Day 19 Vienna (Austria)
We started out by walking to the Botanical gardens.
ABOVE: I've never claimed to be a good wildlife photographer, this isn't my best photo but this little champ was so cute jumping around in the gardens.
ABOVE: I'm not sure if they are behind in their weed spraying or this section of track is supposed to look like this!
ABOVE: Almost at the gallery and I spotted this little beauty, this has to be the world's smallest tram. I don't think it takes passengers, maybe it's used for driver training?
We headed to the Albertina gallery which had a major Marc Chagall exhibition. ABOVE: This painting shows evidence of impressionist style, bright colours, cubism, item placement and possibly fauvism and was leading towards surrealism. I love it!
His most famous painting is probably "The Kiss" He has just brought her flowers, they are not of this earth but float above it, they have not long met and earthly concerns do not concern them. Is there anything greater than the early days of falling in love?
It's funny, we never think of old people ever being in love. Old people are just...old. This was in 1915 when they were both young and I'm sure had a beautiful night of lovemaking. Our parents and grandparents might have been firecrackers in bed! The ancient Persian poet Rumi said it best. "Your father and mother were playing love games. They came together, and you appeared!"
ABOVE: It is impossible for me to understand how paintings as beautifull as Chagall's could ever be deemed "degenerate" by anyone but of course he was Jewish and the miserable nazi's hated anything Jewish. To think that some of his paintings were burned is beyond belief. The German people would have been better off throwing hitler on the fire instead of the books and paintings.
ABOVE: Marianne Von Werefkin 1860-1938 is a terribly underated painter, in my opinion. Her style was her own and her use of colour amazing. This painting shows a night scene not normally painted at the time, it is night but the cafe's lights blaze brightly, inviting you in to warm up after enduring the stormy night. She was Russian but became stateless after the Russian revolution and lived much of her life in Switzerland.
ABOVE: Their permanent collection has a few Miro's. I have always liked this one although I understand his work isn't everyone's cup of tea.
ABOVE: There was a contemporary exhibtion, this painting was painted in 2024. It is dedicated to anyone who thinks they are having a bad hair day!
ABOVE & BELOW: There was also an exhibition by a still living New York artist named Robert Longo. He works with charcoal on paper, these works are huge and utterly amazing, I couldn't believe they were done with charcoal. Sadly they had very reflective glass which made photos quite difficult.
BELOW: The most stunning work, in my opinion, was this image, my photo of the original was ruined by reflections so I swiped this image off the interwebs. All done with just charcoal, amazing! This work was about 4 meteres high.
ABOVE: Just outside the gallery was this graffiti on a seat in a park, it translates to "Will we see each other again?"
ABOVE: Everywhere you look in Vienna there are beautiful buildings. This one was a few steps from the art gellery, I'm calling this photo "Five little trees"
ABOVE: The castles and arches and gateways never end! The bloke on the right looks like a bad dude as he's about to give the bloke on the ground a massive headache.
ABOVE: I took this photo as I want to take it to the special orders desk at Bunnings and see if they can get a pair of doors like these for me.
Day 20 Vienna - Salzburg
This will be a fairly short blog day as we did a lot of travel, most of it in fog. We checked out of our hotel in Vienna. This hotel was advertising its envrionmental credentials everywhere you looked but strangely, the thermostats throughout the entire hotel were set so high that the entire hotel was unbearably hot. Most buildings in Europe have been crazy hot, I reckon if they dialled their thermostats down a bit they would meet their carbon reduction targets easily.
The only major town between Vienna and Salzburg is Linz so we decided to get off there with the idea of walking into the old town for lunch. Alas, there were no luggage lockers in Linz and as Kris is feeling quite poorly with the cold/flu she had we decided to have lunch at the station and then jump on the train to Salzburg, it was a wasted stop really as it meant we got into Salzburg just as the sun was setting behind the fog.
ABOVE: A train departs Linz where we stopped for lunch.
BELOW: After checking into our hotel we walked into the heart of Salzburg
ABOVE: A castle above the city in the fog.
BELOW: It wasn't really raining in Salzburg but the footpaths were wet enough for a nice reflection.
ABOVE: The shops are starting to put their christmas decorations up. The town square was getting ready for their upcoming christmas market.
ABOVE: While walking back to our hotel we came across this mural which made us think of our dog Lola.
Day 21 Salburg (Austria) - Lake Bled (Slovenia)
Bit of a mistake, we should have stayed two nights in Salzburg, there was a lot to see but we got on a train south with our ultimate destination, Lake Bled, Slovenia.
ABOVE: Whilst waiting for our train at Salzburg this goods train came through.
ABOVE: Austria is a bit like Switzerland, amazing scenary everywhere, this is the view from the train half way between Salzburg and Vilach.
ABOVE: This is our train at Jesenice where we got off, it was our first taste of Slovenian air. The station appears to be named after Kris's daughter, Jess.
ABOVE: The train on the left was our train from Jesenice to Lake Bled.
Apparently Lake Bled is the number one destination for honeymooning couples in Slovenia. It takes about an hour to walk around it and it has a very small island in the middle of it with a church. The water is naturally warm so there is usually a mist coming up from the lake.
ABOVE & BELOW: The island with the church seems to float on the lake.
ABOVE: Autumn by the lake.
ABOVE: Swans have to be the most beautiful birds on the planet. This one, on the lake, seemed to be asleep.
ABOVE: We walked to the town of Bled where we had dinner. The foggy mist had settled in and this was the path along the lake that we took to walk home.
Day 22 Lake Bled (Slovenia)
A quiet day of doing not too much which allowed Kris to recuperate a bit. We stayed in a Penzione right on the lake and at night it is perfectly quiet, no car sounds, no birds, absolute silence.
ABOVE: This morning the mist had cleared so we could get a decent photo of the church on the island in the lake.
ABOVE : Leaf reflections on the lake.
ABOVE & BELOW: One of the tiny towns by the lake.
I finally was in a space where I could get the drone out. I must admit I'm a newbie with the drone and I hadn't used it in a while, plus my video editing skills aren't much, so it has no sound but I think it's worth watching, it seems like nothing happens at first!
Day 23 Lake Bled to Ljubljana
It was freezing when we awoke this morning, after a quick breakfast we had to hike up the to train station, it wasn't far but it was steep, very steep.
Our train arriving Bled Jezero in heavy fog. We caught this back to Jesenice. Slovenian railways were taking a page out of V/Line and there were no trains from Jesenice to Ljubljana so we had to get a rail replacement bus service. Unlike V/Line's rail replacement busses this one departed at the same time as the train would have and arrived at Ljubljana at the same time the train was timetabled to arrive!
After checking in and getting an upgrade to a deluxe suite as our room wasn't ready, we went for a walk in the old town. Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, it is not a huge town but the old town is very pedestrian friendly. We got some roasted chesnuts and ended our walk by having a beer at a local's bar. It was Sunday so almost all shops, including supermarkets were closed.
ABOVE & BELOW: I got the drone out again from our hotel balcony. On the first attempt I flew around the castle but when the drone was behind the castle it lost contact with home base so flew home before completing its orbit of the castle.
we had a little nap and then went out for dinner at what is advertised as a Bosnian influenece restaurant. I don't think there were any vegetarian options, every dish had a ton of meat. They were accompanied with these doughy balls that were a bit like a donut but not sweet. They were yummy.
Day24 Ljubljana (Slovenia) - Budapest (Hungary)
A warning for non gunzels, this is a train heavy photo day. If you are reading this blog to lift you up from your daily life with photos and stories of castles and dreamy lakes and gourmet food and of people kicking their way through mounds of golden autumn leaves, this blog is not for you today.
We awoke in the lovely capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, and went downstairs for the best hotel breakfast we've had so far. And then it was a walk to the station to catch the 09:30 train to Budapest, about a 500 kilometre, 7 hour trip.
ABOVE: We got a coffee before we got on the train and the bloke serving it reminded me of Uncle Arthur. He asked me where I was from and I said Australia, a few minutes later Kris's cappuccino appeared, now I'm not sure if he tried to draw a kangaroo or if it's supposed to be a rabbit but it was very cute.
ABOVE: Our train to Budapest is on the right, the trains on the left were local trains.
ABOVE: The first hour after leaving Ljubljana was amazing scenery, very mountainous, as we followed a river for ages. This view is from the back of the train.
ABOVE: This photo, from our train is at Zidani Most which is a junction station, high up in the mountains.
ABOVE: We got a new loco at the border and this is our train where it terminated at Budapest Deli. It was 3C. suprisingly, this was a 7 hour train ride, it had no buffet/restaurant car at all so we didn't eat for 7 hours. Hence we arrived at Hungary very hungary. After checking into our Penzione we headed out to a restaurant which had 4.7 stars on Google maps. The meal was awesome! I had a beef cheeks stew.
Well I did warn you, this was a train heavy day, please forgive me. We have all day in Budapest tomorrow and normal transmission will resume, castles, cobblestone streets, rivers, etc!
Now this has nothing to do with our trip but Kris found this amazing story on Instagram and I think it's worth sharing. There is so much bad news around these days, good news is always a blessing. I'm reminded of that scene in American Beauty where he shows his girlfriend to be the video he shot of the dancing plastic bag. "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it and my heart is just going to cave in"
Day 25 Budapest (Hungary)
Budapest is actually two cities. Buda is on the west side of the Danube and Pest is on the east side. We are staying in Buda, the main attraction on this side of the river is the old town which sits high up on a hill. To get there you have to climb stairs, lots of stairs BELOW.
BELOW: And more stairs. By the time we got to the old town I was ready to head back to our Penzione for a nap!
Apparently the old palace and cathederal were badly damaged in the siege of Budapest in WW II. In the early 70s, under communist rule, most of the damaged buildings were torn down. They have rebuilt, and continue to rebuild them and the results are impressive.
ABOVE: What goes up, must come down, here is Kris descending down towards the Danube.
ABOVE: We walked across this bridge across the Danube to get to Pest. BELOW: Looking back towards Buda.
ABOVE: On the banks of the Danube there is this memorial. In 1945 the fascist Hungarian militia shot 3,500 people here, 800 of them Jews, they were told to take their shoes off and were then shot and their bodies fell into the river.
ABOVE: We walked into the main part of Pest and who should I bump into but old mate Ronnie Reagan. We had a bit of a chat, he said to me "You thought I was a right wing nutjob, wait until you get four more years of Trump"
ABOVE: The foyer of the Budapest opera house.
ABOVE: We couldn't face all those steps again so we caught the Metro back to where we are staying.
ABOVE: After a little nap we caught the Metro back to Pest to one of the "Ruin" bars. Apparently, after the end of communist rule, people took over ruined/abandoned buildings and turned them into a sort of pop up bar. They are quite commercialised now but the "ruin" atmosphere is still there. We were easily the oldest people there!
Day 26 Budapest
As I am typing this I'm on the overnight sleeper train from Budapest to Brasov (Romania).
ABOVE & BELOW: Our main activity today befor boarding our train was a visit to the main market at Budapest. It was similiar to the Vic Market but it a much nicer building. While there we bought some Cashmere scarves that Kris says are very high quality. (she would know) Kris bought some fair dinkum sweet Paprike, I hope customs allows it in!
There are three main stations in Budapest and I got a bit confused as to which one we were leaving from. We realised our error in plenty of time and got to Keleti station with an hour to spare.
I will probably never get to travel on the real Orient Express but this is close, it goes along the same route and is an overnight sleeper train, this is our train at Budapest Koleti about 10 minutes before departure.
ABOVE: Bloody luxury! A cooked, not microwaved, dinner in a dining car! A first for Kris, it's a long time for me too!
Day 27 Budapest (Hungary) to Brasov (Romania)
When we got on our train at Budapest the conductor moved us out of our assigned compartment, apparently something didn't work in it and moved us to the compartment next door. He gave us strict instructions to double lock our door when we went to sleep. About an hour after we turned our lights off and both of us were falling asleep there was a loud knock on our door, thinking that the people assigned to this compartment had got on the train I told them to go away, there were more loud knocks and I said "see the conductor", finally there was a yelled command "You must open the door". It was the Hungarian passport control. We were leaving an EU country so they were checking everyone on the train. The passport bloke meticulously went through every page on our passport before finally leaving us alone. At the next station the Romanian passport blokes got on, they were much nicer and after a few questions (do you have a hotel booking in Brasov?, how many days will you be in Romania?) wished us a happy stay in Romania.
ABOVE: Kris took this out of the train about an hour from Brasov, our first view of Romania.
ABOVE: This is our train just after arriving at Brasov. During the night we had changed locos and changed direction. The station was not Romania's greatest architecural achievement!
ABOVE: First stop in Brasov was at the blood bank!
ABOVE: One of the main attractions in Brasov is "The Black Church" sadly is is surrounded by buildings so a clear shot of it is impossible. This photo is from the town square.
ABOVE & BELOW: We walked around the remains of the old walled part of the city. Sadly America's cultural gift to the world, aka "visual sewage" aka graffiti covered the historic walls.
ABOVE: Lunch is served at Brasov. The menu was a bit light on for vegetarian options. It was interesting to see Polenta served with many dishes, a Northern Italian staple.
ABOVE: A nice photo themed mural
ABOVE: Brasov has a Hollywood style sign on the hill overlooking the town.
ABOVE: Shout out to the Romanian Socialists!
ABOVE: Rumour has it that Sharon Stone has started waxing!
ABOVE: Now here's a great idea, a vending machine for flowers. After a big night at the pub there will be no need to fear what happens when you get home if you pick up a nice flower arrangement!