Budapest Hungary Trip

We normally drive or fly and rent a car on all of our trips.  This time the we decided to take one of the post outdoor recreation bus trips.  It was an excellent price for a trip to Budapest Hungary. It was a 24 hour trip, we left at midnight for our 8 hour ride, the bus was so packed that we were not able to sit together on the bus. Since we rode the bus we had to walk or take the hop on-hop off tour bus around town. So Budapest is actually 2 cities divided by the Danube river, Buda on one side and Pest on the other.

Heroes Square, this site is to honor the seven chieftains of the Magyars as well as their Tomb of the unknown Soldier.

Construction on the site began in 1896 and finished in 1900

I love the antlers on the horses bridle.  We also found a Geocache on the back side of the wall that gives us 12 countries that we have found a Geocache in!

 Across the street from Heroes Square is the Museum of fine arts and Palace of Art, we didnt go into them we didnt think we would have enough time.

We went to see Vajdahunyad Castle, built 1896-1908.

There are different styles of construction within the castle area.

The castle grounds church was 

St Stephens Basilica completed in 1905

 Beautiful stained glass work

Awesome red marble and the domes and ceiling reliefs are beautiful

 The main altar is amazing

 I have said before I love pipe organs, every churches is different. 

 Nice little park that we walked through.

 We love to find local street vendor food to try.

 Raoul Wallenberg memorial bench, Raoul was instrumental in saving the lives of around 100,000 Jews in Budapest during WWII

 The hop on hop off bus stopped running at 5pm so we had to do the rest of our sightseeing on foot.  Across the river is the Buda Castle, we didnt have time to go see it.

 Matthias Church view from the river

 The Hungarian Parliament looks good at night. 

 Chain bridge built 1840-1849, The bridge was luckily spared during WWII.  We had a good time but we have decided we enjoy having our own car to be able to get where we want to go. 

Marriage retreat at Edelweiss Lodge and resort

We were able to go on a unit sponsored marriage retreat led by our Battalions Chaplain. Edelweiss Lodge and Resort are at the base of the  Bavarian Alps.

 We had a chance to go hike the Hollentalklamm Gorge through he Alps.

 The views were breathtaking

 The hike was not an easy one, the climb in elevation was crazy

 Seeing the amazing views of the waterway through the gorge was going to be hard to top

 The trail lead in and out of caves

 Huge boulders overhead just stuck in wall 

 Some awesome waterfalls

 Waterfalls everwhere

 The water was so clean and clear i filled a water bottle of it to drink.

Although Exhausting we had a wonderful time at this beautiful area.

Summer Vacation; Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, and Berln

For our summer vacation we decided to drive and visit a few countries and camp in between spots. We started off with the country of Luxembourg and visited the Luxembourg American Military Cemetery here there are 5076 American graves here.  Almost all that are buried here died during the Battle of the Bulge.

General George S. Patton is buried here as well in the front of the cemetery between the two flagpoles overlooking all the Soldiers.

This is the view from General Patton's Grave

 While we were there the park ranger asked if I was military and when I said yes she asked if Jonah and I would like to retire the colors for the day.

 I felt extremely honored to retire the colors during 4th of July weekend surrounded by all these great Soldiers.

Jonahs Cub Scout training paid off on the flag folding

This is a Memorial Chapel at the front of the cemetery

We had a great visit, I would recommend anyone who is visiting Europe stop by this small country and visit some of our American Heroes.

Europe camps a little differently than we do in America. Campsites have full amenities, each site has water and electricity, there is usually a nice playground on site and all of them have a restaurant on site. 

 This is our 4th of July BBQ at the campground, we even found a Dr Pepper at the local grocery store

 Jonah challenged me to the obstacle course

In the town center was the Museum of the city of Brussels

The Manneken pis is a little fountain created in 1619 of a boy peeing 

 So many decisions on what chocolate to buy

Godiva chocolate factory window 

 Yummy

 A trip to Belgium would not be complete with out eating a Belgium Waffle on the town square.

 Next we drove to The Netherlands, above is a picture of the old and new wind turbines.

All of the waterways though out Holland were beautiful to look at. There are rotating and movable bridges everywhere to allow boats through the area. It started raining pretty heavy so we did explore Amsterdam, instead we went to the largest indoor flea market in the Netherlands. Then we drove to Berlin.

 For our last night of vacation we decided to stay in a hotel, this is the view from our room.

I can remember the day that the Berlin wall fell in 1989. 

The wall separated East and West German. You can learn more at history.com/berlin-wall

 Old sections of the Berlin wall, now looked at as art history

This is a reproduction of how the two sides where divided and shows how hard it would have been to try to get across.

 The famous Check point Charlie is still standing for visitors to see and take pictures of with some "American Soldiers" (they are Germans in American Uniforms hired by the city). This was the main passage between East and West. read more: checkpoint-charlie

 Built in the late 1700's the Brandenburg Gate is the last remaining gate of the separated Berlin. See brandenburg-gate

Our last ting to visit was the Holocaust Memorial, this is a piece of artwork in remembrance of the over 6 million Jews murdered during the holocaust. Holocaust memorial