Budapest

We decided to spend our our last weekend in Europe soaking in the hot baths of Budapest.  We loved this city more than we could have imagined.  Beautiful, fascinating, and relaxing, all at once.

Liz conquers her fear of heights

While hiking on the flanks of Mt. Pilatus, a beautiful mountain just outside of Lucerne, Liz slipped, fell, and somehow shattered her tibia in the process.  We were fortunate to run into some very generous mountain bikers, who helped us call for help.  The pictures do a better job of telling the story than I ever could.

Liz was such a trooper — she stayed calm, cool, and collected throughout the ordeal, and let us know what worked and didn’t work as we help to move her to a clearing where the helicopter could see us.  Two months later, she is still on crutches, but her bones and ligaments are on their way to full strength again.  What do you say, Liz, same time and place next summer?

Vienna

We’ve been negligent in posting pictures from the last half of our 2009 European Adventure, but now that it’s the Thanksgiving weekend, we figure there’s no excuse.  Here’s the first in a series of belated photo montages: Vienna, home of the world’s best pastries!

Mama Mia…Tuscany is one bella regione

We attended a two day cooking class in Tuscany a couple of weeks ago, and wow… it was really fun! We learned how to make fantastic eggplant parmesan, three kinds of bruschetta, delicious tiramisu, and the best raviolis we’ve ever had.  Even better than the famous Hutnick Italian Scratch Party^TM raviolis, and that’s saying something!

Tina and Manuela were great instructors with lots of positive feedback (“Si, perfecto!”) and assurances (“Non c’e problema”).  Believe it or not, there were four “Mama Mia”s articulated over the two days (that’s 0.5 MM per hour).  To know that Italians actually use that phrase was, as the Master Card commercial says, “priceless”.

In addition to teaching us the basics of Tuscan cooking, the classes offered us a chance to spend two evenings with the instructors’ wonderful families and friends in their thousand year old villa tower.  After fours hours of cooking each evening, we presented our creations to our appreciative new friends.

The bed and breakfast we stayed at was ancient, too.  We weren’t thrilled with the owner, but we loved the location.

Other than the cooking classes, we explored two smaller towns south of Firenze. We spent most of Friday in Siena where the Palio, the famous horse races, take place twice a summer. Saturday we went to the Renaissance and Medieval town of Colle di Val d’Elsa where crystal has been manufactured since the 19^th century.

The Siena Cathedral was possibly the most impressive we’ve see yet.  Rather than try to describe it, have a look at the pictures below.

Prague – Tourista capital of the world (for good reasons)

We just got back from Prague today and a few words of advice to anyone thinking of going for a visit – go in the fall after the tourists (meaning us) are gone. The low cost hotels, food and transportation make Prague a great vacation for Europeans and North Americans alike.  The main sites were crowded .  We’re talking Disney World crowded.  But amazingly, everyone was happy and civilized, and we managed to enjoy our stay regardless.

Prague is a city of mixed cultures and eras. There are castles and palaces from the 9th century and there are mid-Century Soviet-style buildings mixed in between. The older buildings are adorned with statues of Saints, cherubs or leaders from the past. The Soviet buildings are as expected – square and big with little to no decoration.

The visit to the Prague Castle alone was worth having to contend with throngs of fellow visitors.  It would take many visits to see and appreciate all eleven centuries of art, history and architecture. Here are just a few pictures that barely capture the spectacle of the ancient walled city and its centerpiece, St Vitus Cathedral.

Who knew that the Czech Republic was famous for its beer? We conducted our own small taste test and agree that the beer in Prague is very good. Budweiser is the original beer of Bohemia and shares little resemblance to the American beer of the same name.  Try as we might, the locals didn’t catch on to the

Josh->”Bud”
Beverly->”Weis”
Random Czech Dude-> “er?”

game.  Even better than “original bud” was another local brew, Pilsner Urquell. Yum.

As a transition from low- to high-brow, our grand finale was a pair of box tickets for La Traviata at the State Opera House. No fat lady singing, but a cute one dying and a moving performance just the same. The two tickets to sit in the first tier loge were only $60. That was the deal of the day!  Either that or the 30kc (less than two dollars) gellato waffle cones.

It has already been a month!

Wow! A month! Here are a few of my general day-in-the-life observations after one short month in Zürich, Switzerland:

First of all, dogs are every where, including restaurants. They travel in planes, trains and trams.  We saw a cute one taking a cool bath in a water fountain just up the street from our home. Seeing all these dogs makes us miss Cosmo more than ever.

Speaking of water fountains- they too are every where. I will not bore you with the many, many pictures I have taken of them, here are just a few.  Some are beautiful and some are more utilitarian. Regardless, the water is clean and we never have to buy bottles of water except…

In restaurants- “gas or flat?” is the question asked by wait staff. Europeans do not serve tap at meals. Gas or flat, the water costs more than beer or wine… so I am drinking a lot more wine – kidding!

The US has an over abundance of of lawyers and in Switzerland it is hair salons. Within a four block radius of our house there are 15 hair salons. I am not exaggerating. I got my hair cut by Carmela from Firenza salon. Why did I pick that salon you ask…their door was open when Ethan and I walked by one day. I will go back before we leave, she did a great job if I don’t say so myself.

My final observation for now- I have yet to see a poor, homeless or “down-in-their-luck” person since we have been here. People seem to be doing well. They look healthy, dress nicely and obviously, most importantly, their hair looks fabulous!

I love it here. People have been great and it is so easy to get around to see all that there is to see- which is a lot!

It’s so big! (that’s what she said)

Last weekend, we travelled three hours via the “Glacier Express” train from Zurich to Zermatt, home of the famous Matterhorn. I know everyone alive has seen pictures of it but to see it in person is remarkable. We hiked, the long route to the base of the mountain. It was a beautiful, quiet, and a kick-your-ass hard hike up and up and up.  We rewarded ourselves with a traditional cheese fondue for dinner. Yum!

We stayed in a hotel that was quintessentially Swiss in every way possible- from furniture and decorations to the muesli we had for breakfast. It was so lovely and to cap it all off, we had a view of the Matterhorn from our balcony. We sat, drank some nice wine and watched the sun go down. Josh took photos every 10 minutes or so. Here are a few to give you a sense of how the mountain changes with the waning light.

It was another wonderful weekend to add to our “Swisstory”. Next weekend, Prague.

Baden- a little slice of heaven

Last week I took an easy 15 minute train ride to Baden where they have thermal baths. It was heavenly. Just me and the seniors hanging out in the pool until we were (more) prune-like.

The town is in a steep valley along the Limmat River. Like most Swiss towns it is decked out in all its summer regalia of colorful window boxes, umbrella filled outdoor cafes and of course ice-cream shops. The best ice cream I have ever had is here – Mövenpick.  My favorite flavor is Swiss Chocolate.  Josh likes everything else.

I hope to bring Josh to the Baden baths after a hard days work.

Säntis

The weather forecast called for rain all weekend, so rather head all the way to the Alps and risk a whiteout, we visited Säntis, a spectacular mountain in the Appenzeller region.  We took the gondola to the top, and hiked around amid the sheep, the beautiful flowers, and the spectacular yet elusive scenery.

Rhine Falls

At 450′ wide and 75′ high, and flows around 1,000 m³ per second, the Rhile Falls are big.  We tried picking a route through the rocks and chaos, but it seemed pretty hard to fathom running the falls in either a raft or a kayak.  Of course some crazy fools have run it but that doesn’t mean we would.

Our visit to the falls was much less adventurous, but no less wet.  The rain held off for a bit, but once it started it was relentless.