Buda Castle is the historical castle and palace complex of the Hungarian kings in Budapest, and was first completed in 1265. In the past, it has been called Royal Palace and Royal Castle. Buda Castle was built on the southern tip of Castle Hill, bounded on the north by what is known as the Castle District which is famous for its Medieval, Baroque, and 19th-century houses, churches, and […]
Fisherman’s Bastion is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style located on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the Castle hill just behind the Matthias Church. It was designed and built between 1895 and 1902. Its seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that settled in the Carpathian Basin in 896. The Bastion takes its name from the guild of fishermen that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city […]
Originally built in Romanesque style in 1015, the current building was constructed in the late Gothic style in the second half of the 14th century and was extensively restored in the late 19th century. It was the second largest church of medieval Buda and the seventh largest church of medieval Hungarian Kingdom. Officially named as the Church of Our Lady, […]
Placed stragegically close to our hotel is Budapest’s legendary – New York Cafe. Voted as one of 10 most beautiful cafes in the world – this newly renovated cafe was a longtime center for Hungarian literature arts and poetry, right from its opening on October 23, 1894. This truly is a dazzling and spectacular place, […]
This will be our home – away from home, away from home for the long weekend while we explore Budapest. So far our impressions are pretty good and we are looking forward to staying here and sampling the breakfast tomorrow morning, and each morning after that. We are about 10 minute walk away from […]
We are setting off for Munich – once again. A bit of paper work to deal with at our favourite place the Polish Embassy.
This is our little hotel we stayed at in Ribeauvillé in Alsace France over the weekend. After lowering the bar significantly in London at Hotel Dumpshire this was not only a well deserved and great treat but a nice surprise. The hotel is located on a quiet square with a fountain just about in the middle […]
A slow and leisurely drive through Alsace countryside, on a beautiful and sunny Sunday morning.
The name of this little village of 1500 just rolls off your tongue – Riquewihr, Riquewihr, Riquewihr. This little village is located about 5km from Ribeauvillé or 6km if you take the scenic route through the winding roads leading through the vineyards. Riquewihr is an old wine trading village , famous for it architecture and for the Riesling and other great wines […]
Colmar, now a home to some 67,000 people, was founded in the 9th century. It is the third largest city in Alsace and a self proclaimed capital of Alsatian wine. If you have heard of the Statue of Liberty then you know Colmar – indirectly. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was a French sculptor who is best known for designing […]
This is the main church in Colmar, built in Gothic style in yellow and red sandstone. Originally the church was built in Carolingian style around the year 1000. There are a number of unique and rare features and ornaments in this church dating back to the 1300’s. With Sarah Pacini on the horizon we stopped in for a […]
We were not early out of bed today, but in the morning on the way down to the main market square in search of suitable place to sit outside for breakfast we got to explore a bit more of this amazing little town. Ribeauvillé is almost like a medieval movie set – all homes are […]
We are spending a nice spring weekend in France. Out in the middle of the French countryside about 80 km outside of Strasbourg is a picturesque little town called Ribeauvillé. Ribeauvillé is home to about 5 thousand people and a lot of very old and colourful Bavarian looking buildings dating back to the 8th century. Surrounded by […]
It’s the weekend and we are off to France for a little weekend trip.
There is this charming and almost enchanted looking fence on the way to Volker’s office. It is just another row of old stone buildings with a small garden up front, on an ordinary street just on the outskirts of the old town and yet there is something different and almost magical about this place – […]
Thursday is a long day at school for kids. Evelina finishes at 3:30 while Boris is done at 5:00. All other days they finish at 1:00 so Thursdays are tough. Since they have an hour for lunch we decided to meet up and have it together.
We are continuing to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. It’s is warm, it is dry and it is very sunny.
Located in the district of Nuremberg Mögeldorf the fortified churches of St. Nicholas and St. Ulrich are situated right next to the Haller Castle. Together with a number of small artisan homes a walled park with a bridge and a bridge house this neighbourhood was originally settled somewhere around the 8th or 9th century. […]
We are out for yet another walk today. Today we are trying Sushi Glass a highly recommended, very busy sushi place in the old town.
Today is the first day of Spring. Today is also the first day we were comfortable enough to go out in shorts and a t-shirt, although after an hour we though we were a bit overdressed. We have been planning to take a tour around the entire castle defence walls or the old town since […]
No, it is not snow, I think we are done with that horror. At first we thought that the tree by our house was a pussy willow but it turns out that all the pussy willows turned into these white flowers. The cherry trees are in bloom too, so it’s white, yellow and pink everywhere […]
It has been absolutely gorgeous today, we hit 20C. The pre pro league of girls is having its football practice outside at yet another football field. Here are some action shots.
At the end of the boulevard, the canal that feeds the castle moats turns into a lake. There is a huge park on both side of the lake with cafes, a boat rental and a lot of walking trails. Since last year, we also have a fancy new sand beach. The park was full of […]
With spring comes warmth, with warmth come flowers and with flowers come bees. They waste no time and they are hard at work – just like us.
At the end of our short street is a boulevard that separates our neighbourhood from the moat canals and the parks down below. On the boulevard there is a massive statue dedicated to Bismarck. It is quite old and a bit damaged, undoubtedly by both wars. This place is great for either getting to the […]
No matter where we go, the patios are full of people sitting around and enjoying the wonderful weather. A couple of days ago somewhere by Frankfurt we set a new record for the daily high it was 23.7C. We are out and about in t-shirts wondering if by the weekend we will be able to […]
Here is some of the stuff that we acquired in London. As it is clearly evident most of it is from Harry Potter Studios. Good times.
Home sweet home. We knew today was going to be a long and challenging day. We knew we would not make the train, and there was a chance we would not make the shuttle bus to the train station, which means we would have to take an even later train. Not to mention the issues […]
We went to see the Queen today but there was a scheduling problem with the palace. So instead of high tea we settled for watching the change of guard and a coffee.
Today we went to Buckingham Palace to see the change of the guard, us and about 1000 other people with nothing better to do on a beautiful spring day. The whole ceremony is quite long, with much fanfare and massive crowds and not a lot to see. It seems there is not one place that […]
After our museum visit, we had a nice dinner in a traditional English Tavern and then headed out to Covent Garden which is a trendy boutique area in London. Then a quick stop to King’s Cross for a visit to Platform 9 ¾.
There are a lot great exhibits and some real treasures. There is a tooth which was found by the side of the road which gave birth to the study of dinosaurs, the first adult skull of a Neanderthal ever discovered, the first edition of the “On The Origin of Species” by Darvin, a dodo skeleton, […]
To your average creationist this place is hell and Darwin is the devil, to the rest of inquiriting minds this is a place of amazement and wonder. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. Each exhibit hall is more splendid the the […]
It appears that whatever the French have found first or did not lose in war is at the Louvre in Paris, the rest of the world’s treasures are in London at the The British Museum. The Rosetta Stone, the oldest chess set, the Portland Vase the precursor to Wedgwood China, The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Colossal red granite statue […]
After London Eye we set out for a walk across the river towards the Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street and the British National Museum with a quick stop at a pub for some fish and chips.
We woke up to a spectacular spring day in London. It is the sort of day you wish you were going on the London Eye simply to see the entire city with beautiful blue sky and some white clouds. That is exactly how we started our day today. First thing after breakfast we set […]
Just the Hogwarts castle – so real and so close you can almost touch it, if it wasn’t for the barriers and the security and the CCTV…
The second studio is dedicated to animatronics, the concept art, prints, magic wands, the entire Diagon Alley and of course larger then life model of the Hogwarts Castle which was used for all of the outdoor scenes and fly by shots. The size of this model is hard to describe because words like huge and […]
Once you take it the splendid wonder of all the indoor sets, in the courtyard between the two studios are some of the outdoor sets which were used in the movie. Those include the Hogwarts Bridge, No. 4 Privet Drive, The Night Bus, The flying ford Angila, Little Whining and a few more chess pieces. […]
The first part of the tour is on the sound stage where the Great Hall scenes were shot as well as some of the other iconic sets from the movie, such as the Boys, Dormitory, Gryffindor Common Room, Potions Room, the Burrow, Hagrid’s hut, Umbridge’s Office, the Dumbledore’s Office, the Ministry of Magic etc.. It all […]
This adventure took about 4 or 5 hours to get through but as Boris said, it was the best day of his life. Harry Potter Studios just outside London are well worth the time and the money for any Harry Potter fan. Even before you enter the studios, you are immediately impressed by the […]
Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. This building used to serve as a royal residence, the Treasure for the Royal Jewels, a defence building and a prison. There has been more blood […]
It is hard to say what is more iconic in London – The Big Ben or the Tower Bridge. I think we would be hard pressed to pick between the two. After a bit of rain, the sun come out which made for some spectacular looking skyline.
We are heading out for another busy day today. This one is almost entirely dedicated to what kids want to do. Here are some streets around our hotel on our way to the tube.
Until the 17th century the street was known as Portugal Street. Piccadilly is a famous road in London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to in the east. It is completely within the City of Westminster and it is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London, and it is always busy.
We wondered towards Piccadilly and took a shortcut across St. James’s Park where there seems to be hundreds of thousands of spring flowers and hundreds of birds of all shapes and sizes. Every year millions of Londoners and tourists visit St James’s Park, the oldest of the capital’s eight Royal Parks.
Here are a few shots from around the Parliament Building and the Big Ben which we will be coming back to when we go for a ride on the London Eye. There are many beautiful places in London, each one more grand then the next, so we can’t wait to see more of it very […]
We are exploring London bit by bit. The weather went from sunny to drizzle, so we are taking a bit of a break and shelter from the rain.
These were done just right with mushed green peas. Not only did we have a Polish waitress her uncle lives in Edmonton. Small world.
After an eventful day yesterday we are starting off slow today. First order of the day – sleep through the breakfast at the hotel. Second order of the day – find a place to sit, relax and enjoy a morning cup of coffee and watch the world go by.
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.
Recent Comments