Just back from my holydays. In a way I feel like I walked across half Europe, and actually the feeling is not that wrong. I just lost the count of the steps made, the runs after trains and buses, money and languages changed and so on.
After crossing four different Countries, talking with their people, eating their food, trying to understand something of their culture I feel a little confused, but even more sure that there is too much to see in this World for just one life, and that living in one single place, only thinking to career and job is a torture to human nature.
Even so...

Budapest is still, so far, the best city I know. I fear there are strong differences between the core of the City and its countryside, but the city itself is unique at all. It's usually said that it is the Paris of the eastern Europe, but I've been in Paris, too, and I still prefer Budapest.
The air you breathe there is one and only, it's a city constantly in love, and like true love it can be sad, melancholic and some times it falls apart, but you don't want to get free or loose it. You could spend hours on the banks of the Danube, and still feel charmed.

Hungarians at the beginning might look close and silent, but they actually are really kind, easygoing, hospital and warm. And sometimes absolutely lovely. And, sure, some few times absolutely rude, especially among the elders. Or, at least, this is my experience.

Among young people is quite common to speak English, but elders don’t. And Hungarian language is quite impossible to understand, so there are times you might get in trouble. For example, in the metro: three Danish guys were fined just in front of me because – I guess - they were sold the wrong ticket, but the control didn’t care they had no fault. This is sad. There again, if you stay in the metro and look confused and it’s obvious you are a dazed tourist, it’s likely that some really kind English-speaker Hungarian will approach you and offer some help.

(and still about this: Budapest has the best public transport system I’ve seen so far. You can go everywhere, in almost no time, actually reducing the need for a car)

I think an important point to understand something about their culture…is the very beginning of it.

Magyar culture settled in middle Europe –I think- around 9^th century, and there it prospered quite independently from other more populous cultures… Germanic and Slavic from which she is surrounded.

So, in the end, I like to consider Hungary… like a kind of island in the middle of the Europe. I think it’s a good way to understand where the dichotomies I spoke about come from.

Finally, in my opinion, the City is lately suffering from a very high inflation (more than other places), and salaries are not at the pace. Moreover, since my last visit there, I found depressingly increased the amount of squalid night-entertainment for men only.

Anyway, Hungarian women are simply unmatchable. And actually unmatched. That’s it.

And about their food… well I guess that it’s a kind of taste not really common to appreciate, especially for foreigners and especially for Italians used to mamma, pizza and pasta, but if you find yourself in that share of people who like that taste… you’ll absolutely miss it once at home.

 

After spending some days in the Eastern side of the old Austrian-Hungarian empire, I decided to move to its Western side (and actually going away from Budapest right before the Sziget festival… I am the man…).

I moved so to Wien. It’s three hours by train, so it’s really close.

Wien is difficult to describe. Basically it’s a huge city much more than Budapest, and suffers from the troubles huge metropolises can have.

Yet, considered its size… Wien looks so tidy, precise, functional that it can appear fake. Or at least it can appear fake to a southern-Italian like me, for who tidiness, preciseness and functionality about urbanity are just bed-time stories.

So I don’t know if I’d really like Wien for living… maybe –quite surely - I could get used to its gears.

Apart of this, Wien is absolutely majestic. Imperial. Monumental. It’s all in the air, huge and imperial buildings, museums at every inch square, chariots still crossing the streets. Cafes, backers, pastry shops and opera, and so on and on.

A very common encounter in Wien’s downtown is a guy dressed like Mozart trying to sell you tickets for Opera. If you speak to them, they’ll probably say there are three things you absolutely have to do in Wien: eat saker torta, go to the Opera… and third one can’t be told in front of a woman :P

Anyway, Wien is absolutely the most high-tech, sustainable and accessible city I’ve ever seen.

Here are some highlights:

1. In a hostel whose rooms valued, altogether 10 euro of  furniture (bugs included), the doors with its lock valued -I think- 300 each. The door had an electrical lock, not just the magnetic card you are given some times.
2. In an ordinary café, the toilet was protected with an electrical lock, with a numeric pad to enter the code to open the door. I only wanted to go to the toilet…and I had to go back to the café and ask the waitress for the code. I don’t dare to ask what if I putted the wrong code.
3. Traffic lights have a sound signal to inform blind people if they can move or not. Also, there is some kind of Braille writing on the traffic light, to inform the same people about the length of the crossroad. Quite easy to achieve, great proof of civilization.
4. The toilet in the Opera metro station starts playing some kind of valzer when you go in.
5. The escalators go on a really low speed when none is on them, and automatically accelerate when someone steps over them. An easy and cheap way to spare power.
6. Recycling is taken really really seriously. There are different kinds of bins for almost everything… plastic, coloured plastic, white plastic, paper, this kind of paper, that other kind of paper and so on. On the 4^th day, I was tempted to eat my plastic, because I didn’t know where to throw it.

People there seem to be used to remove their shoes whenever they feel like doing it. Since it’s also allowed to smoke in all the bars and pubs and likes… when you are in one in these places it’s not uncommon to breathe air which is not exactly the freshest I know.

 

From there I moved to Croatia, not without stopping one day in Ljubljana. I can’t say I’ve seen much of Slovenia, except that it seems a nice and industrious Country, full full of rivers and forest. It seemed to me to be a perfect crossroad between German culture, Slavic culture and Italic culture.

Ljubljana itself is quite and lovely, quite man-sized. And there is a square, in downtown, where there is a kind of pump up 4-5 meters the ground, so that in that square there is always rain, no matter the outer weather.

 

Croatia… well I’ve been told that there are differences between coastal Croatia and the inner one.

I think the inner one looks more Slavic then the coastal one, which is very similar to Italy, in some aspects. Zadar is a lovely city, prices are still not that high (you can sleep in a room with 20€ per night, and eat in a top class restaurant with the same money). Islands in front of Croatia are little paradises, too bad that in August that part of the coast is under siege by tourists, mostly Italians. There are absolutely heavenly islands with deep blue or emerald green sea… overcrowded of people.

I think that’s why they’ve been elected to National Park, so the best you can do with it is a cruise in the Kolnati National Park (which will cost you about 40€).

Yet, the best sea you can find in Croatia I think is not in Zadar, which is basically a touristic city, full of ships and boats unloading their sh*t in the sea.

For what I’ve seen, Rijeka’s sea looked cleaner, and anyway, the best sea can probably be found in between these cities, or even more south, towards Split and the Greece.

 

One conclusive note about… Italy.

After three weeks spent walking in Europe, as soon as I landed in Ancona, it was obvious I wasn’t in Europe anymore. Stuff price was extremely pumped, much exceeding its real value. Train were constantly on delay and there is no integrated transport system. Again on trains, after sunset you can meet the most squalid share of humanity ever seen. Of course, once back in Naples, trashcan in the streets and black fog of burnt trashcan were my welcome message. Oh, how stupid I am! I forgot my Premier solved the problem of trash in Naples.

Our people is the most demented of all the Countries I’ve seen so far, cause of television and Vatican. The day I’ll travel to another Continent, I’ll be able to say if we are the most demented of the World, or just Europe.

On average, we dress all alike, talk all alike and act all alike. And we pretend we are free. A group of Italian tourists can be recognized from a mile of distance, simply looking the way it behaves. Again, on average, we are loud, annoying with women, and don’t respect the culture we are supposed to explore. In one word, we are a locust swarm. While in Budapest I’ve met different Italian tourists and they all repeated the same thing. “This is better in Italy, that is better in Italy…” It goes without saying: “why don’t you stay in Italy???”

I’ve been taken many times for an Hungarian, both in Hungary and in Austria. Every time, I felt happy.

In Budapest, a couple of tourist (who asked me for directions), openly told me “you Hungarians are really kind.”. I thanked and agreed with them.

In Slovenia and Croatia I had the distinct feeling they didn’t like us. They tolerated us because the vast amount of money we yearly drop in their cashes.

In a restaurant, in Zadar, I overheard the conversation of some Italians behind me. They were sick.

They were industrials, somewhere from northern Italy, the one who claims to be the best. They talked about Croatia more or less like colonialist Empires talked about their slaves. An arrogance and an ignorance so disgusting I was going to puke.

ciao a tutti. parto per le ferie, ci si vede a fine mese. presumibilmente sarò in totale silenzio radio... sennò che vacanze sarebbero. ci si vede.

 

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bye bye to everybody. I'm off tomorrow, and I'll come back around the end of the month. Most likely I won't read mails or answer the phone and so on... It's holydays, no?