So I (finally) continue my pictorial on Eastern Europe... All the photos shown now are shot on film and scanned in.. and of course, only the better shots are shown... haha... ;p

Salzburg
Some nice horses at the town square in Salzburg

Many thanks to my "wonderful" navigation skill, we walked up a wrong street while heading for the Fortress Hohensalzburg, we stumbled upon this (what I thought was) pretty nice arty stuff (i don't what you call them... ;p)

A shot from inside the Fortress Hohensalzburg...

Golling
A nice shot of the supposedly forbidden waterfall.. A pity I only had a polariser to diffuse the light and increase exposure time (i needed a neutral diffuser)

Vienna
The State Hall in Vienna - quite a waste of money I thought... although it was nice, but there really wasn't very much to see, except the frescoes on the ceiling, which I thought were really fascinating...

inside the Stephansdom, Vienna

A street pianist busker - I was quite impressed considering most buskers busk with "portable" equipment - I don't consider an upright piano to be portable in ANY sense.... ;p

A night shot of the library at the Habsburg, Vienna with the moon as the backdrop

A furry-eared squirrel at the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna - it kinda looks like a rabbit right?

Horse-drawn carriages at the park of the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna - it was certainly a beautiful day

UNO-city, Vienna. One of the four/five UN headquarters in the world. Home to the IAEA, etc etc.

At the main reception of the UNO-city. Try and find the Singapore flag!

Some Gaudi inspired place or something like that. I can't quite remember the name of it though.... ;p

Bratislava, Slovakia

The once-upon-a-time Castle at Bratislava. It is now a museum, although not a very good one I must say. (and for that matter, I think the whole of Bratislava isn't very much of a visit either... Not for food at least)

St Martin's Cathedral.. It was closed by the time we got there so we didn't get to see the interior...

The Blue (Orthodox) Church, which I thought was quite modern-ly beautiful. "I'm Blue, da ba dee da...."

Prague, Czech Republic
The most beautiful of the few cities I visited on this trip. And also where the best (& cheapest) beer is found. :)

The old town square - which had a nice Easter fair going on. So beautifully set against all the historic churches and buildings

The old town side of the tower on Charles Bridge, which is the bridge of statues

St John of Nepomuk statue on Charles Bridge - the most famous one of all...

The changing of guards parade at the Prague Castle - very entertaining indeed. I quote the AA spiral guide, "After Habsburg formality and the grey ritual of the Communists, President Havel gave the show some humour and life: the sentries' blue uniforms tailed by the Oscar-winning costume designer for Amadeus, and a new fanfare for the big noon parade composed by rock musician Michal Kocab"

The big noon parade... (I went a little shutter crazy... ;p)

Watching the parade made me miss the Commissioning Parade training at OCS somehow... hmm... i never would have thought there would be such a day... haha..

Marching home...

Inside St Vitus Cathedral. The steeples on the outside as well as the architecture is supposed to be a mix of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles...

Another shot of the interior. I loved the intensity and colours of the light shining through the stained glass, giving such a pretty picture... ;p

So this is the end of my recount of Eastern Europe. I'm afraid there weren't any stories to share - cos the trip went smoothly, which I supposed was a good thing.... ;p

Labels: Austria, Bratislava, Golling, Prague, Salzburg, Slovakia, Vienna

I'm just gonna do a quick photo blog entry on my Eastern Europe trip. hehe. This was a 9 day blitzkrieg tour of Eastern Europe with Chee Hui, my partner in crime...

Salzburg - 30 Mar - 1 Apr 07

Flew into Salzburg - hometown of Mozart, where we spent a couple of nights in Yoho Hostel.

The city at night.

It was quite a small city I must say (small = within walking distance from end to end) Made a couple of visits to the Mozart places:

Such as the Mozart Birth-house and Residence.

And we also visited the Fortress Hohensalzburg.

Day trip to Golling

We also made a day trip to Golling on the 2nd day cos we've kinda covered the main attractions in Salzburg and decided to head out to a less "touristy" place... which indeed was a great choice....

Set magnificently against the alps, Golling makes a wonderful getaway from the hustle and bustle of city life.



Of which, the main attraction was the Golling waterfall, which is 3km from the city centre/train station (took us ~30 mins to walk there), which we later found out was actually closed for the season, although we ignored the barricade and went through it...
Beautiful eh?

And then because we were thirsty and our bottles were empty, we decided to fill our bottles with nice, refreshing spring water from the river... and boy, i've never tasted water this good... (ok, maybe 2nd to Singapore's tap water... ;p) After a long and tiring trek to the falls, we headed to the town of Golling for some dinner.

We had initially wanted to try this restaurant which was recommended in our guide, but turns out that it's closed down/renamed and we couldn't find it, so we had to settle for something else, which wasn't at all a bad choice.

I can still remember the taste of the yummy roasted ribs.... SOOOOOO yummy... and of course, cheap beer to go with it. Eastern Europe is one of the few places on earth where beer is cheaper than any other drinks!

Gonna stop here for now to give me something to do for the next couple of days... ;p

Labels: Golling, Salzburg