CENTRAL EUROPE ( Prague, Leipzig, Dresden, Brno, Cesky Krumlov, Budapest, Vienna, all Slowakia, Zagreb)
The hostel is an 8-storey building with a bar-reception and lounge on the ground floor and dormitory rooms with 6 beds at a cost of around 20 euros per night which I book for three nights while single rooms cost 45 euros.
After a shower I immediately go out on foot and reach the center in about twenty minutes, crossing to the other side of the railway. I encounter modern buildings and others from the communist period currently being renovated. There is a central pedestrian area with many shops, bars, a huge multiplex cinema and then I begin to see the historical part which will leave me speechless.
Dresden, the capital of Saxony, was a city of art called Florence on the Elbe, so rich that everyone thought it would be spared from the Allied bombings during the Second World War and instead the English and Americans razed it to the ground like many other German cities and Italian cities destroyed by these saviors who first razed the enemy cities to the ground and then financed their reconstruction, trying to profit in both cases.
Dresden became rich and important during the reign of Augustus the Strong who brought in the best Italian artists who filled it with artistic beauties that were destroyed and then rebuilt and some recently inaugurated in 2006 for the celebrations of the city's 800th anniversary.
The Germans managed to reconstruct it so well, following pre-war photos, that today it is really difficult to understand that this city is only 60 years old and not the hundreds that it looks like in its ancient buildings, its churches, its castle, its many museums. on this side of the imposing Elbe river crossed by many modern bridges as well as the ancient and classic stone one which is crossed by city trams to reach the other part of the city, less impressive, less ancient, but full of parks and fountains, houses with beautiful restored facades, a beautiful pedestrian area, some churches and monumental buildings with statues dedicated to the great Prussian emperors. The historic center of Dresden, made up of dark stone buildings, is composed of the spectacular Hofkirche with its statues of prelates which are aligned on the longitudinal roof while next to it is the castle, in fact a large building which is now home to a very rich museum, then the opera house, the prestigious Semperoper, a local institution built by the architect of the same name and then the Zwinger. a baroque fortress with an enormous façade overlooking the square and a large internal courtyard with fountains, surrounded on the south side by a moat that separates it from a beautiful green park.
The Zwinger is home to six museums including a rich art gallery with Raphael's Sistine Madonna and a porcelain museum and a rich glass collection which I only saw from an external window because I had already had a feast of museums.
Not far from Dresden lies the beautiful medieval city of Meissen, the historic home of a famous porcelain factory which enriched the extraordinary collection of the Saxon king which I admired at the castle museum, the Grunes Gewolbe which includes the famous jewel with the longest green diamond great in the world and the compositions in gold and silver, some gigantic and spectacular (like that of the Aztec court and another Egyptian), true masterpieces of the goldsmith's art, especially by Dinglinger.
I then admired, in addition to rich porcelain, paintings by minor artists of the Italian and German Renaissance, glasses, bottles and glass trays by Milanese artists, edged weapons, pistols and rifles from various periods and I was especially struck by the Turkish room at the end floor of the castle which contains a huge silk-embroidered field tent, Turkish warrior costumes and rich horse drapes as well as precious carpets and many scimitars and weapons of all kinds abandoned by the Turks during the wars of aggression in Central Europe, including the siege of Vienna in 1683 with the legacy of the coffee sacks which was introduced into Europe at that time and gave rise to the famous Austrian coffee houses.
There was also a beautiful exhibition of paintings and drawings by the great painter Kokoschka, an artist who I then met in other museums and who struck me above all for the views of Prague and Budapest, cities that I visited during this beautiful trip. I then visited another wing of the castle under restoration with the walls of the buildings painted on the outside and I climbed about a thousand steps to reach the top of the tower from which I was able to admire the panorama of the historic center and take lots of photos .
Towards the middle of the climb there is a small museum with a very interesting collection of ancient coins.
Near the castle there is an ancient door and a gallery frequented by street artists, a huge wall with color portraits of all the Prussian kings and emperors from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, a panoramic and pedestrian terrace overlooking the river with a very busy street below with trendy bars and restaurants while at the end there is a park and other classic buildings in black stone which house important museums and a Jewish synagogue.
On the left you enter the most ... lively part of the historic center in the sense that the buildings are pastel colored with the enormous square of the Frauenkirche church and the facing statue of Martin Luther. Inside the church from 1730 but rebuilt and inaugurated in 2006 with some original dark stones embedded in the new ones which give that original visual effect, one is left speechless because it seems to be in a theater as in addition to a very high precious and original altar , presents all around a series of decorated stands and galleries that extend up to the dome.
In short, Dresden is striking for the beauty and originality of its historic center which seems disproportionate to what is around it and which can be seen better from the other side of the river where you can admire the skyline in all its length and majesty.
There is also a large market square with many wooden stalls selling handicraft products and foodstuffs in the middle of an ancient-style amusement park, to the delight of the little ones.
On the second day I took a train that took me to LEIPZIG in a couple of hours.
The city is the same size as Dresden and is in Saxony. The central train station is very large and spectacular with a classic facade while inside there are lots of shops that make up a large shopping centre.
Immediately in front you reach the main pedestrian street that leads to the center with a series of buildings with cold and gray facades that make you think of an uninteresting Teutonic city, but this is not the case because immediately afterwards you come across more beautiful buildings with baroque facades and architecture which make you think of small castles.
There is an ancient church, elegant shops, another shopping center which also extends into the basement and above all the market square with the municipal building of particular beauty, long, yellow with a particular architecture with high triangular dormer windows on the roof.< br /> Further on is another church which houses the tomb of the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach, a native of Leipzig who also dedicated a beautiful statue to him in front, in addition to the birthplace transformed into a museum. There is also the house of Mendelsohn, another composer from Leipzig.
Continuing you arrive at a huge building with many towers that looks like a castle and which houses the city's administrative offices. But it doesn't end there because on the other side you come across another structure that looks like a royal palace and which is actually the courthouse.
Going back you arrive in a huge square which on one side houses the modern theater and on the other side the old town hall with the facade protected by a glass window that protects very beautiful and ancient paintings.
In front of this building you can see a beautiful fountain and on its right side the university headquarters with an adjoining church currently being renovated.
These historic buildings lead to bad memories as they were destroyed during the period of the communist regime after a rebellion that started the revolt in 1989 and today the heroic city wants to bring them back to their original splendor with the addition of modern structures.
In short, a beautiful city, not as spectacular and artistic as Dresden, but perhaps even more lively, with its own strong personality that makes it worth a visit. Leipzig also houses a very important museum in a very modern building that looks like a glass cube. The art gallery, Museum der Bildenen Kuenste, is one of the most important in Germany with paintings by great Italian, French, German and Flemish painters.
Back in Dresden, the next day I decide to rent a bike at the hostel and take an excursion out of the city towards the castle of ........
I encounter beautiful towns and lots of greenery, rolling hills, farms with geese and horses and one that sells wild berries, blueberries and currants which you can pick personally in the large vegetable garden and then taste at the tables in the courtyard which contains many colored pumpkins as well as a path cute made of hay bales for children to enjoy.
Unfortunately I have problems with my bicycle and the chain comes out and forces me to stop for a repair attempt which I can't manage. Luckily an old lady shows me a workshop where a very kind gentleman takes care of changing the chain which in the meantime had actually broken.
The replacement costs me 27 euros but luckily the hostel will reimburse me the expense upon presentation of the relevant invoice.
After a while I arrive at the beautiful castle of .... with a very elegant and compact structure on the edge of a lake and moat. In the past, a Saxon prime minister resided there who had his bedroom built with a canopy, blanket and tapestries on the walls made of dark-coloured bird feathers, which are the main curiosity as well as a rather kitsch carriage with gold-coloured decorations.
A couple of km away you reach an elegant house which was a hunting lodge with a beautiful erotic statue overlooking it and not far away a pier and a tower overlooking a small lake.
Ultimately, an interesting visit to the most beautiful German cities of the former GDR after last year's visit to the capital Berlin which thrilled me. Second part: CZECH REPUBLIC
This state, which separated from Slovakia in 1994, has become a point of reference for Central Europe and is made up of two regions: Bohemia with Prague and Moravia with Brno.
PRAGUE is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, the fifth richest, it has around 2 million inhabitants, is crossed by the Vltava River and has a glorious past. It was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages and one of the most important and populous European cities.
Two German emperors were decisive in launching and consolidating it: Charles IV who brought the capital of the Holy Roman Empire to Prague around 1350 and built the cathedral of St. Vitus, the old bridge and the university and then Emperor Rudolf II who around 1570 he relaunched the city politically and artistically with the enlargement of the castle, the largest in the world still active as the residence of the President of the Republic and began the Habsburg dynasty which dominated the country for 4 centuries.
The baroque city is striking for the facades of its buildings which deserve admiration like in no other city on the planet.
The main attraction is the stone Charles Bridge which has become a salon with its painters selling their works next to the religious statues that adorn its sides while admiring the entrance and exit towers, the boats that pass the river for the joy of tourists while admiring the hill overlooking the castle and the other elegant and ancient buildings that line the banks, especially that of the Opera Theater with its round golden yellow roof.
The other attraction is the main square with the Tyn church with two towers, one of which is slightly smaller than the other due to a quirk of the emperor and above all the astronomical clock tower, the most photographed of the many attractions of the city .
Walking around the narrow streets of the historic center is like walking around the streets of Venice and you always come across new surprises such as the house of Franz Kafka, the famous German-speaking Prague writer who left various traces around: a strange statue with a man headless carrying another small man on his shoulders, his birthplace and his sister's house in the historic and toll alley located on the right edge of the castle. The castle is a huge building with various courtyards and houses the President of the Republic and various museums of which the two most important are those in front, one of baroque art and the national gallery at the Sternberg palace which I visited and which houses a very rich art gallery with works by great Italian, French, German and Flemish painters, statues and other artistic works contained in beautiful frescoed rooms which are sometimes more impressive than the works on display.
At the end of the castle, in addition to the alley with low pastel-colored houses including the house of Kafka's sister, there is also a prison tower with a torture room.
There is also a beautiful panoramic vineyard and a villa with a luxury bar and restaurant that I crossed to go down to the river and meet the Senate building housed in the beautiful classic Wallenstein villa with a large Italian garden with classical statues, strange walls that recall the inside a cave and even a small lake and a beautiful fountain.
On the other side of the river, the theater with the statue of the composer Dvorak and some buildings housing university faculties including the one frequented by the suicidal hero of the Prague Spring, the famous Jan Palak who set himself on fire in 1969 after the Russian invasion and he sacrificed himself in protest.
There are commemorative tombs of him and another suicidal hero, Jan Zajic, right in front of the building of the National Museum in the enormous longitudinal square of St. Wenceslas with the statue of the same saint on horseback.
The square is another landmark of the city as along its sides there are very beautiful buildings home to luxury hotels and representative buildings as well as many elegant shops.
I remember a beautiful park under the castle and the high wall containing colorful graffiti and writings in homage to John Lennon and the Beatles near a little bridge with many padlocks that the lovers attached as a sign of love near an old mill wheel .
In Prague I stayed in a nice central hostel, the Down Town where I met many nice people including a local boy who one evening accompanied the undersigned and another guest boy to visit the Vysehrad hill along the Vistula which houses the beautiful church of .Peter and Paul and a small cemetery with the tombs of Svetana and Dvorak, the two great Prague musicians. That evening we even admired the fireworks near the castle lit up with special and spectacular effects.
Then we went to a typical restaurant to taste some local specialties and drink the good beer that was invented by the Czechs, exactly in the city of Pilsen whose name is still reported today on most of the beer bottles of various brands, including Budweiser which Budeovice is Czech, a city that I will visit later on a short excursion even though another family member later founded a branch in the USA with whom a long legal dispute over the name continued.
The same hostel invited me to take part in a guided walking tour from the central square of the historic center which I did by joining the Spanish group which was smaller than the English one and led by a nice Andalusian from Seville who has lived in Prague for years, married to a Czech girl .
These visits are free but in the end those who are satisfied can give a tip to the guide who then invites them to a paid afternoon visit of the castle at a cost of 10 euros which I avoided because I preferred to visit it on my own even if I then met the group along the way.
I visited the contemporary art museum in a modern 5-storey building with a lot of paintings and statues which I didn't appreciate very much because I don't understand and I don't like paintings with colored spots or lines that a kindergarten child could make and which they are inexplicably judged to be masterpieces.
There is also a hill that housed a statue of Lenin or Stalin and which today has been replaced by a gigantic metronome, an object that marks time for musicians.
The biggest disappointment in Prague is the fact that visiting all the churches requires the payment of an entrance ticket and there is a desk in front of each one selling tickets for classical music concerts for the evening, at a cost of around 40 euros for concert.
I was unable to visit the church of S. NIcholas under the castle with the sacred image of a small Madonna which is venerated by European Catholics and an object of worship and pilgrimage because it can only be visited for a fee from 8.30 to 9.00 in the morning. An absurd thing even if the country is almost completely atheist after 50 years of communism while, on the other hand, nearby Slovakia is profoundly Catholic, like super-Catholic Poland not far away, also dominated by communist regimes that opposed religious worship.
The weather was very hot despite it being the end of August for this summer which lasted for over a month and there were many tourists despite the high season having already ended.
The city is not expensive, apart from the hotels which charge around 50 euros for a double room while you spend 20 for a bed in a 6-bed dormitory in a hostel.
On the other hand, you spend little for a meal in a restaurant, being able to eat well for 10 euros but also for half as much by being satisfied with a pizza and an excellent draft beer which costs around one euro.
Prague is served by an excellent metro and many trams, but if you are staying in the centre, they are not needed because the historic centre, the castle, the bridge, Wenceslas Square, the central train and bus station can be reached in a few minutes by crossing large pedestrian areas given that the city is free from traffic like many other European cities unlike ours which are invaded by cars, smog and noise. and without the cycle paths, parks and gardens of which the most civilized cities are rich, but not the Italian ones.
I left Prague with a certain sadness because it is a city that I loved so much and to which I returned after a sad visit 30 years earlier when the city, although beautiful, was very sad, dark, with very few shops, bars and restaurants because the Russians, after the occupation of 1969, had subjected it to every oppression unlike Budapest which had then been the subject of experiment, liberalization and privatization with shops found everywhere and even on the second and third floors of houses.
The next stop was the town of CESKY KRUMLOV, the second tourist attraction in the Czech Republic, on the UNESCO list since 1992 and about 5 hours away by bus and located almost on the southern border with Austria. This beautiful town has a Baroque and Renaissance castle belonging to important families of the Austrian aristocracy, the Schwarzenbergs and Rozmberks, and a pedestrianized historic center within the bends of the Vistula river which almost form an island. Along the river, dozens of canoes, dinghies and rubber boats travel the circuit, favored by the current fed by differences in height that test the hikers, whose less experienced ones end up capsizing in the water amidst the laughter of the spectators who crowd along the banks.
The castle is truly worth a visit for its richly decorated rooms furnished with antique and precious furniture, period paintings and furnishings belonging to the many families who have inhabited it over the centuries starting from an important prime minister of the empire Austro-Hungarian Empire of which the city was part.
I spent a nice day walking along the narrow streets and beautiful squares, eating excellently in a typical restaurant that offers a very high steak with blood and pepper and frequented by Japanese tourists who can't believe their eyes when they pay 7 euros for a steak that in the their country costs twenty times as much.
I walked along the banks at sunset, enjoying a good beer in a panoramic bar and then along the castle park which is located in the upper part.
I also slept in a hostel in Cesky Krumlov, but in a single room for only 20 euros.
I spent the evening in the company of three thirty-year-old Americans, one from New York, one from Chicago and one from San Francisco. They were taken by cheap beers and I brought them back to serious conversations about the state of the world economy and America's fault in this crisis from which we are all suffering.
They listened to me a little incredulous, a little skeptical and quite ignorant, to the point that one of them, a graduate in Economics, didn't even know that in the previous days the American Congress was discussing the expansion of the American public debt with the risk of bankruptcy. of the state in case of failure to reach an agreement between the Democratic and Republican parties. Incredible, but not so much for those who know Americans, cheerful and joking children who don't realize what's happening in the world and are poorly informed and interested in world events and their country's responsibilities.
Fortunately, in these days, I am getting closer to the American people for the rebellion of the INDIGNADOS who are besieging Wall Street and the centers of various American cities, in an attempt by the American people or at least by those most aware and rebellious to the power of the banks and finance who are 1% of the population and who have badly reduced the remaining 99% due to their infinite greed and their reckless speculations which have sunk the international economy and which politicians are unable to resolve, being mostly more on the same side as financial power, including Barack Obama and disappointing.
Returning to the Czech Republic, I reach by bus after a journey of about 5 hours the beautiful capital of Moravia, BRNO, with a difficult and short name and famous mostly for the motorcycling sports circuit which, according to what I was told, is about to close due to lack of of funds.
Brno is a beautiful, very elegant, clean city, with beautiful parks and gardens, beautiful squares with ancient buildings and modern buildings that blend and alternate with each other.
In particular the attractions are a white tower of the town hall, the beautiful central Piazza della Libertà with a column to commemorate the end of a plague and the palace with the statues of 4 giants who seem to support it, the market square with an ancient fountain and many stalls selling fruit and vegetables in the midst of ancient buildings, the hill with the cathedral of St. Peter and Paul which overlooks the historic center and from which you can enjoy the city panorama and then the incredible Spielberg fortress which recalls the events of Silvio Pellico and his book "My Prisons". In fact, in this prison castle all the dissidents of the Austro-Hungarian empire were imprisoned, including our hero-writer, of whom a plaque on the walls recalls, in Italian, some of his famous phrases praising freedom and democracy.
The fortress is now transformed into a gigantic museum hosting exhibitions and art displays that I did not have time to visit.
Also in Brno I stayed in a very original hostel, the Mitte which has various rooms each of which recalls historical figures. Mine was called Austerlitz and had gigantic posters on the walls of Napoleon and the famous battle, as well as furniture, a very original imperial style living room.
In Brno I spent a nice evening in a pub where I ate...a Greek salad, as I felt the need for some vegetables after so much meat and potatoes.
In the club I met two beautiful local girls who allowed me to take a photo of them to remember the beautiful evening and which I invite you to take a look at to confirm the well-known beauty of Czech women.
Part three: VIENNA
I also find Vienna again after 40 years from the first visit and 30 from the second and... well.... then I hadn't seen much, apart from St. Stephen's Cathedral, a distracted tour of the center and the famous Schoenbrunn castle, the summer palace of the Habsburgs which this time I visit only from the outside, walking along the beautiful, well-kept park full of flowers and an Italian garden.
Instead this time Vienna represents for my three-day visit, a triumph of palaces and museums.
Of course it was also nice to walk in the large pedestrian area around the St. Stephen's Cathedral with its colored roof, the Graben with the statue commemorating the end of the plague and the elegant shops, the park with the elegant Town Hall building under restoration and the adjacent buildings of Parliament, the University and the Opera House, but the triumph was the HOFBURG, i.e. the winter palace of the Habsburgs which is made up of about ten buildings, the church where the weddings took place and funerals and where the hearts of emperors and empresses are kept, the parks and courtyards with many statues, the treasury palace, the Royal Chapel and the riding school with the Spanish school of white Lipitian horses which are bred in Lipiza sul Carso Trieste but a few kilometers across the border in now Slovenian territory.
The Hofburg, literally courtyard castle, is made up of around 2,400 rooms which today occupy museums and exhibitions, but what moved me for an entire day was the palace which houses the personal apartments of Sissi and her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph .
We have all seen the films with Romy Schneider which TV broadcasts several times with great success, plus I am from Trieste which hosts the Miramare castle, the home of Maximilian of Habsburg, brother of Franz Joseph who hosted the peripatetic several times and depressed empress in constant travel and escape from the boredom and formalities of the Viennese court.
The beautiful princess was also eternally depressed due to the suicide of her son Rodolfo in Mayerling, she was fanatical about fitness and diets, with very long hair that took her 4 hours a day to care for and clean, she was a sporty rider always on the verge of injury and very close to Hungary also because according to malicious gossip she had as a lover the Hungarian count Andryass to whom Budapest dedicated one of the main streets in the centre.
In the empress's apartment you can admire various rooms that contain her wonderful clothes, her jewels, futuristic gymnastic equipment for the time, photos of her children and many portraits that highlight her beauty and elegance.
The emperor's apartment is more sober, but very interesting. There are many portraits of his beloved wife, his simple bed where he slept alone and was woken up at 3.30 in the still deep night and underwent a bath, rubbed by a sleeping servant.
There are the rooms where he received the ministers and the weekly audiences attended by up to 100 citizens, even simple people who asked for an audience to ask for favors and to whom the emperor listened for a few minutes, giving an answer to each one.
It's a shame not to be able to take any souvenir photos while you can take them in the basement where you can see sets of plates and glasses and precious trays and food holders that were part of the imperial furnishings.
Vienna is famous for its palaces and museums and I have visited several of them.
What struck me most is the upper and lower Belvedere Palace, separated by a very long garden park embellished with elegant classical fountains.
In the lower building there are gigantic and extraordinary paintings by the 19th century Viennese painter Mackart who was unknown to me and which I liked very much. He was a painter of eroticism with portraits of beautiful women and others such as Venice's homage to the noblewoman Caterina Cornaro which is a great masterpiece.
In the panoramic and elegant upper building there is a rich art gallery with the famous painting of the kiss by Klimt and by the other great Viennese painter Egon Schiele which I had already appreciated at an exhibition in Como and which I was able to delve into not only at the Belvedere but also in another Viennese museum in the museum district, opposite the Hofburg.
That museum is truly exceptional with many masterpieces by great classical painters of various nationalities, one of the best I have visited around the planet.
Unfortunately, having visited around twenty museums during this trip, I'm a bit confused and can't remember the authors, but I saw masterpieces by Kokoshka, Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Mirò, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Brughel, Renoir, Monet , El Greco as well as our Raphael, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Canaletto, Bronzino, Pinturicchio, Buonarroti, Modigliani, Guttuso, Carrà , De Chirico and many other minors of our Renaissance, of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In particular, I visited the Leopold Museum in Vienna which contains the largest collection of paintings by Egon Schiele and others such as Klimt and Kokoschka and an exhibition in the museum district, dedicated to the great Salvator Dalì of whom I was able to admire a few very beautiful and many other artists who were inspired by him not only for pictorial art, but also for statues and compositions of various types.
In Vienna I also remember the Opera House with the star dedicated to our Giuseppe Verdi on the floor in front, the statue of Mozart and Goethe and another museum in a historic building, the Albertinum, another heart-stoppingly rich art gallery and the nearby pavilion with ancient botanical garden which must have been beautiful but which today is rather neglected and transformed into a bar.
In the Graben, the elegant pedestrianized central street, there are also modern black bronze statues portraying characters from a science fiction film.
I also liked the Naschmarkt, a market more than two centuries old that hosts open-air stalls along an avenue containing many small restaurants and bars where you can eat fish and other local specialties at affordable prices.
Strangely, I didn't see the beautiful blue Danube which I later discovered was not far from the Prater, the big wheel and the huge Luna Park which I visited, deserted early in the morning and in the evening when it was closing with the lights and the infernal machines that I didn't want to experiment because I'm heart-stopping with sudden, vertical descents at full speed along endless towers or another modern wheel much larger than the ancient and classic one.
Vienna is perfect and some say quite boring, but I don't agree. I believe that from a cultural point of view it is one of the most interesting cities in Europe and very fascinating due to the great past of an empire that dominated the center of the continent for centuries and which, despite the centuries that have passed, fully retains its memory if only for for the horse-drawn carriages that cross the historic center and its famous cafés where you can taste delicious desserts such as the Sacher cake or strudels not to mention its chocolates.
I would also have liked to take an excursion outside Vienna to experience Austrian wines in the famous ...........in the midst of hills and overlooking the Danube, but the city's many attractions forced me to wander around the center to discover always interesting and fascinating places.
Part four: SLOVAKIA
From Vienna you can reach Bratislava, the Slovak capital, with a short one-hour ride on a train that almost looks like a metro line. It is frequented by Slovaks who work in Vienna next door and I instead had a strange and exciting encounter.
I sat at the end of the carriage to keep an eye on the bulky suitcase and in front of the corridor a tall, very sexy blonde girl sat down, dressed in a tight white and pink dress.
n the end the girl became paranoid and almost had a nervous breakdown because she couldn't find her train ticket in front of the inflexible conductor. Luckily, while I was trying to console her and invite her to look calmly, she remembered that she had put the ticket in a side pocket of the suitcase. And everything was resolved to everyone's great satisfaction, including myself, struck by this unusual encounter which I had no opportunity to delve into further!
BRATISLAVA is a beautiful city of around 600 thousand inhabitants which runs along the Danube river with several boats docked along its banks and many modern bridges, one of which has a restaurant at great height above a circular column.
The historic center is nice, with a series of pedestrian streets with low, ancient houses at the base of which there are several outdoor bars and restaurants which come alive in the evening with the presence of locals and the many Austrian and German tourists who arrive in Slovakia for accessible prices even if the fact that the euro circulates, the only country together with Estonia in Eastern Europe, has caused previously very low prices to rise.
Slovakia has a good economy, better than the Hungarian one and produces many cars given that Volkswagen, French companies and the Korean Kia have built many branches there where more cars are produced than in Italy, thanks to low salaries and low tax pressure.< br /> Bratislava has a castle on a hill, a very high, white quadrilateral with a large internal courtyard and surrounding park which is undergoing restoration. It dates back to the 15th century and became the residence of the Hungarian royal family during the Turkish occupation of Budapest when the Hungarian capital was moved to Bratislava.
Below is the beautiful San Martin cathedral with its 8kg solid gold sphere on the bell tower. Many Hungarian kings were crowned in this church..
Relations are bad between the two states because the Slovaks fear Hungarian claims which the latter swear not to support.
There is a beautiful opera house in a square with a beautiful garden and a luxurious hotel, an ancient church on whose external wall is stuck the black cannon ball fired during an old conflict and the sign of the Danube which had flooded the city during a winter flood with the arrival of ice. A beautiful old town hall and interesting patrician buildings such as the Reduta and the Apponyi complete the historic center with the Roland fountain which dates back to 1500, some gates and towers and an ancient house one meter wide.
The modern part along the southern side of the Danube is very beautiful. There are ultra-modern buildings home to shopping centres, hotels and museums and a beautiful riverside promenade with English lawns and huge cushions where especially young people relax and drink cocktails while admiring the river and listening to background music.
Unfortunately, the communist regime has committed some disgraces, for example by building a motorway that passes right in front of the cathedral which is in danger and is undergoing restructuring and consolidation. There are imposing classic buildings, but also horrible communist ones, which can be seen in the distance across the river, very tall and colorful buildings all the same that form the city built after the war by the communist regime.
I thought one day was enough and so I decided to move on and visit other places in the country. I would have liked to stop in Trencin, a beautiful ancient town with a castle, but unfortunately I didn't realize I had passed it due to a sudden dozing off.
Luckily I stopped immediately afterwards in PIESTANY, a town with thermal baths and spas with a river, a beautiful, quiet and green town and an impressive spa complex, the Napoleon with three structures.
I decided to try the experience of bathing in black mud and then in very hot and sulphurous water with drinking about six liters of very hot water considered miraculous for the stomach acid from which I unfortunately suffer, often due to the beer which I would have to give up.
In short, I tried to make up for the many beers I drank with this disproportionate amount of hot water and a bath which caused me, during the half hour of rest in bed, to sweat excessively, but perhaps healthy. On the other hand, this experience only cost me 13 euros and in the following days I felt reborn.
The next non-stop stop was the Tatra Mountains and its national parks. Slovakia is attacked above all for its mountains, but I was lucky enough to climb Mount Lonmin, one of the highest of the Tatras, during an excursion from Zakopane in Poland the previous year and so I continued and stopped in SPISK NOVA VES, a nice town, in total restoration which was very convenient for two excursions the following day.
I stayed in a modern hotel and took the most expensive room of the whole trip: 35 euros for a single room with bathroom, television, air conditioning and spa system on the ground floor with free use of the Finnish dry sauna and the Turkish steam sauna.
After the tiredness of the interminable half-day train journey, I appreciated this relaxing experience which gave me the opportunity to meet various young Slovakian couples who usually spend the weekend with excursions in the mountains and sauna sessions in the evening.
Furthermore, after leaving the sauna and intending to dine in the hotel's beautiful restaurant, I discovered that the entire place was intended for the wedding party of a beautiful couple. I stopped on the terrace, listening to the music of the band, the dances of the relatives and their libations which lasted day and night for three meals as I learned from two local girls invited with whom I managed to exchange a brief conversation and who rewarded me with the The offer of the wedding cake, some pastries and some Slovakian sparkling wine, not bad.
Not full I decided to find a restaurant for a full dinner and I was lucky to find an excellent, characteristic and very original place with furniture mad The next day I took a local train and reached LEVOCA, a medieval town surrounded by ancient walls and towers with some beautiful buildings inside and a beautiful church where I attended Sunday mass, noting the profound religiosity of the Slovaks and appreciating the songs of the choir accompanied by that of the faithful.
By coach I continued to SPISSKE PODHRADJE a beautiful quiet town in a green valley which is home to two interesting attractions: the monastery and the ancient church of St. Martin, a convent and ancient walls dating back to 1200 in a religious complex called Kapitula just outside the city on a low panoramic hill and on the other side the most photographed site in Slovakia: the SPIS castle fortress which can be reached on foot by climbing a very long path that climbs gradually but which was heavy at midday with the sun perpendicular.
It dates back to 1200 and is one of the largest in Europe which served to defend the local populations from the Tartars.
Fortunately, the visit, the panoramic view, the rooms with the ancient kitchen, a small internal church, some medieval weapons, the prison, the torture room, but above all the grandeur and the panoramic position made the visit worthwhile which constitutes one of the main attractions of the country.
n short, I looked for a hostel that didn't exist and the hotels were quite expensive, over 50 euros per room and in the meantime, while searching, I realized that I had seen the whole historic centre, very beautiful, a very wide central street with the beautiful cathedral of S. ta Elisabetta with a beautiful bell tower, the chapel of S. Michele, a city tower, a spectacular fountain that sends out jets in time to classical music, many well-kept gardens and buildings, even some archaeological excavations and a party in the square with a rap concert by groups of young Slovaks and hysterical girls below praising their idols.
In fact I had discovered that by leaving immediately I could have arrived in Budapest by the evening with an excellent and comfortable intercity train which otherwise I would have had to take very early in the morning with a very early rise which I had no intention of doing.
Part five: BUDAPEST
Budapest is not the most beautiful city of my trip (just surpassed by Prague) but it is the city where I would most willingly move for a simple fact: in addition to being beautiful and pleasant, it has 8 large spas and I had the opportunity to visit many of them 4 during the hot 5 days of my stay when around eleven in the morning I couldn't take it anymore and I took refuge inside their walls to relax, swim and rest after walking at least three hours to start again after 5pm when the sun beat down less.
I preferred to visit the city on my own, without taking part in the guided tours, since in Bratislava I was bored with the Australian guide, a young guy who spoke fast, counting on the fact that the majority of tourists were English-speaking people.
I still managed to understand more than 50% and immediately afterwards I got angry because rather than telling us about the city, he went on a tirade against the communist regime without knowing that the majority of citizens of the former communist countries regret the old system which was illiberal and anti-democratic but it guaranteed everyone work and social protection that capitalism has failed to ensure even if countries have made giant strides in terms of development, reconstruction, modernization, but it has also distanced millions of exasperated workers from low wages and salaries that do not allow anything else that a mere survival in the face of shops, shopping centers that offer every good thing while people look but cannot buy while a small class, sometimes mafia-like and corrupt, often made up of old recycled communist hierarchs manages to live large at the expense of a large part of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Furthermore, in his anti-communist emphasis the boy forgot to remember that education, decent infrastructure and jobs were guaranteed to everyone even if at a low quality level while today everything has to be paid for while most of the large industrial complexes have been closed and are sadly rusting, some sold for ridiculous amounts to foreign companies that dominate these countries also in the banking and financial field, first and foremost our Unicreditbanca which is present everywhere and predominantly also over German, French and Austrian banks, the other masters of the field.
In Bratislava the Australian guide told us the story of a worker who had tried to stop a Russian tank during the occupation of 1969, wanting us to believe that the photo had made history while I, who lived that period intensely, don't remember that episode at all, but I remember very well Jan Palak's sacrifice which he hadn't even mentioned.
Staying on the subject, even in Budapest there are sad memories of the communist regime and the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and its violent repression which caused 200,000 Hungarians to flee abroad.
I refused to visit the sad house of terror in Andryas Street which today is the most visited museum in the city because I don't like to deal with the sadness of the past and I know that in that horrible place first the Nazis and then the communists tortured and imprisoned in massively a lot of Hungarians.
Instead, I went to the suburbs to visit Memento Park where several defenestrated statues of the communist regime were brought, statues of communist leaders such as Lenin and Stalin and of local leaders, of partisans, of Hungarian workers and of liberating Russian soldiers.
In this park I most appreciated a beautiful documentary film that tells the life of communist spies, the agents trained to spy on suspicious citizens and the techniques used to infiltrate houses, insert technological tools to listen to the often normal and harmless conversations of the suspects , sometimes just for being cultured and intellectually independent people who were considered dangerous and sent to the Siberian gulags without any other guilt.
It reminded me of the beautiful German film "The Life of Others", winner of many film awards and which illustrated the life of a spy for the German communist regime of the former GDR.
Returning to the beautiful things about Budapest, I would like to talk about the spa again. There are two very beautiful and historic ones, the Szecheny...which is located in the northern part of the city in front of the gigantic Hero's Square, built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the arrival of the Magyar people (who left from the Urals) in Hungary today it is reduced to a third of its original territory, given that the remaining two thirds belong to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia and Croatia, in particular Bratislava, Varazdin, Novi Sad, Cluj Napoca and many other cities mainly Hungarians.
Hungary lost both world wars and consequently a large part of its original territory today restricted to the capital Budapest, Lake Balaton and two other medium-sized cities such as Pecs and Szeged.... while the rest are just small towns in the Hungarian post.
Budapest is a metropolis with over two million inhabitants and with around thirty districts crossed by three metro lines, the first of which was built around 1850, the first in Europe! There is also a vast network of trams that connect the various parts of the capital with an efficient transport network that allowed me to visit many places with a three-day pass bought twice for the modest sum of around 13 euros.
Budapest is actually made up of two two-faced cities. Buda which hosts the long castle hill and two other hills, the Gellert which houses the luxury hotel and the Gellert spa and another which houses the statue of liberty, a woman holding a horizontal leaf and the Citadel, an ancient fort never used and the Malastrana neighborhood under the castle, but also other residential hills that host an old railway with a small historic train that runs along it and leads to a panoramic tower and another train administered by young pioneers aged 10-14 and which leads into a nearby forest.
On the other hand, Pest on the other hand is much larger and more important and houses the large historic centre.
The castle is a large building which today houses the National Gallery which I have not visited, limiting myself to photographing it from the outside, to note the statue of the great military leader Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Roman ruins of Acquinqum, the beautiful Gothic church of San Matthias with the colored roof and the statue of San Stefano, the first Hungarian king who overlooks the elegant white and neo-Gothic bastions from which you can enjoy the beautiful city panorama with the Danube along its length crossed by various bridges of which the most famous is the one with the iron chains in the name of the usual Szecheny, a historical and political figure of stature to whom even the largest and most spectacular spas are dedicated with a huge outdoor swimming pool with hot thermal water and two other even hotter pools at the ends where the locals and tourists are soaking. In the basement there are saunas that I haven't visited because I was too busy cooling down and taking long swims.
The Gellert is a large luxury hotel with an adjoining spa facility, smaller in terms of outdoor swimming pool than the Szecheny, but also includes a beautiful indoor swimming pool that looks like a Greek temple. Then there is a large Turkish hamam with a water basin and a very high dome that lets faint colored lights filter through cracks in the roof while bathers divide their time between relaxing in the hot waters alternating visits to the very hot saunas, dressed in a sheet that hides their genitals but which leaves the buttocks exposed.
When they sit down for hygienic protection they turn the sheet towards their backs and reveal their genitals with a funny effect. Tuesday is dedicated to women, while the other days are dedicated to men, except in the evening and at night when the visit is permitted to both sexes.
I wonder if even on those occasions the men wear sheets and what the women wear, oh well! But I think Hungarians don't have as many problems with shame and privacy as we do.
I then visited the Rudas Turkish Hamam also in Buda under the castle which practically consists of two Hamams similar to the Gellert one although older. They built another new one nearby with the same name which I left out while I tried another more peripheral spa not far from the Danube, frequented mainly by elderly people which also houses a hospital and physiotherapy departments, a huge sun terrace and various swimming pools inside the courtyards of tall buildings. I didn't like this establishment very much but I still spent half a day there alternating the cool pools with the solarium terrace and a small steam sauna.
Furthermore, there is a play with the water in the sense that at Szecheny in a circular pool the water is moved by a technical structure that allows it to be carried by the current and turn in a circulatory direction while at Gellert waves are created that make the waters play guests like children at the seaside.
Starting from the wide Andrassy Avenue you arrive at the vast Hero's Square built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary in 1896 of the Hungarian conquest of the Magyar plateau, starting from the Urals.
There is a tall column, an important tomb and a circular colonnade which houses bas-reliefs and statues of the most important Hungarian kings which are also found at the base of the column.
On the sides of the square there are two large museums, an artificial basin under restoration, the Szecheny baths, the zoo and a complex of churches, museums and the Vajdahunyad castle on the edge of the city park.
But Budapest is not just spas, there are many beautiful buildings, squares, parks, churches and museums. In particular, in front of the enormous hero's square next to a huge artificial lake under restoration you can admire a spectacular complex consisting of a church, a large museum that looks like a castle entitled ............ ....
There are two other very important museums and art galleries nearby which I however left out, as well as the national museum in the center given the glut of museums I had had in Vienna and Prague and which I will then resume in a big way in Zagreb where I will visit no less than 5.
In Budapest I stayed in a nice central hostel a few steps from the Elizabeth Bridge, the white one that leads to Buda towards the castle.
Near the Astoria metro stop, the Vaci Utca shopping street which hosts elegant shops, bars and restaurants which at night become the meeting place for men in search of... erotic emotions given that prostitutes circulate there and there are strip clubs tease and night clubs.
During the day and in the evening, Hungarians love to crowd the many bars and restaurants in the vast pedestrian areas of the center and along the Danube crossed by tourist boats which also serve as restaurants.
In the middle of the Danube there is the large 2.5 km long Margaret Island which hosts the famous Sziget festival which in summer attracts thousands of young people from all over Europe.
n the past it was an island infested with rats and during Turkish domination it became the seat of the harem and later a recreational area.
There are many institutional buildings with elegant and impressive structures such as the Palace of Parliament located along the Danube which, due to its Gothic architecture, is reminiscent of the English Parliament or the Milan Cathedral. Immediately behind the beautiful building of the Ethnographic Museum and nearby other ministerial buildings, naturally the beautiful Basilica of St. Stephen and the very long Andrassy Avenue which leads to the Hero's Square and which houses the House of Terror, the Opera House, and two squares at the intersection with other perpendicular streets.
Budapest is halfway between Prague and Vienna. It has in common the beauty of the palaces, the hill with the castle and the central river, the former has the appearance of an imperial capital with the grandeur and institutional spectacularity of the public buildings.
We must remember that Budapest was the capital of a very large Hungarian kingdom first and then was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire with equal dignity starting from around 1870 with the help of Empress Sissi, after the Hungarian revolution of 1848 when the Hungarians rose up against Austrian domination.
Budapest is home to a very important university named after Matthias Corvinus, the great Hungarian monarch of the 1500s, a native of Cluj Napoca, the now Romanian city that hosts his birthplace.
There are various buildings scattered around the center and especially along the river which house various faculties.
I had the opportunity to meet two nice university students with whom I exchanged an interesting conversation on the political and economic situation of the country, but also on the historical events linked to the Habsburgs.
A somewhat sad picture emerged as today Hungary has a lower standard of living than the Czech and Slovak ones while in the past it was the opposite.
The blame would be due to the terrible political ruling class that followed after the fall of the communist regime.
They have not been able to attract many foreign companies, especially German ones like the other two republics also favored by their greater proximity to neighboring and powerful Germany.
In the hostel a nice guy had us cook goulash which Hungarians eat as a rather spicy soup with paprika and a stew of mixed beef and pork and the addition of cumin and a simple and tender pasta prepared at home with egg and flour.
We were a mixed group made up of Brazilians, French, Japanese and myself who had fun preparing and tasting.
Then I tried it in an outdoor restaurant in the center and I liked it so much that I asked for a second portion except for having some burning sensations in unspeakable places the next day.
Strangely, Hungarian beer costs double that of Czech and Slovakian beer, while the rest of the prices are lower. It's probably a question of alcohol taxes.
I would have liked to visit Lake Balaton and the city of Pecs and then from there move on to Osjek in Croatia to continue to Zagreb, the last stop of my journey.
In about three hours you can reach Lake Balaton by train or bus, but then it takes six to reach Pecs and it's not clear how you can get to Croatia, despite many attempts to inform me on the internet.
It's incredible but many of these small central European states are like islands and interstate connections are difficult and slow.
So I decided to take the train directly to Zagreb even though along the way I discovered that it passes right through Balaton where I could have stopped for a short stop in Tihany on the beautiful peninsula that enters the lake and which is home to a very pretty town with beautiful beaches. Too bad!
Sixth part: ZAGREB
I am Italian by culture and language, but Croatian by race as my parents were Istrians from Buzet-Buzet, Italianized at the time of Mussolini's fascist regime.
am one of the few in my family who recognizes this origin while my sisters and my nephews consider themselves 100% Italian, forgetting their origins. My daughter is only starting to understand it now after a holiday spent in Budapest where she attended the great rock festival on the island of Szeged. She met Croatians who pointed out that her last name was Croatian and then peppered me with questions upon her return which I was happy to answer.
In recent years, after my Balkan trip and visits to Istrian relatives, I have tried to study the Serbian Croatian language that I had in my ears as a child because my parents sometimes spoke an Istrian Croatian dialect even though they only taught us children the language. Italian.
Therefore I had no difficulty in mastering this language which I now understand 30% of and in which I can express myself for the essential things. It was also useful to me in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia -Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria as in all these countries Slavic languages are spoken which differ like the languages of Latin origin.
Having lived in Trieste for almost 40 years I was used to spending summer holidays but also many weekends along the Istrian coast of Croatia which occupies over 80% of it (only the northern coast belongs to Slovenia like my hometown which is Koper, today Koper the main port of the country).
When I was young I also took several holidays in Dalmatia, in its beautiful islands and twice I went as far as Albania. Last year I returned to complete my knowledge with a visit to the southern islands such as Korcula and Mljet and then Montenegro and even Albania.
However, the interior of Croatia and especially the capital Zagreb were missing.
This time I filled this gap and was able to visit the beautiful capital for 4 days
Prima parte: DRESDA e LIPSIA
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