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A Trip to East Europe by David W, S. Liu                                    Please circulate & thanks

                         August 11 to August 22, 2005

I.                    Czech Republic – a trip of European Ancient Architecture

The Czech Republic is one of the youngest countries established in 1993.  It territory has an area of 49,371 square miles; surrounded by mountains and lies in the very heart of Europe with 10.3 million inhabitants.  The average temperature is about 0 C and rises to 20 C in the summer.

Czech is attractive because of its historical monuments, spars and natural beauty with 10 monuments listed by UNESCO.  Czech history can be tracked back to the 8^th century of Great Moravian Empire.  During the reign of the Czech King and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV of Luxemburg, Prague became the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire . In the 15 century, the Habsburg Empire gained the Czech crown until 18^th century.  The Czechoslovak Republic was established in 1948.  The Communist Regime came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and became part of the Soviet Block.  The famous "Prague Spring" Czech Democratic movement was ended with the military intervention of Warsaw Pact nations in August 1968.  Now the Prague Spring became a famous musical concert in Europe .  On January 1, 1993 , the Czech and Slovak Republics separated as two sovereign nations.

Prague (1.2 million population) is the capital city and the biggest city in Czech.  The most attractive part of Prague is the historic core (UNESCO), which makes the city one of the most interesting tourism sites in the world.   Prague is noted and so called "the city of one hundred spires", the "golden city" or "mother of all cities". 

Charles Bridge (built in 14 century) connects the history of the historical suburbs on the right hand banks of the Vltava River .  The bridge is 515 meters long and about 10 meters wide.  Along its side, 30 statues were flanked by Baroque masters.  At each end of the bridge, are the Lesser Town Tower and The Old Town Tower (which is considered to be one of the most beautiful Gothic tower in the world). You can spend the whole day and take a walk through, the Lesser Town Square , the Old Town Square , the Church of our Lady of Tyn, … etc.
 

We also visited famous spa town of Kavlovy Vary (the town center on the Telpa River), Marianske Lazne (the colonnade and singing fountain), drink a famous Pilsner beer at Plzensky, another UNESCO Cesky Krumlov, a fascinating small town enclosed by the meandering Vltava River (the most beautiful small town I have ever seen), Telc, another UNESCO old town.  During our stay in Czech, weather is not good, most of time was cloudy (20 – 25 C) or raining (dropped to 15C when it started to rain).  Still, this is my first trip to Czech and I would like to take another look of Czech again, especially the golden city Prague .  The most impressed is the building, the architecture in Prague .  You can learn the history of European ancient architecture (summarized below).  Doubtlessly, I took a lot of pictures of architecture this time.  You probably do not know the graph on the Euro dollar € is the best text book for the history of European ancient architecture as well.  For example, Roman architecture on €10 bill, €20 bill with Gothic architecture and €100 bill of Baroque style building, … etc.

II.                  Austria (Vienna, Slazburg, Melk)

Vienna , grand legacy of the Habsburg monarchy, is the most famous capital of music and defined by UNESCO as World Cultural Heritage.  In 1741, Maria Theresa dedicated a ballroom next to the Hofburg (the Imperial Palace ) to performing arts.  Mozart staged two of his famous operas at the Burgtheater.  Other great composers working in Vienna includes Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Brahma and Schonberg.  In the early 19^th century, the whole city was dancing the Viennese waltzes of Strauss, followed after 1860 by brilliant success in the field of operetta.

We spend a whole day in Vienna , and visited Schonbrunn Palace , Hofburg (the Imperial Palace), Belvedere Palace , Saint Stephen's Cathedral and the Johann Strauss Memorial.

Salzburg is the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791).  The Salzburg Festival is the most notable event combining classical music with opera and drama and attracting international audience to Mozart City .  In Salzburg , we visited Mirabell Palace , Salzburg Fortress, the Residence Fountain.  We also visited Melk Church and a tour to Salz Welten.

III.                Hungary (Budapest, the twin city)

Hungarian came from Asia back to 130 BC.  At Han dynasty, 衛青, 霍去病 attacked 匈奴　and gradually Hungarian moved toward west Asia and gradually settled down in east Europe and built their country in 896 A.D.  By 1,300 AD the Mongols of Batu and Ghengis Khan destroyed the country.  And by mid-16 century, Turks arrived and inhabited the capital for 150 years.



 

Budapest is a twin city, Buda on the left and Pest on the right hand side and the River Danube flowing with grace in the middle.  This is the most beautiful twin city, Budapest , the capital of Hungary with 2.1 million inhabitants.  Budapest is a beautiful city connected by famous Chain Bridge, Elizabeth Bridge .  You can see Royal Palace on the left hand Buda hill and Houses of Parliament on the Pest .  We spend the whole day to Matthias Church , the Fishermen's Bastion, the Statue of St. Stephen, the state founder, and the Royal Palace in the morning; visited House of Parliament, the Central Market Hall, the Hero's Square, the Art Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts in the afternoon.  The one hour cruise tour on the River Danube is very entertaining.  This concludes our trip to ease Europe . Hungary is the 34^th countries I traveled. "The world is what our own hearts take to it."