Rainbow over Budapest

Not a great picture but still cool to see a rainbow over Budapest on this rather warm winter day.

Milan Italy

Over memorial day weekend we took a 4 night cruise.  It left out of Savona, Italy and the easiest way for us to get there was to fly to Milan and take cruise arranged transfer from the airport.  Rather than rush things we flew in the day before our cruise and we are so glad we did.  The Duomo is one of the most amazing churches we've seen since we've been here and if you've been to Europe you know they know how to do churches.  It is right up there with Notre Dame in Paris for me but sadly no pictures are allowed in side, so you'll just have to come check it our for yourself.  We didn't have too much time here but would be a city that I would go back to for sure.
Next stop, Barcelona!

Lost in the Flood

In case you haven't heard or seen anything about the flooding in Central Europe, here are some pictures of it almost literally at our doorstep.  The is the bridge closest to our house, if you walk about two blocks or three blocks to the left you will get to our apartment.  As you can see there is usually a road that travels to the under the bridge.

Cruise ships run up and down from Danube all the time, here's one stuck in Budapest because the river is too high to allow them to pass under the bridges.  To make matters worse for the passengers the dock is under there somewhere so they have no way to even get off the boat.

The lines overhead are for a tram that runs along the river but now there are sandbags just trying to hold the Danube back a bit.

Normally there's a large street running through the center of this picture and docks on the right side where you can go onto floating restaurants but now just water.

It's raining right now and we keep hearing different stories about when the river will be at it's peak, some said last night, some said today, some say Wednesday so who knows.

This is why black cats get a bad rap

He looks completely crazy and a little scary but really he was just yawning!

We're number One!

Yes I know Syracuse lost, but according to CNN travel the number one market in Europe is the great Market Hall in Budapest.  This is where I do a lot of my shopping, it's two blocks away and has great poultry and pork.  The only other place on the list is I've been is the Market in Barcelona which gave me "market envy" and I hear the one in Turkey is amazing so I'm not sure how Budapest got the win, but I'll take it.  Here is a link to the article: http://travel.cnn.com/europes-amazing-city-markets-354731.

I know this guy is out partying as we speak!

Back to Venice

Venice is only a two hour train ride from Trieste so we decided to spend Easter Sunday in Venice.  It was our second time there and it didn't disappoint.  It really is an amazing city, anyone who has a chance to go must.  Although I don't think pictures can really do it justice, here are a few anyway.

 

Back to Italy

For the long Easter weekend we decided to go back to Italy for our third time.  This time our home base was Trieste. It's located on the Adriatic in the Northeast just over the Slovenia border.  It's a beautiful town and draws influence from the Austro-Hungarian empire so the food is a little different than you might expect from Italy and the local beer is really good. Sadly it was rainy most of the time there but so the pictures aren't the greatest but it is really nice and only about a five hour drive away so we could be back when the weather gets a bit better.

 

Christmas, I mean Easter in Budapest

Easter Market at Vorosmarty Ter looking like the Christmas market.

The snows continue to come and the Easter market in Vorosmarty Ter is doing it best impersonation of the Christmas Market.  Some other snow sights around town below.

Veres Palne looking a bit cold, they usually have her wrapped up in plastic over the winter but the took it off to soon this year.

Szent István Bazilika

Never Ending Winter

The view out of our door into the courtyard has seen a lot of snow this year, much more than last year although I don't think it was as cold as last year.  I shouldn't complain, I am very lucky with no commute and barely ever a reason to drive anywhere but it is almost April!

St. Peter's Cemetary, Salzburg

Not to go too the morbid side of things, but St. Peter's Cemetery and Catacombs is a cool place to visit.  The cemetery goes back to 1627 and is where the Von Trapp's hid in the sound of music. The old headstones and statues are all interesting and add the fact that it is built into the cliff that the Castle over looks makes it even more interesting.

Salzburg Austria

We decided to take a long weekend to Salzburg since it is a nice and easy 5 and half hour train ride.  Well when we left there had been some snow in the area and that short train ride turned into a 13 hour train ride.  There was only one track working between Hungary and Vienna and the highway was closed as well.  It would have been nice to have known this at some point either before or during our during the trip but communicating these details was not a strength of the staff.  I can't complain too much, a group of people got on the train somewhere along the way in Hungary and they had been on a bus headed to Vienna for 20 hours before it decided to turn around and go back to Budapest.

Though it was a terrible trip there, Salzburg was worth it.  With the Salzach River flowing through, the Alps in the background, great food and one of the largest castles in Europe looking over the city it really is great place to visit.  It's also the birth place of Mozart and where the Sound of Music was filmed. More from Salzburg later.

Things seen in Budapest

Apologies for the poor picture a moving Metro car and my phone do not make the best combination,  but if you look at the guys lap on left, that is a some sort of attack falcon or some other such bird of prey. I'm so glad we were not taking Midnight on the Metro to bring her to one of the parks, it could have gotten really ugly.

The Louvre - Paris

We feel really luck to have been able to go to the Vatican see the museum there, the Sistine Chapel and everything else there and and now to follow that up by seeing the Louvre in Paris is amazing.  I know I must sound like a broken record but go for the tour on this one as well.  If you are like me you probably do not really know what you are looking at, and if you know what you want to see finding it is another story.  Our guide was great, she kept us moving along and got us to all of the highlights.  Some of the highlights pictured below that we saw included, the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, and Venus de Milo.

There she is, it's good to be tall  if you want to get a look at her.

The Mona Lisa is there somewhere.

The Winged Victory

Venus de Milo - Even she has to look out for pickpokets!

 The treasures in the Louvre aren't the only things to look at, the building itself is amazing.