Geo: 41.0245, 28.9881It has come to my attention that very often some of my plans, although well thought out beforehand, never come to fruition. This has been another city where my list of possibilities was greater than the list of accomplishments. Yesterday, our first day in Istanbul after disembarking the train, we spent the morning with the pharmacy and recuperation of our energy stockpiles. I had pre-purchased tickets to the Topkapi Palace prior to leaving home for about $60. This way we don't stand in any lines. The plan was to go there, Blue Mosque and the underground Basilica Cistern on that day. Because the Grand Bazaar is closed on Sundays, we would do that on Monday prior to boarding the ship. We did see the Blue Mosque and the Cistern Sunday and walked around since ... read more

Geo: 44.4479, 26.09795:30am came pretty quickly. We were packed already so we got dressed, loaded up and down to the taxis stand for a trip to the train station. At the taxi line, all the cars were tiny and as I asked each one, they appeared disinterested in dealing with our luggage. Finally, a guy pulls up and puts one case in the trunk, one in the back seat with me and Mom rides up front. Problem solved. Like I said before, in this area the people have a hard time dealing with any challenges and prefer to ignore them.We got to the station and bought our reservations for 6 leu, that $2. The train was on time and we arrived in Bucuresti by 10am as planned, just less than 3 hours. Following the directions of ... read more

Geo: 47.4984, 19.0408We were up about 8 and went for our free breakfast. Got more free fruit, Angie. Mom packed up all our stuff and we walked around a little. Then we checked out, put our luggage into storage and checked out some more parts of the town. We arranged for a taxi to the train station at 2:30 but we returned to the hotel around 2. At 2:30 the taxi showed up right at the door so we didn't have to wheel luggage two blocks on cobblestones. He took us right to the train station for €10 plus 5 more for savings us all the walking. He has a special permit to enter the pedestrian only areas.We're at the station about an hour early and I check the train board. Our train to Budapest was ... read more

Geo: 48.22, 16.37The hotel we're staying at is great. We got stuck in a suite since we had to add an extra night but it was nice last night. Ya, $300 nice! We had another free breakfast this morning and then walked about 6 blocks down to the US Consulate to replace our stolen passports. Since my passport was the only thing of mine that was taken, I still had my ID, copy of our passports, wallet, etc. Mom has lost all of her stuff so it's harder for her. We had to stop first downstairs to get our passport pictures and spend 48€. Then to the 4th floor for our 9:30 appointment. We were early so we got in quickly. We had to fill out paperwork, submit our passport copies, police report and $270. By ... read more

Geo: 47.5714, 10.7017This morning we had our free breakfast and caught a bus at 8:30am to get to the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. Let's just call them N and H for short. H is the castle of the parents and N is the one that the son built later. It's also the castle Disney used to help create "Sleeping Beauty Castle". Mom liked the fact that I had reserved our tickets online and so we walked right to the front and got our tickets, first to H, then N.. Mom picked out a carriage and off we went to the castle. What we found was that we were going to the wrong castle so we had to complete our ride to the castle, then back down again, then up to the H castle. We were now ... read more