Monthly Archives: October 2010

Salzburg

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The final trip of our European vacation odyssey was to the fantastic city of Salzburg, Austria. By this time we were used to rain and cool weather, and despite being pretty tired we had an absolutely stellar time. After the 5 hour drive into the mountains of Bavaria, we checked into our hotel downtown and then walked through the Mirabell Gardens (where they filmed the Sound of Music, Do, Re, Mi fountain scene!). After, we headed across the river to Old Town.  In pretty typical European style there were festivals going on all weekend: craft fairs, beer tastings, folk music performers. If you’ve never seen an Austrian man in lederhosen playing a tuba while pausing every few bars to sip on his liter stein of beer, you really haven’t lived.

The following day we did a few tours: Bavarian Mountains, Salt Mine and the Sound of Music Tour. We slid down the miner’s slide in the dark on the Salt Mine Tour, went up to where Hitler had a house and lookout, ate a lunch of white sausages and wheat beer in Germany, and then headed back to Salzburg for the really fun and silly Sound of Music Tour where we saw all of the important movie sites, in addition to eating a terribly sinful strudel with warm vanilla sauce.

And of course, we didn’t shy away from the beer and schnitzel with cranberry sauce (or as my dad calls it, snitzel). Seriously, God bless Austria.

Click on the picture below to start the Flickr slideshow of our Austrian adventure!

Tuscany

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In the middle of the month we hopped on a plane and flew over to Tuscany to enjoy a bit of the sweet life. That sentence made it seem like we walked out of our doors in Budapest and were in Florence in two shakes, but the truth is that we had what probably all of us would consider the worst check-in experience of any flight EVER. Two days prior to our departure was the final of the Budapest triathalon, so we were in ONE line at the airport that was filtering every plane going to Frankfurt at 7 in the morning and beyond. TEN FLIGHTS. Domestic and international flights, impatient business types, and BIKES!!  Did you know you could check your professional bicycle on a plane? Me either.  But you can!

We cut a few lines, missed a few flights, but by the time we got on the plane headed to Firenze we were popping Xanex like butterscotch drops and happy as clams. And what awaited us during the four days in Florence and Tuscany is something that was just remarkable.

I was in Italy already once when I was 17. Some things have changed and it was certainly more crowded with September tourists. But the light, THE LIGHT. The Tuscan light must have been what the great writers and thinkiers imagined when they pictured eternity, what inspired the the angelic duomos and sculptures. As Dame Judy Dench says in TEA WITH MUSSOLINI:

Florence isn’t just shiny cars and ice creams as little boys think. It’s the human form divine. The body beautiful. And you – yes, you – could be part of that world. To make, to create. To live as those old artists did… is to share a part in the divine plan.

Click on the picture below to see my Flickr slideshow of Florence, San Gimignano and Siena.

 

 

Budapest International Wine Festival

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It’s been almost a month now since we went to the Budapest International Wine Festival. This is the third time I have been, and it doesn’t get any less wonderful the more times that you go. Yes, of course, the wine is great. And yes, there is a certain lure of tasting wines that a lot of the world’s wine aficionados don’t even get a chance to taste. But the winning factor of this festival always seems to be a few simple things: Buda Castle, night, and the cool, harvest air of mid-September. It had been raining for almost 2 weeks so we held out as long as we could, actually changing our travel plans to Szeged so that we could make it to this event. It was definitely worth it. We had an amazing time and I’m so glad that my parents could finally experience what I had been giggling about for two years.

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Széchenyi Baths

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I’m back!  It was an incredible month of travelling and adventure with my family, but now that it is October and my parents have been home for five days, I figured it was about time to get back to work and blurbing at Budajest.

To really go into detail about the month will take some time, but I have so many pictures and I don’t want them to get lost in my rush to get it all done at once.  So I will go back to the end of the first week in September, which is just about where I left off anyway.

I had to do a little bit of work that first Saturday, so Györgyi took my mom to Széchenyi Baths. Syechenyi Baths were the first of their kind in Pest, with the temporary bath established in 1881. The permanent structure that you can see today was built in 1913.  There have been various additions over the years, including an entire reconstruction in 1999.

The day that the gals went, it was very cold and rainy, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying the picturesque surroundings and the wonderful, thermal water. Budapest is known as a city of baths, but Széchenyi may be the nicest.

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