CRAIG BAY TRAVELLERS a Newsletter for the Enjoyment of Craig Bay Residents

CRAIG BAY TRAVELLERS A newsletter for the enjoyment of Craig Bay residents. ISSUE # 7. February, 2019: EUROPE PART 2 I hope the January issue of this newsletter gave you a taste of what Europe has to offer. It’s tough to do anything more than scratch the surface of such a diverse continent but, with any luck, this issue will give you a few more interesting insights … and a couple of downright weird suggestions at the end. Once upon a time, the “Grand Tour of Europe” was the realm of the wealthy and aristocratic. Fortunately, getting around Europe today is easier than ever: technology helps us plan and stay connected; currency has become much simpler with the ubiquitous Euro; you can sometimes visit three countries comfortably in a weekend and, in major cities, you can find enough English speaking people to get by. According to Wikipedia, Europe has about 225 indigenous languages … just 24 are considered “official”. Most of us (I think) feel suitably humbled by Europeans who routinely speak 3 or 4 languages fluently. If you are longing for the end of the Canadian winter, browsing these articles might bring you a reminder of sunnier days or memories of your own wonderful experiences across Europe. Mandy Trickett Editor’s Note: Because I am travelling, this issue has had its challenges. If there are any errors or misplaced photos, I apologize. The fault is all mine and not that of the authors. 1 Exploring Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Switzerland By Rick & Dawn Stewart Last month, you read about Dawn and Rick’s river cruise along the Danube. Their adventure continued… We left the Emerald Sun only to board another boat moored a short block away, this one docked permanently as a hotel. The location was convenient, across from Budapest’s parliament and near the train line, but the room was even smaller than the cabin we had on the Emerald Sun. We spent our first afternoon exploring Budapest on foot and by train and getting a feel for the layout of the city. The next day we toured the city by Segway. We have done this in the past, in Prague and Copenhagen, and have learned that it’s an ideal way to see a city. Segways are not difficult to learn to ride and you are able to get above the crowds to see sites that would otherwise be obscured. We had a private guide for the two of us who led us through the streets of Pest and Buda. He gave us plenty of time at each stop to take photos and shared the history of each stop with us. We both felt that we had a much better sense of the layout of the city after this Segway tour. Afterwards, we visited the shoe memorial (the Shoes on the Danube Bank), a monument to the Jewish women and children who were shot by the Nazis and thrown into the river. On our second day on our own, we enjoyed a countryside wine tour of some of Budapest’s small boutique wineries. The tour included lunch at one of the vineyards and we enjoyed Hungarian food prepared for us by the winery owner. By now we were feeling quite confident about finding our way around Budapest so we hopped a train to go in search of the “Ruin Bars” which were created in the vacant areas where buildings were destroyed by bombs during the war. We left Budapest by train for Vienna the next day. Train travel is the best way to see Europe: trains are comfortable, clean, roomy, convenient, and run smoothly at 235 kph! We were able to find excellent hotels near the train station in all our destinations. It was so nice to sit back and relax with a good book as we sped to our next stop. We returned to Vienna, as we felt that the one-day tour of Vienna we had while on the river cruise was not enough. We stayed at a hotel that was walking distance from the train station 2 and took a hop-on, hop-off bus, which was an excellent way to see the city in the short time we had. In hindsight, if you want to see Vienna properly, you need to plan on a week there and book ahead to get tickets for concerts. Once again, we were relaxing on board another ultra high-speed train, this time bound for Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains and overshadowed by an old castle which looms from one of the hills overlooking the city. Our first tour was the Sound of Music tour. We joined the other tourists singing songs from the Sound of Music as we visited familiar sights from the movie. This tour also took us to places within the city, as well as the surrounding countryside. The next morning, we toured around the city on our own including visiting Mozart’s home and taking the funicular up to the old castle which overlooks the city. That afternoon we took a tour a couple of hours south to Hallstatt, a charming little village that was established over 2,000 years ago by Celts who were mining the local salt. The houses cling to the edge of the lake and until recently, the only access was by water. We took another funicular up the mountain to view the village from above. Our final train trip took us to Munich just in time for Oktoberfest. We spent the afternoon visiting two of the infamous Oktoberfest tents and downing two liters of beer each! We slept well that night! I was particularly enchanted by the number of people in traditional dress. It was a fun and friendly crowd, but one afternoon of this revelry was enough. I was glad we had arrived early enough to spend the afternoon at the beer garden and were back safely in our room by evening. Our last stop on this tour was Zurich. We had decided to fly to Zurich. In hindsight, we wished we had taken a train. It probably wouldn’t have taken any longer to get there by the time you factor in the time it takes to get to and from the airport and allowing the extra time for check in and security that’s needed when you travel by air. Zurich was my favourite stop (with Salzburg stealing a close second). It’s a beautiful, friendly and safe city. Our small boutique hotel was minutes from the river, overlooking a busy courtyard and above the best fondue restaurant in Zurich. We left Zurich the next day for a day tour to Mount Riga and Lucerne. We truly felt as if we were in Switzerland with this tour. We travelled by bus to the bottom of Mount Riga, then took a gondola to a beautiful mountain meadow where we stopped to listen to the cowbells and 3 admire the view. From there we continued by cogwheel train to the summit. From the top we could admire the lake-studded countryside and even see down to Lucerne where we would finish our tour. I wish we had had more time to spend in Lucerne. The highlight of the city for us was the wooden covered bridge that spans the river. On our last day in Zurich, we enjoyed a free walking tour of the city. The guide did an excellent job and it gave us a very good idea of the layout of the old city. Later we enjoyed a picnic lunch on the banks of the river, just minutes from our hotel. Finally, it was back to Munich to catch our return flight to Vancouver. We left with many fond memories of a beautiful area of Europe. I would definitely like to return to all the places we saw on our trip. As usual, I’m always astounded by the history that surrounds you everywhere you go in Europe. ROAMING AROUND ROMANIA By Contributing Writers Shereen & Bruce Matheson “Why Romania?” I asked my husband when he suggested we spend a couple of weeks there. It was spring 2016 and we were looking for somewhere new to explore before we began six weeks of travelling in Turkey and Greece. Bruce talked about Romania still being off the beaten path for many travellers, about the medieval walled towns in the Transylvania region, and that, for Europe, it was still a relative bargain. Romania seemed to fit the bill perfectly. As we flew into Bucharest, I was both excited to explore this part of the world and still a little unsure of what we would find. My first vivid memory is roses – block after block of beautiful roses that filled the medians between the airport and the city centre. The jumble of colours was a sight to behold and I could almost smell their sweet fragrance through the bus windows. Romania had made a wonderful first impression. We spent three full days exploring Bucharest and were very pleasantly surprised by it. We expected the typical drabness of a country slowly recovering from decades of socialist dictatorship, but Bucharest was much more attractive and interesting than that. The people were generally friendly, though some tended to be little standoffish, no doubt a legacy of being encouraged to inform on each other for two generations. 4 There are hundreds of historic churches and buildings in Bucharest. We spent hours meandering through the Old Town, exploring inside colourful ornate orthodox churches, searching for interesting architectural details of historically significant buildings, and strolling through parks, admiring lush flower beds and pondering modern art installations.

Load more