Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary

The view from our hotel on Castle hill.  We saw a little of the Danube and a lot of St. Matthias church and its beautiful roof.

St. Stephen's Basilica at night: Gorgeous!

Such a romantic city.  I was so glad to be there with Jeff.  He had been several times before on business trips.  I'm happy that he wanted to share it again with me.

Inside St. Stephen's Basilica.

We were able to go to an organ concert. The organist was fantastic and was joined by a flutist and a bass vocalist who were both excellent as well.  The bass was notable since he had been singing since the 1970's.  He had a beautiful sonorous voice.  We bought our tickets about 30 minutes before the beginning of the program.  

Wonderful program!

MATTHIAS FOUNTAIN

In the western courtyard of Buda Palace is Matthias Fountain. The fountain tells the story of Ilonka (heroine of a famous 19th century ballad by Mihály Vörösmarty) and how she fell in love with King Matthias when he was out hunting incognito.

I fell in love with this produce section.  So pretty and colorful!

The Central Market in Budapest.  The locals tended to shop on the perimeters and the tourist stuff was more toward the center.  Some vendors were more popular than others evidenced by longer lines.

Budapest Tram along the Danube.  Working since 1866. (not necessarily this particular train, but in general).  We did a lot of walking around town, across bridges etc.  We hopped on the train from the market to get to the Parliament building.

From Wikipedia: "The composition titled 'Shoes on the Danube Bank' gives remembrance to the people ( mainly Budapest jews ) shot into the Danube during the time of the Arrow Cross terror. The sculptor created sixty pairs of period-appropriate shoes out of iron. The shoes are attached to the stone embankment, and behind them lies a 40 meter long, 70 cm high stone bench. At three points are cast iron signs, with the following text in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew: "To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944–45. Erected 16 April 2005."

This sculpture was especially touching to me. Sometimes it is hard to believe the atrocities that man can afflict on others.

Budapest Parliament Building.  Read more
They have timed entries and we bought tickets for a 4:30 tour.  It was about 1:00 when we bought the tickets.  So, we had some time to kill before our tour. We wandered down the Danube and saw the shoe sculpture (above), rode the train etc.

An old church on Castle Hill.  It has been rebuilt several times and you can see the various attempts to build it up again.

The Parliament building lit up at night.  View from Castle hill.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

On our way to Croatia!!


New tastes on the airplane:





This is such a typical scene all day in Dubrovnik.  Every restaurant puts tables out in the streets/alleys and there are always people eating until very late at night.



Beautiful water and boats.



Night scene within the walls of the city.


We missed out on some of the night life, but the morning we left, we saw people heading home at 5 a.m., so there must be a lot going on.

Morning view of a walkway.



7 am. view.  My favorite time.  This was when the locals went to the markets.


The stairs to our Airbnb place in Dubrovnik.



The kitchen of our Airbnb place in Dubrovnik.



The green market was open every morning.  The first day, I saw lots of strawberries and raspberries.  They were labeled as 20 krona.  The next day, early in the morning (7 a.m.), I didn't see as many and I had to pay 30 krona for a small basket of strawberries.  Hmm. . .




View from the wall walk of the harbor.  This area was targeted in the 1991 bombings/fire.
Notice the yellow submarine boat.




I loved all the tiled roofs.


Family picture in Dubrovnik on the city wall.



You can see examples of new and old roofs in this picture.  Many buildings were damaged or destroyed in 1991.


We started our wall walk around 9 a.m.  This is what it looked like around 10:30 a.m.



We took the advice of the cabdriver who took us to Durbrovnik from the airport and visited St. Jacob's beach for a little swimming.  It was about a mile walk from the city.


We hiked up to the top of the mountain (instead of taking the gondolas which were about $20 per person).  It was a nice hike and we got lots of great views of the walled city and ocean.



The sunset view from the top was gorgeous!







But then, a storm rolled in with thunder and lightening.  We wanted to take the gondola down one-way, but by the time we got through the long line, they had barely closed the ticket counter and refused to sell us a ticket.  We made a bit of a fuss since it didn't seem to safe to walk down in the lightening storm, but they stayed firm and gave us a taxi's phone number.  A bunch of other people were sheltering in some buggies outside the building waiting for taxis.  Fortunately, the museum was still open (until 10 p.m.), so we paid the entry fee and learned about the 1991 attacks on the city. By 10, the rain had subsided and we decided that we could just walk back down to the city (16 switchbacks).









 We rewarded ourselves with wonderful ice cream cones once we got to the front gate of the city!

Our next adventure was kayaking from the island of Lopud.  Eric and William enjoyed some cliff jumping and explored a cave. We all enjoyed being on the water.  Our guide was an Olympic hopeful for the kayak slalom event.








Lunch at Sipan:



The next day we took the ferry to the National Park Mljet and rode bikes.











We left Dubrovnik at 5 a.m.  I loved the lighting and deserted streets.