things started looking dirty, and poor, and generally icky. We were tired, and out of money, and wanted to be far away from all those people. So we did what you would never think was possible, before you have travelled and you are still in that naïve phase where you think it’s impossible to actually get bored when you are somewhere like Prague: we went to the airport. Way too early.
The flight home was also full of chatty, loud buck’s night groups and it was delayed (which made our early arrival seem even sillier) but we got home in the end, slightly disappointed by our final hours. So for people who want to go to Prague: go during the week, and NOT when the Easter markets/any other festival is on. And make the effort to get away from the crowds. The best times we had were when we were in places that hadn’t been overrun by other people.
Since then things have been fairly quiet on the Edinburgh front. I went out for a Mexican dinner for my friend Carole’s birthday, and on Saturday we went to a fondue party for one of Toby’s workmates. I managed to catch the cold Toby had in Prague so have spent the last week nursing a sore head and wishing they sold butter menthols here. We have discovered the farmer’s markets and enjoyed our first fresh fish in months (yay). We are starting to think more about our Europe ride and also looking forward to visits from parents, starting with mine who arrive on Easter Monday. We won’t be doing much for Easter, but there is a possible trip to the zoo planned and of course I plan to indulge my chocoholism with relish. Toby doesn’t eat chocolate anymore, so I might boil him an egg for the occasion.
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