Today was my last day visiting Europe for this trip. I will head straight to the Munich airport tomorrow morning. So, with that being said, I made the absolute most of today. My first great, super, amazing, wonderful, awesome trip was to take a bus to the Unterberg Mountain. There is a cable car that runs to the top of the mountain and what a trip it was. It had snowed up on the mountains, so there was a good amount of snow on top, enough that paths had to be shoveled. It made for climbing up and around a challenge, [View Full Entry]

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Had a 7:20 taxi waiting to take me to the train station, so did the hustle to get packed and down there. Was easy enough to buy a ticket through a vending machine and hop the train, which took about 2,1/2 hours. Yet another taxi, another hotel. This is a modern one, so has a lot more space and an actual counter in the bathroom for my razor and stuff. My Sound of Music Tour was at 2, so I did some postcards, found a post office and paid a ton for stamps. Wow. Had lunch at a place near the [View Full Entry]

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I didn have much to write about yesterday. Spent the day in Vienna, but not really doing anything worth writing about. It was so cold, so grey, so gloomy, so crowded, so everything. Humbug. Today was much better. I had to be at the boat dock on the Danube Canal by 8, so was up early. Luckily it is just a few blocks from my hotel. I have to say that I really did a great job picking the hotels. Can complain at all about any of them, especially the locations. The catamaran to Slovakia took a little over an hour. [View Full Entry]

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Today was my last day in Budapest, so I had to check out of the B&B after breakfast. Was able to store my bags while I did some last minute sightseeing. The weather was a little less cold and was dry today. Took the Metro to a bus stop for a trip to Statue Park, also known as Memento Park. After the fall of Communism, the many statues around Budapest were taken down and are now at this park. Some of them, such as the giant Stalin one had been partially demolished years back, leaving only his boots on top of [View Full Entry]

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Today was the day I met Carolyn Bánfalvi for a walking tour of the Central Market Hall. I took the tram down the Buda side of the Danube, and walked over the green Liberty Bridge. Was a very easy stroll and quite pleasant regardless of the cold rain. Carolyn was a great tour guide and full of information. We were up, down and all around the Hall looking at cases of fresh produce, including things that I really haven't seen since I was a kid. Off the top of my head, I remember seeing quince and kalarabi, which we would just [View Full Entry]

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As the title suggest, I did take the thermal bath in Budapest today, but I took water all day long. Everywhere I walked, the rain was with me blowing in my face, down my coat and all around. It has turned so cold and wet here that I had to spend the morning looking for a heavier coat. Ironically, I bought a Columbia Sportswear coat from Portland. Had to get a new hat and scarf, since the new coat is brown and the grey and black would have clashed. To be honest, I was just not into going out and doing [View Full Entry]

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After yesterday, it was nice to have a quiet day. I checked out of the hotel, stored my luggage and went down to check out Wawel Castle. It was an easy walk, but the weather is so cold and windy. Looking at the weather online, it was a high of 40 and low of 34. I didn't have a lot of time, so looked around the courtyards of the castle, finding what's called the Lion's Den. It is a small spiral staircase that goes down the castle and leads to caves. It reminded me a lot of the Ape Caves in [View Full Entry]

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I knew today's trip was going to be a very thought provoking one, but one I wanted to take. For so many years, I viewed the Holocaust as something very far in the past. It really wasn't real to me until I reread The Hiding Place. My parents introduced my brothers and me to that when we were fairly young, but it wasn't until recently that I truly got the time line. I was born just 20 years after the camps were liberated. Considering that I am a good 20 years older than so many of the summer help at work, [View Full Entry]

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This was one of the sights that I wanted to see while here in Krakow. It was such a snap to get to that it didn't matter that my coffee this morning was instant coffee here in the room. I just didn't want to spend the time looking for real coffee, so chugged the instant stuff and promised to not do it again. I had been met at the airport last night, so had an idea of where the bus stop would be. But let me say, having someone standing there holding a sign with my name is just the way [View Full Entry]

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Had a nice, relaxing morning with coffee in the breakfast room. I had packed before going down, so was able to store my luggage and head off exploring some more. Went down to the Old Town Square to see a few things I had missed. One thing that I did want to do was a Tower Climb behind the Astronomical Clock. I popped for the 70 KC so I could take the elevator. So far I have done more walking than one person should do in a month let alone 4 days. The views were nice up there, but the weather [View Full Entry]

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