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. 

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 8 Venice

 Venice is a beautiful place.   

 Zackary is great at adding filters to his pics they look like postcards.

 The grand canal is big and busy, there is no reason to spend loads of money on a gondola unless you just want pictures and memories of it.  It is just as easy to use the public transportation boats and travel the waterways.

 There are no shortages of gondolas and people spending loads of cash to ride them.

 It is a whole different world watching the locals travel on water and park their boats at the local docks.

 There is just a maze of waterways and narrow roads.  The Venice card is well worth the money you get public transportation, wifi, and bathroom visits.  You can also add entry to the museums and churches but we chose not to. 

 This pic that Zack took looks like a painting.

 We went to go see the area that has the Venetian glass makers and watched them hand blow some glass.  Unfortunately you can not take pictures.  The hand blown glass is amazing, super detailed and works of art. 

 There was one place we went into and they had hand blown chandeliers that where 2 stories tall hanging from the ceiling, they had a life size all colored glass trike that looked like you could start it up and drive away.

 As beautiful as this place is, to me it is a place that you go see once and then you are done.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 7 Milan

Our next trip was to Milan, I admit I didn't think I would like it to much.  I didn't take to many pictures, but to my surprise it is one of the places we would like to go back to and explore more.

Outside the Milan Cathedral. 

 Some street vendors were selling birdseed.

 The cathedral was started in 1386 and has taken over 600 years to complete

 The huge bronze doors are extremely detailed.

 These are individual panels of the doors.

 The marble floor is beautiful

I loved the huge columns.

We decided to leave Milan early so we could get to our next hotel and rest before we went to Venice on our last day in Italy.  We will return to Milan to walk around the shops more. Kim was able to buy some things in Milan before we left.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 5 and 6 Pisa and Cinque Terre

Our next leg took us to Pisa but since the only thing to see in Pisa is the church and the tower we just made it a stop on our way to Cinque Terre.

 This is the entire site of Pisa. 

 We decided not to climb to the top of the tower, after all the tower is what we wanted pictures of. I was also tired from Florence and didn't feel like climbing the 200+ stairs.

 Just like all the rest of the tourist you have to have a pic of pushing the tower over or holding it up.

 We left Pisa and went to our B&B to be able to explore Cinque Terre the next day.

We booked our B&B on https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1030343 and Barbara was a great host, the room was fantastic and view outside our window was beautiful.  If you decide to visit Cinque Terre look her up.

 The road to Cinque Terre was very small and winded around, over and through the mountains.

 Whenever we could find a place to pull over we did to take pics the views were outstanding. 

 No matter how steep the side of the mountain it was all used, there are vineyards all up the side of the mountains and their is a single person rail system built into some of the land for the locals to harvest the grapes.  It looked like a scary one man roller coaster.

This picture does not show just how steep this is. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 villages, Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. 

We Parked at Monterosso and it was a beautiful site.  It is the only sand beach between the 5 villages, You can see in the above pic that the hotel has carved out a man in the rock overlooking the water.

 Because of the steep terrain there is only 2 streets lining this village most are souvenir shops, but there are restaurants and hotels too.  We hopped on the train and went to the next town. 

 Vernazza has one main street to walk down to get to the cove.  We stayed here, ate lunch and looked at the water. 

This is still a main fishing village, you can see fisherman coming in and out of the cove constantly.

 This was a great place to sit at the outside cafe and eat a late lunch. 

 I love this pic of Zack and Jonah on the rocks overlooking the water.

We found a tunnel to walk through and this is what was on the other side. There was a few people sunning and others just looking into the waters. The construction of the houses on the cliff edges where cool.  This is all we had time to visit on this trip, I hope we are able to come back and visit the other 3 villages.  There is a hiking trail between the 5 villages, I think that would be a fun trip and prob some great pics.