Day 50-52 - Kraków, Ostrava

Tuesday 7 September 2004, 14:40 CET

I've had an awesome day in Krakow. To complete last night's entry - After leaving the net cafe last night and having a three-course meal for under A$10, I took in a little of Kraków by night. It's almost magical seeing the old buildings all lit up and hearing the live accordion music and milling crowds around the tiny cafes in the main square (Rynek Glowno).

Today, I went through the east side of the city centre and down to Kazimierz (kah-zee-Myezh), the old Jewish quarter, and Wawel Castle, built 1000 years ago. Apart from the odd person (seemingly tolerated by castle management) trying to sell me gilded antiquities that are most likely illegal, I was pretty much undisturbed in my exploration of the castle walls and for a small fee was able to go down a spiral staircase into the heart of it.

I have to go now - enjoying some quick food before hopping on the train to Ostrava. I have no idea what to expect with European trains, I've heard both good and bad stories.

Tuesday 7 September 2004, 23:30 CET

Wow! I can't believe how good this place is.

I'm at the Hotel Imperial in Ostrava, Czech Republic, watching BBC and CNN in alternating half hours and amusing myself with their radically different coverage of exactly the same stories. This is a real luxury hotel, with porters to take your bags to your room, a beautiful clean double bed, a detached bathroom, and a nice view over the south end of the centre.

To backtrack a bit - Before getting on the 15:40 train, I made sure to get another obwarzanki (hand-baked, ring-shaped bread) before leaving - sort of a final souvenir of Kraków. The station was a bit like an airport and the train itself wasn't too bad - apart from having to lift 15kg of baggage above my head - and was airconditioned. There was six seats in each section, but mine was mostly empty - a Polish girl living in Vienna and a Japanese girl from Kyoto were my travelling companions for this journey.

Ostrava was unexpected at first. I arrived on the platform with only a massive set of stairs for company, and when I got to the top, I realised that the "central station" (hlavni nadrazi) was about as central and convenient as Vancouver's - i.e. not very. I hauled my luggage onto a tram, had an incoherent argument in two languages with the oversized tram driver, who finally conceded and let me on, and the rest was easy.

I'm going to get a well-earned night's rest here, I think. It's nice staying in a place where the locks work, the door handles don't come off in your hand, the curtains don't fall on you while you're sleeping and the bathroom isn't under 2 inches of slowly stagnating water.

Thursday 9 September 2004, 10:40 CET

I am going to miss this place when I leave it, I think. Ostrava has been good to me. Well, I had a good time anyway. I can even speak phrasebook Czech - sort of. I kind of had to, as no-one here understands even the most basic English outside the hotel. My theory, though, is that communication is the most important bit and as long as I can buy things, buy tickets, go places, get home from places and so on, my linguistic incompatibility with the local population isn't actually an issue.

After enjoying the free buffet breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, I spent yesterday basically in two parts - the first exploring Ostrava itself, and the second going to the area my ancestors came from, which was the real reason for my being in this rather unusual location. Ostrava is a beautiful old European city completely unspoiled by tourism. It has about 300,000 people and used to be the industrial hub of the (Austrian) Habsburg empire in late 19th century. Nowadays much of the industry has moved out, allowing the city to clean up a bit and show off its baroque beauty. Masaryk Square and the Old City, the Ostravice river, and the Moravska Ostrava (Mährisch Ostrau) region including the town hall and central bank near the train station had plenty to keep me occupied until mid-afternoon. Amusing diversions included the graffiti-filled underground city, not designed so much for comfort as for getting from one place to another in the minus-40 temperatures this place sometimes gets.

I then managed to buy a bus ticket for just $3 to Ostravice, about 36km from Ostrava beyond the town of Frydek-Mistek. What took me by surprise was how the bus went from just 5 people to unsanitarily overcrowded over just 4 bus stops (most of which were in the shoulder lane on the freeway!) and I nearly missed my stop but for a helpful old couple who shouted something in Czech at the people between me and the door.

Ostravice is a one-highway town with about 80 locals, most of whom, by the looks of it, either practice farming or run B&B's. The view is breathtaking - fields, farms, and thickly forested mountains which form the border with Slovakia just 15km away. My great-grandfather, Karl Freud, built a hotel there - strangely enough, called the Hotel Freud - but my family had moved to Vienna, the hotel was taken by Nazis during the war, and I'd always wanted to see the place. As it turned out, it was only 50m from the bus/train station. Although the exterior was exactly as it was in the old photos, the interior had now been converted to a typical pub/restaurant and wasn't very exciting. Nevertheless, I had this amazing feeling walking around this place that I'd heard of so much that I had ancestral ties to. All the people there only spoke Czech, but I managed to tell them who I was and they did seem excited about a descendant of the founder visiting them.

I wisely realised that I was going to be in a better situation if I walked 5km to the nearest town, Frydlant, as Ostravice wasn't exactly teeming with public transport alternatives and Frydlant was, at least, on the major southwest freeway (56) out of Ostrava. After an hour and a quarter, and realising my map wasn't exactly to scale, I reached the town, and with some effort found the train station. With my extremely poor skills in Czech, I managed to buy a ticket to Ostrava-Str'ed. The ticket officials laughed hysterically when I pronounced the train station correctly as the middle character is notoriously hard to pronounce (like a rolled 'r' AND a 's' as in measure at the same time) and I got my ticket back for A$2.20.

Dinner that night was free as the staff at the hotel had had some kind of function and it was over and they gave me and a pair of Americans the leftovers. I certainly wasn't complaining - prawns, cheese, bits of chicken, small Czech biscuits and even red wine was on offer.

This hotel has been exceptional. The place is clean and safe, the staff are all friendly and helpful, and even the laundry service was top quality and amazingly cheap.

Thursday 9 September 2004, 23:30 CET

Servus from Wien (Vienna)! I'm staying at my aunt Christine's place with my cousin, Catrin, and my aunt's boyfriend George. They've let me use an entire apartment for the time I'm here - the luxury definitely didn't stop in Ostrava - and I've discovered my aunt is an excellent cook.

The train from Ostrava to Wien was a bit more harrowing than the one the other day. After getting my luggage up four flights of stairs and down one, then up onto the train (the steps are narrow and steep), I found out I was in the wrong section of the train - they divide the train in two at the Czech-Austrian border and one bit goes to Bratislava, the other Wien.

Once in the right section, I found out three things - I was in a full carriage, my luggage didn't quite fit, and there was no airconditioning in this carriage. Furthermore, while three were extremely friendly poles, the old gentleman next to me was a crabby septuagenarian Brit who complained about just about everything and everyone. He lives in Canada, yet hates Canada and its people and complains they're too American - and then turns around and complains about people who hold anti-American attitudes. I went off him quickly after finding out he was a Nazi sympathiser. The Poles had resorted to conversing in Polish, and my train went straight past my stop, so I had to navigate through Vienna to get to the right place. Thankfully, although you have to get used to not having much personal space and standing on most trams and trains, Vienna's transit system is easily the best I've seen anywhere since Vancouver, so this wasn't a difficult undertaking.

Anyway, off to explore Vienna tomorrow. Should be fun. :)