Eurotrip 2013, Day 11: Kupari and More Dubrovnik

Breakfast this morning was, in fact, cold tempeh burritos (the guesthouse had a fridge, stove, and oven, but no microwave, and I was way too lazy to bake them). Still good!

Today's main attraction was a location I only accidentally came across while browsing the web for stories about Dubrovnik. Kupari was a resort town just a few kilometers south of Dubrovnik. During the heyday of Communist Yugoslavia, Tito had built a number of fancy resort hotels and private villas on the beach to serve as a tourist destination and as a retreat for the military leadership. It's still a phenomenal beach; it's clear why they picked it. But in 1991, during the Croatian war of independence (which caused the breakup of Yugoslavia), the resort was shelled by Yugoslavian warships and now the resort has been abandoned for over two decades. The buildings are sort of intact. Most of the structure is present, but they are clearly worse for attack, vandalism, and 22 years of neglect. Check it out:





Since 1991, the ruins have picked up a lot of graffiti:







It's sort of surprising what bits of the buildings remained intact and which didn't. This pane of glass was pretty much the only intact one on that entire side of its hotel.




The page I saw said that it's very dangerous to go into the decaying buildings. No doubt this is because of the possibility of structural damage and collapses -- there were certainly enough fallen roof sections to attest to that. However, it's equally obvious that tons of people have been going in. So, how could i resist a little exploration?

Far from walking around on tiptoes, it's clear that people have been using the derelict hotels as paintball courses (which sounds awesome).




Surprisingly, there was a lot of intact wiring in the buildings. I guess scrap metal looting isn't a big thing in Croatia.







This building used to house what was probably a fancy restaurant. On the right side of the second picture you can see the remains of booths, and in the center, the bar.










Eventually, my paranoia started to tingle. I've played enough Fallout to be intrigued by ruins, but also enough to know that there's probably a Super Mutant a room or two inside. I also sort of wanted a hard hat. So, I stopped exploring and spent a couple hours on the beach. Kupari still seems to be largely unknown (maybe I shouldn't write about it?); there were maybe three or four families there, and a couple anglers fishing off the docks. However, it looks like some money is being poured into the area. Off to the south side, there's a brand new pavilion with food stands, a lifeguard station, and showers. It was closed, but I'm sure it's a big draw in summer. There was also some heavy construction equipment on the north end pushing around rubble, so it's possible that the reconstruction has begun. Can't blame them -- it's a great spot.

I headed back to Dubrovnik and on the advice of a friend, went out to the Cafe Buza, just outside the southwestern walls of the Stari Grad, for sunset. Good call, Rishi:




Indian and Indian-fusiony things aside, I hadn't been getting much Asian food on this trip. So for dinner, I went to one of the few restaurants rated even higher than Nishtia on Tripadvisor: Azur, a Croatian-Asian fusion restaurant. Or, as they put it, Cro-asian. Har har.





Chili cashew sautéed shrimp definitely seemed pretty straight-up Asian, and my crispy-skin salmon seemed pretty European, so I got the feeling that the fusion was across menu items, not in individual dishes. But I couldn't argue with the results -- the food was quite good, especially the salmon.








A quick note about restaurants in Dubrovnik: food here is pretty cheap. Even nice multi course dinners like the one at Azur can easily be done for $30 or even $20 a head. However, in the old town at least, there's almost no indoor seating. This is fine for lunch, because it's lovely out. At night, though the air temperature is reasonable (high 50s?), a wicked breeze picks up and the wind chill makes it feel like it's freezing. Restaurants will provide blankets, but it's advisable to layer and wear a windbreaker, at least in the fall.

After dinner there was some sort of group concert or contest in the plaza by the main cathedral. Several different men's ensembles would come up and sing a single song each. It was too windy to hang around outside, so I ducked into a nearby cafe for dessert.




I chose chocolate macaroni cake, an item the menu billed as a local specialty. It was unique alright: sort of like a pie on the outside, with a very bready crust. The inside filling was something like a grainy chocolate mousse, like chunky Nutella...with a bunch of pasta in it. Not bad, but not really my thing.

Eurotrip 2013, Days 9-10: Vienna to Dubrovnik

Day 9 was a full day of travel, starting by walking out the door of the apartment in Vienna at 7am, and ending by walking into the room in Dubrovnik at 1130pm. The first leg of the trip to the southern tip of Croatia was an 8 hour train ride to Zagreb via Villach. It's a very slow - high speed rail this ain't - but pretty ride: the train goes through some of the lower Alps through Austria with some real Sound of Music countrysides and then through some lovely river valleys through Slovenia and Croatia. It was gray and raining the whole way, so a travel day was a good use of time.

Although Croatia is an EU member (in fact, the newest one, having joined July 1 2013), it hasn't yet completely implemented the Schengen Agreement. The upshot is that at the Slovenia-Croatia border crossing, I got back-to-back passport stamps showing I left the EU on a train in Slovenia and immediately reentered in Croatia.






This was my first trip to any former Eastern Bloc countries, and I was concerned that there wouldn't be much English. It turned out to never be a problem in Prague and I was soon to learn it's not an issue in tourist spots of Croatia either. From the Zagreb main train station I readily picked up an English-speaking cab to take me to the airport. Surprisingly for a European capital city, Zagreb's airport is seriously small. Knoxville's is bigger; never mind something with multiple terminals like San Jose. It also turned out to be nearly deserted at 6pm. The flight to Dubrovnik was not until 9 (I'd booked a four hour gap, just in case of train or cab difficulties), and some earlier flights had been canceled due to weather. Luckily, the Dubrovnik flight went off fine. It was still raining when we landed. Between our landing time, the time spent trying to find and complete the car rental (hint: outside the terminal, across the parking lot), and the 20 mile drive to Dubrovnik proper, it was 1130 before I arrived at my lodging.

But then this is the view that greeted me in the morning:



The walled city of Dubrovnik was an independent republic in its time and is now one of the most southerly towns in Croatia. It's also a fantastic tourism draw: it's a beautiful place nestled between the hills and the Adriatic. It's also warm. Whereas Prague and Vienna flirted with frost, I was finally able to rock some shorts here, at least during the day.

The main draw in Dubrovnik is the Stari Grad, or Old City: the part of Dubrovnik within the walls. It's here that the King's Landing scenes in Game of Thrones were filmed. The best way to get the look of the place is by walking a mile or two around the perimeter up on the walls of the city, so for $15, that's exactly what I did. Money well spent:






Breakfast in the old town was an awesome omelet with some bruschetta-like bread and salty cheese and tomato (which was also really cheap). After coming down from the walls I found myself in a plaza with a bunch of restaurants. I was thinking of just getting some pizza by the slice, but one of the restaurants was selling sit-down pizzas that looked really good. A frutti di mare pizza that was larger than I could finish cost under $12. Food in Croatia is really cheap.

After lunch, I headed back up the hill to my room to get changed: the afternoon's plan was to do a little sea kayaking around the walls of the city, to a hidden cave, and to the island out in the middle of the bay. It wasn't cheap - almost $40 for about a three and a half hour trip - but didn't break the bank and was well worth it. The waters of the Adriatic are fantastic in Dubrovnik - the colors really must be seen to be believed, because they span the gamut of blues and greens, and shift during the day. Seeing them while on the water is even better. At the sea cave, the kayak guide pulled out some masks and snorkels, and we were able to appreciate another feature of the water: its incredible clarity. The beaches in Croatia are all rocky or gravelly rather than sandy, and as a consequence the water is super clear. After snorkeling in Hawaii and Australia, the fish population was certainly nothing amazing, but the water quality definitely was. After paddling out to Lokrum island (rumored to be cursed by monks who were evicted from the island), we turned back into shore, but first got to appreciate a sunset on the water. Must do.

Of course, kayaking shirtless at sunset is a good way to get chilled to the bone, so after running up the hill for a warm shower and a change of clothes, I was interested in finding some warming food - soup and something spicy. Tripadvisor pointed out that the "Taj Mahal" restaurant does not actually serve Indian food...it's a Bosnian restaurant! The closest fit seemed to be Nishta, a vegetarian restaurant serving a real medley of items. Among its virtues: it was close by, very highly rated, and had both soup and spicy food. Sold.

I neglected to take pictures of the first two courses -- some fried cake things and carrot-ginger soup -- because I was too busy scarfing them down. I did get a picture of my tempeh burritos, which were covered in really good sour cream, because by that point I had remembered that ordering while hungry is a terrible idea, and that I would be eating them for breakfast the next day:

Eurotrip 2013, Day 8: Vienna

Today was Sunday, and that turned out to be a problem. In the States, we're used to stores being open every day (or at least, every weekday). Certainly living in San Francisco, it's easy to even get annoyed at grocery stores that aren't open 24 hours a day. There was a grocery store just around the corner from my apartment, and I'd already noticed that the hours weren't quite what I was used to -- it closed at 715p on weekdays! Today it got worse: it wasn't open at all on Sundays. Neither were any of the other stores a mile in either direction on Ungargasse, except for a couple döner shops. (Oddly, I didn't want breakfast döner.) Even going out to the U-bahn station on Landstrasse Hauptstrasse (a big shopping street) yielded nothing except a Chinese store selling tea, dried noodles, and unidentifiable frozen fish. Finally, a few blocks down the big street, I found a bakery that was open and doing quite a bit of business. All in all, I probably walked over 3 miles for a couple croissants and a baguette.

After such a strenuous effort hunting for some daily bread, I took the rest of the morning to be lazy and then headed over to the Opera at 2:30. Starting 80 minutes before show time, the opera box office sells standing-room-only tickets for 3-4 euro a pop - way, way cheaper than a normal seat! (Protips: the standing room box office is located on the left side of the building as you face the front from the street. Ignore the hordes of official-looking touts offering tickets for tonight.) I felt speedy, so I spent 4 euro for the nicer spots for Tristan and Isolde.

The opera house is enormous on the outside but surprisingly small on the inside. It is beautifully appointed, though. As for the show itself: the sets were amazing; I've never seen theater sets done so well. In the opening we see a red moon rising, fog comes in low, and a ship appears. All were incredibly lifelike. The music was also very good. The play...I don't think I'm a fan of Wagnerian opera. After 1.5 hours and one act of overly dramatic lines, I was ready to take off and sit down somewhere -- possibly somewhere offering early dinner

The one thing I wanted to try in Vienna (other than döner, of course) was the city's namesake dish: Wiener schnitzel, a thinly-pounded, breaded and fried veal steak. The night before, I had read an article from an Australian newspaper purporting to sample the best schnitzels in Vienna, and conveniently one of the places was right next door: Plachuttas Gasthaus zum Oper.

Eurotrip 2013, Day 7: Vienna

Big sightseeing day in Vienna today. Quick hits.

First up, more churches. Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral) is a big tourist draw in the very center of Vienna. IMO, not as cool as St. Vitus in Prague, but it has a cool roof:







Just down the street and not mentioned in any tourist guides is St. Peter's, which I think is actually quite a bit more impressive and attractive. It also happens to be a working church:



From there I headed down towards the National Library, and on the way saw a (pretty badly out of time) marching band performing outside the Habsburg Apartments, the former imperial residence.




My goal at the library was to see the Globe Museum. It turned out to actually be housed in a separate building a few minutes away, but was totally worth the hunt. Unlike the DOX museum in Prague, the Globe Museum had a well-curated collection with detailed descriptions and information about the exhibit. It ranged from the earliest globes of the Renaissance to modern digital globes; one of the coolest exhibits is an interactive touchscreen which lets you spin a virtual high-res scan of an ancient globe and contrast it with modern maps to see where we've corrected things. It's pretty neat to see the map of the world evolve over time from ones completely missing the Americas, to ones with California as a separate island, and ones with Australia and Antarctica connected.


No Americas!

Downstairs in the same building as the globe museum was the national library's Esperanto museum. Clearly curated by a lover of the language, the museum walks you through the history and ongoing use of the language, with audio samples throughout. Probably the most interesting thing was the handful of propaganda pieces written in Esperanto:



One thing was very clear after seeing the museum and the language (particularly after coming from Prague and seeing Czech): Esperanto was clearly a European's notion of a universal synthetic language. It basically looks like a bastardized Romance language with a bit of Slavic structure and vocabulary thrown in. At least in the small sample shown, there was nothing to suggest roots even in the more distant Indo-European languages, let alone something from a completely different language family (Finnish, Japanese, Chinese). While it makes sense in historical context (Esperanto was created in the aftermath of World War I, which at its core started as a European conflict), even by World War II it would have been obvious thanks to the Pacific theater that a European linguistic utopia would not be universal. Add that to the list of reasons Esperanto never took off.

After the two museums, it was time for a late lunch at the Naschmarkt, a giant open-air market running down the middle of two large avenues. The aisle on the right has sit-down restaurants, and the one on the left has stalls and stands. At its beginning (inner) end, it's dominated by fancy restaurants and stalls, which give way to falafel and döner stands, dried fruit stands, and finally a long narrow flea market at the western end. Lunch consisted of a (very greasy and sort of bland) Russian pastry with a lamb patty, and a really delicious soup from a local vegetarian restaurant. The flea market had a little bit of everything: weird teddy bears, kaleidoscopes from Geneva, ancient record players, bathroom hardware, you name it.

The globe museum ticket also includes entrance to the Esperanto museum and to a papyrus museum in the main building of the national library. After lunch, there was just enough time to catch the papyrus museum ten minutes before closing. They had papyruses in lots of languages: Latin, Arabic, hieroglyphic:




Dinner was at a restaurant called Vapiano: like Pluto's, you get the dishes you want from each station and pay up at the end. Unlike Pluto's, it's Italian and your tab gets marked up using a little RFID card you get at the front, rather than a punchcard. Nothing to write home about, but a nice solid simple Italian meal to get the blood sugar going again.

The evening's entertainment was a performance of Mozart's Requiem in the third church of the day, the Karlskirche or St. Charles' Church. This was the most impressive church yet, especially in concert ambiance and with the nighttime reflection in the pool. The music itself was fun, though I found myself wishing I'd remembered to buy the program -- I enjoyed the bits of the Requiem to which I knew the words much better than the rest, because then I was able to focus on the texture of the music rather than trying to decipher its content.








Remember the Soviet soldiers' memorial from yesterday? On the walk back home from Karlsplatz I learned that the fountain lights up with a dazzling variety of colors. If anything, this picture isn't vivid enough to reflect reality:

Eurotrip 2013 Day 6: Prague to Vienna

A quick word on breakfasts at the K&K Central: scrambled eggs are delicious with tiny pickled onions, ketchup, mustard, and chives.

Leaving the hotel in the morning for the train station, I was greeted by some of my favorite weather: clear, sunny, and about 40 degrees. That fall cold is great (though it's more of a wintertime thing in California). Put me in a great mood to catch a train to Vienna.




I expected to spend the train ride either writing blog posts or reading the books on my iPad (1Q84, Anathem, and Ready Player One), but the folks with whom I shared my compartment pretty much prevented that from happening. I was riding with three elderly sisters from America and a college student from Vienna who was studying philosophy and political science in Istanbul while living and hoping to teach theater in Prague. Fun crowd to talk to, and certainly made the hours fly by, but I didn't get any writing done!

I got off one stop earlier than planned, at Wien Simmering instead of Wien Meidling, at the advice of the student, who had told me it made for an easier U-bahn trip to my apartment. She was right. It also led to my first (and sadly, only) instance of my favorite European lunch: I picked up a döner kebab sandwich outside my subway stop for under 2 euro.



Graffiti artists in Vienna know what's up.

After a few minutes' walk, I arrived at the AirBnB apartment in Landstrasse I was renting. Easy enough check in, and a very cool twist: the Internet access was provided by a mobile 3G hotspot that I could take with me around town! Awesome idea that fell over in practice. I don't know if the hotspot was bad, the service was bad, or some previous renter had used up all of the data allocation, but it ended up being almost uselessly slow. It was easier to try to steal WiFi from nearby cafes...

Of course at this point I didn't realize any of this. Armed with the hotspot, my phone, and a Vienna Lonely Planet Encounter tour book from the apartment, I headed out for a bit of late afternoon sightseeing. Along the way into the Innere Stadt (the inner ring, city center, and main tourist district of Vienna), I passed by a fountain and plaza dedicated to the Russian soldiers who liberated Vienna from the Nazis. It's rare to see a monument to the Soviets in the West -- seeing it reminds one that although it was politically aligned with the West in the Cold War, geographically Vienna is much closer to its neighbors who were behind the Iron Curtain. I also passed by the Opera House, but more on both of those later.

The main destination today was the MuseumsQuartier, a large walled city-within-a-city containing a bunch of museums (duh) and other galleries, restaurants, and quirky concrete benches that get painted different bright colors. The girl on the train had told me this was the place for young people to hang out in Vienna; sure enough there were a few groups, but it was probably too early. It was also too late to make it worthwhile to museum hop, so I contented myself with a picture of Mumok, the Vienna contemporary art museum housed in an awesome modern charcoal building:



After the long day of travel, it was high time for dinner. The Lonely Planet suggested a restaurant that sounded really fun: Schon Schön had only one large table, a convivial atmosphere, and a multi course tasting menu of small dishes. Since the LP was a few years old, I checked Yelp using the hotspot real quick, but the only Schon Schön it pulled up was a hairdresser. Fine, I guess Yelp isn't that great in Vienna.

Fifteen minutes later, I learned from a rather confused man that, no, Schon Schön does not do dinner any more, and they do do hair. Drat - I didn't need a haircut. My faith in Yelp restored, I looked up a nearby restaurant to satisfy my craving for spicy food. (The European palate skews a bit bland for me.) Sure enough, the Yak and Yeti served up Nepalese food just ten minutes away, and had over four stars.

They deserved every bit of the rating. I'd never had Nepalese food before; it's very similar to Indian, with some Chinese influences as well. So good! Go here if you're ever in Vienna -- delicious, reasonably priced, super friendly, English-speaking, and where else do you get to sip your tea while sitting on a mat in this town?

Eurotrip 2013 Day 5: Prague

Not much to report today. Yesterday was exhausting; all the walking left me beat, so there wasn't much motivation to go out to sights (such as the technical museum in Holesovice aka WAY TOO FAR). It was sort of rainy, which didn't really help motivate, either. Still, it was too much to just sit in the hotel all day long; it seemed like a good idea to wander around Old Town to see if there were any sights I'd missed. First destination was Wenceslas Square, which I had heard about but thought I hadn't seen. Turns out it was the shopping street I'd seen on the very first day. Oops.

The Guardian published a couple itineraries of Prague; one of them mentioned a cafe very close to the K&K Central which I hadn't had a chance to try, so it seemed like a good bet for lunch. After wandering around Old Town a little longer (and walking through a little street market, and a couple glass/crystal shops to dodge a rain shower), I headed to the Grand Cafe Orient. On entrance, it looks nice, but not amazing. The chicken crepe with mushroom sauce fit that description as well. But that's because the star of the show here is, surprise, cafe eats. My first coffee there, a concoction of espresso, whipped cream, and drizzled chocolate sauce, left me staring as the waiter set it down at the table. Seeing me staring, he bent down and said in a dry Slavic accent, "is good." The second coffee was equally crazy and I don't even remember what it was. After a while I noticed that every table was getting dessert, no one was sharing, and everyone looked delighted when they got their individual slices of cake. OK, I can take a hint. The cake named after the cafe itself was as good as it looked:



The Grand Cafe Orient definitely reflected European cafe culture much more than that in America. This was a place for people to sit and relax over a few cups and cakes for hours, and it grew on me.

After the cafe, I headed back to the room to prepare for Vienna. Logistically: I had to find a place to stay. Mentally: I'd never seen The Sound of Music, and I had been told that it was unacceptable to go to Austria until I had done so. Easy enough; iTunes and fast Internet at the hotel let me take care of both problems. Dinner at the same pub from the first night let me get to bed early to head out to Vienna early in the morning.

Eurotrip 2013 Day 4: Prague

Today was the big sightseeing day in Prague: time to head to the main attraction, Prague Castle. From the Old Town, it's actually not a bad walk, even though it's across the river. There's a bit of confusion at the other end, since it's not always obvious which street to take from signs alone; the easiest solution is just to follow the crowd. This time, they're probably right.

After climbing a long set of stairs (mercifully empty of vendors in the morning) you reach the castle gates, with an hourly changing of the guard and a fantastic view of the red roofs of Prague:




It's advisable to carry a fair amount of cash to the castle: while you can buy tickets on a credit card, there is a required deposit for the audio guide which must be paid in cash. I was able to get my audio guide, but barely -- it took all my cash temporarily in reserve. I imagine there have been plenty of groups and families taken by surprise in our plastic era. Regardless, I opted for the short tour, which offers the main attractions on one ticket. A three hour audio rental was enough (and cheaper than getting the full-day rental).

First up: the castle itself. Parts of the castle are still a working building, used by the Czech president for state functions. The castle tour begins with the Vladislav Hall, which is not only beautiful, with stone rosettes in the ceiling, but is still actively used for receptions hosting international heads of state:




Before the installation of central heating, the entire castle was heated by these big green stoves installed in each room; without being told what they are, they look like giant ceramic-tile cabinets. (With central heating, they are still used as heating vents, I think.)



Most of the castle tour takes you through rooms that are sort-of-but-not-incredibly interesting; what's more interesting is the history description in the guide. For example, one room was used for official record keeping and state discussions; boring. Except that, in one of the events catalyzing the Thirty Years' War, two Catholic officials were thrown out of the window by local Protestant officials in the Defenestration of Prague. (The men survived; Catholics claim it was because of a heavenly miracle, but Protestants claim they fell into a pile of manure.)

Of course, no castle would be complete without a court. Sadly, the throne in this one is not made from swords; it's just a bit of a fancy chair. The replica Crown Jewels in the room are pretty shiny, though.






After the castle, head over to St George's, the earlier and smaller of the two main churches on the castle grounds. It's a very nice example of a large medieval-era church, with straight stone walls and frescoes dating back over 600 years. There's also a cool crypt below the altar.





Perspective wouldn't be invented for a while yet.




Stone carving of a decaying body in the crypt in St George's


After leaving the understated St. George's, I headed over to its antithesis: the gigantic Gothic St. Vitus' Cathedral. It's a big Catholic cathedral -- tons of gold and silver and carvings and possibly the most impressive stained glass I've seen anywhere:






St. Wenceslas's burial room has walls inlaid with semiprecious stones - amethysts, garnets, etc. In a cathedral this fancy, it actually fits in.



At this point, my three hours were over, so I returned the audio guide and went solo. On the way out of the main castle plaza, I found the old castle jail, along with its implements of torture. How about this body cage, used to restrain prisoners, and occasionally dangle them over (or into) a pit? No Rancor in sight, though.



The final stop on the short tour is the Golden Lane: a district inside the castle walls formerly inhabited by goldworkers and jewelers. Other than a couple exhibits of medieval life (which take about ten minutes to cover: the room of a gold worker, and a very small tavern), today it's mostly full of souvenir shops. The most interesting bit is probably seeing how small people used to be, as evidenced by the doorways. I'm not tall:




After the Golden Lane, my plan was to walk over to the DOX museum of contemporary art (about 4 miles away), grab lunch along the way, and generally explore a bit of Prague outside the old town. According to my map, I could walk along the north bank of the river almost the whole way there, and have water on my right and a park on my left -- pretty! The map failed to inform me that the park was about 5 meters higher than the road level, so that there was just a concrete wall on that side, and that the road was an inner artery. Instead of the Embarcadero, I got El Camino. With more homeless people. There were a couple camps underneath overpasses and even a shack by the river. Woo.

Even worse, there was no food at all along the route. It looked pretty bleak too as I got into Holesovice, the neighborhood hosting the museum. It looked pretty residential. But, there was a flea market, so on a prayer I ducked inside looking for something to eat. Turns out there is a very nice Italian restaurant inside, Mercato, which whipped up some spicy spaghetti alla olio for under $10. Highly recommended.




The DOX Center hosts a number of exhibitions of contemporary art, with a bias towards Czech and other Central European artists. The featured exhibit was by an artist also interested in math and programming, so it should have been right up my alley. However, almost all the work was presented without description or comment, which made it hard to appreciate. One empty room featured a speaker array sounding two pure tones, whose interference caused interesting spatial patterns and nulls in the room. That was cool; sadly, the rest of the work -- crazy graphs and musical arrangements accompanied by code, blurring the lines between programs visual and auditory art -- looked more like a cross between insanity and Baby's First Program in Processing.







The second main exhibit was better. (I'm writing these posts on the flight back, so I don't remember any names anymore.) It was a mixed text and video presentation. Before entering the exhibit, seven racks hold short 1-2 page stories. The stories focus on a modern man named Greatman (variously a cubicle drone, a manager, or a top executive, depending on the story), who awakes to find himself without arms. The stories become progressively more bizarre, involving detachable arms, mouse mazes, gas masks, packages in the mail, and kitchen lighters. The videos accompanied the stories, each illustrating a scene from one story. It was well-presented; I just found the videos disturbing for reasons I can't explain.




The final exhibit was of young artists who had won a contest (or a grant, or something). The quality was mixed, but again they all suffered from the same lack of explanation as the first exhibit. There was a foam box full of crystallized caramel in one room, with no explanation or even attribution.

After all the walking, it seemed better to burn a few crowns and take the tram back to the hotel rather than hoofing it another couple miles. That plan worked great...for two stops, after which the tram filled with the unmistakable smell of burning electronics. The doors opened, and we were all kicked out onto the street. Of course, that broken tram was blocking the rails, so there would be no other coming to help. Oh well -- walking it was to be. At least it wasn't too cold out.

The day's exercise justified a little splurge on dinner. After a brief hotel stop to recharge, I got a cab back to the foot of the castle to get dinner at Kampa Park. The food itself was quite good; nothing mind blowing, but very good. The meal started with a double dose of foie gras on the house (take that, California), continued with asparagus soup and lobster, and finished with creme brûlée. Arguably better than the food was the decor; eating at Kampa Park was like being seated in an indoor forest, with a network of branches and pinpoint lights just overhead. Very cool.










The other great thing about Kampa Park is its location on one of the major tourist sights of Prague that I had not yet hit: the Charles Bridge. By day, it doesn't look like much. There are some dark statues lining the sides, and even more souvenir vendors hawking junk. By night, though, the peddlers leave, and all you're left with is the views of the Castle and Old Town over the water. It's like real world Disneyland: