Home! We are home in North Carolina! This is the last blog for our trip to Eastern Europe. We have added a few more pictures to some of the earlier entries...just in case some of you would like to go back a take another look. Thanks so much for your kind comments. "The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway. " - Henry Boye [View Full Entry]

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Well...talk about grueling travel...one of the more lengthy (boring) days has been our trek from Salzburg to London via Ryan Air and a l-o-n-g bus ride from Standsted Airport to Gatwick. We're here at the Renaissance Hotel near the airport, really ready to fly home on Monday. We made our "to-do" lists and we're ready to get back to real life in NC. (Fortunately, Roy just got an email from Soft Link saying that he's booked for some work in Minneapolis starting in July. We need to pay for all of the fun we've been having!) We'll post a few more [View Full Entry]

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A Taste of the Unique Krumlov is a gem of a small town nestled under the castle here in Bohemia. It was an exhausting trip to get here by local bus from Prague. We were packed into an old bus from Communist times....we had seats, but more than fifteen people stood in the aisles as we made our way through the countryside. But the trip was definitely worth it. Romano Culture We have been using a Rick Steves travel guide to select sites to see and restaurants to visit. Fortunately we took a recommendation to eat and drink at a local [View Full Entry]

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Old Town After the winding, confusing cab ride to the hotel..house of the three drums...we walked over to the astronomical clock in old town square. This clock has several dials one with markings zero to twenty three, one with zero to twelve, and one with three hundred and sixty five days of the year. We were able to watch the show at the top of the hour. A skeleton pulls on a chain and the twelve apostles march across the top of the clock. Charles Bridge This foot brdge was bulit in the thirteenth century by Charles the fourth. The statues [View Full Entry]

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OK, we hadn't planned to blog today...but....near our hotel is the Barbicon, which is a 12th century fortification built to defend against the Tartar invasion. Sunday is a festival-type atmosphere with many street performers, families strolling the Planty (a wide swath of park built where the moat used to flow around the castle) and a parade of old-time trolley cars. But, would you believe we also saw a musical group hawking their CD....with the lead singer dressed in full Native American headdress? His "backup" musicians played the theme song from the Atlanta Braves....(no hand-chopping motio [View Full Entry]

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Night Train to Krakow! We took the night train to Krakow and what an experience! The "sleeper" car was no more than a few private compartments with long hard and ugly seats...probably Stalin's favorite color. Of course, we settled in for a long night's sleep just to be woken twice during the night by Slovanian, Polish, and Hungarian passport agents. I must say that the Slovakian agent looked particularly menacing as was his compatriot who was waiting in a communist style car just outside our train window. I had visions of being wisked from the train and sped away behind the [View Full Entry]

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House of Terror We started our day with a visit to the House of Terror - a truly moving exhibit which highlights the two periods of terror in Budapest history: the occupation by the Nazi's and the Soviet's. Actual film footage and English guide sheets walked us through the time of terror in which local citizens were tortured and executed for their lack of allegience to the Reich....and then later (after the Soviet occupation) to the Communist regime. We understand better the history of this country, caught between several powerful, destructive forces and philosophies. Mozart [View Full Entry]

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We've had a chance to upload photos at the hotel kiosk. Scroll back to previous days for some pictures! City Tour Arrived in Budapest on the morning train from Vienna yesterday. Then took an open-air bus tour of the cities (Buda in the hills, and Pest on the flats along the river). We now have a feel for the city and plan to spend Wednesday in Buda in the Castle District, and Thursday in Pest to see other sites of interest. We'll attend the Mozart ballet (Amadeus) in the Opera House on Thursday night. Friday will be a day at the [View Full Entry]

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Funicular The funicular is a tram that takes you from the famous chain bridge up the embankment to the top of castle hill. We are making every effort now to save our feet for those cities to come that may not have the efficient transportation system we have discovered here in Budapest. Rebuilt over and over Budapest must be the most rebuilt city in the world. We strolled over to the Budapest History Museum and proceeded to get lost in the depths of the hill. These current buildings were built on the ruins of many previous structures so as we moved [View Full Entry]

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Train from Salzburg to Vienna We used our Easr Europe Pass for the first time and the experience was delightful. We occupied our own air conditioned compartment for a while before being joined by a young married couple. Patricia, bold as always, broke the ice by offering them a chocolate. Chocolate is a big deal in Austria. It turned out that the wife had been an exchange student in Wisconsin and the husband a local farmer. Veinna Vienna is a big and hot city! On our arrival we discovered that this was to be the hottest day in May since 1958, [View Full Entry]

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