Good morning and welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging where we’re known to wander off the garden paths by also including our animals, homes, travels and other interesting topics.
I recently traveled with a friend, Suzanne, for almost a month from Austria to Romania including stops between in the countries of Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. Along the way, I’ll show you flowers, plants and highlights of the areas. I thought I could complete this in one diary but a part 2 is necessary. This Part 1 includes Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and ends in Serbia. Part 2 will pick up in Bulgaria and finish with Romania.
Let’s start off by playing a bit of Mozart to enhance your viewing pleasure.
It was my first time being in Vienna known as the “City of Waltzes” plus the birthplace of Sachertorte! All I can say is “WOW”. Truly a magical mouth-dropping place.
a memorial to Johann Strauss
The clock displayed the correct time in the Unsere Garten (Our Garden). The clock numbers were done with succulents.
other parts of the park
The House of Music was a terrific visit. Here is a painting done in 1780 of Wolfgang and his sister, Maria Anna at the cembalo, their father, Leopold Mozart, with his violin, and behind them a portrait of their mother, Anna Maria, who was already dead when the picture was painted.
The Burggarten Park has a memorial for Mozart
Other parts of the park. The greenhouse was magnificent.
The first part of the St. Stephan Cathedral was built in 1137. The Plague Column was inaugurated in 1694 in memory of the Great Plague victims, the epidemic killed almost two-thirds of Vienna in 1679.
While in Vienna, I was one of six crazy daring ones to take a four hour — 20 plus mile eBike ride. It was incredible as we biked along both sides of the Danube River and took a ferry to an island in the middle. It was hard to take photos while riding.
The guide below pointed out that the tower was from the 1964 Vienna International Garden Show that now contains two revolving restaurants. The metal cross on the lower left side of the tower was where Pope John Paul II spoke to a crowd of 34,000 in 1988. In comparison the guide said that the Pride Festival the weekend before was attended by over 300,000. A South Carolina woman started quoting from the Book of Revelations and a man from Oregon stated that he bet they were all drinking Bud Lights. Besides their bull, the bull below was made from metal and scrap wood. The guide was also warning us that the next part of our ride was going to be through a nudist area. Oh my as many were wearing only shoes and backpacks. The South Carolina woman insisted that we should have been warned before the ride. I guess she forgot to bring her camera.
One of the world-famous Lipizzaner stallions peeking out at us from the Spanish Riding School.
I left out Vienna’s spectacular architecture on purpose as I could have posted hundreds of photos but we must keep moving along. The diary’s main photograph was at Bratislava Castle in Bratislava, Slovakia. The town had incredible views.
Walking in old town, we came across this plaque in the sidewalk. We were informed that it marked the spot where the first witch in Bratislava was burned in 1602. Her crime was stealing her next door neighbor’s deceased body.
The old town was very interesting. We were informed that the alleyway on the upper right was where prostitutes were available during the 1700s. The photo below it is at the start of the alleyway which shows the red plaque of the city’s executioner and marks where he had lived. He also took care of the alley’s working women’s health. Go figure!
Moving on from Slovakia to Hungary.
Budapest was a complete surprise and absolutely blew me away. It could be my new second favorite city, behind Istanbul. Sorry Amsterdam.
Budapest is known as the “Paris of the East” so we had to take the “Budapest by Night” tour. Below is their Parliament Building.
We walked around Heroes' Square which was a treat
The guide at the end of the tour took us for champagne at a bar overlooking the Danube River. He became extremely excited while we were on the patio, telling us how lucky we were because the nearby Széchenyi Chain Bridge had been closed for over two years for renovations and that tonight the engineers were testing the different light colors. Going downstairs to the restroom, this portrait on the wall was created by using only black squares.
The Matthias Church was originally built in 1015 and reconstructed in the 1300s. Several Hungarian Kings have been crowned here.
On the Danube River are large amounts of shoes lined along the bank as the "Shoes on the Danube Bank" memorial.
…..to honor the Jews who were massacred by fascist Hungarian militia belonging to the Arrow Cross Party in Budapest during the Second World War. They were ordered to take off their shoes (shoes were valuable and could be stolen and resold by the militia after the massacre), and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. The memorial represents their shoes left behind on the bank.
We took an afternoon trip to the nearby Lazar Equestrian Park founded in 2001 by the twenty-one world champion carriage drivers Lazar Brothers. We watched a horse show, visited the farm animals and took a carriage ride. The middle bottom is a glass floor showing their awards. The brothers are on the right and I’ll be polite by not saying anything about them.
This 1520 building’s facade was only discovered when damaged during World War II as it had been hidden behind layers of plaster and completely forgotten. welovebudapest.com/… (<---Excellent architecture link. The city’s architecture was why I fell in love with Budapest. No matter which of the hundreds of streets you went down it’s as if you were back in the 1700/1800s. The city is an absolute treasure!)
Another afternoon we visited the Gödöllő Royal Palace and gardens built in 1760 by Count Antal Grassalkovichds. We loved this place. Room after room of treasures and a garden that was impossible to see all.
Driving back into Budapest, we passed this florist shop. It was as if the lady in the bright turquoise dress with white shoes and purse was placed on the bench as a colorful prop.
The Liberty Statue on the upper left is the last of the Communist statue overlooking the city. The rest of their statues have been relocated to Memento Park.
Sadly we must move on. Budapest you stole my heart and I hope to return to you one day.
We next went to Mohacs, Hungary. Sunflowers as far as the eye could see.
On our agenda was a side trip by bus to historic Pécs. We visited the Pecs Cathedral on the upper left where the foundations are from the Roman period, around the fourth century. Bottom left is a World Heritage Roman Burial Site, 1600 years old, that we climbed down into.
We spent time sitting in the town square when this couple came walking by and she had the most beautiful bouquet. I asked if I could take a photograph to post on a U.S. garden blog. They happily agreed. She had just walked out of her doctorate degree graduation. The man had presented her with the bouquet and they were going to celebrate at a nearby restaurant for lunch. I really enjoyed talking with them. I also fell in love with this little buddy that reminded me of Ida D. The woman was absolutely thrilled when I asked if I could take a photograph of her dog. The upper right is full of locks on a fence where lovers throw away the keys as their love will endure. We were informed that the fence has been in quite a few magazines.
Next up is Yukovar & Ilok, Croatia. We started off by attending a choir performance in a local Church in Osijek. Then moved on to the wonderful Tvrda (Citadel), “home to the best-preserved and largest ensemble of 18th-century baroque buildings in Croatia”. This was one of my favorites. Notice on the upper right a small American flag in the window.
In Vukovar we visited the Vukovar City Museum located in the old Eltz Manor, the baroque palace first constructed in 1751 and destroyed in 1991 during the Croatian War. It was completely restored in 2011 and houses 2,000 restored items spanning 8,000 years of Vukovar’s historical development. I truly was fascinated by this museum as it was so well done and interesting. The top middle shows the Museum after the 1991 war.
We were informed that this building in Vukovar was on the cover of National Geographic magazine. The bombed out house was left like this as a memorial to the Serbs-Croatian War. This link will take you to the photograph that I believe was used by the magazine. It’s worth the click. I won’t post the photo here as there is a charge for personal use and copyright issues.
We move on to Serbia. Walking around Novi Sad.
a nearby park
A full moon rising above the Petrovaradin Fortress on the Danube River in Novi Sad, Serbia. This was a spectacular view and is one of my all time favorite photographs. At the right place at the right time.
Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, was a very interesting city. The statue on the left is “The Victor” to commemorate Serbia’s victories during the Balkan Wars and the First World War. The statue caused major scandal when first erected as many were against it saying that a nude male in the center of the city was rude and would damage the moral of the girls. Apparently the male was quite endowed* so he was turned in a direction facing away to the other side of the river. It was pretty much farmland at that time but as you can see major modern building has now taken place there. There are still many war damaged buildings in the city and I show parts of one. Also visited were the Kalemegdan Fortress and the Church of St. Save, one of the world’s largest Orthodox churches. (*maybe I can show the other side in “SMGB After Hours”)
Suzanne wasn’t feeling good so one afternoon I took a four hour walk by myself in Belgrade. I stumbled across the SMS Bodrog warship parked in the Danube River that fired the first shots of World War One.
We move on to Donji Milanovac, Serbia. Part of the famous Iron Gate Gorge. Water surrounds this boulder island.
Donji Milanovac is a small beautiful town where we attended a Church choir performance and toured an elementary school. Suzanne and I hired a guide with his car to drive us to Lepenski Vir, 8,000 year old Mesolithic archeological site. It is apparently the oldest settlement in Europe. The stone carvings have the mouths of fish. We loved our guide, the guy in the bottom row in blue t-shirt on left, he spoke perfect English and had a fantastic sense of humor. Apparently he liked us too as when we finished the archeological site, he took us to an open-air art gallery, Kapetan Misin Breg. The artist was so happy to see us that he and his wife served us honey brandy, fried nettles and other goodies. He’s on the bottom right.
I believe the sign on the left says “Don’t pick flowers”. I would like to have sat down and talked with this lady beside the main road reading her paper with a garden cart that she brought to sell fresh cut flowers, some vegetables, canned goods and maybe bottled plum brandy.
This is sailing on the Danube River along the Serbia and Romania border through narrow gorges with the Carpathian Mountains to the north and the Balkan Mountains to the south. The building is a monastery. This enormous rock sculpture of the last Dacian king - Decebalus is on the Romanian side. It’s the tallest rock relief in Europe at 180 feet. The below right on the Serbian side is the c.100 A.D. Trajan's Tablet which was laid to mark the construction of a Roman military road. It also gives praise to Emperor Caesar.
I had hoped to complete just one diary on this trip but decided I had better do a Part 2. The next earliest opening in the diary list is September 23 so I’ll then do the two remaining countries, Bulgaria and Romania. That date will be closer to Halloween as we’ll visit Dracula’s castle. Thanks for joining in on this ride. It also helps me to document the trip for family and friends.
What is going on today in your garden and world?