Tag Archives: czech republic

Back in Czech

Quiet day on Saturday. When we were at the Gasometer Buildings, Greg bought a piece of apfelkuchen apple cake from a supermarket and has been searching for it since. He tried a couple of places on Saturday morning without success. In the afternoon we walked to, and around, Schonnbrunn Palace. It’s across the road from the apartment we stayed at … sort of. There’s actually a street, tramline, river, metro line and a couple of fences between the apartment and the palace grounds, but we could see it from the apartment, and the huge grounds were a lovely buffer in a city of over 1.5million people. The Viennese equivalent of Central Park.

We walked to the gate closest to the apartment, which had a Lindt chocolate shop conveniently located at the entrance. Bought a couple of blocks from the huge selection – whole product lines that we had never seen before. Then walked through the park to the palace. All 1400+ rooms of it. Part of it is open as a childrens’ museum, a gallery and it is possible to do tours of palace and concerts are held there. Outside, it’s a fantastic public space, free to wander around the huge grounds, which also has a zoo, a swimming pool, a maze and other things that you can pay to see. The cafe in the palace does a Strudel making class which I was going to do until I realised it would all be in German.

We walked up the hill to the Gloriette which offers a superb view over the city, and we think we found the street we stayed in, just past the trees in the palace grounds. Then we walked back to the apartment via the main entrance, with its enormous open space in front of the palace. Hot day, we didn’t take enough water and were very thirsty by the time we got ‘home’.

Yesterday, Sunday, we drove out of Vienna to Czech. We didn’t buy a vignette in Austria so had to use secondary roads, which was fine, through little villages and along a tiny sealed road on the side of the motorway. Probably just for the local farmers, and we did meet a tractor coming in the opposite direction, but a few local cars and a motorbike also used it. Nothing is open in Austria on a Sunday, but as soon as we crossed over into Czech … BAM! Outlet shopping centre just across the border, casinos, 24-hour nightclubs. If anyone can explain how they work, we’d love to know – I thought the point of a nightclub was that it was, well, night-time.  Our new favourite supermarket, Albert, was open in Znojmo so we went and bought a couple of things we’d run out of and some bread rolls for lunch. Gosh, the Czechs are good bakers!

Our second-last night of camping last night, and tonight is our last. Then we’re staying in an apartment in Prague for 4 nights and heading back to Munich on Saturday, flying home on Sunday. We’ve been on the road for 5 weeks, but it seems like a much longer period of time, because we’ve been to so many places and seen and done so much.

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The Kings waiting room at the railway station near the Palace (never used)
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A small selection of the chocolates at the Lindt shop
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Schonnbrunn Palace Gardens
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Schonnbrunn Palace Gardens
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Schonnbrunn Palace Gardens Rose Arbor
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Schonnbrunn Palace Gardens Rose Arbor
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Schonnbrunn Palace Gardens a small separate garden
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Schonnbrunn Palace and Gardens
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Looking over Vienna
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Glorietta
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Self Serve Bakery at Albert row 1
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Self Serve Bakery at Albert row 2
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Camped back in Czech at “Camping Country” an almost empty camping park

Vienna, Austria

Our last post was 3 days, dinner at a Michelin-starred bistro, a visit to a salt mine and 2 countries ago.

Dinner at Zazie Bistro was wonderful! We got a table in the cellar part of the restaurant rather than in the smaller street-level section. Great menu, which you can see here. When my parents see the menu, they will know immediately what I had for an entree, but I’ll tell the rest of you anyway – the veal sweetbreads. And they were superb. Then I had French potatoes gratin with chicken etc, and Greg had the veal chop(s) on the bone etc. With 2 big beers, the total came to less than $35, and we were so impressed with the meal and so surprised that it was so cheap that we left a 20% tip!

Next day, Tuesday, we left the apartment in Krakow and drove to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. We put on our walking boots and some warm clothes and spent a couple of hours doing the excellent English-language guided tour. We didn’t take any photos while we were in the mine, partly because it cost a few dollars extra and we hadn’t realised when we bought our tickets, but mostly because there are already loads of photos of the interesting things at the mine on the interwebz, and one of my commonly uttered phrases from this trip has been  … ‘for f@#ks sake, how many selfies and photos do these people need?’ So many people take photos of themselves at very uninteresting places, as well as at interesting ones, but do they ever look at any of them again?

So then we pooled our remaining Polish zloty and went to the supermarket where we thought we were loading up on everything we thought we needed, but only managed to spend half of the $40-odd we had left in local currency. So I went back and bought some wine and cider, but we STILL have zloty left! We’ll keep it for when we go back to Poland some day, or if someone we know goes there.

We camped at a municipal campground in the north of Czech Republic last night (Tuesday). We had to find an ATM to get some Czech koruna, but the campground reception was closed when we arrived there at 6.30pm, so we just pitched the tent and sorted out payment this morning. Nice camgpground, but it was almost next to a railway line, so it was a bit noisy.

And now we’re in Vienna! We’re staying in this Airbnb apartment until Sunday. It’s just across the street from the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, close to the metro and the Museum of Technology is nearby as well. The apartment is used for tutoring primary and high school students during term time, but it’s still the summer holidays in Austria until the middle of September, so our host is renting it out until her ‘real’ work begins.

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in the cellar of Zazie Bistro
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Dinner at Zazie Bistro
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The $35 bill at Zazie Bistro
A picture of the wieliczka salt mine we took from the internet because we were too cheap to pay the extra money to be allowed to take pictures in the mine.
A picture of the wieliczka salt mine we took from the internet because we were too cheap to pay the extra money to be allowed to take pictures in the mine.
The Salt mine in cross section
The Salt mine in cross section
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The internet doesn’t have enough cat pictures – so here we are camped at Hranice Czech republic
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camped at Hranice Czech Republic
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More cat pictures….