Gulliver's Travels

The plan is to meet my wife Nora and two friends, Jan and Pedro in Vienna and travel together for three weeks. We hope to take boats down the Danube River stopping off at towns on the way and ending up in Budapest. We have rented apartments in Vienna for three nights giving us time to see the sights and plan the rest of our trip. I’m looking forward to meeting the three of them and continuing to explore Europe.

I board the train in Sighisoara for Vienna preparing myself mentally to travel with three other people. Traveling by myself has become such a delight, going and doing as I wish, not having to talk or listen to others, staying in any place that meets my standards (preferably clean, and no rats ON the bed), without having to discuss it. I expect it to be more complicated and different with others.

My compartment mate on the train is Daniel from Bucharest and he is on his way to Vienna where he works on a Danube river tour boat. These are the one week to one month tour boats with rooms and meals costing thousands of dollars. What a break, this is great he’ll be able to tell me what I need to know about the boats on the Danube since I can’t find anything about them on the internet. I explain to him what we want to do and does he know where we can find passenger boats that run up and down the Danube. His answer is succinct and helpful. “There are none. They stopped years ago.” There goes that plan.

Daniel and I talk several hours into the night. He often travels all the way to northern Germany to catch his boat for work. He is a cabin attendant and likes the work because it pays well and he is always meeting new people. He does not like to be away from home as long now because he worries about his fifteen-year-old son in Bucharest who is becoming “rebellious and difficult.” I try to assure him, that having a son of my own who was very rebellious, and as hard as it is to believe now, in five or six years he will be a fine young man that he will be proud of.

Vienna is another world from Sighisoara. It is the capital of Austria as well as its political and cultural center. Its 1.8 million residents live in a city ranked number one in the world in quality of life. Even the horses are dressed and fed well, and instead of wagons and plows, they pull carriages of tourists through the streets for 60 Euros a ride.

We have apartments for our stay here so I go to the Naschmarket to get some food to stock the pantries. The market is a Viennese institution dating back to the 16th century. During the week it is a produce and food goods market but on Saturdays, the day I’m here, it adds a large flea market where you can buy anything from junk to antiques. I spend several hours haggling with sellers over pocket knives and used accordions but in the end I walk away with only food.

I head to the apartments and get the keys, put the food away and check out the transit routes from the train station to the apartments. Nora, Jan and Pedro are arriving on the 11:22 PM train so I plan the subway route with one transfer. According to several locals it will be much faster by subway than taking a cab across town on Saturday night. I spend the rest of the day exploring Vienna.

That night I get to the train station with time to spare and the train arrives an hour late. Nora, Jan and Pedro look in good condition after the long ride from Frankfurt. It’s great to see friendly faces and converse without sign language. We start for the apartments via the subway but no trains arrive while we are waiting at the transfer station. A security guard finally comes by and tells us the subway closed at 12:30. We get instructions about the night buses and walk several blocks pulling suitcases trying to figure out where to catch it. Once we do we ride for twenty minutes to our stop. The next day we discover that we boarded the bus only about a 5 minute walk from our apartments.

The next few days we take in as much as possible of the beauty and history of Vienna from the grounds of Schonbrunn Palace, the art in the museums and lunch at the Central Café.

Three days later we take the short train ride to Bratislava, a city of under 500,000 that is the capital of Slovakia. Bratislava is changing fast as money is flowing into this newly admitted European Union country. The old town center has cobblestone streets, pedestrian plazas and pastel 18th century rococo buildings surrounded by large housing blocks built by the old government.

We luck out and find cool basement apartments from a guy at the train station. This is so refreshing since the heat wave covering Europe has had the temperature in the mid-to-high 90s every day. That evening Nora and I walk down to the Danube River and enjoy the cooler breeze. Jan's sightseeing is limited by having to work while traveling and so Nora and I start exploring on our own more. Pedro who can always find places with good food, keeps us all in good snacks. The heat also drives him to keeping the freezer stocked with ice cubes and cold drinks.

The next afternoon we go to Budapest, a great city that has more to do than you can ever cram into a vacation. We did the tourist things, Buda’s Castle Hill and the Citadella, Danube ferry ride, Varosliget (City Park), etc. but the best things were what we happened upon. Nora and I were walking around in City Park one evening and came upon a concert by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra at Vajdahunyad Castle. What an enjoyable evening sitting outside in the warm confines of the castle grounds listening to Beethoven piano and violin concertos. The next evening we came upon a café with a jazz trio and spent the night listening to some very good music with our dinner.

We did the “pay what you want Budapest tour” and our guide Julia was a native and very knowledgeable about Budapest. Since Nora and I were the only two to show up we had her full attention. It was interesting to talk to her about the political situation in Hungary but alarming to hear her reasons for the current economic situation. All though she thought of herself as a leftist politically and was "not a racist" she blamed the Roma’s for much of the countries economic problems. A very common theme it seems throughout Eastern Europe.

We hope the Adriatic coast might provide some relief from the heat and leave Budapest. Our train ride to Zagreb is one of the most enjoyable to date. Nora and I are in a compartment with some Spanish college students and it seems like most of the trip is spent with the rest of their friends in the compartment with us. It leads to lively discussions, card playing, and just plain goofing around. It makes the trip go fast and is one of those fun experiences that you just can’t plan.

Returning to Zagreb I realize what a great city it is. It’s easy to get around in and it has good restaurants, cafes and parks. We ended one evening of sightseeing in a park drinking beer and listening to a jazz trio, having a thoroughly enjoyable time.

An accidental fall by Jan while crossing a door jam cancels our planned trip to the Adriatic coast. While Jan and Pedro figured out the extent of the injury and when they will be able to return to the States, Nora and I decided to visit Zdravko and see if we can talk him into going to Plitvice Lakes National Park with us.

Zdravko is in good spirits and hasn’t smoked since I left. He seems eager to go see the lakes. “It is a most beautiful place in Croatia. We can drive there in two hours.” We drink wine spritzers and talk about what we have been doing. This is the Zdravko that knew in the states good humored and eager to do things. But in the morning he is different. He decides he can’t go and it will be “too crowded” and he has, “other things I need to do.” Nora and I decide to take the car and drive there on our own which is OK with him. As we are pulling out of the driveway he cautions us to not get stopped by the police because, “I’m not sure the car is registered correctly.” This makes Nora nervous but I figure the worst that could happen is a few years in a Croatian jail, and what a story it would be.

Plitvice Lakes is 16 turquoise lakes in a wooded countryside that are connected by waterfalls and cascades. It is one of the most popular natural tourist attractions in Croatia. In spite of the heat and all the other tourists it is a beautiful day in nature. We make it back to Zdravko’s without incident and spend the night. The next morning Nora and I return to Zagreb and Jan and Pedro have left for home. We decide to head for what we hope is the cooler air of Lake Bled in the Julian Alps of Slovenia.

After the heat of the large cities, the small town of Lake Bled (pop. 6000), will be a relaxing few days before Nora has to return home. At the tourist information center we find out that their are no rooms available, because we have arrived during Bled Fest (the annual summer festival) which attracts tens of thousands of people to bustling market stalls, live music, outdoor bars, gondola boat races and firework displays. Through much pleading we are able to get a room for the weekend in a new hostel that has a cancellation.

Bled Lake has an island in the center that is home to a small church and overlooking the lake from a commanding position atop a 300 foot cliff is the 10th century Castle Bled. We decide to take the six kilometer walk around the lake and as we do we understand why General Tito had his summer house here. The place is postcard beautiful. The next day we feel compelled to attend some of the festival but it’s like every festival now days with a few booths of local arts and crafts and many more of the same items we have seen in every city tourist center. And there is nothing like being at a beautiful mountain lake and having speakers blasting bad rock-and-roll at you for hours on end. That night we see a great thunderstorm that overshadows both the laser light show and the fireworks.

The next morning we headed out of town, hiking four kilometers to Vintgar gorge, in the Triglav National Park, and followed a two-kilometre trail along the river. This takes us through a narrow ravine carved out over many millennial, where we are amazed by the natural beauty. On our walk back we spent some relaxing time sitting at a restaurant patio drinking beer and watch the huge cumulus clouds waltz across the afternoon sky.

On our final day, we traveled to the nearby Lake Bohinj, Slovenia’s largest natural lake. We rented a canoe and paddled around long enough to work up a hunger so we can go into shore and eat our picnic lunch. We sit and looked out over the lake to the mountains surrounding us and wished that we had more time to travel together. The next morning we part at the train station, Nora catching the train north to Frankfurt and home. I catch the train south to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana. Time to go find this democracy that Frank keeps commenting about.

It's a different experience traveling with other people. (Not as bad as some of you emailed me about your experiences traveling with others.) I would say that the biggest difference was not meeting as many people. (You have other people that you focus on, the ones traveling with you.) I also spent about 1-3 hours less a day doing things outside and more time trying to figure logistics of where to stay, eat, etc. Everyone has different levels of comfort and that can vary a lot due to weather, location, money, health, sex, and expectations.

Nora and I travel well because we like each other for who we are. This trip she was the young Swedish nurse, and I was the dashing American flying ace recovering from my battle injuries.