http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/JCollins/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from JCollins en-us Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:00:01 +0000 Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:00:01 +0000 All in Fourteen DaysBy Jim CollinsOn June 8 fourteen people meet at the Kings Hotel in Budapest. A few knew each other casually but many had never met. Two weeks later we were dear friends having shared the beauty and majesty of Budapest Bratislava Vienna and Prague. But most important we developed wonderful friendships had a lot of laughs good times and really got to know and appreciate ea http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-446212.html Mary Anne Prague Czech Republic Last two days of our three week tour of four countries. We took the train from Vienna to Prague and found that our hotel accommodations were just a little bit less then perfect. After being picked up from the train station by bus we were taken to our hotel in a questionable neighborhood. Our room was the attic of the hotel. There were no wall windows only ceiling http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/Old-Town/blog-411956.html Jim Write Up 8Again I will just post pictures. We are now in Prague and going on a tour from 10 AM to 7 PM and then having a party this evening. The pictures include1. Summer Palace2. Music Hall3. Going away party with Hosts and AmbassadorsOur daughter Kate emailed me from Washington State this AM and a Canadian friend that we meet in China is touring Prague today hopefully we will be able to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-410062.html Jim Write Up 7Mary Anne did a great job of writing up everything on Vienna. I thought I would just add some pictures today. They include1. Monastery near our hostrsquos house. It is Augustine and dates from the 13th century2. House of Irmgard Gunter3. Irmgardrsquos son Dietmar and their house all glass. The daughter in law Andrea gave us a ride to the train station. Andrea is a dress de http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-410050.html Jim Sunday Write 6I am sorry about not putting the blog on the internet but we have not had internet access since we got to Vienna. We did not start off our home stay in Vienna too well. We got off the train one station too early. It was still in Vienna but on the east side rather than the west side. This was not one of our finer moments we all were rather proud of how well things went before http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna-State/Vienna/blog-410038.html Jim Write up 5 511We arrived at in Bratislava at 4 PM and took the bus to the hotel. It was warm almost hot and our tour leader Ben Carol Szyplinski discovered we did not have Air Conditioning in the hotel rooms. This was something she specified with our travel agent. We now refer to Ben as our ldquoPolish unguided missilerdquo. It was not pretty. Needless to say we moved to the Exe http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava-Region/Bratislava/blog-407654.html JimWrite up 4 510After our Friendship Force Group arrived we left the flat and moved to a Hotel in the old Jewish Quarter of Budapest. We truly loved the location of our flat down by the ldquoOld Marketrdquo. After the FF crew had a night of sleep we took a boat tour and also a general tour of the city on the bus. Our guide was terrific. I have enclosed a picture. One thing he mentioned http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/Pest/blog-407648.html Thursday AM 642009Well we arrived in Budapest. We flew from the Twin Cities to Amsterdam and everything was on time and comfortable. The flight was about 8 hours. We than had about a 3 hour layover and a 1 hour and 40 min. flight to Budapest. Got a cab into Budapest and made it to our flat. They seem to have about 50 of the streets dug up in Budapest so a 20 min. taxi ride can take twice as lon http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/Pest/blog-405190.html Jim Friday 6509Yesterday was sort of a relaxing day. We sleep in late and then had a nice breakfast in the flat. About noon we decided to take one of the ldquoHop OnHop Offrdquo sightseeing buses. They travel a defined route to 1214 attractions and you can get off anytime and go exploring. You can then catch another one at the same stop you got off each half hour. They also have a sound http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/Pest/blog-405571.html Jim 5709Yesterday and today was our big adventure in getting around Hungary on public transportation. Mary Anne and I are feeling pretty satisfied with our ability to navigate and use the trolley the metro and the railroad to travel to Lake Balaton probably about 130 miles. We know we owe Gene Weisner a big thank you for guiding us and also looking up the train schedule on the computer. There http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/Pest/blog-406435.html I am hopeful that we have an apartment in Pest near the Elizabethen Bridge. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/Pest/blog-399773.html We got up and started making the arrangements to fly home. We had to go through American Airlines Quantarsquos Partner. Of course the call went to India. The lady on the phone was very nice but inexperienced since it was her first day. It took about 3 hours to get everything booked. We were very fortunate to be able to rebook our flights for the next day. We then booked a flight from Wellingto http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Wellington-Region/Wellington/blog-258373.html Our stay in Christchurch was quiet and Juanita was able to rest up. We had a very nice motel with a big living room and bedrooms. I had to take a picture of Ronrsquos car since we had traveled 3000K in this purple ford. The drive to the Picton was across the Canterbury plains. About the only flat level ground in New Zealand. It seems that the Kiwis have no trouble driving in the mountains but in http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Christchurch/blog-258371.html We drove from Invercargill to Dunedin today. Dunedin is a beautiful College Town University of Otago. It has a large medical school. It was a beautiful drive through the Catlins. We stopped at the little town of Milton to visit Richard Sylviarsquo son. He is a nice guy who has been flooded out twice in the last 4 years. Unfortunately everything sort of caught up with Juanita. She was totally http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Dunedin/blog-258370.html Today we drove up from Westport to Karamea about 95K. It is truly the Wild Wet West. There are a lot of old gold and coal mines. They call it coaling in clouds. We then drove down to Greymouth. This is the largest city on the West Coast of the South Island About 13000. It has the feel of the Iron Range towns in Minnesota sort of Virginia MN on steroids with the mountains and the Tasman Sea http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Greymouth/blog-254223.html Had a nice drive from Te Anau to Invercargill. We then drove down to Bluff at the end of the south island. I had a problem with the computer. I thought it was a goner but a guy computer told me to just take out the battery and reinstall it. Sure enough it worked. Kiwi word is Bach. This stands for Bachelorrsquos place is what we would call a cottage. On the South Island they sometimes use the te http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Invercargill/blog-255628.html We went to Milford Sound today. It is everything they talk about as you can see from the pictures. We went out for 2 hours on the boat. It is about 7 miles up Milford Sound to the Tasman Sea and 7 back. The weather was perfect which is very unusual. The boat held about 500 and I donrsquot think there was more than 20 on the boat and only 4 of us on the top level. The road from Te Anau to Milfor http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Milford-Sound/blog-255622.html We had a nice relaxing day. It was only about 150 k from Queenstown to Te Anau. Juanita and I took the Kingston Flyer. It is a really neat old steam train. I have put in a couple of pictures. Our friend and guide Ron Head is a real RR person and spends 2 days a week rebuilding a 1900 coach car.Te Anau is a beautiful little town. Our motel is right on the lake. We booked on a noon boat in Milford http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Milford-Sound/blog-254970.html Today we just sort of relaxed and recharged. There is not too many pictures because I forgot the camera battery charger in Wellington. Fortunately a camera shop was able to recharge it. We were also able to get the wash done and take a nice nap in the afternoon.We went out to one of the Bungy jumping area. No way is this guy going to try it. It looks like fun on TV but in reality it is a bit much http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queenstown/blog-254577.html We had a beautiful ride through the mountains this morning. Everywhere you looked there were waterfalls. Once we got over the Haast Pass it was beautiful and sunny. Queenstown is really beautiful. Our motel is just off the lake near downtown. Ron is congratulating himself on his wonderful choice of motels. We plan on staying two nights and then we will go to Te Anau for 2 nights. From Te Anau we http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queenstown/blog-254432.html