A short trip to Solo (Part One)

Solo as we all known as Surakarta was the destination of my recent trip with, again, my travel buddy, Sinthya haha.

We planned this, a month before this trip. We went to Solo from 16 – 18 March 2012, but we needed to leave the city on Sunday morning, as Sinthya wanted to attend a wedding reception at Sunday noon.

For this trip, we used Garuda Indonesia for Jakarta – Solo, then Sriwijaya Air for Solo – Jakarta flight. We were looking for the cheapest ticket flight as possible and matched with our prefer time.

The most famous street in Solo is Jalan Slamet Riyadi, so we looked for a hotel near that street in Agoda website, and we found Ibis hotel with a reasonable price there. The price in Agoda is the hotel price without breakfast, while the price in Ibis is with breakfast, so it’s your choice 🙂

So on Friday, we took the first flight, which was 5:50AM. Reached at the airport, quite surprise with the Adi Soemarmo airport. The airport is nice, and quite big too.

After arrived at the hotel, we just dropped our bags there (the check-in time is at 12PM or 1PM), then we prepared our trip for the city tour.

We spotted warung bakso (bakso is meatball) near our hotel, and it’s a coincidence that the name of the warung is Bakso Alex. Well, if you have read my previous post about my Bali trip, there you will find my friend, Alex 😀

The bakso was nice. A good supply of calorie for the whole day trip!

Hotel Ibis is located in Jalan Gajah Mada, which is quite at the centre of Jalan Slamet Riyadi. From Bakso Alex we walked at one of the end of Jalan Slamet Riyadi … Well, not really at the ‘end’ of the street though. In that area, there are Taman Sriwedari, Museum Radya Pustaka, and Batik Danar Hadi that located very close to each other. We decided to go at this side first, as we wanted to visit some museums, which would close around 11:30AM, before the Friday prayer. One thing that I like with Jalan Slamet Riyadi is, it has a wide pedestrian walk, so it’s really comfortable!

In Taman Sriwedari, well, there’s not much too see here, beside a statue in front of the entrance. There’s also some store that sells craft, and souvenirs stuff. Anyway, at the back of Taman Sriwedari, there’s a place for Wayang Orang Sriwedari performance, and yes, we’re going there in the evening.

Next was Museum Radya Pustaka. It’s known as the oldest museum in Indonesia. There are many rooms inside the museum, where each room is dedicated to one theme, such as Keris, wayang kulit, gamelan, and so on. Inside, wecould also found small library. At the back of the building, there’re some replica of famous the buildings in Surakarta and the surrounding (Sangga Juwana, Makam Imogiri, and Masjid Demak). And in the back yard, there’re some statues too … It’s apparently a very short visit to the museum. It’s unfortunate, the museum was not too well maintained. But it’s still okay to visit! 🙂

Close to the museum is Batik Danar Hadi or House of Danar Hadi. Do you know that they have a museum in the complex 😉 ?
The ticket for the museum can be bought at the Batik Danar Hadi store. We asked to hurry so we didn’t miss watching the staff making the batik 🙂

The museum is quite big, and they have batik from several places too. There are many different kind of batik. Batik that was influenced with Dutch, and Chinese. They also showed batik with cartoon characters, such as Hanzel and Gratel, and Snow white. At the end of the batik showcase, they also showed batik that was donated by some people to be displayed in the museum .Too bad, I couldn’t take photos here.  The last section was like a batik factory, many people here who made batik. And they are divided into some sections. People who makes the pattern of the batik, the women who makes batik tulis, men who makes batik cap, then the colouring room, and so on. It’s a guided tour in this museum, and roughly took about 1 hour to complete.

Here are some photos from the making of batik:

Making the pattern


The women are making the Batik Tulis

The men are making Batik Cap


The result of Batik Cap

Near Batik Danar Hadi, there’s an Italian Restaurant called O Solo Mio. As it’s already around 1PM, so we decided to have lunch there. We ordered pasta, plus additional a medium size pizza. I ordered Ravioli al Spinach, and Sinthya ordered Fusili Putanesca. The pizza was called Pizza Mio. We thought we could finish all, but apparently we couldn’t haha! So we brought the pizza back to the hotel! It’s a good thing though, as we didn’t get breakfast at the hotel 😀

We went back to the hotel first before we continue the trip, also to put our pizza in the room! Haha …

The room was nice and comfy. My view was facing Jalan Slamet Riyadi.

…

I contacted my friend, Ami, in Solo so we could meet up. She’s kind enough to pick us up in the hotel, and drove us to Pasar Grosir Solo so we could see some batik there. And she’s also kind enough to bring some snack for us!! Serabi Notosuman and Lekker Solo. Haha. I like the Serabi, but I didn’t eat the Lekker because it contained banana! I don’t eat fruit 😀

Pusat Grosir Solo is located near the Slamet Riyadi statue at the other end of Jalan Slamet Riyadi. It also located beside the road to one of Keraton in Surakarta, which is Keraton Kasunanan.

Going to the Keraton, we used becak as the entrance is a bit far if we walked. The entrance is from the left side of the Keraton, so the road is circling the Keraton. Enter from the left, exit from the right 🙂

And apparently … The Keraton was already closed at that time. Sigh … It’s already around 3PM or something. So oh well … we moved on to the next place, which was Kampung Batik Kauman. Kampung is like a housing complex, and here, most of them opens a batik store in their house. Yes, it’s another batik store, and Sinthya already confused what should she buy as there’re lot of choices, but I still managed to buy one more batik here :D. We didn’t spend much time here, as we wanted to visit the other Keraton of Surakarta, which is Keraton Mangkunegaran.

The place is a bit far from Kampung Batik Kauman, but it’s near Ibis Hotel. So actually if we wanted, we could just walk there.

Arriving in front of the Keraton Mangkunegaran, I saw a big field in front of it and kids playing football. On the right side of the field, I saw an old building called Kavallerie Artillerie, guessed it’s a storage for weapons.

And heyyyyy … the Keraton was already closed too. Sob sob sob 😦 … So we just took a peek from the gate gap. It’s not as big as Keraton Kasunanan, but it’s quite nice from the outside. It has a fountain in the front part.

Two in a row … Lol …

I asked the people there, they said that Keraton opens at 9AM until 2PM. Oh okay, got it now! 😀

Just to cheer up our day, Sinthya played a child’s play. There’s some square that is drawn on the road, and we needed to jump with one leg only from one square to another. First she did it alone, then she invited one of the kids, a cute little girl, to join her. And I really love that kid expression 🙂 🙂

Before we headed back to the hotel, we tried another restaurant in front of Keraton Mangkunegaran, called Omah Sinten. We just tried a light food, which was Singkong Kompeni, and drinks. The place is really nice. It has a traditional Javanese theme. They put becak and an old bicycle in one corner. Too bad we didn’t try the meal here, as we’re too full to eat at that time haha!

…

It’s almost 6PM, and we’re ready to go. The show of Wayang Orang Sriwedari always starts at 830PM, so we still had some time for dinner.

For dinner, we planned to have it at Soga Restaurant & Lounge, which is located at Batik Danar Hadi complex.

They provide Indonesian food, and a few Dutch cuisines (they called it as Colonial pasta). I ordered Nasi Soerakarta Hadiningrat while Sinthya ordered Nasi Bakar Mbak Ninil.

The food was great while the price was not even expensive! Love it! 😀

…

Well, that’s it for my first trip in Solo. For Wayang Orang Sriwedari, I will post it in another post 🙂

What I like the most in my first day in this trip was actually the food with the restaurant haha! And the expression of that little kid in Keraton Mangkunegaran 🙂

For more photos of my Day One in Solo, please go to my Flickr Page.

PS: I’ve already embedded the link of my Flickr Page in each food that I mentioned in this post 😀

My Solo Trip: Part Two | Wayang Orang Sriwedari

…

Entrance fee:
– Museum Radya Pustaka: IDR2,500/person + IDR5,000 (for camera)
– Museum Danar Hadi: IDR25,000/person