Eurotrip - Kraków, Poland; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna, Austria

A tale of three cities.

Part I: Kraków - August 6th - 13th, 2022

We were only supposed to spend four days here but my tendon seemed to have stopped healing again so we decided to sit down for a few extra days to give it a chance to recover.

We arrived at the train station in the early evening and walked 15 minutes to our accommodations -- a studio apartment! We were very excited to have someplace to cook.

We passed the next three days resting and feasting on cooked food. Vitali went running frequently and saw some cool architecture.

On the fourth day we began our tour of Kraków, where my great-grandfather on my father's side hails from. I had actually emailed an Architect with my same last name (twice) to try and meet up but he never responded... I think we are probably distantly related.

We walked to the bus station and looked for the bus to Oświęcim, which would take us to the Auschwitz -Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Since this atrocity was much nearer to our own heritages we felt compelled to bear witness; Vitali told me Israelis typically make a pilgrimage here during High School.

The bus was pretty full and dropped everyone off at the entrance. We had already reserved tickets ahead of time and headed inside, where they handed us an audio device and headphones. We could already hear numerous Hebrew speakers in the crowd.

We went first into a cinema where we watched an overview of the site and its history and then we met up with our tour guide outside. We could hear the guide's voice through our headphones so she didn't have to shout.

We walked among the buildings at Auschwitz as we learned that the site saw many terrible firsts -- the first experiments with Zyklon B, the chemical used in the gas chambers; the first criminal experiments; and the first murders of mass transported Jews. The healthiest people arriving would be selected for forced labor. Life expectancy after arriving was between six weeks and three months. Those unfit for work would go straight to the gas chambers.

Over one million European Jews were murdered here.

The brilliant sunshine was at odds with the events we learned had transpired here. We entered one of the barracks buildings that had been converted into an exhibit -- inside were displayed the items that the prisoners had brought with them -- having been promised that they would only be relocated.

Huge piles of cookware, personal items, and shoes filled the rooms.

In a separate area, a mountain of human hair stretched the width of the building.

After the Auschwitz barracks exhibits we were bussed over to the Birkenau portion of the site and walked amongst the ruins. We walked through the last barracks in a row -- filled with human-sized shelves, four tall -- built to house the sick and dying. Then we saw the earliest gas chamber -- and the ruins of the later and much larger. We learned of an incredible prisoner mutiny and escape attempt -- they even succeeded in setting one of the crematoria on fire and a few people escaped -- but unfortunately all were shortly captured and killed. This was all explained in terrible detail.

The tour ended at a huge memorial. With heavy hearts we contemplated the second genocide we had encountered on our travels.

השואה... לעולם לא עוד

We were bussed back to the main center and then waited for the public bus that would take us back to Krakow.

We walked home, passing by some cool architecture and street art.

The next day we decided to do a walking tour to check out the historic center.

I was really impressed by the architecture here. It was different than Prague -- here there was a lot more brick and stone. Some of the brick architectural details looked familiar -- probably because the county where I'm from in Pennsylvania is the only county in the United States with a plurality of citizens reporting Polish as their primary ancestry!

We walked by the Barbican -- a fortified outpost of the city's walls, built in 1498. The outpost served through several sieges in the 16th to 18th centuries. I thought this was super cool and felt more like what I imagined late medieval Europe to be than anywhere else.

We passed through the city gate and entered the old town. We headed south and came across a swatch store which had a huge line queued up outside -- waiting for the moon watch! Vitali was not impressed.

I also spied a kitty in the window!

There was incredible architectural detailing in all directions. We also saw a few pieces of contemporary architecture -- one, a restaurant done up in steel painted charcoal that was such the perfect addition to the street I couldn't believe it. I really love the arched windows.

As we walked we listened -- in all of the Slavic speaking countries I asked Vitali -- did he understand it? Slovenia and Croatia -- maybe 5%. Czechia -- same thing. Poland though -- he said that it was pretty close to Ukrainian, which makes sense, considering their geographic proximity.

Such beautiful bakers from Poland!

We walked through the old town square and past the Cloth Hall, which was once a center of international trade -- enticing businessmen and travelers with exotic goods such as silk and spices. Now it entices tourists with souvenirs and a lot of amber jewelry. I would have liked to buy some but I didn't see anything I really loved.

The Town Hall tower overlooks the square.

We ducked into the Holy Trinity Basilica, which was a typical Gothic construction. There were churches everywhere, which made sense; Poland is quite religious.

We continued south, passing St. Francis' Basilica, St. Andrew's Church, and Saint Peters and Pauls Church. You got a patron saint, we got a dedicated house of worship!

We were running out of time and missed going into St. Mary's Basilica -- we had to check out of our place by 11am and walk to another one, so we headed back, picked up our bags and slowly made our way down to the south side of old town.

We took our time, stopping at various benches in Planty Park, a beautiful green strip that encircles the old town... Which just tickles me that the park is named Planty which means something else that's exactly right in English!

We eventually made it to our new place, which was small, but had a fantastic view of the Roman Catholic church of St. Catherine of Alexandria.

In the evening we ordered several plates from a Polish restaurant. I was quite excited about this, having grown up eating things like pierogies and golabki. This restaurant was mostly gluten free, including the pierogies! We also ordered duck in apple-cinnamon sauce, steak with mushroom sauce, and wild boar tenderloin in forest sauce. They also had an eggnog cake. We ate it all and it was UNBELIEVABLE! Gluten-free heaven.

The meal caused me to contemplate my own identity. Here I am, of one quarter polish extraction, yet most of my family experiences growing up were of Polish tradition. My mom's side of the family (Chinese) is much smaller so I wasn't exposed to Chinese tradition to the same extent.

So it was just strange to me to be eating food so familiar in a foreign place surrounded by Poles who did not look so different from my own family. My last name is very obviously Polish but because I look different I was still an outsider here.

We had a really spectacular sunset that evening where the light turned pink for several minutes.

The day after we took a multi-modal adventure to Kościuszko Mound, a memorial commemorating Tadeusz Kościuszko who I had no idea about until we visited but found out some interesting history!

First we had to get there. We started off on foot and intended to take a bus up to the mound. We were able to purchase a ticket from a machine at the bus stop but when we looked at the schedule the bus we needed seemed to be missing. The schedules were completely in Polish and we had no data -- it was fun trying to guess what the words meant. 🙃

So we took another bus that would get us closer. Once we got off we saw another bus schedule that seemed to indicate the bus we needed would be stopping here so we waited for 30 minutes but it never came. So we decided to hoof it.

We passed a nice view of Wawel Castle over the river and some unique contemporary architecture.

As we got closer the road turned to sidewalk and trees.

At the top of the hill was what looked like a star fortification.

Yep, that's it.

At the center was a giant mound, apparently modeled after the prehistoric mounds of the area, which are yet still somewhat of a mystery. This monument was founded in 1820 and the mound was built totally by volunteers over a period of three years.

We paid for tickets, and walked through a small museum detailing the adventures of Tadeusz.

From Encyclopedia Britannica:

Tadeusz Kościuszko, (born Feb. 4, 1746, Mereczowszczyzna, Pol.—died Oct. 15, 1817, Solothurn, Switz.), Polish patriot who fought in the American Revolution. He studied military engineering in Paris and went to America in 1776, where he joined the colonial army. He helped build fortifications in Philadelphia, Pa., and at West Point, N.Y. As chief of engineers, he twice rescued the army of Gen. Nathanael Greene by directing river crossings. He also directed the blockade of Charleston, S.C. At the war’s end he was awarded U.S. citizenship and made a brigadier general. He returned to Poland in 1784 and became a major general in the Polish army. In 1794 he led a rebellion against occupying Russian and Prussian forces, during which he defended Warsaw for two months, directing residents to build earthworks. He was jailed in Russia from 1794 to 1796, returned to the U.S. in 1797, and then left for France, where he continued efforts to secure Polish independence.

He was well traveled and quite accomplished. I had no idea he had helped engineer fortifications in the US so close to home. There's a monument to him in Chicago too!

Neat. We walked to the top of the mound, enjoyed the view, and then headed to wait for the bus (there was a convenient bus stop right at the fort) and rode it back to town where we caught a tram back to our place.

In the afternoon we walked along Planty park down to the Wawel Royal Castle.

The castle appeared to be a conglomerate of buildings and time periods, having been expanded and added onto organically, beginning in the 14th century for the current buildings. Wait until you see the Cathedral...

We walked through the gate and found the ticket building where we spent about 20 minutes waiting in line during which we were just able to decipher the extremely confusing ticket options. You had to select from about 8 different attractions within the castle. On top of that, each of the places had a timed entry! We picked the Lost Wawel, the Cathedral, the Royal Castle, and the Crown Treasury.

We entered the courtyard of the Castle and saw a few neat vignettes.

Below, the Wawel Cathedral. There is A LOT going on here! But more on that later.

We headed to the Lost Wawel first, which was an exhibition of architectural elements from the history of the castle complex. They had a lot of these porcelain tiles that they used to clad heaters with, each one carved and painted by hand. We would see the full size version in the Royal Castle later.

Then we went through the underground portion of the exhibition, which went through some of the oldest foundations and showed the earliest church on the site -- the Rotunda of the Blessed Virgin Mary, dating to the late 10th/early 11th centuries. Now it is half-entombed in the larger structure, having been built atop of, as so many religious sites seemed to do.

In the below photos, the rotunda is the rounded cylindrical forms of buff brick.

After that it was time to visit the Royal Palace. In the palace courtyard they seemed to be setting up for some sort of event. We walked up to the entrance where a young man extremely enthusiastically said -- "I have a gift for you!" And handed us an artwork guide for the palace.

The interiors were incredibly detailed and a bit weird! The ceilings were particularly stunning -- painted in bright patterns and gold leaf. In the throne room the ceiling had faces in the coffers -- originally every coffer in the room had one but now only 30 or so remain. Elsewhere there were beautiful and strange paintings on the walls and gorgeous wallpaper.

After we had walked through all of the rooms we headed to the Cathedral which somehow neither of us got pictures of! It was kind of chaotic inside with all of the little shrines shooting off on the sides in differing architectural styles.

We did get to descend into a crypt though, and then ascend the bell tower, which I thought was very cool. There were more bells up here than expected and the structure to support it was phenomenal. Gigantic timbers cloaked the bells in an almost solid cage of wood. The walkways ducked in, between, and above the members as we ascended to the highest bells.

You wonder if there was some sort of ye olde bell tower handbook for sizing the members.

Next we headed to the Crown Treasury which housed historical artifacts of great value.

Lots of shiny things. For our final stop in the castle complex -- we had heard about a dragon statue that breathed fire. Supposedly you used to be able to text a number to make it breathe but it was so popular they changed it to breathing fire every 5 minutes. So we showed up and about a minute later it happened!

On the way back to our hotel -- we had to see it -- was to watch the trumpeter at St. Mary's Basilica and see inside.

Playing every hour on the hour, the trumpeter calls the bugle in the four cardinal directions -- before stopping abruptly. Legend has several versions of why -- either the bugle was interrupted during a siege of Tatars, when the trumpeter was shot in the throat with an arrow -- or perhaps it recollects when a trumpeter died of natural causes while bugling! Either way, the call being abruptly stopped has become a tradition.

There was a nice solar calender on the side of the cathedral. We caught the bugler and then headed inside.

The interior continued with the brightly painted style we had seen in the Royal Palace. The ceiling had a particularly beautiful pattern in rich teal and gold which recollected a starry sky.

We headed back home for the day. We both really enjoyed visiting Krakow and seeing where parts of my family came from. Things were very affordable too.

In the morning we would take the train to Bratislava.

The only thing we knew about Bratislava was from the movie Eurotrip when they accidentally end up there...

We considered traveling to the High Tatras in the south of Poland but found it kind of expensive with not a lot of options left available on such short notice. I also needed to be realistic about how I treated my tendon...

Part II: Bratislava - August 13th - 14th, 2022

Oh man oh man was this train trip awful. First off, our train car had no power. The doors had to be opened manually, and there was no airflow in the car and no operable windows either. We were sat in a compartment directly across from a mouthbreather who was sneezing and coughing. Someone also needed a shower.

We sat there for about 20 minutes before we decided to find elsewhere to sit and ended up sitting in the hallway in the little fold-down seats they had at every compartment door. After about an hour of that we wandered to the next train to try and find somewhere better. The smells coming from the compartments were beginning to intensify as the heat of the day and the heat from people stuffed into the compartments began to marinate.

We found a bicycle car next door which had 5 fold-up seats against one wall, and they were empty! We sat alone in our own car for the rest of the ride. The train had to decouple at one point and link up with another to continue the journey.

Seven and a half hours later we arrived in Bratislava, where we disembarked and took the single tram line from the main train station to the historic center.

We passed by what looked like a crazy upside down pyramid made of steel. I made a note to photograph it later.

We got off and walked to our hostel where we began checking in by handing over our passports to the reception. He looked quite closely at our passports and said -- "there is a problem. -- you see -- there is an age restriction on this hostel -- you must be under 34 to stay". This was a surprise to both of us.

It's also important to note that Vitali was feeling very bad for a few weeks right around then about his upcoming 40th birthday.

I asked the receptionist -- "I'm under 34 and I made the booking, can you make an exception because this was an honest mistake?" And he was kind of wishy washy and said he'd go ask someone else. He disappeared for a few moments and came back and told us sorry, but no, we couldn't stay here. He explained that it was very clear in the booking.com website that there was an age limit -- and that there was an age limit because "there may be loud noises at night as we like to party". And we laughed and said that was fine. But still he would not allow us to stay.

I asked again to please make an exception for us and if not, to please refund our money, and he said he'd ask his manager when he came in.

So we asked to use their wi-fi so we could find elsewhere to stay.

We were pretty pissed off at this point and walked outside. We looked at the booking.com app, and found that there was NO age requirement listed under "Property Rules". We then looked for someplace else to stay and were shocked to see the prices of available hotels. We ended up paying $150 for an "executive suite" at a nearby hotel in one of the popular pedestrian areas. Upon seeing the price we decided to cut our trip here short and head to Vienna tomorrow.

We were curious so we checked the app on Vitali's phone -- and found differing policies within the app and the age requirement listed. So this was a mistake on the part of booking.com. I took screenshots and called to complain and alert them about the issue and request I not be charged. It took multiple calls and emails for someone to understand what was going on and they opened a case for me when the charge came through. We went back to the hostel the next day to respectfully request a refund and the guy lied to our face about asking his manager when he got in to get us to leave. We got a message 10 minutes later saying they would have refunded us if we had made the cancellation request properly -- which I did, through the booking.com app.

The charge never came through. 🤷

We later read about the first thing you should do when you arrive in Bratislava -- Get on the train to Vienna.

We walked over to the other hotel and checked in. The receptionist was shocked when we told her what had happened at the hostel down the street... The hotel ended up being quite nice, and even let us keep our bags in the room until the late afternoon the next day while we went sightseeing.

The next morning we walked around town to see what was here before we left in the evening for the hour train ride to Vienna.

There was a lot of clearly Soviet influenced buildings around. Some of them had attractive proportions like the brick one below.

We walked by the Presidential Palace which was relatively humble but still beautiful.

Opposite the palace was what looked to be the HQ of a major bank.

We popped into the Trinity Catholic Church which had an impressively painted dome faking the perspective of an ornate fully carved one.

There was quite a bit of nice historic architecture around too. The overall vibe was very similar to Prague although some of the architecture was also reminiscent of Vienna (after having seen Vienna we could make this comparison).

There were also a lot of old city walls scattered about. We walked through the historic city gate, Michael's Gate, but it was totally covered with scaffolding and fabric.

The below was unusual for Europe -- never before had we seen such a large road cutting through town like that.

Then we headed over to Bratislava Castle, of which construction began in the 10th century. Like all the castles we had seen it had developed organically over time. From 1811 to 1953 the castle sat in ruin until it was decided to restore it.

From the castle was a nice view over the Danube and over the notable bridge, Novy Most. Notable because it looks like a UFO.

There were some unusual details on the old castle but some of the newer buildings had quite nice contemporary detailing -- Instead of traditional dormers on one building for instance, the dormer was clad in rectilinear panels of what looked to be corten steel.

Below, a statue of King Svätopluk I.

We didn't investigate inside as we were fresh out of interest in castles. We sat in the grass for awhile before continuing on our journey.

Back on the pleb level of town we stopped at St. Martin's Cathedral.

And saw some strange lizards canoodling on a street corner. Nearby was a pile of vomit, which would check the box of 'puke on cobblestone', which would complete our "European City" bingo card.

We continued our walking tour, threading through the main squares that were beginning to fill with people.

We walked by the Slovak National Theatre which was on a beautiful open space lined with restaurants and shops and was quite busy.

And we also found the fanciest ice cream parlor we had ever seen.

We headed towards our last stop of the day.

The Blue Church. It was painted in various shades of baby blue, cream, turquoise, and pale yellow.

We turned around and headed back to our hotel. We saw another of the wall mounted solar calendars.

After our whirlwind tour we were ready to leave Bratislava behind -- the interaction with the hostel had marred our stay. We grabbed our bags, hopped back on the tram and headed for the train station where we awaited the OBB train that would take us away. I forgot to take a photo of the Slovak radio station inverted pyramid, which is my only regret.

Part III: Vienna - August 14th - 18th, 2022

The train ride to Vienna was only an hour but the two cities were worlds apart.

First impressions: Vienna was a city of the future and a utopia -- the streets were spotless, the buildings shiny and new. Hardly any cars clogged the roads; extensive tram and metro lines serviced the entire city in an easy to understand network. The architecture was varied, playful, and visually intriguing.

We walked about 5 minutes over to our hostel, another A&O. There was a huge line to check-in and I think because of the rush we were upgraded to a four person room. It even had the WC and shower in separate rooms! Unlike the A&O in Berlin where we could barely walk around the bed we now had quite a bit of space to spread out. No shelf for bananas though.

First order of business: McDonalds.

It really sucks not having a fridge but we got used to it. We would stop for deli meat whenever we came back from sightseeing and have sandwiches for lunch/dinner. The level of gluten-free goods across Europe was high -- large selection and most of the stuff was pretty good.

The next day we took the metro (we ended up buying a 3-day transport ticket for each of us) into the historic core which was again, very different. It was filled with the most exuberantly detailed Baroque and Rococo architecture I had ever seen. Not that I had really seen that much Baroque and Rococo architecture before in real life... There wasn't a single plain building in sight.

We visited the Karlskirche, a magnificent 18th century Baroque church. Like everything in Vienna, it was expensive to enter.

There was an outdoor deck above the twin pillars outside with a view over the neighborhood that we walked up to first.

Inside they had inexplicably built a stair and elevator so you could get up close to the dome. The stair definitely detracted from the space...

Stair faux pas aside, the interior was jaw-dropping; the altarpiece was next level. Everything we had seen in Architectural History textbooks and more.

Outside, a Mozart impersonator in a wig stopped us and tried to convince us to attend another classical concert. We told him we had just seen one, even though the price of $15/ticket was appealing (though for standing room only!).

We headed north, passing by the Vienna Opera House, which was having some work done to the facade. Interestingly, every time we saw scaffolding in front of a building here, the light fabric they use to hide the construction was printed with the facade of the building behind it!

We walked down an incredibly long shopping street, passing by multiple Omega, Zara, and Swarovski stores. Yes, there more than one of each and people appeared to be shopping.

At the end of the street was St. Stephen's Cathedral. It was mobbed.

Completed in 1578, it is an interesting combination of Romanesque and Gothic. The pattern of the tile roofing was quite delightful.

Fortunately it was free. We passed by even more over the top historic buildings and even a giant clock that had life-size animated figures.

We walked by the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial which was quite somber compared to the buildings it was surrounded by.

And we continued by Peterskirche, another Baroque number.

Finally, we walked through the Heldenplatz and the Hofburg Palace complex which had an extremely high density of large, extraordinarily fenestrated palaces which were now mostly museums.

We tried to visit inside the Hofburg Palace but couldn't find the entrance -- we thought we had found it but when we walked in we were quickly told this was a medical conference and not the palace...

We then tried to visit the Austrian National Library which was supposed to be an exceptional interior space but found it closed for renovation!

We gave up and headed back to the hotel.

In the afternoon I had made an appointment at a health center for a cold laser treatment on my tendon. The health center was so stunningly beautiful inside I couldn't believe it. It seemed to be what the US aspires to do (without the greed). It was painted and decorated in calm neutrals with elegant signage and lighting. The staff were professional and friendly and the center seemed to be focused on a holistic approach to health -- medical direction, nutrition, exercise, and physical therapy were all under one roof.

*Cries in American*

Technically I needed a prescription for the cold laser treatment but the nice Viennese doctor took pity on me and did it anyway based on my history. We talked a little bit about the state of the world and he made an interesting comment that Vienna was changing -- one of the safest cities in the world was becoming less safe. I commiserated about the United States and my home city changing too and we both laughed knowing what the US has become.

He massaged my tendon, did the laser treatment, and then taped it up with kinesiotape and sent me on my way. He even only charged me half price, a mere $45! The treatments were meant to be in series but I figured one was better than none.

The next day, we took the metro to Schloss Schonbrunn, the main summer palace of the Habsburg rulers.

It was 93 degrees outside when we arrived at the ticket center. We stood in line for about ten minutes to use the automated ticket machines -- but watched as the people in front of us had some sort of failure. When we tried, we selected the next available ticket -- about an hour from now -- but then our transaction failed too. So we got into the unbelievably long line for the ticket counters and waited another 40 minutes. By the time we had got to the ticket window we were told the next entry was now almost 3 hours later!

So we were a little mad but we had already sunk so much time that we just bought the tickets and were told we could visit the gardens prior; at least that. THEN I learned that there were NO PHOTOS allowed inside the building. 😡

Below, the first and only view of the 1,441 room Rococo palace.

We crossed a huge unshaded plaza and then headed for the gardens. We had paid extra for the "Classic Pass" which included the Crown Prince Garden close to the palace, the Maze (which we didn't go into because it was full of children), entrance to the top of the Gloriette (an architectural folly atop a hill behind the palace), and entrance to the Orangery. All for the low low price of 31EUR a ticket.

So we headed to the gardens while the scorchingly hot sun burned our arms and tired faces, We tried to stick to shaded areas and spent the time hopping from park bench to park bench as we made our way through seemingly endless permutations of pathway through garden. How nice it must have been to be a Habsburg princess and get to run around here for the summer!

We passed by the greenhouse too which was amazing to see. The structure was so beautiful and painted the perfect green. I would have liked to gone inside but then we would have had to upgrade to an even higher tier of ticket.

We then walked up a Very Steep Hill to the Gloriette, inside which was a cafe. We scanned our tickets at a turnstile and then climbed up some spiral stairs to the top, which had a nice view above the palace and of Vienna. Everything looked a little parched, as the drought of this summer deepened.

After that we visited a few more follies around the area, including fake Roman ruins.

We headed back towards the palace, eager not to miss our timed entry. We passed through some beautiful, mature trellis tunnels that were at least 10 degrees cooler inside.

We were exhausted from the heat and walking but we had paid for it... so we trudged over to the Orangery which was unfortunately empty of citrus plants but quite interesting to see.

Then we went inside the palace itself where we walked through 40 sumptuously appointed -- I could hardly call them mere rooms -- and learned about the Habsburgs, one of the most prominent dynasties of Europe. Included were audio guides which were actually really well done and made information which I would normally find terribly boring, interesting. Thanks to the no photo rule I now remember nothing. Thanks Schloss Schonbrunn!

We rode the metro back home.

The next day, we dropped our bags in the luggage storage room of the hostel and walked over to the Belvedere Palace. At this point, we had seen inside enough palaces to last a lifetime, so we just walked through the garden, which was free.

Then we rode a tram over to the Rathaus, the Vienna City Hall. They were having some sort of summer film festival and the plaza was decked out for dining and viewing.

We headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, and then walked over to a nearby park to waste some time before our train to Budapest. The Viennese doctor had told us about a boat ride on the Danube that we could take to Budapest but when I looked it up it looked like it was another victim of the pandemic.

When the time came we walked over to the bus station and sat under the overpass waiting for our bus to arrive. We had some snacks and Vitali took the opportunity to leave some stickers that Bartos had given him.

We were starting to tire of being in cities all of the time -- it was loud, there were too many people, and not enough trees. Sure, the architecture and history were different but there were only so many churches, palaces, and castles we could look at.

Despite that, Vienna seemed to be the crown jewel (architecturally) of central Europe and we were glad to have seen it.

Eventually our bus showed up and about three hours later we would find ourselves in yet a different city, Budapest!