Library Paradise

When in Prague, don't miss the libraries. Here are three of them.

The library at the Strahov Monastery is mentioned in all the tourist guides but many people don't know that there is another library that is even more beautiful right in the Old Town just near Charles Bridge in the Klementinum complex.

The complex was founded in 1232, but the baroque library hall was opened in 1722 to serve the Jesuit University and when the buildings became home to the State and National Library, it came under the care of the state and has not been altered since the eighteenth century.

There are guided tours of the Astronomical Tower.
After the first spiral staircase I could only fix on the bum in front of me, step by step with clenched teeth, heart in mouth and sweaty toes and palms, clutching the handrail with both hands. I hate those spiral staircases. Each time we got to a small platform, we'd huddle in our group to wait for another group to go down before ascending - 172 steps in all. Up into the tower we went. Some people may have been there just for the 360 degree views from the platform at the top of the Tower, others may have been enticed by the description of a 'Harry Potterish' library, but I was fulfilling a dream I'd had for years, since I gazed at the picture of  it in a calendar featuring The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World that I had mail-ordered years ago, BI (before Internet) and decided that THIS was the The Most Beautiful of all. Stairs-schmairz! It was so worth it.

No photos are allowed but here is one I found via google.

And here's an example of the views from the Tower.

 The Municipal Archives and National Library now are located nearby. In fact, the Archives are in an outstanding baroque mansion that includes a theatre where Beethoven once played. I loved these little statues and a plaque high on a wall outside the building.

Inspired, I stuck my nose into the public library next. Well, to tell the truth, it was this nice little cafe that drew me in.

John Banville writes in Prague pictures "There are as many Pragues as there are eyes to look upon it - more: an infinity of Pragues".

He reached this conclusion by pondering on the question of how one can know an entity as amorphously elusive as a capital [city]. I got there by sticking my head into an opening in a tower of books I spotted in the foyer of the public library.

The effect was unnerving. There are mirrors on the floor and ceiling, delivering an image of an infinity of books (and even more terrifyingly, an infinity of Judiths). Four Russian teenagers arrived and hogged the view for ages, taking selfies and pictures of each other. A father encouraged his little girl to look in but she baulked, even though he held her hand. Off they went into the children's floor, and I thought about what it would be like to grow up in this city, and how young people would have engaged with the Klementinum library in Jesuit times. I dove into the depth of books again and thought, I have found Prague.

So, anyway. Now I'm at the Strahov Monastery, which has its own brewery.

Here's marketing for you, St Norbert's Antidepressant. Pale Ale. I'm happy, and I'm here to see another library.

The monks have been here since at least the tenth century, though during communist times many of them were taken into prison.

The library is located in two halls with Baroque ceilings. It is the largest monastic library in Czechia, with over 200,000 volumes, 1,500 of which were created before the year 1500. The oldest book is the ninth century Strahov Gospel, and there is a facsimile on display in the vestibule. Actually you can only get into this vestibule, and you need an extra ticket to take photos. The library halls are roped off and people are jostling around - not so much as to see in but primarily to take a selfie or have their photo taken with the books. "Wow honey, I'd love a library like this at home". And, "I wonder how long it would take to read all those books". Beware the selfie stick, owner unaware of surrounding crowd. Can we go have a beer now?

Images from http://artial.net/2015/09/02/biblioteca-strahov-prague-prag/  

Meantime here's a library I personally would quite like to have at home, in fact, as it is just over the foyer from that lovely bistro/cafe, it could BE home. It is the Friends' reading room at the Prague public library.

Buda and Pest, a tale of two cities

Budapest

How did I even get here? All I can say it was the on the way, even if it wasn't on the agenda. But I'm glad, because it has to be one of my favorite cities.

So, it is in Hungary I never knew that Hungary's patron saint is no less than the Virgin Mary, and what's more, most Hungarians are Catholic. The currency is the Forint, and it is in the Schengen Zone.

And the nation has another turbulent and troubled past. Hungarian civilisation though has survived, despite successive invasions by Roman, Huns, Avars, Mongols, Ottomans, Habsburgs, German and Communists and probably others I can't name. That turbulence has continued since Soviet rule ended in 1989 but Budapest feels very safe and welcoming.

I could happily walk the streets and look at the buildings for days on end but what else is there to do in Budapest? I bought a three-day pass on the public transport and the best thing about that was that it included a ferry service up and down the Danube. Who needs a private balcony on a Viking Cruise (not that I'd turn down an offer)? While I was on the last ferry of the day, the sun set and the lights came on and I turned into this idiot tourist running from one side of the boat to other taking photo after photo - no, you don't Have to see them. Unless you ask of course.

Four-star dining on the Viking Boat
but the ferry is almost free and has a bar

The Hungarian Parliament buildings, modeled
on Westminster but one foot longer. 

That Castle.

There were two walking tours, one with Zoltan taking in the main sights of the Old Town on the Pest side and finishing up at the Cathedral on the hill over on the Buda side, the other with Rachel who led a tour of the Jewish Quarter that had an even better end spot, in one of the Ruin Bars, which because this was Sunday, had a farmers' market going on in the courtyard.

Rachel is studying Jewish culture and history at the Jewish University. She did a fabulous tour that hit all the right notes and didn't gloss over the past. Her words inspired me to go back to the Great Synagogue that afternoon to join a march called the March of the Living, an event held every year to remember the liberation of Auschwitz.

A memorial courtyard at one of the synagogues -
mass graves

In the fabulous Ruin Bar, Szimpla

I stayed on the Pest side in the first modern building I have slept in for weeks. My single room was quiet and spacious (guys, you could fit at least 4 bunk beds in there) with excellent bathroom facilities just over the corridor and basic kitchen facilities and hardly anyone else on my floor. It was near the walking street with all the restaurants, close to one of the universities and the main market hall, on the Pest side of town. As good as a hotel and one hundred times better than the Intercontinental which occupies on of the ugliest modern buildings ever all the worse for having a prime river-front location. Boycott them!

The thing I didn't do in Budapest was to soak in a mineral spring. There are famous old bath houses that have modern spa facilities and open air hot pools but there was just too much to see and I didn't spare the time, so when I'm next in Budapest, that's my first stop.

Three things I recommend doing
⦁ visit the castle - not so much for the castle itself but for the views and the lovely streets and parkland around the area
⦁ ride the no. 22  tram along the river and pick up the ferry to get back
⦁ stick your nose into the churches and synagogues.

One thing I want to do - come back again.

Trompe d'oeil 

Vajdahunyad Castle in the City Park, at the end
of Andrassy Avenue,
which is World Heritage listed

This is the Fisherman's Bastion, a bit of a folly up by the Castle which lovely views across to Pest over the Danube.

City of bridges

Twenty-four hours in Lyon (most of them sleeping)

Maybe this post should be called Lyon, Been There - Slept.

Too little time, and too little energy to make the most of it. Just an overnight stop for me on the way to France. My overnight bus from Prague arrived into Lyon at 7.00am.  I stumbled out into the station with gummy eyes and brain to match, snuffling and aching everywhere after eighteen hours on an overheated bus. France it was, at last, and I didn't even feel like having coffee and a croissant. But you have to, don't you! and I did. So then I had a pain in the gut as well.

I stayed in a simple single room in a seminary called the Jean Bosco Centre. I can't recommend it more highly. My room was ready and the shower was hot and I was ready then to tackle Lyon. The thing about the JB Centre is it is many flights of stairs above the river - but these monks are not masochistic, there is a funicular. I walked down though, across a roman amphitheatre which is just over the road, and then through the rose gardens and finally down steep laneways into the Veille Ville and across the Saone River.

Destination the Silk Museum. Or I should say Musee Historique Des Tissues et Musee des Arts Decoratif. It is actually two museums in mansions at either side of a courtyard where I would happily live forever even if I had to sleep in a tent for rest of my life including through the winters. The weavers of Lyon - all men - were artists as well as great craftsmen and in fact they were obviously canny businessmen and pretty good with technology too. The pattern cards used to program the weaving looms are like computer punch cards. The silk trade brought immense wealth to Lyon that you can see today in the Renaissance mansions that line the streets.

How could I have forgotten the French tradition of Le Dejeuner? When weakness set in I went in search of a sandwich and could find only fine dining, with a number of Euros beside the menu options that just made my eyes even gummier. Say Lyon to a frenchman and her/his mouth will start to water. It is packed with restaurants. Good choice though, my little place offered a salade Lyonnaise (giving me a good contribution to french-word-rhymes-with-chaise at Le Bookshop's conversation session!) that probably only set me back $15. So Eastern Europe was far behind me now. Though a half hour in the tabac/newspaper shop at the station had already placed me in the heart of Europe. A million different magazines on current affairs, culture and philosophy, history and economy. Nicholas tells me that the most important role of the government in France is encourage culture, tradition and intellectual life. Take that Malcolm Turnbull.

Another round of woven silks and I walked back up the hill before collapsing for 15 hours straight.

So, to recap, Lyon is famous for gastronomy and the textile industry and it has impressive roman ruins. There are two other Star Sights. The Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviere was practically on my doorstep. Described as 'gaudy mock-Byzantine' it was built in the late nineteenth century and dominates the skyline.

The Cathedrale St-Jean, on the other hand, has been sitting quietly by the Saone for around 800 years.

Life on the move can be a drain sometimes

We all enjoy routine to varying degrees, and maybe we actually NEED some routine for days to be productive and meaningful. I find I'm putting structure into my days as and how I can. Road rules help, and here are some I have established for myself over the past couple of weeks

don't take a taxi from outside the train station. Just don't

bureck is never good for breakfast, even with yogurt

carry sun-screen, even if it is only 2 degrees outside when you wake up

night trains belong in the do-it-once category

always have some small change to hand (for the loo!).

In Belgrade I made a new rule - no hostels with bunk beds. Then I promptly made a mistake when reserving my accommodation in Prague. I fronted up at Adam&Eva Hostel (9 out of ten on Trip Advisor, number one hostel in Central Prague) having booked a bed in a female-only dorm (save money now, because France and England are getting closer, where the cheapest Airbnb cupboards cost about 21 pounds a night AND you have to drink wine with your host/hostess and I'm sure they mean BYO). Yes, I checked the pictures before booking, and I'm sure I saw spacious dorms with sitting areas and actual beds. Eva met me at reception, looked up my booking and then looked me up and down. She seemed a bit lost for words, then finally came out with it (9 out of 10 for tact) "We have a policy. I don't know how old you are, but we don't allow people over 50 to stay in top bunks, and that's what I have booked. I'm sorry, but we are full up and that's all there is. You see, we have had some complaints in the past..." It took me a moment to come to terms with feeling like a senior big-time LOSER, and then I rallied. "I like top bunks. I don't have any problems with them. You'll get no complaints from me!" I had to stop myself saying, I can carry my luggages up four flights of narrow stairs without any complaint. I can use squat toilets, in fact, I prefer them. I can get my hair cut AND coloured by someone who doesn't speak English. I can travel on an overnight train in Bulgaria and then spend the whole next day walking all over Sofia. I can do a 14 hour train trip without food or coffee - and DID I COMPLAIN?

She offered to move me to a bottom bunk when there was a space. There's no way I was going to take up that offer.

But, back to that important question of routine, I have started collecting manhole covers. Proof

Lady in Seat 63 - Belgrade to Budapest, slowly

Belgrade station 

I was in the mood to move on and on the advice of The Man in Seat 61, decided to take the train to Budapest.

The thing about the station at Belgrade is the smell. I heard it was much worse a few months ago, but it was still pretty bad. There are people living in the park beside the station. I don't know who or why. Lumps of possessions or people under plastic tarps. Worn tents, litter, piles of bulging plastic bags. People milling around, sitting on the ground, lying on the benches. And right across the centre path, a stream of purposeful people like me, heading to work or going somewhere meaningfully, not making eye contact, not looking around, not breathing too deeply that stink of unwashed humanity, sewage and garbage. Two young men with dreadlocks have set up a couple of urns on a park bench and are handing out paper cups to a small queue of men.

It's a Serbian train to Hungary. We stop at the border and I'm stamped into the Schengen Zone - the last time for a while that I'll need to show my passport to move from one country to another.

 Not much to see as we head across Serbia. Pocket-handkerchief fields being tilled and planted manually, rural houses with fruit trees, rows of vegetables, hens and beehives. Small stations in tiny towns.

A long slow morning drags into afternoon rumbling across the plains of Hungary, as the farms get bigger and there's more machinery being used.

Hungarian train on the left, Serbian on the right

No restaurant car, no coffee service. No power points, no WiFi. No other english speakers. The sunset was the most exciting thing happening here.

The day's journey ends with a buzz at Budapest Station - I'm getting somewhere now.

This is Keleti Station, the place we saw on television last September when crowds of angry refugees who were camped outside 'rioted' in protest against the station being closed. On 3 September it reopened and those buses arrived and took thousands of the homeless refugees to Germany. There were no refugees to be seen during my time but I saw quite a few homeless folk in the subways of the metro, and a few by the river too.

Balkan Beats - or not

Belgrade - sounds so sedate and calm. Former capital of Yugoslavia, tucked away in Serbia at the confluence of two big slow rivers, the Seva and the Danube and a bit dull and communistic you might think.

Yes, that Belgrade does exist. Plenty of elegant restaurants, old-worlde charm and no-nonsense communist architecture.

But what sort of innocent am I? I somehow had missed knowing that Belgrade is not just the party capital of the Balkans, but (so the LP bible says) the World's No 1 Party City. Yes, number one in the world when it comes to clubbing, also according to The Guardian and The New York Times.

Belgrade rocks, folks. Especially all those party boats along the river.

Thunder storm rolling in

Nenad at the hostel in Nis opened my mind about Serbia. Before this trip I really only had two vague associations; something about needing a wheelbarrow full of money to buy bread and milk, and NATO intervention to try to stop the brutal civil war. Now here was this young Belgrader, Tal, our guide on the Free Walking Tour. She lived through both of these experiences in the 90s, suffered under UN sanctions and having bombs dropped on her city. The Kosovo war - I should have known more about it. Unemployment is still very high today and this goes some way towards explaining why there are so many people sitting around in cafes and drinking alcohol in the middle of the day.

Free Walking Tour guide, Tal, at the Fortress

Not partying - but gathered for some
mock sword-fighting,
promoting a spring festival coming up

Another bit of the jigsaw fell into place in my mind when Tal pointed out one of the bridges over the Seva, where residents gathered night after night in the 90s, bringing picnics and staying through the night, acting as human shields to try to prevent NATO bombs destroying these historic monuments, lifelines of their city. So an all-night partying culture was born, she tells us.




Perhaps because of all the hardships of living in the capital of a nation that was falling apart and a city that was being bombed in a strategically random manner designed to maximise the psychological impact on its residents,  Belgraders made clubbing an art form. Some night clubs even continue on into the day. Serbian mafia keep up the energy supplies for party people.








All that music, and now my confession - my Belgrade is the Calzone Capital of Europe (Rachel is the calzone queen down under).

I'm sad to say I missed the Balkan Beats, techno vibes and turbo folk. But quite a few people staying at the same hostel as me didn't.
















I'd really love to come back to Belgrade to really experience this culture - but with company and the budget for a sound-proof hotel room with blackout curtains and spectacular breakfasts.