Burrito West Blog

Peter and I are back in Wroclaw for a day before we jet off again.  Just enough time for me to recount part of the trip we were on, though probably not all of it!

PRAGUE
Jan 26 we caught a Polskibus to Prague (we took the train last time, it involved a lot of connections, bus was easier) and arrived in the evening. We checked into our apartment (Capital Apartments, we were quite pleased) and then headed off to meet up with our friends who live in Sweden but were visiting Prague. We had a nice dinner with the them and some of us went out for drinks after - found a cool cafe - DISKafé that is part of the Academy of Performing Arts (would have been even cooler if it hadn't been filled with cigarette smoke). Was really great to catch up!

The next morning we were greeted by snow, so we took it easy and by the time we went out it had stopped - a light dusting that made the cobblestones slippery and made everything look pretty.

Peter and I poked around town looking for opera gloves for me and a bow tie for him. Had mediocre Chinese for lunch and tried to visit the Prague City Museum only to discover it is closed on Mondays. So we went to the Grand Cafe Orient for tea - super awesome interior, great place to sit and have philosophical thoughts (my deep thought: Vancouver needs a classy cafe like this). We met up with our friends at a thai place we found on our last trip and then Peter and Niklas had a snowball fight down the streets as we made our way to Cafe Colore for dessert (great cakes!).

In an ongoing theme, we slept in the next day. Eventually we made it to the Tech Museum which is big and full of cool stuff. After touring the Time exhibit I am now entertaining the idea of learning to become a clockmaker. That's practical and useful, right? This museum easily fills a full day. We spent the evening in a pub so Peter could taste many good beers and our friends joined us for a last drink.

More Prague photos here! (scroll down for more recent photos)

VIENNA
Jan 29th we were back at the bus terminal to catch a bus to Vienna. It was a fancy bus with in-seat entertainment systems, which was handy because it was a 5 hour trip.

We navigated to our hotel in Vienna, dragging our giant suitcase (to accommodate our ballgown and tux).

We went for a walk around town at night, admiring the palace, church, and wonderful pedestrian streets. Stopped for noodles. Went by the Town Hall to see the huge skating rink (they do not kid around - they have skating paths that snake through the trees in the park in front of the giant Town Hall building, it's amazing).

Stumbled onto the Cafe Central - which must be the most atmospheric in all of Vienna. Stepping into this place you suddenly understand what people mean when they say 'old world charm'. It's elegant but comfortable - of a different era entirely. Loved it. We went there repeatedly. (It must be mobbed in tourist season.)

The next day, after a nice breakfast at the hotel, we resumed the hunt for a bow tie for Peter. Vienna certainly had more selection than any other city but still not much to choose from in the under-100Euro category. We eventually found what we needed and headed off to the Hofburg to tour the palace museum and learn about Empress Elizabeth (Sisi) and marvel at the insane amount of silver, cutlery, and table settings in a palace's pantry. Then it was back to the hotel to rest and prepare for the ball!

The Ball! - See next blog post, it's too much to be summarized here.  :)

We got home from the ball at 4am so we didn't get going the next day until a bit late.

We caught the underground to the summer palace - Schonbrunn, to look at even more shiny royal opulence. Sadly it was too cold to linger in the gardens which I remember from my 2003 trip as being very lovely.

We headed back to the city centre to visit a cafe recommended by the internet but found it terribly smoky (even in the 'non-smoking' room) so we went across the street to what turned out to be another faaaabulous cafe (Cafe Diglas). Our theory is that to find a good cafe you should look for older clientele and chandeliers - if you find both of those in one place, odds are it will be a winner. We had some delicious food at Diglas before heading back out into the cold and to the hotel.

Our last day in Vienna we checked out and rode transit to the river. Vienna is not really oriented to the water, especially in winter, which made me curious. We walked along the deserted riverfront for a bit (just us and some hardy joggers). It has some great graffiti murals. I suspect it's quite nice in summer - there was evidence of beer gardens and ice cream. Once our faces were numb, we headed back into the centre and found a cafe with cakes. Toasted our farewell to Vienna - a very classy city that treated us well. We hope to be back for another ball one day soon!

We headed to the bus station at 1pm for our 5.5 hr trip back to Prague. We had a 2 hr layover before our bus to Wroclaw so we wandered down the street by the bus terminal and stumbled onto a beer club and restaurant with a large selection of local brewed beers that made Peter very very happy. Helped make the next 5.5 hr bus ride more bearable, I think.

Arrived home at 2:30am and were very happy to be able to adopt a horizontal position for sleeping. Beds are wonderful things.

More Vienna photos will be here.