Entries about palace

Although I woke up feeling exhausted - as drained as I was in Basel and the first couple of days in Bratislava - and under the influence of a cough/ cold which had returned with a vengeance, I felt better after noting the sunshine outside and having a big, leisurely breakfast. I packed and left my big case and laptop in the luggage room and set off on a final excursion - to the gardens of Schloss Schönbrunn, former seat of the Habsburgs.

I only had a couple of hours free so decided not to go into the palace itself, interesting as I knew it would be. This time the gardens were enough, though if I get the opportunity to go again at some point then I'll definitely go inside the building and explore fully.

Although February is clearly not the best time of year to go, I still very much enjoyed my visit. The maze and labyrinth section was closed for the winter, the Orangery was empty, the rose bushes in the rose garden were covered in sacks (to protect against frost, I assume), a lot of the other bushes and trees were bare, and flowerbeds were dug up, awaiting replanting. However, despite this the place was still magnificent! Stunning architecture, spherical topiary, the Neptune Fountain, other statues set within ponds, the historic green metal Palm House building, arched walkways draped in wisteria, the swirls of flowerbeds... they all worked together in a way which was very pleasing to the eye.

At one point I walked along one side of the zoo, and spotted some European bison and some deer. I also popped in to the small free part of the Desert House, where I saw an Oman Spiny-tailed Lizard. I thought about paying to get into the Palm House (basically a huge tropical greenhouse), but decided not to as time was starting to get on and I knew it would be so interesting to look round, I'd want to stay for ages and would regret having to rush. Another reason to come back!

The last thing I looked at before heading for the exit was the Columbary, or giant dovecote. It dates from 1750 - 55 and still contains three species of pigeon; the 'Altösterreichischer Tummler Kiebitz', thought to have originated in India and arrived in Vienna during the Ottoman siege of the city (they didn't say which one, 1529 or 1683), and the 'Wiener Fluggansel' and 'Österreichischer Ganselkröpfer', other historic varieties.

On my way out I passed lots of greenhouses, but they were all closed off to visitors.

On arrival back at the hotel I had half an hour or so to re-arrange my case, have lunch from a supermarket, check out the Storm Dennis and flight status situation online and update people about it. (Storm Dennis was/is a massive storm predicted to move over many parts of the UK over today and tomorrow.) Then I set off for the airport via metro and S-bahn.

The flight left on time. I had a window seat and by the time we took off it was dark, so since the sky was clear, I got a magnificent view of Vienna lit up before me. The sky remained cloudless for quite a long time, because every time I looked out of the window I got more wonderful views of towns and cities lit up far below us.

Even as we approached the given landing time it was still calm, with no turbulence, and I was starting to wonder all the fuss was about re. storm predictions... then we passed through a bit of turbulence, but no worse than any I've experienced before... then another period of calmness which seemed to last a lot longer than the 15-20 minutes we'd heard we had left before landing. Then the captain came onto the intercom and said that we'd be late landing because the storm was causing landings to back up, and that when we did approach, 'It will get a bit bumpy, just to warn you'. Understatement of the year... we were thrown about more than I've ever experienced before - at one point I wondered if it was possible for a plane to get flipped right over by wind! I didn't see anyone throw up, luckily, though a couple of people were leaning forward or holding their hands up by the sides of their faces. Looking out of the window, I could see the thick mist passing by - no sight of anything else almost until the very moment of landing. A very otherworldly experience, for sure.

The pilot deserved a standing ovation when we landed, though she didn't get one.

Update from May 2023: Little did I know then that due to the pandemic, it would be just over two years before I could go abroad again...

Saturday 8th February (yesterday)

I had a lovely day yesterday (except for waking up with worse back and side pain than usual). My main destination was the Hofburg, the former Habsburg palace complex. There are so many museums and other attractions there that I could never hope to see them all in one day, so although I really liked the sound of the Butterfly House, Palm House, Fine Art Museum, the Armoury and some other places, I decided to get the ticket that would get me into three of the main places I wanted to visit; the Nationalbibliothek Prunksaal, the Papyrus Museum and the Globe Museum. Should I have the time and energy during the coming week, it also allows me entrance to the Esperanto Museum, Literature Museum and House of Austrian History until next Friday.

I started off at the Nationalbibliothek Prunksaal, though before entering the Hofburg I admired the strip of Roman and 18th century remains in the Michaelerplatz in front.

Words fail me when it comes to describing the Prunksaal, one of the most historic and atmospheric libraries in the world. It was breathtaking! The tiered, ornate wooden bookcases, beautiful leather-bound books, colourful Baroque murals, globes... Even the stepladders, although modern and made of plastic or metal, are painted to fit in perfectly with their surroundings.

There was a special exhibition on Ludwig van Beethoven, as 2020 is the 250th anniversary of his birth. It had a fascinating display of facsimiles and originals of documents relating to nearly every stage and aspect of his life and his relationships with various people, within both his professional and personal life. Pride of place was the original manuscript of his 9th symphony, open at part of the 'Ode to Joy' section. It also had two audios of it which I could listen to with headphones; one a normal recording, and the other a special recording of the same piece but changed to sound how it does to someone with significant hearing loss of the kind that Beethoven had at the time he composed it. Listening to that really made me realise again what a genius he was.

There were also some separate texts unrelated to Beethoven, such as a richly decorated 16th century copy of the Persian cosmographical text The Wonders of Creation and a facsimile of the Vienna Dioscurides, one of the most famous manuscripts of late antiquity. The main part of it contains a series of images of alphabetically-arranged medicinal plants, with text alongside each one describing it, its medicinal uses and how to prepare it as medicine.

From the Prunksaal I headed to the Papyrus Museum. This was also very interesting, with a greater variety of artefacts than one might potentially imagine. It ranged from scrolls containing the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Coptic and Islamic amulets intended to protect the carrier against scorpion stings, a spell for the return of a bronze vessel (and curse upon the thief), a scroll containing mathematical exercises, and a set of examples of different languages and writing systems used over the years (e.g, hieroglyphs, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Coptic and Arabic)...

...to Coptic textile clothing, mummy cartonnages (a type of mask similar to papier maché style, originally made from waste-papyrus but later from linen or plaster), realistic Roman mummy portraits on thin wooden boards, and an extremely rare papyrus contract relating to a Roman Empire trade voyage to India in the 2nd century AD (expeditions to India often left from Egyptian ports on the Red Sea).

On leaving there I used up some small change on an iced coffee from a handily-placed vending machine and went on an ice cream hunt in the streets surrounding the Hofburg. Amazingly, I was unsuccessful, but as I got a bit further away I made a interesting discovery...

I'd given up on ice cream at this point and was just enjoying wandering the historic streets for a bit before going on to the Globe Museum.

I suddenly saw the word 'Schotten' on a street sign and this brought to mind the name of the area where I worked in Vienna last year. A beautiful yellow church appeared, I went in to have a look, and it turned out to be part of a working Benedictine monastery. Most of it was closed off behind a metal grid, but through it I still got a good view of the stunning, colourful Baroque interior.

On reading the blurb they had on display, I found out why it was called the Schottenkirche, or the Church of the Scots - it was founded by Irish Benedictine monks, and apparently the Irish were known as Scots at the time. The blurb mentioned some of the good works the monks are involved in within the Schotten parish, including education.

After lighting a candle in a tiny side chapel and continuing on to the end of the street, I could see that I was indeed back in the area I remembered from April last year. That made me remember the Indian restaurant I went to a couple of times with my colleagues, where you only pay how much you think the food was worth, or you don't have to pay at all if you can't afford it. Since I remembered having a very tasty main dish with rice there, plus a really nice dessert, I thought I'd go there for a late lunch before retracing my steps to the Globe Museum.

The only problem was, I couldn't find it! I'd forgotten what the name was, but knew I'd remember it when I saw it. I thought I remembered seeing it on the edge of the big square I was in, but no sign of it. Either I misremembered the location (always possible) or they've closed down. So I began retracing my steps, taking on my way a picture of the cathedral-like Votivkirche, which overlooks the square. It's named that because it was built in 1879 in thanks for the Emperor's survival of an assassination attempt.

I stopped at a Billa supermarket and bought a tabbouleh salad instead. Then it was time for the Globe Museum! It was absolutely fascinating. My favourites were the globe from 1492 which naturally doesn't have the Americas or Australasia on it, Mercator's celestial and terrestrial globes from 1542 (and accompanying screen with a virtual copy of the terrestrial one on it which I could move around, zoom in and out of, etc.), a set of very cute 18th century English-made 'pocket globes', massive and richly decorated 17th century Coronelli globes, paper or cloth collapsible globes the user could extend or inflate a bit like an umbrella, and a miniature child's globe, probably Victorian or Edwardian, with an accompanying multi folded paper showing pictures of the world's inhabitants, including a Sandwich Islander, an Esquimaux (sic), an Iroquese (sic), a Scotchman and a Peruvian, dressed according to what Westerners of the time believed was the case.

It was also very interesting in general to see so many historic terrestrial globes at different points in history, reflecting the current state of geographical knowledge of the world at each stage. The moon globes and globes of different planets were good to see as well.

I went (almost) straight back to the hostel after that as my back, left side and hip were all protesting, and I was running low on energy again. I did stop at a supermarket and buy a couple of twisty rolls with tomato, cheese and ham on top to have for dinner a bit later, however.

I enjoyed the rolls for dinner and spent time following the BBC Sport live text of the England vs Scotland Six Nations rugby match.

Sunday 9th February (today)

Earlier today I transferred to Hotel Admiral, relaxed, met my colleagues for the coming week and got ready for work tomorrow. For dinner we went to a Mexican place - not a place I would have chosen to go to, but actually I ended up being very glad we'd come. I had a bowl of Crema de Elote (delicious sweetcorn soup), some potato wedges with sour cream, and for pudding Crema de Semola, or semolina pudding in a glass with strawberry sauce on top. Lovely!

Edit from May 2023: I realised a lot later, after having returned from Austria, that the Indian restaurant I was thinking of is actually the Pakistani pay-what-you-can-afford restaurant Der Wiener Deewan - very much still around! If only I'd had a smartphone at the time, I would have found it easily - I wasn't to get one for another six weeks though...

Bucharest was incredibly hot and humid, almost at Guayaquil levels, but very interesting.

First of all I had fun exploring the old town, passing through University Square on the way.

There was no free breakfast at the hostel, so I visited a bakery instead and ate the result (a small savoury pastry sprinkled with poppy seeds and filled with bacon and melted cheese) next to a small statue of Romulus and Remus being fed by the wolf.

Then I came across the Old Princely Court, some remains of a palace used and extended by Vlad the Impaler, who as it happens was born in Sighisoara, my next destination after Bucharest.

First of all I went underground into the brick cellars - it was interesting, with the bonus of being deliciously cool - and then I looked round the rest.

This included the accompanying church - originally built in 1559, but much-restored since then. The Romanian Orthodox Church seems to differ from the Bulgarian in that the candle-stands are actually boxes and are outside in a separate area. I bought and lit a candle for Dad, and after I'd done so a woman came up to me, pressed two small packets of biscuits and two boiled sweets into my hands, said something in Romanian and walked away! She did the same with another woman, who hadn't lit any candles yet.

The old town also contained the old and beautiful Stavropoleos Church. It was covered in frescoes on the inside and I had fun finding out the names of the saints in them via transliteration. It seems that Romanian used to use the Cyrillic alphabet.

I also loved its pretty, peaceful little courtyard, where I stopped to sit down and have a cold drink.

The old town was definitely well worth looking round.

Last of all I visited the National History Museum, which was great. Special mention to the anthropomorphic pottery, the stuffed wild boar, the exquisite metalwork from 5th - 3rd century BC (helmets, cow head-shaped drinking horn, diadem of gold leaves and fish-shaped silver harness appliques) and the 14th - 16th century weapons.

After a rest back at the hostel, during which I had two more savoury pastries for a late lunch, followed the Ashes cricket live updates for a while and caught Kate online for a bit, I headed back out. My destination was the cemetery where Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu are buried, but on the way I stopped for a bit outside the infamous Palace of the Parliament. It was built on the orders of Ceaușescu and is the second largest building in the world (the Pentagon is the largest). A large part of the original city centre was wiped out to accommodate it.

I found the cemetery OK, but it took much longer than I expected to walk there, so by the time I arrived at was nearly 19.30; it was supposed to close at 20.00. After spending about twenty minutes unsuccessfully looking for their graves, I had to give up and walk all the way back again. Although I knew which row and number their graves were, the numbers of the rows didn't seem to follow any particular order, and lots of the rows didn't have any number at all. It was quite maze-like and to be honest looking for the right graves was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack! I'm still glad I went though, because it was interesting to see what a Romanian cemetery is like. Nearly all of the gravestones were shaped like crosses and were made of very white stone; there were some small mausoleums as well. I noticed lots of inlaid circular photos or pictures of the dead, like on the stones in the courtyards of the monasteries I've seen in Bulgaria. Outside the cemetery entrance there were lots of flower and coffin sellers with their wares on display at the side of the pavement.

Instead of going straight back to the hostel, I made a diversion to an area of town I hadn't been to before, in order to have dinner at a restaurant I'd been recommended. I regretted it before I even got there, because I was so knackered (it was quite a long diversion) and as soon as I got there and saw a different restaurant there, I regretted it even more. It looked a bit posh and I was in not the cleanest of clothes and was literally dripping with sweat. Normally I would have just gone in anyway, but I was practically on my last legs by now and decided on the spur of the moment just to go in the nearest supermarket instead. I bought a pasta salad and a custard-like chocolate pudding, plus drinks, and tottered home. I knew that if I sat down for dinner at the restaurant, I wouldn't be able to get up again!

Edit from March 2019: Altan Şekerleme is still going and still appears to be very highly rated!

Today, our last day in Istanbul and Turkey, there were three priorities; A) to revisit the Spice Market, B) to go to a specific shop for some Turkish delight and C) to catch the correct night bus back to Bulgaria.

A) came first, after a typically satisfying breakfast at Piya Hostel. We were keen to return to the Spice Market to get some more spices for ourselves and some presents for people. No fake saffron this time!

Between the Spice Market and Altan Şekerleme

One thing we didn't get at the Spice Market was the Turkish delight. I had been recommended a different place to buy that from instead. It was only round the corner, in a back street - a shop called 'Altan Şekerleme'. The Turkish delight, ('Lokum' in Turkish and Bulgarian) is hand made on site here. As soon as we stepped inside and started looking at the piles of Turkish delight on offer, some pieces of it were handed to us as free samples by the lovely old owner and younger female assistant. Delicious! I could taste the natural ingredients; it was not at all artificial-tasting, like some Turkish delight can be. I bought two kilogram boxes of different flavours; one for my family and one for us two to share. For his family Dave bought a kilogram box of mixed sweets - some Turkish delight, some marzipan pieces coated in dessicated coconut and some hard candies like boiled sweets. There was a funny moment at the end when I tried to take the bag of boxes from the owner - he shooed me away and gave the bag to Dave to carry instead!

On the way back from there we got off the tram two stops later than usual so I could buy another two pairs of cheap trousers from the same stall outside the Grand Bazaar that I had been to before we went to Cappadocia. Once I had bought them and we had taken the tram back two stops, we walked back to the hostel on a rather circular route via Kennedy Caddesi, the road that runs along the seafront.

On our way along that we came across the ruins of the Byzantine Bucoleon Palace; only some high walls remain now, almost completely taken over by climbing vegetation.

Back at the hostel we rested for an hour or two in the communal area. The girl at reception, who turned out to be the daughter of the owner, was really nice and helped us by ringing the otogar (main bus station) and checking bus times for us. As I expected, there was only one bus to Veliko Tarnovo - a night bus. Apparently they couldn't reserve tickets for us over the phone, but they said that so long as we got there a decent amount of time beforehand, tickets wouldn't be a problem.

We arrived over an hour in advance. The main otogar is absolutely huge, so beforehand I was worried that it might take us ages to find the right bus company (Huntur). Almost as soon as we stepped out of the metro station we were accosted by a guy asking where we wanted to go. As soon as I told him, he insisted that if we followed him he would be able to get any ticket for us. My suspicions were raised so I said no thank you, we already know where to get our tickets from and how much they should cost. Just then I looked up and what should I see on the other side of the station but a 'Huntur' sign - so we headed off at a brisk pace, saying no thank you again to the dodgy guy.

Buying our tickets from Huntur was easy. We had a lot of time to kill after that so we went inside the main station building to explore. We bought some dinner, drinks and snacks to have on the long journey.

The bus was comfortable enough and we managed to get a decent amount of sleep. The journey took 12 hours this time and seemed to go smoothly. I remember waking up once and seeing that we were stationary at the side of the road, but thinking nothing of it and going back to sleep after ten minutes. Well, later on (after we'd arrived in VT) it turns out that the bus had broken down and we'd been there for about three hours!

Goodbye Turkey - we will definitely return!

Topkapi Palace was an absolutely wonderful experience; definately one of the top of my life to date. It just kept on giving - round every corner there was something else interesting, or another beautiful view.

Topkapi Palace was the most important residence of the Ottoman sultans for 400 years, and was famous for its opulence, luxury and magnificence. Legends built up about the famous Harem and the eunuchs who guarded it. The very mention of Topkapi Palace brings to mind images of jewel-encrusted sultans lounging about on shady terraces and gardens, sipping at iced sherbert from crystal goblets and languorously picking at silver or fine porcelain platters of fruit or confectionery...

Anyway, having entered through the main gate into the fine gardens of the first courtyard (which are free to get into), we continued through the next gate into the second courtyard. We didn't have to pay at this point because we'd bought Istanbul Museum Cards on our first day, which allows free entry into lots of famous attractions within a 5 day period.

From the second courtyard we entered the famous Harem. Only part of it was open to visitors, but due to the vastness of it, even that took quite a while to see. There were different apartments for the sultan, the Queen Mother, princes and other members of the sultan's family, a courtyard for the eunuchs, a short corridor with a long counter where eunuchs left dishes of food delivered by kitchen staff (for the concubines and other people to take), and one or two other places. The decoration of each room was beautiful, with stunning, colourful patterned tiles all over the walls. One room had paintings of piles of different fruits.

My favourite part of the Harem, however, wasn't a room at all but the Courtyard of the Favourites, where only the sultan's favourite concubines were allowed to go. The terrace had a really good view of the Golden Horn, the river which separates the two European sections of Istanbul, in the distance. I sat on a bench and pictured how I thought the courtyard might have looked 400 years ago; I thought of an extract from a book of historic travel accounts from over the ages that I have, which was written by a European visitor to one of the earlier Ottoman sultans. He was the only visitor allowed to get a glimpse of the Harem; usually, he said, anyone caught within the Harem or even glancing into it from outside, who was not the Sultan himself, the Queen Mother, one or two other select members of the sultan's family, a concubine or a eunuch, was instantly put to death. He mentions peering through an iron-barred window for a few seconds and glimpsing concubines playing at ball in a courtyard.

Once we emerged from the Harem, we wandered round the other two courtyards and then looked round the second one again properly, as the first time we'd been there we'd gone into the Harem almost straight away instead of exploring.

We saw so many interesting places and things, it would take me forever to describe them all in appropriate detail! The following are some of the highlights;

- a lovely rose garden with a fountain in the middle; the rose season has clearly just turned, but there were still lots of relatively fresh-looking red and pink blooms left.

- a terrace with an even more beautiful view of the Golden Horn and Galata Bridge than the courtyard in the Harem had. It also overlooked the Fig Garden and the Elephant Garden behind (no explanations for the name of the Elephant Garden were given; maybe one of the sultans kept a managerie in that garden at one point?) Overlooking this view was a small golden-roofed covered seat where one of the sultans liked to break each day's fast during Ramadan.

- a terrace on the other side, with a magnificent view of the Strait of Bosphorus, the other European section and the Asian section. On the way there we looked through a couple of small but magnificent kiosks; the Terrace Kiosk, where the Sultan watched sporting contests in the garden, the Revan Kiosk, which was used to store the Sultan's turbans, and the Baghdad Pavilion, used as the library of the Pricy Chamber from the 18th century onwards.

- a bottle rose sherbert we shared... It lived up to every expectation! It was sweet and tasted a lot of roses; apparently mashed rose petals was one of the main ingredients. The courtyard we sat in was the perfect place to drink it.

- the palace kitchens, especially the confectionary kitchen where huge copper cauldrons, iron ladles and marble slabs were displayed. There was lots of fascinating information about the confectionary, syrups, sherberts and also medicines, soap and scented candles that were made here.

- the Arms & Armour display. This was one of the best I've ever seen; extremely well preserved and beautifully engraved and patterned helmets, daggers, swords, axes, maces and bows. It also had arrows, chainmail and colourful wicker training shields.

- the Treasury; this contained a massive glittering diamond, a 22-carat gold jug and ewer, a basket of huge emeralds, rings encrusted with rubies and sapphires, more very finely engraved swords, a British Order of the Garter presented to one of the sultans by Queen Victoria, Chinese Ming pottery and lots more.

- Some of the holiest relics of Islam, including parts of the Prophet Mohammed's beard, his sword and of of his footprints set in stone. In the same exhibition we saw a metre square model of one of the holiest Islamic buildings in Mecca, made entirely from mother-of-pearl.

On our way out of the palace we stopped to flop for a bit on the grass. Outside the gates we bought two salted, grilled corn-on-the-cobs from a street seller and ate them on the way back to the hostel. It was now past 17.30 and we'd spent four and a half hours at Topkapi!

For dinner we ate on the rooftop terrace of a fish restaurant round the corner from the hostel. Dave had bass, I had bream (both of which came with rice and salad) and we shared an iceberg salad and a spinach casserole. Dave also had some olives wrapped in anchovies. They gave us free baklava and Turkish coffee afterwards! Dave went into raptures about the baklava, and for good reason!