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Don't let the date of the post below fool you! I only finished it a few minutes ago, though I did start it back on Monday.

We have had visitors for the last three days and as usual there was too much eating and drinking and having a good time. They left this morning for the Gold Coast about 30 minutes before I took Trish to the airport at Maroochydore for her to fly down to Melbourne for a 14 day visit.

She was taking all sorts of goodies with her that we had brought back from UK and Europe for the grand children. She was lucky her suitcase came in at just under 20 kgs, the maximum allowed on the plane!

We are both still getting over the final bits of our colds but are quite close to being 100% again.

However after the last few days, I think we will both enjoy a good night's sleep tonight!

She is due to fly home again on July 31st.

Budapest

We arrived in Budapest late in the afternoon. Our hotel was again excellent with our room overlooking the Danube River. Again it was an 'upgrade' and must have been close to 5 stars. The weather was a little overcast with a shower or two but this did not deter us from having a quick look at what was meant to be the 'major' shopping strip for Budapest. Again we found prices of souvenirs ridiculously high!

That night we attended the optional river cruise dinner and enjoyed an excellent buffet style meal on the mighty Danube River. The weather had cleared so it was a lovely evening and we tried to get some spectacular photos of Budapest at night. With our limted cameras, this proved rather difficult. However it was a very pretty spot at night!


We took a City Bus Tour the next morning to the city's major square. We had a "local" guide who had a great sense of humour. Unfortunately history has not been kind to Hungary and wars in which it has been involved being unsuccessful almost every time. Therefore the city would erect monuments to leaders who had won a battle let alone a war. We were shown the sights of the city and its major buildings. We moved to the other side of of the river for a view of the city.


From here we went to look around the castle and its environs which dominate the southern bank of the Danube. Just to the right of the castle and on top of the hill is a place visited by most tourists to Budapest. There is a lovely church there as well as several interesting buildings to see. One is the building in the photo below which has been left in its then current state till today. It is the site of the last place of German resistance from the allies at the end of WWII. The marks you can see in the wall are bullet holes from that final battle.

The church below in the same area certainly contrasts to the photo above.



As the rest of the group set off on an optional tour for the afternoon, Trish and I had a good walk around the city. We soon discovered that under the skin of it all, Budapest is not too different to most other cities. However one point of difference is the funicular railway we saw in the photo above. However the photo to the left is of The West End Shopping Centre and for all intents and purposes it could have been from any modern city in the world!

Our meal that evening was an "included" meal which we ate at the hotel. We found the included meals which we had at the hotel we were staying in were never as good as meals we had in restaurants. This evening's meal at the hotel was no exception being OK at best.

The next day was a short drive (only a couple of hundred kilometres) to Vienna in Austria.

A Day In Prague

The previous night Trish and I had decided not to attend an optional river cruise after we had an 'included dinner' at the hotel so we did the city on our own. As I said below, the night was one of our highlights of the whole time we were away. The ride on the metro into the city centre was a story in itself. We had arrived in Europe at the time of "Euro 2008", a huge European soccer Championship. There were pre competition friendly matches going on and our train was full of jubilant Czech football supporters after their win over Scotland.

The loss did not seem to dampen the enjoyment of the Scottish supporters as they moved from bar to bar in the city of Prague throughout the night to drown their sorrows dressed in their kilts

Our one full day in Prague was to be full on and the temperature would get to about 30 degrees. Our bus took us on a tour of the city and then to Prague Castle. Now the castle is actually quite a collection of buildings, of cathedrals, office accommodation and former accommodation for the royal family. Sometimes there is also accommodation for groups such as the Royal Guard or the servants. So visiting a castle isn't always the same in each place you visit. Photos to the above left and the two below were taken at Prague Castle.

Prague Castle once housed the Royal Family. It seems each succeeding monarch decided to add a new building to the castle.

As you wander around the cobblestone squares inside the complex you wonder in awe at the stories the buildings you are seeing could tell.


We were then dropped off in the centre of Prague with 2 and a half hours to have a good look around this pretty city. It has magnificent squares and colorful buildings as you can see in the photo above. There is the famous clock (below) which people cluster below (see photo to the left) to catch a glimpse of the two figurines which appear on the chiming of the hour. There are numerous outdoor eateries and more souvenir shops than you can ever imagine. This was a place Trish had really been looking forward to seeing.

The warm weather made walking a little uncomfortable but we managed to walk quite a bit of the city. We were also disappointed in how local shopkeepers were always overcharging tourists. For example in a Prague souvenir shop a fridge magnet was AUD$10 (in London you would pay AUD$4) and a 500ml bottle of water was AUD$4.50. If you walked around the corner there was a drink vending machine which would sell you the same bottle of water for less than AUD$2. This blatant over pricing for tourist items did not endear us to Prague.

We arrived back at our hotel about 3:30 and Trish and I headed to the small outdoor bar across the road. Language was no problem when ordering today.

That night we attended an optional Czech dinner. There was plenty to eat and drink with some 'traditional dancing and music'. Only one other tour group was there so the evening was very enjoyable. I enjoyed plenty of Czech beer and wine. This is a photo of us enjoying the night with another of our group Barbara. Trish and I were keeping a lookout for Barbara at the request of her son. Barbara was travelling alone and keeping an eye for her was a fulltime job!

The next morning we were on our way again towards Budapest. On the way we passed through Slovakia and the city of Bratislava. This is a newly emerging ex communist country and the feeling around the city where we had a stop off was a little eerie. There were very few people about on the streets and I overheard some European Tourists complaining about the prices they were being charged for their beers, something we too had noticed for many touristy things.


As I have been a bit lazy in adding some posts lately, the post below is a 'new' one I have published today as well.

Insight Tours and their "Optionals".

Trish and I did both our tours with "Insight Tours". Insight Tours provide very good quality tours, accommodation and meals. Their full sized buses only have seating for forty people and provide heaps of leg room and comfort. When you purchase a tour with them, the money you pay is for the 'basic' tour. The itinerary has quite a few "free afternoon to explore the city" or "have a meal at you own leisure' which we came to understand was a time Insight had set aside for an 'optional tour or meal' at extra cost. These were all explained to us as the tour began and we were asked to nominate which of the optional extras we would like to go on. Then we paid for them in a lump sum. If you went on all the optionals it would cost about AUD$1600 per person.

One of the reasons we liked the Insight tour itinerary was the free time to explore the city and meals at our own leisure. There were about 7 included dinners for our 19 day Europe Tour so we would need to find about 12 or so dinners on our own.

We came to discover that "Optional Dinners" were often held at a venue which provided specifically for tour groups. Upon arrival at the venue you would find up to 8 other tour buses in the parking lot and you would be ushered to your seat, usually at a long table, for your meal. Often a 'show' of "traditional German dancing and singing" (or the like) would follow and you would be wined, dined, entertained and returned to the your hotel by 9:00 pm to ensure the driver had his mandatory 9 hour overnight break.

It was your typical 'touristy' outing that many of our group really enjoyed. They did not have to think or prepare for a night out, the majority of people would just pay their money and go along. Sometimes these optional meals were excellent, other times they weren't! In many cases, all drinks were included and for 90% of this group that was a waste as very few at all enjoyed more than one or two glasses of wine or beer!

The vast majority of our tour group opted to go on all 'optionals' Only one couple attended less than 50% of the optionals, that is right us!

At first our Tour Director was concerned as to the reason we weren't going on most optionals with the rest of the group, she was worried we had a problem with some of the group members or that we were not enjoying our trip. She was also 'paranoid' she would lose someone, they would get lost or something in a strange European City and wouldn't be able to find their way back to the hotel.

When we were going off for an evening meal by ourselves she always offered us her advice on where to go and how we could get to and from the city if necessary. At times she pre purchased our subway tickets and always ensured we had a map so we could find our way back to the hotel.

After we had done a couple of things on our own she became quite confident in our ability to fend for ourselves in a strange city. Most times the decision we made not to attend an 'optional' was the correct, other times it wasn't correct.

We find that walking around a new city enables us to immerse ourselves in the city's culture and get a real feeling for what a place is about. It is a good chance to watch grass roots people, to allow us look into shops and come to know a place more deeply. Meanwhile the 'optional' tour may be enjoying a 45 minute boat trip on Lake Lucerne with all drinks included and costing almost AUD$80 per couple or enjoying a horse and buggy ride through the countryside.

However we did attend most of the optional evening river cruises through a city frequently finishing with a 'typical' meal quite often in a lovely restaurant or on board. The cruise was always informative and the meal was usually extensive (and drinks were always included!).

We would have no hesitation to tour with Insight Tours again or to recommend Insight Tours to any of our friends.

Now Two Of Us With Colds!

Trish continues to make hard work of things with her heavy cold. She is a little better and no longer has a fever. I have developed a cold but not as bad as Trish's. Mine is more nuisance value and is controlled easily with a cold tablet or two.

Yesterday we had a visit from Marcus, my nephew. He works for Spotlight and plans and monitors renovations of all Spotlight stores. Marcus stayed and had a couple of meals with us. He and his girlfriend Bridget have just returned from 2 weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia so we saw heaps of photos on his laptop.

The weather here continues cold and damp. A couple of days ago we had 34 mls of rain. The last two days have been showery with only a few mls. We are promised some heavy rain over night tonight. Temps have struggled to reach 20 degrees! We expect to have the sunny weather back again midweek.

We were pleased to learn good friend Rainy is coming to visit us for week in August. Trish is looking forward to that very much. In a week or so we are having friends from Newcastle up and then late next week Trish has a Nanna Visit to Melbourne for two weeks!

Another large post on our trip to Europe appears in the post below.