About : standard furniture norway
Title : standard furniture norway
standard furniture norway
my name is cameron hewitt and i'm goingto be telling you a little bit eastern europe today. just to tell you a little bit aboutmyself, i work here in the office at rick steves europe. mostly i focus onguidebooks, researching and writing our various a guidebook titles. i've also worked as a tour guide, i'veactually led the tours that we do to eastern europe, and also to croatiaand slovenia. and the thing i'm probably the the most proud of, the thing i spent alot of my time is, i'm the co-author of rick's guide books on eastern europe,budapest, and croatia, and slovenia.
co-author, what does that mean? basically it means that i went over anddid all the work to write the book to begin with, and then rick came along andput his touches on it and then we put his name on it because it would sell morecopies that way. no i'm teasing rick and i have a greatcollaboration, he really enjoys the fact that i've got so much enthusiasm forthis area, and then he comes and checks in every so often. he's going to poland this year for example in the fall, just to check in on things after a few years.now by co-author it also means that i'mresponsible, personally, for updating
those guidebooks. so i go over every other year, and ipersonally visit every business that we list in our guidebooks on thosedestinations. so i go to budapest, for example, and i go to every single hotel,restaurant, internet cafã©, tourist office, museum, train station, i can personally guarantee you that thisis the most lovingly up-to-date guidebook that you're going to find onthis region. i have a lot of personal contacts withthe folks who run a lot of these businesses, and you'll be actuallymeeting a few of them during the course
of the slide show today. let's go ahead and get started on ourtrip to eastern europe. and i just wanted to give you a taste of some of thethings we're going to be seeing together, before we do that though, i think thefirst thing we need to do when traveling to this part of europe is to have alittle bit of an attitude adjustment. and that's because i think for a lot offolks when you think of eastern europe, you still think of the cold war. and i'mgoing to really challenge you to pry open those cold war blinders, things havechanged dramatically, freedom is deeply entrenched in theseparts of europe.
it's been 25 years, kids who are 30 yearsold--kids--young adults who are 30 years old who live in these countries have noliving memory of communism. so all the soviet union, ussr, cold warstuff, it's an important chapter of theirhistory but it's a brief chapter, and it's not the defining chapter. so i'm really going to challenge youwhen you think about eastern europe to realize these are verydifferent, diverse, proud countries. for a lot of people who live here that thatcommunist period that dominates our thinking was just a little bit of a blipin their historical radar.
yes, of course, they do have this sort ofimposing history embodied by this statue here of lenin standing in a park. and iwould say rather than be intimidated or feel confronted by this communistconnection, these days in eastern europe, this ispart of the history that's kind of fun, you can be playful about it. the statues of london are now gatheredin kind of theme parks where you can go out and see what it was like ageneration and a half ago when these these statues were actually out in thestreets. the people who live here forgotten aboutthe communist period, so i hope that you will
too and accept each of these countriesfor what it is. again, if you have an old, dated, coldwar-era notion of what eastern europe is it might be rusted factories and thiskind of industrial, gross smog. these days in much of eastern europe thereality looks a little bit more like this. beautiful idyllic countryside,fascinating cities, dynamic, colorful, vibrant, modern cities. some of theshowpiece cities in all of europe, prague of course, the capital of the czech republic,krakow is the finest town in poland, wonderful cities that you probablynever heard of or never put on your mental maps.
gdansk, up in the northern coast of polandis one of my favorite cities in eastern europe, very much undiscovered byamerican tourists. you've got a lot of very epic statelyhistory embodied, for example, in the hungarian parliament building there inbudapest. some of the finest people zones anywhere in europe, the charles bridge inprague, and some unique experiences, things that you won't experienceanywhere else on the continent, such as the delightful thermal baths of budapest.natural wonders, eastern europe's got that too, spectacular mountain valleys. ingeneral it's just a really rewarding and engaging place to travel.
although, aside from all of its tangibleattractions and the things i'll be talking about the slideshow, one of myfavorite things about eastern europe, the thing that really keeps me coming backare the wonderful people that you encounter there. now i say communism isold news, and people have gotten beyond all of that, but this is still adifferent part of europe. tourism is not quite as sort of mainstreaming and as entrenched as it is insome really touristy western european towns, like let's say salzburg or venice.one thing i really like about traveling in eastern europe is the locals arestill really flattered by the attention
from tourists, and that's a really easyplace to connect with people. so no matter where you go in eastern europe,you'll find that there's somebody who's really excited that you took thatopportunity to come and see them. they know that they're kind of the underdogsof europe, they're greatly appreciative about that,they're extremely proud about their local culture, and very happy to show itoff for you. again, it's so--it's one of my favorite places in all of europe forconnecting with the local people. let's define our terms here, easterneurope. the first thing i'm going to tell you is a little bit shocking,
this is not eastern europe, it's centraleurope. people who live in these countries will insist. you'll go to poland or you'll go tohungary, you'll show 'em your eastern europe guidebook and say, "we're reallyenjoying a trip in eastern europe," and they'll say, "well then why are you in mycountry? this is central europe." there's a coupleof reasons for this. yes, we call it eastern europe here at ricksteve's because we know that's what most americans think of when they think ofthese countries, but for europeans, especially people in this area, theywould point out,
technically europe starts at the iberianpeninsula on the western tip of this map and ends at the ural mountains at theeastern tip of this map, and by golly, there's poland, czech republic, hungary, all right there in the very, very centerof europe, they're actually little bit west of center. there's also a kind of a politicallyloaded aspect to eastern europe. we say eastern europe meaning formerly communisteurope, and again, these people would like to forget about that and help yourealize that there's much more to these places than just that communists period. ifyou're interested in that you'll find it,
there is interesting sights to see there,but there's much more than that. so when we talk about eastern europe orcentral europe, we're mostly referring to these countries, they're kind of thewesternmost most accessible of the former communist countries of the sovietbloc. we've got the czech republic, by the waythat used to be one country, czechoslovakia, now it's two separatecountries, czech republic and slovakia, up to the north there you've got poland,down south you've got hungary. that will be the focus of this talk. youcan also include in eastern europe, slovenia, croatia, bosnia, montenegro, theseare parts of the former yugoslavia, i'll
be covering that in a second talk, in fact. by the way i wanted to offer aspecial welcome to the folks who are watching this online as well, thank you all for being here in person, but there'salso a large audience streaming this or maybe watching it later on our website,and those two talks are available as separate talks also on our website. we're gonna launch right into the firstof our countries, again this this talk is really focused on the three biggies,czech republic, poland, and hungary. let's start with the czech republic. it'skind of a bowl-shaped country ringed by
mountains on all sides and somewhat flatin the middle. right there is the capital of prague in the heart of the czechrepublic, and then you've got some interesting side trips that i'll talkabout that are a little bit outside of the capital. my favorite is cesky krumlov, it's downin the southern tip right near the austrian border. for a lot of people whotravel to eastern europe, prague is their first and maybe they'reonly stop, and for very good reason. there are a few more romantic, morebeautiful, more architecturally
well-preserved, more interesting, moreengaging cities that you're going to find than prague. it's also very easy to get to. you mightnotice on this map, again, we think prague is eastern europe, prague isactually west of vienna for example, it's--it really sticks out into what wethink of as western europe, so it's very easy to reach to tack on to a trip evenif you're not delving deep into the east, you can just take a quick hop there.let's talk a little bit about what you would see and do in prague, there'sreally four towns, historically, that
merged to form the city that we todaycall prague. there's the old town which is kind ofright in the bend of the vltava river, just beyond that, wrapping around it, is thenew town, across the river you've got the castle quarter up on the hill, and downbelow the castle quarter is the little quarter, it's kind of a strange--it's calledmala strana , which means lesser town, or lower town, or little quarter it's translated different ways, it'sbelow the castle. let's take a quick spin through all four of those four towns ofprague.
the nice thing about prague is it's quitecompact, everything you see here is more or less walkable, although trams and a subway system canhelp kind of speed up some of the gaps. we're going to begin in the new town,this is really the heart of today's modern, urban, vibrant prague. wenceslas square, it's named for theninth century czech duke of a "good king wenceslas" of christmas carol fame,actually he was a very important czech figure, he was kind of the culturalstandard bearer of the czech people. and wenceslas square, the square that's namedfor him is probably the least touristy
part of central prague. prague, as i'll talk about later, is prettycrowded, but here on wenceslas square you might actually see more czechs than youwill tourists. it just buzzes all the timewith life, and commerce, and shops, and this sort of thing. what i'll say about prague, wenceslas square,applies really to all of eastern europe, which is, the history here is very recent,and it's very subtle, and it's easy to miss. and for that reason i highlyrecommend hooking up with a good local tour guide.
obviously we've done our best in ourguide books to take the place of a tour guide, but there's nothing like having a personin the flesh explain to you what you're seeing when you're walking around atown like prague. this is our very good friend honza vihan,he's actually the co-author of our prague and czech republic book, he's anative czech, he grew up in prague. it's really fun togo walking through the streets of prague with honza, and right there near wenceslassquare we go down a little side, street and he points out this plaque. andi just was about to blow right past it,
and honza said, "now wait a minute, take alook at this." this plaque has the date november 17, 1989. there's abunch of open hands on top of it. he said, "you know, you wouldn't know itfrom this nondescript plaque, but this was a very important date in czech history." this was the day a couple of months--about a month after the berlin wall came down, so there was a sense of change inthe air, young people especially were fed up withthe communist system. it happened to be the day of celebratingthe czech national poet which is also the czech national students day, andthere was a big celebration as there
always is. after the celebration, a bunch offrustrated students said, "you know what, let's go down to wenceslas square andhave a little bit of a protest, let's say we want what happened in berlin tohappen here." so these students set off across townand gradually as they approached wenceslas square they found themselvesenclosed in this covered passageway, the shopping arcade, and before they knew itthe riot police, the communist riot police, had completely surrounded them.they were blocking the outside of the pedestrian promenade,
they blocked off each end. the only wayfor the students to escape was to run out along, basically, a line of riot copswere hitting them with batons as they ran through. pretty terrifying and prettyupsetting. well you know what, word got out aboutthis. the next day parents and people in the community heard about this and said,"this is not how we're going to be treated by our government," so very slowly the czech people started to come outto wenceslas square and staged demonstrations. and over thecourse of ten days, more and more people came out on wenceslas square.
you couldn't even walk across the square,it was jam-packed, hundreds of thousands of people from all over czechoslovakia.they held up their keys and jingled them and said to the regime, "it is time for you to go." vaclav havel,the beloved philosopher and playwright who spent time in prison after beingsort of a political protesters in the 1960s, emerged from hiding andarose as sort of the the leader of this new rebellion, this new revolution. afterten days of protests, the communist parliament simply voted itself out ofexistence. czechoslovakia was a free country. it wascalled the velvet revolution because not
a shot was fired. wow does that give you goosebumps, right? this is amazing, and this is what i loveabout eastern europe. there's a very fine line between current events and history, andit gets blurred here like nowhere else. and as uplifting and amazing as thatstory is, it's even more amazing when it's told by honza, who, as a 12 year oldkid hanging out with his sister, was one of those young protesters who gottrapped in this very place and beat by the riot police and inspired a nation totake back their freedom. that's the essence of eastern europe, andthat's why connecting with people like
honza can really make a trip here something special. we're gonna head intothe old town which is really the showpiece of prague, right in the center. this is tourist, sort of, grand central,and i sure don't blame them, it's just an absolutely delightful place to hangout and spend time, as you can see it's gorgeous. as a tour guide leading ourrick steves tours i really enjoy the first time that mygroups arrive in prague, in the evening as the sun is setting i'm taking them todinner, and i always make sure that we walk through the old town square. and ijust stop for a moment in the center so
people can look around and and gasp atall the beauty, and invariably someone nudges me excitedly and says to me, "this is better than disneyland," andthey're absolutely right this is the real deal. it's like a arc--sort of a textbook of architectural styles. a lot of the bigcities of eastern and central europe were devastated in wwii, praguenever was, so it's remarkably well preserved, and it's a great place even ifyou don't think you're interested in architecture, you can't deny the
beauty of this place. one thing i alsoenjoy doing in my guidebooks and as a tour guide is introducing people to thelocal patriots and heroes of each of these countries who we've never learnedabout in american textbooks, because this was part of the iron curtain--behind theiron curtain, part of the soviet bloc. well each of these countries has its ownvery proud national symbols, this is jan hus. jan hus was a czech minister, priest, and also a universityprofessor. he spoke out against catholic church corruption, he spoke out against the practice ofindulgences, he did a lot of the same
things, for example, that martin lutherdid, except jan hus did them a hundred years before martin luther, and he wasburned at the stake as a punishment. as you might imagine, he's still a veryimportant figure for czech people today, and it's fun to get to know these namesthat are the names that everyone knows in the czech republic, we learnthem for the first time in and it gives us an insight into each of thesecultures. as far as tourist sites go, right there in the old town square yougot the famous astronomical clock, and this is a very complicated medievalclock that has all these different doors and windows, and at the top of each hour
there's a little show. the doors at thetop open up and the 12 apostles shuffle past, and the devil turns his hourglass,and so forth, and i enjoy watching the show but i kind of prefer to turn aroundand watch the hordes of people who show up to stare up and have theirmouths hanging open as they watch their little show. prague is crowded. of all the places i'm going to talkabout in this talk, prague is probably the most crowded, the most popular. i wouldsay the first bit of advice is expect crowds. the second bit of advice is doyour best to avoid crowds, there are some specific tips in our guidebook forexample about which parts of town you
want to be in at certain times and whichparts you don't want to be in at certain times, because the crowds followsome pretty predictable patterns here. at any time there's crowds, there's always alot of people trying to catch the tourist dollar, and that can range fromlegitimate entrepreneurs like honza--honza is a local tour guide you can hire, andhe's a great investment, you'll have a great day with him--all the way down topetty crooks, and pickpockets, and con- artists. in general i think there's not ahuge risk of pickpocketing and scams in eastern europe compared to a lotof parts of europe, but prague is the place where you're very likely toencounter it. so just keep your wits
about you. if you're going out for dinner make surethat you check the bill very carefully, make sure there's nothing onyour bill that you didn't buy. when you're paying for something, thinkabout when you're giving them the money how much you want back, and then makesure you got that much back when they give you your change back. they know that that tourists aremystified by their currency so they sometimes take advantage of that. and tofoil pickpockets, and let me tell you as a tour guide i've had people have theirpockets picked literally in my presence,
that's how crafty these pickpockets are.you have to wear a money belt, and if you know rick steves at all, i'm sure you're very familiar with this.it's a cloth pouch you wear around your waist under your clothes, and that'swhere you keep your passport, your credit cards, any large bills, anything that yourtrip can't go on if you lose it. i keep a little wallet in my pocket, in myfront pocket that i have maybe a day spending cash, but anything of real valuei keep in my money belt. that's kind of my deep storage. it'sreally important especially in prague because pickpockets are rampant, and reallythroughout eastern europe, and honestly
no matter where you go in europe, it'sit's just a good ethic to be as a part of your routine. prague is a verymusical city, back when it was part of the austro-hungarian empire there were alot of famous composers like mozart who had lived, and composed, and performedhere, so there's lots of great concerts going on all the time. it's a little hard to choose betweenthem, so i would say go to a box office, there's one right on the main square there, theold town square, there's a little box office where youcan find out what's playing tonight, and which venue it's in, and buy tickets.
otherwise you'll be approached all thetime by, you know, people in fake mozart wigs, and they'll just tell you about theconcert they're selling, but it's really good to know what all youroptions are there. and there's also some great street music, like these folks hereas well. in general prague is a great city after dark, this is one of myfavorite little hideaways, it's a really fancy hotel called uprince it right on old town square, and you can go up and pay a little too muchfor a cocktail with a spectacular sunset view over the old town square. other sightseeing options, in the oldtown of prague
you've got the jewish quarter, josefovin fact for most of its history, like a lot of eastern europe, prague has a reallystrong kind of jewish component to its history, and like in a lot of cities, jewslived in the least desirable territory. it's the part closest to the bend in theriver which was most easily flooded. now it's been turned into a museum, it'sa combination of several, five or six different synagogues, and they're all linked together on oneticket. each of the synagogue buildings has an interesting, very well describedmuseum. it's a great place to get a taste ofthis chapter of czech history. and some
moving memorials also, so for example inthis this room that we're looking at here, the names of each of the czech jewishvictims of the holocaust is written on the wall. and if you're just quiet for amoment in this particular building you'll hear a voice very quietly readingthose names on it on an infinite loop as you visit the museum. there's also a very evocative cemetery.because the jews were forced to live on such a small plot of land, they had toactually eventually bury people on top of each other, and then they would kindof stack up all of the the gravestones
on the top level, that's very powerful to see that. ialluded to earlier what a great architecture city prague is, and i wouldsay again, even if you don't think you're interested in architecture, they call it the golden city of ahundred spires because there's just so much--such a richness of architecture andbuildings. and i've had tour members come up to me and they've got some freetime, they say, "what should i do with the with this extra hour that i've got?" andi say, "you know, one of my favorite things is just to walk down any randomstreet and look up, and you'll very much--
very, very likely end up running intosome gorgeous buildings that would be a showpiece building in any other city, butin prague they're just come--commonplace." it's really a highlight of the city.we're going to cross the bridge now of the vltava river to head over the othertwo towns of prague. we've done the new town and the old town, now we're gonnahead to the castle town and the lower town or the lesser town, and to getacross that river we're going to take the charles bridge, and this is one ofthe famous landmarks of prague and one of the most delightful hundred-meterstrolls that i've had anywhere in europe. it's a beautiful bridge that's justjammed day and night with the buskers, and
vendors, and tourists, and occasionally afew czech people as well, and it's lined with the czech saints in stone, each ofthese comes with a story, and it's it's always interesting with a local guideor something to learn about each of the people invited on this bridge. crossingthe bridge again you've got those two towns right on top of each other, thecastle town up above, and the lesser town below. as you walk across the bridge, you'll lookdown and in part of the lesser town is this delightful, tranquil little kampa island. it's another example of, if you just walka couple blocks off that main the square of kampa island you're goingto find some landmarks that you wouldn't
know are landmarks unless you havesomeone to explain it to you. let's say you're walking across thebridge and you see this wall and you say, "oh what a shame, all the graffiti on thatwall, that's just gross, that's just really tacky." well if you're with katka, who is anotherone of our tour guides and we also recommend her in our guidebook, if you're with katka, she'll will say, "now holdon a minute this is the lennon wall." not the vladimir lenin wall but thejohn lennon wall. back in communism, listening to western music like thebeatles was really a sign of defiance, it
was a sign of uprising against thegovernment. young people love the beatles, so at acertain point the young people of prague started painting murals of john lennonon this wall every night under cover of darkness, and then the next day theauthorities would come through and they would whitewash over the wall, and thenthe night after that the students would come back and paint more of the johnlennon graffiti, and so forth and so on. and it became a very important symbol offreedom during the time of communism. there's all sorts of fascinating history,not just at the big sights like prague castle, but tucked around littleunassuming corners, and you really have to
have a good guidebook or a good tourguide to make sure you understand them. we're gonna head up to prague castlewhich is, by some measures, the largest castle on earth. and you know what, i'm going to say thisabout prague, i'll say it also about budapest and krakow, these castlecomplexes are huge, you could spend a day or two days seeing all the sights, buthonestly a lot of those sights are lost on somebody who doesn't have a prettystrong background in the local history, so i think it's a better approach tojust kind of highlight one or two things and and see this area in two orthree hours.
it's very crowded, it's very congested,see what you want to see and then go off to some other parts of the city thatmight even be more interesting. as i said, it's just jam-packed. i mentioned crowdbeating tips a little bit earlier, it's funny, on my eastern europe tour ialways get my tour members up very early on the day we went up to praguecastle. most days we'd get a, you know, we'd meet in the lobby at 8:30 or 9:00. inprague castle day i'd always say, "let's meet it at 8:15." and they'd say, "8:15?" and i'd say, "just trustme on this one." i knew that if you got up at 8:15and went straight up to the
castle, you'd be at the front door of the greatcathedral, st. vitus cathedral, right when the door opened you'd be the first groupin, and you have the place to yourself for 10 or 15 minutes. and then as you'releaving, you see, coming in through the door you just came in through, now it'swhen all of the big multinational tour groups are coming in and the place justbecomes clogged. so coming 15-20 minutes earlier sometimes can make thedifference between a great experience and really crowded one. so some of the sights up at praguecastle, there's a royal palace where you
can go and learn a little bit about thisczech history. that's--this here is st. vitus cathedralwhich is that main church that i was telling you about, it's the main churchreally of the entire country of the czech people, so it's where a lot oftheir kings and heroes are buried. it's also got some beautiful decorations.this is a spectacular stained glass window by a local artist. his name isalphonse mucha. and like i enjoy introducing people to jan hus, anotherthing i really enjoy is introducing people to artists that they've neverheard of. because alphonse mucha had the bad luck to be born in prague instead ofparis,
he's not really very well known outsideof his home region, but he's every bit as talented as a lot of the other artnouveau artists that are much more famous than he is. he's got this great stained glass windowup at prague castle. in the new town he's got a fascinating museum dedicatedjust to his works, you can see he had this very slinky art nouveau style, hedid a lot of theater posters and that sort of thing. and the very exciting newsin prague, in the last few years for the first time since it was painted, ondisplay in prague now is the slav epic. this is a huge series of 16 giganticcanvases by alphonse mucha that
basically tell the entire story of theslavic people, and this is really a must see if you're an art lover especially,and even if you're not this is something special that's uniquely czech, it's worthgoing out of your way for the slav epic by alphonse mucha. i want to talk a little bit about food,not just in the czech republic but throughout eastern europe, i would say eastern european food hashas kind of a rough reputation. people think it's very starchy, heavy, alot of pork and potatoes, sauerkraut. which is all pretty muchtrue, but it's actually a lot better than
it gets credit for, and you'd besurprised how much variation there is from country to country. i'll try tohighlight a little bit of that as we go. i think eastern european foodis delicious, and again, there's more variety than you'd expect. czech food is probably the heaviest,least imaginative of the countries that i'll be talking about, but you know what, it's filling, it is veryaffordable, and it's often served in a really delightful environment, like this this lively, colorful restaurant. if thefood is not necessarily exceptional in
czech, the thing that is exceptional isthe beer. along with belgium, czech beer is probably the bestrespected anywhere in europe, and it's also some of the cheapest. if you go tobelgium and get in a nice bottle of beer it could be six or seven bucks, if you goto a little neighborhood pub in prague it might be a dollar, it's much, much more affordable, andthere's lots of different brands to try, i won't give all the details here butthere's just sort of a whole universe of extremely high quality beers availablein the czech republic. we're gonna head out of prague now, we'vehad a kind of a blitz tour of that city,
and we're gonna get into the countryside.there's lots of small towns that are worth considering for a visit out in theczech countryside, but if you had to pick one, i think it would be this one. this iscalled cesky krumlov. cesky krumlov. by the way, in alot of these languages you have these little characters above and below theletters. for example, the c with a little hat over it makes it like a ch,cesky, cesky krumlov. cesky means czech, like the country,krumlov means "bend in the river," so this is czech bend in the river, and sureenough it's got a beautiful, colorful
castle complex that's lassoed by analmost 180 degree bend in the river down below. that river is verypopular for canoers. you can actually tour that castle, go up in that colorfultower, they've got a baroque theater where they still have the equipment tomake special effects the way they did 200 years ago for theatre productions,you can do a tour of that as well. what i really like about cesky krumlovis that it's beautiful, it's not that far from prague, it's about three hourssouth towards austria, and most importantly, it's relatively uncrowded. iwouldn't say it's completely off the beaten path, but it's certainly lesscrowded than prague, and once you get out
of the big city and into the countrysideyou'll find you'll have these floodlit cobbles all to yourself. there's, again, much more to say--see inthe czech republic, but i'll mention one more place. this is the eastern half ofthe country, czech republic is actually two regions, there's bohemia, which is thewestern part, that's where prague is, and there's moravia, which is the morekind of romantic, traditional, old-fashioned eastern half of thecountry. this is a place to go and relax, do somehiking, some skiing, you've got beautiful little villages.it's also a great place to connect with
authentic bits of local culture likethis folk singing show. we're going to cross our first border now, we're gonnahead down into poland. that means we have to go to an atm,that's right, most of these countries that i'm describing today are still ontheir traditional currencies. this is confusing to some people. all ofthese countries, czech republic, poland, and hungary are part of the europeanunion, but just because you're in the eu doesn't mean you use the euro currency,it's a separate--a separate animal. so each of these still has its differentcurrency. and as i mentioned earlier, in prague
these are very different currencies, theyhave completely different exchange rates, there's the czech koruna, the hungarianforint, the polish zloty, and the exchange rates are totally different.and it's really worth it when you cross the border to think carefully and trainyourself to think in the new currency. figure out a formula that works for youto remember how to make quick conversions of those prices. but atms, ofcourse, are available everywhere just like they are here or in western europe, andthey're the best way to to get out currency. i'll just talk quickly about transportationoptions. i find people going to this
region are probably either focusing onone city, they're just going to prague or just going to budapest, or they'regoing to be lacing together a lot of these big cities that are pretty farapart, and for that reason i find trains are probably the best way to go. the communists left eastern europe witha great network of public transportation, but it's pretty long in the tooth. soit'll get you where you're going, there's always a way to connect two points, butit can be slow. some of the trains aren't quite up towestern snuff, but it's a good way to get where you need to go. in terms of rentalcar,
that's an option i would probably adviseagainst a big multi-country trip with a rental car that focuses on cities, likethe places i'm talking about, because distances are pretty long and becauseonce you have a car in a city you have to deal with parking, and keeping it safe,and it can be kind of an expensive headache in a big city, so i would ratherhave trains to take me effortlessly between the big cities. andthen if you do want a car for the czech countryside for example, you could rentone strategically for a couple of days just to do a quick loop there. and don't overlook a budget flights. ioften have to go from krakow to
budapest or warsaw to budapest, that's a pretty lengthy train trip,usually it's a long night train ride, and now i just always first check ifthere's any airlines that have good deals there. there's a lot of these low-cost carriersthat are available throughout europe, you've got easyjet and ryanair, and then there'ssome that specialize in eastern europe, and even if the name doesn't quiteinspire confidence like wizz air as pictured here, this is actually a greatairline, it's hungarian based, and i've flown wizz air several times andit's actually really nice, new planes,
great service. so consider that for your long hops onyour itinerary. by the way, i mentioned these countries are in the eu, they're not on the euro but they do havethe open borders agreement called schengen, so you can drive from germany, topoland, to slovakia, to hungary, to the czech republic, to austria, and you'll neverhave to stop at the border and show your passport. it's just like western europe now, soit's very easy to get around. we're gonna move into our next countryand that is poland, and boy i could spend
this whole time just talking aboutpoland, this is a fantastic country, a big, giant country, it's about as big as spain,and about his populus as italy. it's one of europe's biggest countries. ionly have time for a few highlights so i'm going to focus on the first placethat most people go and should, and that's krakow, down in the south. andthen you head up to the middle of the country, warsaw, that's the capital. andthen up on the northern coast coast is gdansk. this is this very historic colorful city.and each of these cities, i think they're quite different, they're very complimentary,
and it's a great way to kind of get ataste of the country of poland. we're going to start in krakow, and if you hadto pick one place to go in poland i would make it krakow. this is reallythe showpiece city of the country, it's the--it used to be actually the capital,but about five hundred years ago the capital moved north to warsaw. but krakowstill remains the university center, it remains the cultural capital,and for poles it's the place they're most proud of. and it's a reallybeautiful place, very compact, very easy to nav--manage and walk around. the oldtown is ringed by a beautiful park that used to be the city wall and the moat andit was torn down and turned into a park.
you can walk from one end of the oldtown to the other in 10 or 15 minutes, and almost everything you want to see isin that in that radius. so you don't have toworry too much about public transportation. there's a delightful park called theplanty. the centerpiece of krakow, in theold town, and i think for me it's one of my favorite squares anywhere in europeis the main market square. it's gigantic, it's beautiful, it's theliving room of krakow, it's where everyone is out and about all the time.and it bustles at all hours of the day
and night with pigeons, and cotton candyvendors, and horse carriage rides, and folk music bands, outdoor cafes, it's just an absolutely delightful placeto spend your time. and it's also got important landmarks, of course ,there'sst. mary's church, one of the main churches in this in the city that has somany churches, i'll talk more about that in a moment. in the very center is thecloth hall. this was the traditional market hall, and it still is kind of themain place to shop for souvenirs or at least the most convenient place to shopfor souvenirs right in the center of krakow. poland is a very inexpensive country,
so your dollar goes a long way here. youcan have a nice drink outside at a genteel cafe overlooking that square fora lot less than you would in a similar situation in a french cityor an italian city. shopping here is also a pretty good value, there's a lot ofwoodworking, there's some sort of crystal, and thenthey have a lot of amber, which is found up on the northern coast of poland aswell. and then after dark the old town ofkrakow and the main market square is just equally enticing as well. i talked about--a little bit generallyabout food, specifically i'll talk about
polish food, and one, i think, budget tip if you're looking tosave some money they still have this tradition in poland that started incommunist times, it's called a milk bar. it's a little bitof a misnomer, it sells not just milk but all sorts of polish specialties, but itstarted as a government-subsidized cafeteria. the idea under communism was to givepeople a chance to have a meal out, and even though communism is long gonepeople are now used to having these cheap cafeterias, and i can go into amilk bar in any city in poland and have
a delicious, filling meal of traditionalpolish dishes for five dollars. you know, you have to go to the counterand point to what you want and bus your dishes afterwards, but youcan have, i mean, a really filling dinner at a milk bar for five dollars. just togive you a sense, there's one in krakow for example that specializes in potato pancakes, it's one of myfavorites. and polish food i would say is actually quite different from czechfood, you have some of the same staples, pork, and potatoes, and cabbage, but there's more of a northern feel tothe ingredients here. you have a lot of
berries, dill, potatoes, beets, so this is borscht, the delicious,savory beet stew or beet soup that you get all over poland. polish food issimilar to what you might think of as russian food or even jewish food becauseit's got a similar climate to that territory. now poland does have somegood beer and some good wine, but what they're really proud of is their vodka.and this is one of the most famous brands of vodka, it's called zubrowka which means bison.there are actually bison preserves in northern poland, and the story goes thatevery bottle of zubrowka has a blade of
grass in it, and the grass comes from thebison preserves, the story goes that the bisons season the grass and the grassseasons the vodka. this is pretty high test stuff sothere's no danger of illness, but it's one of those great little culturaltidbits. and my polish friends always like to remind me, "the good thing aboutdrinking vodka--you do it all in one go because then it only hurts once," that'sthe polish secret to downing vodka. down at the southern tip of krakow, you've got the wawel. wawel is the nameof the hill where the castle and main cathedral of poland are.
i'd say similar advice here to prague,it's a big castle complex, there's lots of different museums, most of them are more or less lost onpeople who don't have a strong basis in polish history and culture. but it doeshave one of the finest churches in this city that's just completely loaded withchurches, that's wawel cathedral. it's the mainchurch, it's the westminster abbey of poland, and that is really sayingsomething. i think--from my opinion, poland is themost--i think it's the most--the most practicing catholic country in europe.there's a lot of catholic countries in
europe, but when you go in churches inpoland you really notice it's--they're just jammed with worshippers all the time, andthis is the finest of them all. wawel was also, in addition to having allthe tombs of the great kings and military heroes of poland, it was also the home church of karolwojtyla, you know him better as pope john paul ii who waselevated to the papacy in the 1970s in the darkest days ofcommunism and provided a great inspiration to thepolish people and really slavic people all over eastern europe, it was a reallya turning point in communism and a
signal that that the ways were aboutto change. and if--as you might imagine, pope johnpaul ii is still very much revered in in poland as well. this is a salt version of pope johnpaul the second, sounds kind of strange but this is oneof the more popular side trips from krakow. there's a salt mine just on theoutskirts of downtown called wieliczka salt mine, and it's actually where the miners,over the course of many centuries, started carving sculptures out of thesalt that they were mining. they even carved an entire underground chapel.
everything you see here is carved out ofthe salt, including these relief panels of the last supper. really amazing. back--closer to downtown krakow, this is just a 15-minute walk from the main square, is aneighborhood called kazimierz. like the czech republic, poland has a very strongjewish component to its history, and particularly krakow, something like 28% ofthe people who lived in krakow were jewish right up until world war ii. and now youcan go and see some synagogues that have been turned into museums, some cemeteries,and you can learn a little bit about the real
oskar schindler, made famous of course byschindler's list. oskar schindler was a german industrialist who, when poland wasunder german occupation, came and opened a factory here. and i'm sure you know thestory, he managed to spend as much of his money as possible to save as many of hisjewish workers from the holocaust as he could. and this is where this actuallyhappened, it's also where the movie was filmed. for a while under communism thisneighborhood was kind of decrepit and derelict, and they didn't really caremuch to promote that history, but now it's really been rejuvenated and isbecoming a major attraction for people interested in jewish history and jewishculture.
you can go to synagogues, museums,cemeteries, they were actually cemeteries that weredestroyed under nazi tank treads. nazis would go into jewish cemeteries anddestroy the headstones, and they've now been pieced back together in theseevocative memorials. and it's become also a very popular destination for jewish orisraeli tour groups. and i would say the jewish sights inczech republic in prague are a little bit more cohesively presented, that's agood place to learn about the history, but here they feel very meaningfulbecause you have that schindler's list connection. and in fact, the schindler'slist factory, the factory where the
events actually took place and with themovie were filmed has pretty recently been turned into a state-of-the-artmuseum, so if you want to learn more about that, make sure to visit the oskar schindlerfactory museum in kazimierz, the neighborhood of krakow. of course themost tragic and one of the very important chapters of the jewish storyof poland took place during the holocaust, during world war ii. and justan hour and a half outside of krakow is one of the most notorious--probablythe most notorious nazi concentration camp called auschwitz-birkenau.
this is actually two different camps, auschwitz and birkenau. the first part, auschwitz, which you see here, started out asjust a camp for prisoners--military prisoners and political prisoners. it was a work camp, people were were senthere to be forced to work. these days this part of the camp, auschwitz, has beenturned into a museum with some really fascinating exhibits that tell you whatit was like to live in these camps, the terrible conditions that people livedunder, very powerful exhibits. there's a room that's just a pile ofsuitcases and it reminds us that when people first arrived, jewish victims ofthe holocaust,
they were told, "if you write your name onyour suitcase you can reclaim them later." well a lot of these folks were sentdirectly to the gas chambers and never saw their suitcases again. and when thecamp was liberated they just found warehouses full of suitcases, you can seesome of these very suitcases here at auschwitz. now the second part of the camp is justa mile and a half away, it's called birkenau. and when hitler and his croniescame up with the final solution, which was genocide, which was basically themassacring of the entire jewish race, they decided that auschwitz wasn't bigenough, so they built birkenau, which
is basically a factory for the massproduction of death. they could hold 100,000people here at one time, they had four gas chambers and crematoria that wereoperating literally 24/7. and this is the famous guard tower of birkenau, and you might remember the scene fromschindler's list or you might have heard this story, but this is where the nazi commandant would stand as people got off the train. he would evaluate each person visuallyfor just a second, and then he would point one direction, which meant they were tobe sent directly to the gas chamber, or
he would point the other direction, whichmeant that they would be registered as a prisoner and forced to work and live atleast a little bit longer in terrible conditions. it's incredibly powerful to tour these,all of the barracks were destroyed as the nazis fled, and also were latercannibalized so that people could use the wood for other other buildings, butthey've reconstructed some of the barracks, you can go in and see the the buildingswhere people were kept. it's an incredibly powerful pilgrimage, ithink, for a lot of people. some people
say, "why would i go to this terribleplace on my vacation?" but i think people who go generally are very glad they did,and it keeps up the message that is so important to the survivors of theholocaust and the people who run places like auschwitz, and that message is, "neveragain," we want to make sure that this story is documented, and told, andremembered again and again, because only by that awareness can we prevent thissort of thing from from taking place in the future. again very powerfulpilgrimage here in poland. we're gonna head up to the capital nowof poland, warsaw. and warsaw has a very complicated story, in fact i have a verygood friend from poland, and when i first
visited her in warsaw, she's born there, she said to me withtears in her eyes, "warsaw is ugly because its history is sobeautiful." i might contend that warsaw is not really an ugly place, especiallysince then it's been fixed up, it's a really beautiful city now. but iabsolutely agree that its history is beautiful, what she means is, the historyof warsaw, like the history of poland, is the story of big mighty empires andarmies constantly passing back and forth through poland. poland is a big basicallyflat space between germany and russia. can you imagine, over the course ofhistory, a worse place to be than a big
flat country between germany and russia. sure enough, the country has beendevastated again, and again, and again, and warsaw has taken the brunt of a lot ofthat. after wwii, warsaw was in complete ruins. there was an uprisinghere, a very valiant against all odds uprising that hitler put down, and topunish the people who did that, he systematically destroyed warsaw block byblock-- this is a modern digital recreation ofwhat warsaw like at the war's end-- until basically nothing was leftstanding. general eisenhower toured warsaw afterworld war ii, and is said to have
remarked it's the most devastated he hadseen of any city anywhere in the world in all of his his travels andexperiences. now the positive ending to this story iswarsaw has been rebuilt. the communists did a pretty good job with it, but overthe last 20-25 years it's really come into its own, it's areally vibrant, energetic place, it's a capital--a center of business,it's a center of politics, it's got a really kind of a thrivingexciting kind of metabolism these days. and to recreate warsaw from the rubble, they actually went back to theirarchives and used old paintings, so as you
walk through the streets of warsawyou'll see a painting on a pedestal across the street from the building thatthey use that painting in order to know what it looked like so they can recreateit perfectly. this is the old town of warsaw which wasrubble after the war, and as you can see now it's looking quite pristine. that bigpink building on the right side is the national palace. you can tour the palaceand learn a little bit about polish history there. in the centerpiece of theold town is a very popular statue of a mermaid. a mermaid is a symbol of warsaw,very strong, very defiant, she's holding a sword in one hand.
warsawians and poles in general, theywant to be welcoming to outsiders who come in peace, but there's a real pride aboutpreserving polish culture and polish heritage in spite of all odds. the other interesting thing about warsawis the birthplace of the composer frederick chopin. now you might think chopin is a frenchcomposer, isn't he? not quite, his father was french but his mother waspolish and he was born in warsaw and grew up in warsaw.
he--it was during a very kind of difficultpolitical time so he fled and lived in exile in france, and that's where hebecame famous as a composer, but in chopin's mind his polish heritage wasvery important to him. he would often say, "to me, my music sounds like the windblowing through the leaves of the willow trees in my native land of poland," andthat's that kind of poetry of everyday life that the poles really gravitate to,there's a lot of pride in this country. and the last place i'll talk about inpoland, and you know honestly for me it's one of the most underrated places ithink in eastern europe, and that is gdansk. this is awonderful, vibrant, colorful city on the
northern baltic sea coast of poland. youmight know ddansk by its german name, danzig, and you might think this is theplace that i saw on the news in the 1980s when there were all theseprotests, and it sure looked like an ugly kind of industrial city, a lot ofshipyards, a lot of smog. well i'm here to tell you there is apart of the city that did look that way, even that's being fixed up, but the central core of gdansk is anabsolutely breathtaking, beautiful place, vibrant, one of the most enjoyable peopleareas, bustling people areas, that i've seen anywhere in poland, really anywherein europe. lots of great landmarks, again,
like a lot of cities in poland this wasdestroyed in the war, world war ii, but it's been since rebuilt. and just adelightful town to go and explore and learn a little bit about the history.it's onthe northern coast so it was part of that hanseatic league, which was the medievaltrading league of northern european cities, so it has a feeling that's similarto amsterdam or maybe bergen in norway, these kinds of northern europeancities, it that has that kind of architecture and spirit. and right there,still in the middle of town, is the historic canal where all the ships wouldcome in and unload their goods. i mentioned those protests in the1980s, and just about a 20
minute walk from the main part ofcentral gdansk where all the beautiful buildings are, you can actually go tothat shipyard where those strikes took place. in august of 1980 there was a strike of the shipyardworkers against the communist regime. lech walesa, by the way poles pronounceit walesa, we say walesa but in polish it's walesa, lech walesa had beenfired as a dissident, he was a shipyard electrician. when he heard that there was a protestgoing on, he literally went to the shipyard and jumped over the fence tobecome the leader of the protest. and all
of these shipyard workers huddled behindthis fence for about two weeks, and they were terrified because 10 years before asimilar protest had been met with terrible violence, they had basicallybeen gunned down from snipers and many people were killed. so these folks were absolutely terrifiedof what might happen, but they stuck to their guns and actually had some success,it resulted in some concessions by the communist government in 1980. so when you think about the berlin wallfall in 1989, this was the first cracks beginning toappear, right here in gdansk. and you can
go to the actual shipyard, there's a fantastic state-of-the-artmuseum that explains the whole story, see real artifacts. and you can stand atthat fence and imagine what it would be like to be one of the people terrifiedbehind the fence, or to be one of their family members who came to the otherside of the fence, the only way that they could talk was through this fence whichwas under tight patrol by communist soldiers, very, very powerful site. we're gonna head into hungary next, that'sthe hungarian parliament, but first i wanted to talk a little bit about thedifferent ways you might travel to
eastern europe. basically you have two choices, you cantake a tour or you can be your own guide, do your own thing. as i mentioned, i'm atour guide for our eastern europe tour, i'll tell you about the itinerary in aminute but i did want to say one thing i love about our eastern europetour in particular. in my experience, we get a lot of people on that tour whoare very well traveled, they're very intelligent, they're veryinquisitive, they've been to germany, or france, or italy on their own, but theytell me the first day, "i just wanted a little extra help because this part ofeurope feels a little more mysterious, i
feel like there's this complicatedrecent history that i want to understand." so i just feel like, i love all of ourtour members but the caliber of our tour members on the eastern europe tour isreally something special, and as a tour guide i really appreciate that. but they're notall a bunch of serious historians, it's also a really a fun-loving group and itcan be a really nice way to to meet and and enjoy other people's company asyou're learning about these countries that are somysterious when we start, but so familiar when we when we finish. and of course,i'm sure you know all of the rick steves--all of the rick steve's tour spiels, we'vegot very small groups, usually 25, 26, 28
people. one thing that i really live by as atour guide and i'm really proud of, we want our tour members to becometemporary europeans. we're not there to show them the big sites and the cart 'emoff to a hotel out on the edge of town, we want them to really understand what it'slike to live in these countries. one of the ways we do that is, forexample, we take people to a school in a small village in rural hungary, wherethey can sit and actually talk with the students and we actually have lunch inthe school cafeteria. i think that's the kind of thing thatset rick steves tours apart, and it's
our dedication to really making surepeople appreciate and understand these cultures. the--sort of thegrand tour of eastern europe that we have is a 16-day tour. it starts up in prague, we head into therural czech republic, and then we cut into poland for three nights there inkrakow, we zip through slovakia to hungary where we go for a night to a eger andthree nights to budapest, the capital which i'm about to talk about, and thensort of for dessert we delve down south and just get a little taste of croatia andslovenia. one night at the waterfalls of plitvice, two nights on the adriatic, andtwo nights up in the slovenian alps.
i've done this tour as a guide manytimes, and i really enjoy it, it's the best kind of first look, two and a half week first look at thereally best parts of this part of europe. if you don't have that much time we havesome shorter tours, there's a seven-day prague and budapest tour that justcombines those two great cities, and then if you want to kind of skirt around thewestern edge of eastern europe, we've got a tour that starts in berlin,goes down to prague, goes through cesky krumlov, that beautiful czechtown i showed you, and ends up in vienna. if you want to kind of hit those bighabsburg--kind of germanic habsburg
cities there, just outside of what icall eastern europe. if you do want to go on your own, of course you want to equipyourself with good information. this is the book that i wrote with rickand i update routinely with rick, the rick steves eastern europe book, and all ofthe things i'm talking about in this class, obviously you'll get all thedetails in this book, tips for beating lines, the bestaccommodations, best restaurants, and so forth. it's part of a series of multiple books,and if you're doing a more targeted trip be aware we've got the eastern europe bookwhich is kind of the best of, but you've
also got a book that's just prague andthe czech republic, that's authored by our czech friend honza. i've written abook with rick just on budapest, i also have a book on croatia and slovenia,so make sure that when you're looking at which book you want that you get the onethat covers the places you need and maybe doesn't-- you don't have to cover everything, maybethere's a--if you're just going to prague and budapest maybe pick up theprague and the budapest book rather than the eastern europe book. of coursethere's more information about all of these things tours, and guidebooks, on ourwebsite. and by the way, all of our tv
shows, rick's 100 episodes of television areall, in fairly recent development, they're all available to stream for free intheir full entirety. you don't pay a dime, you just go on thewebsite, click on the tv tab, and you can watch a show on prague, you can watch ashow on krakow and warsaw, you can watch a show on budapest, thefull-length episodes available, free streaming online, as well as a bunch ofother great travel information articles, pictures, everything you can imagine. we're gonna head now into the last ofthe three countries i'm covering, hungary.
i have a real soft spot for hungary, asyou can tell i have a soft spot for all of these places, but there's justsomething really lovable about hungary, it's kind of offbeat, it's kind of quirky,things are a little different there. you'd be surprised how different hungryfeels from poland or from czech republic. for one thing it's got a warmer climate, it'ssouth of the carpathian mountains, but part of the reason is these guys, theseare the magyars, or as there called in their native tongue, the magyars. the magyars are actually atribe of central asian nomadic herders who about a thousand years ago, 1,100years ago, worked their way from the
steps of what would today be central asia,like around mongolia, worked their way all the way across asia and europe anddecided just to stay hungary. and to this day, the descendants--theirdescendants are today's modern day hungarians. in fact, the hungarian language is anasian language, it's not related to any other european language. german is moreclosely related to english, and spanish, and turkish, and even sanskrit, than it isto hungarian, that's how different it is. hungarian also is a little related tofinnish and estonian, and those folks have a similar origin.
let me just give you an example, if yougo to the czech republic and want to say hello, you would say, "dobry den." "dobry"means good, "den" means day, "dobry den." in czech republic that's "dobry den,"then in poland you would say "dzien dobry," good day. you kind of reverse it, "daygood," "dobry den, dzien dobry." if you go to croatia andslovenia you say "dobar dan." very similar right? "dobar dan," good day. "dobry den, dzien dobry, dobar dan." inhungary they say, "jã³ napot kãvã¡nok," iwish you a good day.
it has a very strange cadence, it soundsvery foreign, and that's because of these folks. so remember anything that you seeand do in hungary, there's this overlay of a very different culture. now over thecenturies they've integrated completely with their neighbors, it's a fully european culture, but there's this littlespark that's something different, and that's something i find really exciting. we're going to focus mostly on budapest,the great magyar capital on the banks of the danube. budapest started astwo cities, well three cities actually, buda, pest, and obuda, old buda, and then aroundthe late 19th century they merged
together to form one giant metropolis,budapest. two and a half million people live there now, about one in every four hungarians livesin or near budapest. it's a wonderful city, it's probably myfavorite big city in eastern europe. i always say my favorite big city anywherein europe, it's a tie between budapest and london, that's how much i love this place. it's a fascinating, big, sprawlingmetropolis but there's so much interesting stuff to see and do. you cansee here from this picture you got the hilly part of buda, which is on oneside of the danube that's where the historic
quarter, it's the more traditional quarter, that'swhere the castle is. and then you've got flat, urban, modern pest on the otherside of the danube. budapest. and i still think of them as two different citieswhen i'm traveling. we're going to first go to buda whichis on the kind of historic side, this is the area where you have the castle, the royal palace, churches, same advicehere as i have for prague and krakow, if you love hungarian history you couldspend days at the castle, but if this is kind of new to you i would be veryselective. i'd check out two or three sights,
spend maybe two or three hours, there's a lot more interesting stuff onthe pest side so don't feel obligated to spend a ton of time up at the castle. one thing you should see is thisbeautiful church, the messiah--the matthias church named for great renaissance king.this was built in the late 19th century in a way to kind of showcase thehistorical styles of hungary, and the inside is just slathered with beautifulgolden illustrations of hungarian history. and then right out front is astatue of istvan. this was the king who in the year 1000 first christianizedthose nomadic magyars when he adopted
christianity. that was a real turningpoint in hungarian history. behind him is this really interesting kind of aviewpoint terrace called the fisherman's bastion. and these little pointy thingsevoke the tents of the nomadic magyars, so there's a lot of symbolism here. now mostof what i just showed you was built in the same year, 1896 by the way, and that'sa year you're going to here again, and again. that's because itwas the 1,000th anniversary of when those magyars first arrived. they came infirst in 896, and then in 1896 they want to throw a big party to celebrate it sothat's where a lot of the big, grandiose structures of budapest came from.
now the reason they built all thosegreat structures is, by 1896 budapest was the co-capital with vienna of the hugeaustro-hungarian empire. this was this gigantic empire that basicallyencompasses most of what we now think of as eastern europe. it stretched acrossbasically all of these countries i'm talking about, and then about as many more countriesfurther east and further south. so in those thousand years, thehungarians had gone from being this rough and tumble nomadic tribe to co-ruling this great european empire. that's a point of real pride for thehungarians. from the castle you look out
across the danube river, and you see thatflat urban side of pest that i mentioned, and there's the chain bridge.this is one of the great landmarks of budapest, one of the major bridges. you might remember in the 19--early 1990s after communism was kind of coming to an end, general electric had a very popular adcampaign where they lit up the chain bridge with ge light bulbs, it was kindof the symbolism of capitalism coming to eastern europe. and it's still a majorlandmark of the city, you can cross the chain bridge or any of the many bridgescrossing the danube by foot. but i would
say this is a place really unique amongall the places i'm describing, this is the place where you really want to getcomfortable with public transportation, this is a big city. i described it as being kind of likeparis, it's not necessarily as grand as paris, but in terms of its layout parisdoesn't really have one city center. paris has lots of distinct neighborhoods,and lots of attractions that are spread out over a big area on either side ofthe river, and budapest is similar. so you want to get used to the system, it's an excellent system, they've got areally slick subway. anywhere that the
subway doesn't get you can take a publicbus, and also be sure to just enjoy the beautiful the beautiful skyline ofbudapest. i mentioned it's maybe not quite asgrand as paris, but there are some who might disagree with me on that. afterdark they light up all of these grandbuildings that were built around 1896, and you can go on a really delightfultwilight danube river cruise, and there's a narration that describeseach building as you go by, it's really a fun, fun trip. on the pest side of theriver there's a very famous street called vaci utca. and this is--my advice here isdon't spend a lot of time on vaci utca. if
you've heard of one street in budapestit might have been this one. the reason you heard about it is becauseit was very important 20 or 30 years ago, not because it's worth going to today.today it's just an incredibly touristy mall with a lot of shops, and overpricedrestaurants, and rip-off cafes. but the reason why you might have heardof it is in the 1970s, in the 1980s, this was the one place in all of easterneurope where you could get western goods. during the end of communism here inhungary they had a much more liberal system called goulash ha--
goulash communism, that was kind of anickname for it, and the idea was it was a much--quite a bit relaxed versionof communism, you could actually buy, for example, nike or adidas tennis shoes, thiswas the one place in the entire eastern bloc where you could do that. the firstmcdonald's behind the iron curtain is right here on vaci utca, you canstill go and see it. so there's a certain irony though,because when people think of budapest they go to vaci utca because they thinkthat it's authentic hungary, when in fact it's famous for exactly theopposite reason, it was the one place where you could kind of get away fromcommunism in hungary
quite a while ago. so i would say skipvaci utca and focus instead on some of the more outlying areas. wonderfulmonuments, landmarks, some of the most beautiful buildings really anywhere ineastern europe are here in budapest, this is the hungarian parliament building. you can go on a tour, and i really highlyrecommend touring at least one of these big grand sites, there's a parliamentthere's an amazing opera house i'll show you in a moment. to get inside some ofthese you have to go on a tour and it's really worth it to see sort of when thethe culture here was at its absolute top in that area around 1896. there's lots ofgreat monuments in budapest, it's got
some of the most interesting statues andmemorials of any city i've been to. for example here's a very poignant memorialjust outside the parliament building, it's a guy named imre nagy, and if youknow his name it's because of 1956. 1956 was the year of a very important uprising against communist rule. if youknow hungarians here in america, hungarian american immigrants, they verylikely came here on or right after the year 1956. it was a huge uprising that was veryviolently put down by the soviet army that came in. imre nagy was brought in,he had actually been a communist party
leader, and he was kind of brought in assomebody who they thought could become their kind of new leader. and heenvisioned a system that was a bridge between east and west, he wanted to gowith a little more liberal system than they currently had, you want to get alittle bit away of so--from soviet influence. that's why in this in thesculpture he's standing on a bridge, he was gonna try to bridge east and west. but as i mentioned, the uprising was putdown violently, and imre nagy was given a sham trial and burieddisgracefully face down in an unmarked grave, which is a grave offense in hungarianculture. later his image was
rehabilitated, they actually dug up his grave, foundwhere he was buried, and gave him a proper burial in the center of budapest,and that was one of the things in early 1989 that was a sign that communism wasthawing, because this was a huge thing. and now they've got this wonderfulmonument where he's literally standing on this bridge keeping an eyeon the parliament building from beyond the grave, making sure that thegovernment doesn't try to do these things again. other great 19--sorry 1896landmarks in budapest, one would be the
great market hall, it's a really enjoyable place to go dosome souvenir shopping upstairs or join the locals downstairs shopping for someproduce. hungarian food is really delightfully spicy, it's quite differentfrom--very very different from hungarian and polish food. yeah they use a little bit of pork andpotatoes, but we're south of the carpathian mountains. it has almost more of a mediterraneanclimate, it's much warmer. that means you get a lot of tomatoes,peppers, paprika,
it's spicy flavorful food. there's also alot of french influence in hungarian food, i think it's--for me it's certainlythe best cuisine in eastern europe and i think it rivals some of the bestcuisines in all of europe. in the market hall you can actually go andtaste the different kinds of paprika. they actually identified two differenttypes, there's sweet and there's hot. so a chef will cook with sweet paprika togive it that smoky flavor and the color, and then there are shakers ofhot red paprika on the table that you can use to adjust it to your ownpreferences. so on a restaurant table
in a traditional hungarian restaurant, you don't have salt and pepper, you havesalt and paprika. one of the most famous hungarian dishes is goulash, but as imentioned everything in hungary is a little askew, things are kind of turnedon their head here. when you think of goulash youprobably think of a thick heavy stew, but actually real hungarian goulash, it came from the term "gulyas leves,"which is a hungarian term that means shepherd soup. and it's actually a prettythin broth that has big chunks of potato and meat and is heavily colored in spicewith paprika, bright red color.
so if you go to the czech republic orpoland or germany and order goulash you'll get a thick stew, but in hungary, goulash issomething quite different. again, really delicious, nice, spicy food, ilike spicy food, and that's hard to come by really in europe anywhere, not justeastern europe, europeans don't have a very spicy palette, but hungarians areone major exception there's also a really wonderful genteelcoffee culture in budapest. it's got this very upscale feel,they've done a great job since communism of restoring some classic old coffeehouses, and it's just a really cool place to--like in vienna--to sit and relax with agood cup of coffee and a gorgeous
surrounding, read a newspaper. andhungarian nightlife has a unique feature that's really exciting,it's called a ruin pub. this is a trend that's come about justin the last 10 years. there's a neighborhood right downtown in budapestwhere there are a lot of old dilapidated buildings, and basically squatters wouldmove in, and they would open these ramshackle bars with mismatchedfurniture, it feels like the building should becondemned and in some cases i bet they probably are condemned, butit's a really fun, lively kind of a hipster scene, and from what i've found ithink it's a very accessible scene. rick
for example, even somebody of his age, hesays he feels very comfortable there. it's-- i would say it's accessible to people ofall ages, young people as well as hip oldsters. so if you consider yourself a hipoldster make sure to check out the ruin pub scene in budapest, i've actuallywritten a pub crawl to help you find the best of these in my guidebook. in general,budapest has done an amazing job of cleaning up the city over the last 20--25years since communism. this used to be a street that was justchoked with cars, and traffic, and smog, and now it'sjust a beautiful showpiece walking
street. jewish history here as well inbudapest, like the other places. this is the great synagogue of budapest, thesecond-biggest synagogue in the world after one in new york city. the interesting thing about thesynagogue in budapest is it feels more like a church, and the reason is it wasbuilt by church architects from vienna, built at a time when the jewish peopleof budapest wanted to feel integrated with their non-jewish neighbors, so theyintentionally designed a church that would kind of resemble a church--i'msorry a synagogue that would resemble a church, they wanted to kind of fit in alittle bit better. so it's a really grand
building that doesn't quite feel like asynagogue, it's quite strange. out behind the synagogue you've got a very poignantmemorial called the tree of life. each individual leaf of this willow tree isetched with the name of one of the hungarian jewish people who was killedduring the holocaust. so a lot of powerful sites in this partof town. we're gonna head out onto andrassy ut which is the main boulevard ofbudapest, all the great stately mansions are here, the beautiful opera house that imentioned earlier is here. they said that when this was built the emperor, franzjoseph in vienna,
they asked him for permission, and theysaid, you can build--he said, "you can build an opera house as long as it's notbigger than the one in vienna," so the hungarian say, "we built one that is twiceas grand even though it's smaller than the one in vienna," and sure enough theinterior is just breathtaking. you can do an opera here or you can takea tour. it's also very affordable opera compared to vienna, people from the andactually come just a couple hours by train intobudapest when they want to have an evening of affordable opera. greatmusical heritage here in hungary, franz liszt for example is one of these greathungarian composers. another sight along
that andrassy ut is a very interestingbuilding. it doesn't look that interesting from the outside, but the history ispretty fascinating. it's called the house of terror, and it so happens that thisone building was used both as the headquarters for the nazi puppetgovernment of hungary during world war ii, and also by the secret police of thecommunist government after world war ii, they call it the double occupation. andnow it's a very powerful museum that tells the story of this two-stage kindof out of the frying pan into the fire situation that hungary faced in the 20thcentury. the atrium has a wall of victims, the faces of people who were
lost to this building, and you learn allabout the history, and you get to see some of the com--the communist erapropaganda. for example, this is a beetle that was devastating crops andthey blamed it on the american beetle, "amerikai bogar" from "kolorado," "the koloradobogar isdestroying our crops." it's a long story, the crops were being destroyed forreasons that were completely the fault of the soviets, but of course they wantedto pin the blame on somebody else. and this is a monument to that 1956 uprisingi mentioned. the symbol of that uprising was cutting the soviet insignia out ofthe middle of the hungarian flag, and
there's the message "ruski's go home," "ruszkik haza." out at the edge of town at theend of andrassy ut you've got the millennium monument, built of course in1896, great place to learn a little bit about hungarian history. beyond that is the delightful city park,it's a great place to lick an ice cream cone, go for a stroll, play a game ofchess. now these guys are playing their chesshere in the park today, tomorrow they're gonna pack up their chess board and headout to the thermal baths. i saved the best for last, if i couldpick one thing to recommend for you
folks to do in hungary it would be to absolutely do one of hungary's thermalbaths. there's something like 25 of them in budapest alone. hungry is basically athin crust over a natural reservoir of hot water. hungarians tell me if you poke a hole inthe ground anywhere in hungary you'll find a hot geyser. and this is why favorite, this is in thecity park of budapest, it's called szechenyi baths. i know what you're thinking, it soundsvery intimidating. to answer your first
question, yes, if you want to you can keepyour swimsuit on the whole time. it looks a little bit intimidating andyou think, "can i really handle this?" honestly, i find the thermal bathsbasically like my hometown water park except the water is a hundred degrees, i'm surrounded by gorgeous architecture,and everyone around me is a pot-bellied speedo bat--speedo clad hungarian. it's acultural experience, and it's sightseeing, and it's relaxation all rolled into one. most of the water is about a hundreddegrees like a hot tub. you've got all sorts of whirlpools and jets to massageaway stress.
i know it seems intimidating. but i'mtelling you, take the plunge, read the instructions in our guidebook,make sure you get one of these baths, try to join a game of chess here in thewater. i find it a great way to unwind after a really busy day of sightseeinghere in budapest. i mentioned szechenyi baths, that'sprobably my favorite but there's two other great baths one of them--in budapest--one of them is called gellert baths, this is a bit more of an upscaleoption, this is a bit more touristy probably, szechenyi is a little bit morelocal, but very gentile and kind of upscale. the other one is rudas baths.this actually integrates part of a
500 year old turkish bathhouse right inthe middle of what's today a modern bath complex, really evocative. i mentionedbudapest is rejuvenating and fixing up everything, really all ofeastern europe is. this is a great example, i took this picture of szechenyibaths maybe 10 years ago, i went back a few years later and the same buildinglook like this. all of eastern europe, it's like it'sgetting sort of a technicolor makeover before our very eyes. every time i goback after a year or two years it's amazing what's been improved. i'll mention one more site that youwouldn't want to miss in hungary and
that is--right outside of budapestthere's a part called statue park. now you might think, "oh i'm going to goto eastern europe and see all these communist memorials," and as i mentioned that'sreally old news, and as soon as communism ended in most places they just torethese down. some clever entrepreneur in budapest decided to hoard his and putthem in this park that's out on the outskirts of town, and now tourists bus out here to imagine what itwould've been like to live under the stirring gazes of, for example, marx andengels or the stoic soviet soldier.
this is the one place where you can findthis communist stuff in budapest, you have to go out of your way to find it. it's the hard-working hungarian workergreeting the soviet soldier. you see a lot of this kind of socialistrealist propaganda. socialist realism was the one sort of auth--the one permittedform of art work under communism. socialist because it echoed socialistideals, realism because it showed real people, workers, and soldiers, and thatsort of thing. hungarians have a great sense of humorabout this dark period like all eastern europeans, for example, this is one of thebiggest statues,
it's a soviet soldier who's running witha soviet flag. hungarians have a different interpretation, they say thisis a thermal bath attendant running after a customer who forgot his towel. i hope that little local joke gives youa taste of the personality that you're going to find, the endearing and enduringpersonality of the eastern europeans. i want to say thank you very much forpaying attention, and i really hope you get to visit and enjoy eastern europesometime in the near future. thanks so much.