Salzburg Pics!

Salzburg is a small fairy tale town

The Castle also known as Hohensalzburg Fortress
Funicular to the Castle
View of the town with the 3 stooges!

Mozart museum

Back At Home

Alas, our fabulous trip has come to an end; we're back at home unpacking and relaxing after a very long transit back home. We'll be putting together some nice slide shows to share our best pictures with you. Stay tuned for a final update to our Europe blog with some additional pics and text.

Salzburg....almost over and very sad.

Hi Everyone, we arrived in Salzburg Austria at about 12:30 today and this place is very cool. After finding our way to our hostel called Yoho (short for Youth Hostel), we walked into town. Beautiful view of the town and the castle that sits on top. We walked along the river then up to the castle for a tour. Impressive view of the whole town up there. After that it started to get late but we made it in time to check out the Mozart Museum. This was an apartment where he lived back in the day and Salzburg people believe he was born there but Vienna folks are claiming he is from Vienna....so who knows. Anyway, after the museum, we walked around town some more and then found a place to eat, food was not bad but definitely wasn't as good as German or Czech food. Char and G might have a different opinion. Oh and just to let you know (also my opinion), the beer was best in Germany with Czech coming in 2nd. Hungarian beer was terrible and Austrian beer was mediocre at best (or maybe you just tried the wrong one -G).

This is pretty much the end of our trip, we head back to Munich in the morning to catch a flight back home which we are not looking forward to. This is the worst part when you finally need to wake up and come back to reality...damn!

I can' post pics today because this lame computer won't let me but will add them first chance I get...till then, stay tuned.

Budapest Baby, Budapest!!!

We've spent the last day and a half in Budapest . . . .

WTF???? Which way do we go . . . . ?

Yesterday we spent most of the day on the "Buda" side of the Danube River . . . took a Funicular up the hill to the palace and wandered around. We had a Hungarian beer with the locals (btw . . if you are expecting an awesome Hungarian beer . . . Czech beer is better) and then made our way back across the Chain Bridge to the "Pest" side for an enchanting dinner outside under the Basillica . . . . just the three of us . . . :P
After our bellies were more than full (hey we're on vacation) we had some gellato style ice cream that was sculpted on the cones in shapes of roses . . yum!!! We waddled around and eventually found the super trendy happening spot for 20-somethings and had a bottle of sparkling rose champagne and surfed the web via free wi-fi on our iPhone and iPod! As if that wasn't enough we had to drop into the local Burger King (Corm's favorite restaurant) to get some onion rings. Strangely enough the 'manager' was yelling at us in Hungarian when we entered (we ignored him, of course). After we got our very hot, large order of onion rings we were trying to take a funny pic for Corm . . . but the 'manager' was yelling at us again in Hungarian to leave (WTF?!?!) . . . I think they have some sort of racial profiling going on there . . . they weren't yelling at the French girls!! We really don't appreciate it one bit!!! We took the 'underground' back to our Hostel . . . the underground train in Budapest is so old that it has leather handles!!!!! We missed the last tram and had to walk all the way back to the Hostel (which means G and Char got there about 1/2 hour earlier than Rob because he is apparently the SLOWEST walker on the face of the earth!!)
Today we woke up bright and early (~ 9 am :P . . . . .suckers who have to work . . . actually sadly enough we are coughing our brains out at night and can't sleep) and walked around the 'Transylvania-like" castle and 'Budapest Bathhouse". Unfortunately only spending a day and a half here we don't have enough time to go into the bathhouses . . . they have $7 underwater massages . . . next time!!!

We headed downtown for a quick breakfast (salty omlets) and then rented bikes!!!! The most awesome part of the trip was the bike ride . . . we were able to see everything including the Margarit Island . . a diamond in the rough!!! The island was awesome . . . it had beautiful expansive laws for picnicing (or making out . . apparently the pastime of young Hungarians), beautiful red-flowered gardens (my favorite so far since I haven't been able to see any extraordinary gardens), and a kickin' restaurant . . WITH BIKE RACKS and toilets that charged 50 cents (oops darn I forgot to pay!) After the island we rode our bikes on the 'pest' side running down pedestrians on the side walk . . to view the awesome Art Nouveau architecture (my favorite). Factual Tidbit: Budapest comes in second to Barcelona, Spain for Art Nouveau Architecture.

We ended the evening with some Hungarian beer (not recommended) at a 'trendy' people-watching spot and then a classy dinner under the stars with a really good Cabernet Hungarian wine and views of the Danube river, chain bridge and Buda Royal Palace . . . . .


next stop . .. Salzburg! Chooo-chooooo! (all aboard at 5:55 am!!!!)

Budapest Hell ------- o!!

..... Coming to you from the basement of the "Budapest Guesthouse". This is super secrative under-cover agent stuff. . . . . Frau Hitler needs her 'sleep' although she falsely advertises a 7 am to 12am free internet room (which consists of one computer in a little closet under the stairs), she decided she would close it at 10pm tonight because there is no one else here and she needs her sleep, but the computer is in a solid brick room that is a foot thick . . . typing can be soooo loud!!!!

Rob had to go ring the 'guest' doorbell to wake her up and twist her arm to get her to unlock the door . . . . . so you better appreciate this next post!!!

Thirsty

You see, I'm not the only one drinking here!




-- Post From Rob's iPhone

Pesticide

What the hell kind of title is that, you ask? Well we're sitting on the Pest side of the chain bridge waiting for some people. Just found out yesterday that Budapest used to be two cities, Buda and Pest. Then they combined to form Budapest. So there's your little bit of history for today.

Anyways we're sitting on the Pest side waiting. Don't think they'll show. Then it's off to dinner. I'm starving!!!


-- Post From My iPhone

For Alison

Yum Hungarian Beer


-- Post From My iPhone

Budapest Bound

So long Vienna, now off to Hungary.





-- Post From My iPhone

Wine in Wien

Well, it's official. I've finally started taking up smoking. Second-hand chain smoking that is. It seems like we can't get away from it. It's absolutely horrible, especially when you have a sinus cold.. OK enough complaining!

We are currently on our second and last day in Vienna which went by way too fast. Two weeks just isn't long enough!!! Yesterday we arrived via a maniac shuttle driver in just 3 hours. On the shuttle I met a 24 year old girl from Marin County who is travelling Europe alone for two months! Big props to girls who travel alone!!

The "old" Vienna is yet another amazing old city with incredible architecture. While not as "dark" as Prague, it has a more ritzy appearance. Yesterday we went on a quick city bus tour which pretty much sucked and rob ended up falling asleep (like he does when we are on any mode of transportation). It did however give us a good general overview of the old city.

In the evening we had dinner at Halle Cafe Restaurant in the Museum Quarter. This is where all the students hang out outside in the freezing temperatures socializing and drinking gluhwein. If it was this cold in California you wouldn't find anyone outside!!! Crazy Austrians!

After a delicious dinner we met up with the Marin County girl and some Aussies we met previously in Cesky Krumlov for a pub crawl. Unfortunately (or perhaps in hindsight we were fortunate) we missed the first hour which was all-you-can drink beer/wine.

We ended up making it to three of the four pubs and on the tram ride home at 2:00 am we were actually checked for tickets!!! This was the first time in all the different city buses, trams and undergrounds that someone actually cared!
Today was actually sunny weather and we spend the day with our lovely Couchsurfing host, Michaela.
She graciously toured us around the huge Schönbrunn grounds (home of the emperor) and took us outside of the city into the forest where we had an amazing view of Vienna and surrounding Austria. Unfortunately it was a bit foggy, but still very much enjoyable.


Lucky for us we are here during sturm wine season. Sturm wine is fermenting grape juice which is soooooo yummy!!! I wish they made this stuff in California.