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A stay in Budapest

3/21/2016

Budapest
We arrived to Budapest by train to the Keleti Palyaudvar (train station). The architecture, windows and painting were
fantastic. Again we walked in the wrong direction and then asked for directions. The street names change so we were
on the right street but the name wasn’t “Thokoky ut” until a block up. We got good directions and were to our place in
10 minutes.

We were in Budapest for 7 days. We did a Thermal Bath twice at the same place. It is the largest in Europe and had
lots of options and many baths (pools) to choose from - Szechenyi Thermal Baths. This was close to our place and a
nice walk through the city park to get home. The City Park had Heroes Square, Vajdahunyad Castle, Szechenyi Thermal
Baths,the were walls for grafitti in the city park and they were some fantastic work there. I must have taken over 100
photographs of the work.

The next day we headed to Buda Castle.The castle walls contained a number of areas - Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthis
Church, the Castle itself and museums. The wall around the castle had lookout that had amazing views down to the
river and across.
We also saw Momento Park which has Soviet statues from back in the Communist days. They were removed from
public areas and placed in a park outside of town. They had an old Trabant and some great music playing to get you
in the mood. I almost purchased a fake Soviet (USSR) Passport.

One of the highlights was the night walk and seeing the Parliament lit up at night. It was outstanding. Walking along
the water front day and night was nice. Hiking up the Gellert hill was also “fun”. Okay the views were great and the
hike was a good one.
Buda Castle, Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthis Church, Momento Park, Gellert hill area, the river walk - So much walking.
The public trams saved us from certain death I am sure. Okay maybe not death but pain. We used them constantly.

The last day we went back to the Bath house again in the City Park. I took my Lumix waterproof camera and I took
some shot and took a video of the swirly pool. It is a round pool put inside the larger pool. It is about 15 meter across.
They have jets that push the water around the pool wall so there is a current in the pool. When you step inside the
opening you start on your way around the pool. It is a blast.

We did suffer from a bit of overload here. We have been to Rome, Naples, Matera, Venice, Prague and now Budapest.
Really? Another church? Do you want to go in this one too? Don’t get me wrong it looks amazing! If I had not been in
the last 25 churches I would definitely go in this one, but alas we passed on a few here. The Vatican and St Vitus
Cathedral in Prague Castle are really hard to match. The Parliament Building here did match there splendor. If we
had come to Budapest first, we would have been blown away. As it was our fifth major stop, it was just fantastic.
Happy Travels,
Brad
Travelhaunt
My photo and blog site for my 2016 travels and beyond
Website: http://www.travelhaunt.com
Email: Brad@travelhaunt.com
P.S. If you go to the destination page and click the link to locations, I share additional pictures from each trip

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Another change of plans for 2016

3/17/2016

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Another change of plans for 2016
I realize I have not written about Budapest yet. We had a laptop crash the day before
we left. We got to Zagreb and had to locate a place to help. We found Mario at Analogbit. He not only recovered our
files, he upgraded the hard drive and he reinstalled the OS and antivirus and a word/excel equivalent. He quoted us for
the new hard drive and a “ghost image”. The OS had missing files and he put in the
time to get everything working and was not going to charge me anything for the
extra work. “This is Croatia, everybody thinks it is typing a couple things” I tipped him
200 kuna and that was CHEAP. Thank you Mario. I have a working laptop with
200 GB of free space now.
Part two of our travel plan has always been a bit up in the air. We started with
Western Europe - Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Netherlands, England, Scotland
and Iceland. We added Germany and remove Morocco and then added
it back and blah, blah, blah. As we travel through Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and
Hungry, we were utilizing our 90 days of tourist visa in the Schengen area/agreement.
This is many European countries that allow open borders. You can only travel for 90
out of every 180 days without a special visa and the hoops were not worth it.
So where were we going to go - FIJI, of course. I sent an Airbnb request to a great
place on Vanua Levu called Savusavu. Some of you may have heard of this because
at the end of February it was devastated by a class 5 cyclone. I have not watched
any news for 6 weeks and I was unaware. Although their building remained, it was
without power and water and needed some TLC. I asked for forgiveness for my
ignorance and wished them luck in recovery. Smooth move idiot. I hung my head
and blocked her from further contact. Just kidding people! Jeez
So we looked at Hawaii, Mexico, Jamaica, some place we could relax for a month.
We settled on returning to Eastern Europe - Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro,
Albania, Croatia and Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and if all goes well we
will hit Egypt for 2 weeks for a trip down the Nile. We will finish it off in England,
Scotland and Iceland (with our remaining 2 weeks on the visa)
Open Letter to Schengen,
Why don’t you want my money? I am not indigent and I am not looking for health care.
I wanted to see Barcelona and Paris. I wanted to return to Greece and see more of
Italy. I wanted to be able to visit foreign countries and meet the amazing people in
them as I have everywhere I have been. I have the amazing opportunity to travel
for a year and you only want 90 days of that. I am sure I am ignorant of the reasons
for this, but maybe you could make it easier than me supplying my bank account
balances and health insurance coverage which, be honest, don't you you already
have this? I am having a great time in Eastern Europe and I will return here for
another 90 days before heading off to South America for 3 months and then off
to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand for another 3 months.
Alas I will need to return to My United States and return to the work force.
Every time I arrive home from every trip I hear “Welcome Home” from the
Immigration Agent. Every time I really like it. I take a deep breath and relax a bit.
I do not think this is the greatest country in the world ( think Newsroom - Jeff Daniels),
but it is my country and I love it here. Or is it there as I am in Croatia at the moment.
I write. I may not do it well but I enjoy it and will continue.
For all you grammar Nazis - there, their, they’re, it will be okay.
I will get to Budapest soon. It is a great place to visit.

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One week in Prague

3/7/2016

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How do you summarize a week in Prague? I knew I wanted to go to Prague, but I
didn’t really know why. Now I know why. I really enjoyed the Mala Strana and Old
Town. You could really walk everywhere, but the trams would help and the end of a
long day. Really I only saw Prague 1 and Mala Strana, across the bridges from Old Town.
That is where the Towers, the Bridges, Prague Castle and the tourist area is located.

As this is my first trip around the world I want to see these areas. On my subsequent
trips I will expand my horizons. This trip I wanted to see the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle. We went to the castle
on day 2. It was not quite what I expected. I was a real castle but it was huge!
There was an amazing Cathedral - St Vitrus with the Arches and the stained glass
windows - inspiring. Then the original Church from 890 A.D. was still there too - St George’s Basilica. The Golden Lane with the old shops (and some new) and
how it looked right up against the castle wall.
Once you walked out the front gate there was an overlook and you could see the
entire city. You could see the new sky scrappers in the distance. We were near Old
Town. There is much more here than what we saw. If fact the TV Tower is as big as
I have ever seen, can be seen from anywhere in the city and had a nice fitting design.

The next day we got out about 10:00 am and started hitting the towers one by one.
The Towers were great and their views are outstanding. We climbed all 5 towers plus
the tower on Petrin Hill. The hill climb was more difficult than the actual tower.

1 The Town Belfry at St. Nicholas Church was our first tower and was difficult with
the heights and odd stairs. The views were excellent

2 The Lesser Town Bridge Tower had great views of the Charles Bridge and the
Castle at two different heights. This was my favorite.

3 The Old Town Bridge Tower we saw before on the first day in the rain - Fantastic.

4 The Astronomical Clock Tower was the only tower to be crowded around the top.
People could not pass by my with my backpack on. I had to turn sideways so people
could get by. I finally took it off. The views of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn
were fantastic.

All the other towers there were only a few people if any at all. Each had a new
perspective and each was worth the stairs.

5 Powder Tower had steep circular stairs and again had great views. I loved all
the towers. It is interesting that I never knew I had an issue with heights. It is not
always, but when there is a large gap out into a 40 -90 meter gap and just a hand
rail between me and “learning to fly” I do feel uneasy. It is not a rational feeling,
but it is there no the less. I just push on through these areas - just keep climbing -
until I get to an area that has “less of an unencumbered view”. The Platforms are
usually fine. The circular stairs do get you dizzy and that don’t help. I loved the towers
and the views from each.

The snow fall on day 2 was really cool. It gives a new look to the city as did the
sunshine on day 5. I loved both aspects and again took too many pictures. We
walked every day and I went out one evening. I may go out again tonight.

The food was good and most of it was inexpensive. We did go out to two breakfasts
and cooked the rest of the week. We had rooster and bore as a couple meals that
were really good.

It is difficult to rate each place I have been as they all had something amazing. Rome,
Matera, Venice, Trieste, Vienna and now Prague. How do you rate them? I guess it
would be with a question. Would I come back? I would go back to Venice, Vienna
and Prague without question. Sally does not share this opinion with all the site but
Prague is a definite yes for her. We are looking at changing our summer plans to
return to Eastern Europe. We will see. Prague should be on your list.

Happy Travels,
Brad
Travelhaunt
My photo and blog site for my 2016 travels and beyond
Website: http://www.travelhaunt.com
Email: Brad@travelhaunt.com

P.S. If you go to the destination page and click the link to locations, I share
additional pictures from each trip

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Five Days in Vienna

3/1/2016

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WOW! I was truly amazed at almost all the buildings on the Ring Road. These were built in the mid 1800’s by the
ruling Monarchy at the time. They replaced the defensive wall with a wide boulevard and lined it with impressive
building. The Parliament, the Churches, the Museums, the Palaces, and others were very impressive. We walked
over half the Ring Road today. You can tell you are off the road as you can look at the buildings. If you are not
saying “WOW” you have made a wrong turn. As you walk in and out of parks and plazas and get off the main
road, heading the wrong way can be easy. There is impressive architecture all over the city, not just on the one
road. There are trams and the hop-on hop-off buses here too. We walked today. It was cold (47 F) and when the light wind was hitting you in the face it was cold.

We went to the Belvedere Summer Palace that houses two museums. There is no reason to stay here through
winter! We have the Winter Palace for that of course and another museum there. There are about 2 miles apart
so I don’t get the reasoning, but that is a pagan talking. The Upper Belvedere museum contained some Klimt
pieces including “The Kiss” and the lower contained more of his work. There were his “three ages of a woman”
and “the dancer”. There are many more. Sally is a fan so we wanted to catch these.

On another note the M&Ms here contain an orange colored M&M. Italy had this as well.

The Winter palace was completely different. It was modern art exhibits. Got some great pictures to show you the light.
The next day we got out about 10:00 am and headed over to the Hofburg Palace (also spelled Habsburg)
Habsburg Palace Library
They had three main exhibits to see: Armor, Musical instruments and Ephesus.
The Armor was the knight type armor a hundred different types with some on horses. There were lots of early
swords, shields and guns. Some of the armor had bullet dents in them.

The Musical instruments had Pianos from1955, and 1902 and 1870. There were about 50 of them. The Violins
and all kinds of string instruments were there. Lots of horns too. The audio tour would let you hear what some
of them sounded like.
There were lots of artifacts and pictures from Ephesus - it was great to see old pictures before the renovations.
We were there 4 years ago and loved it.

We went to the Modern Art Museum and walked for 3 hours or more. Ancient Egypt and near east art - I love this
stuff. I must have been an emperor there once. Renaissance painters - Ruben, Brugel, Rembrant, Titian and other
people I don’t know too.
There were Greek artifacts and pottery. There were lots of random newer pieces - clocks, glass bowls, ivory carvings,
just too much to name. We walked our butts off, albeit at a slow pace. All 5 Museums had interesting pieces to see.
The next day was fantastic.
We got up “early” about 6:45 am and got ready to head out into the 34 degrees temperatures. Mainly to beat the 6
other people in the apartment to the bathroom and shower and we failed at that! We walked the remaining part of
the Ring Road. We, okay I, wanted to see the Grafitti at the Danube Canal. I had seen it on our last walk around the
ring and wanted to go back. IT WAS AWESOME! I took over 200 pictures in the three bridge span - Just amazing
graffiti. AND IT WAS COLD! It was 28 degrees with the windchill. And I talked Sally into one more bridge after a
warm up coffee. I took some really great photos and I will share them at some point.

Then we has lunch and took a dearly needed pee!
We relaxed a bit, looked at pictures on the last day. We were ready to go to Prague.

Happy Travels,
Brad
Travelhaunt
My photo and blog site for my 2016 travels and beyond
Website: http://www.travelhaunt.com
Email: Brad@travelhaunt.com

P.S. If you go to the destination page and click the link to locations, I share additional pictures from each trip

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A stay in Budapest

Another change of plans for 2016

One week in Prague

Five Days in Vienna

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