Making our way home

Day 23: 

After our shopping today we hit the road, a little later than I would have liked, but not too bad.

It was too bad, we hit a ton of traffic on the road, a wait at the border crossing, and we lost an hour in the time change.  Needless to say it was a long day in the car.  We got to our apartment in Sibiu pretty late.  The kids watched a movie and then we all went to bed.

Day 24:

We had a half day of driving ahead of us to get home.  We headed out and hit the road, five hours later if windy slow roads through little towns and we were home, thankfully!  We were all very excited to be home.  We emptied the car and had fun seeing Daddy.  The weather in Bucharest was rubbish though, so no swimming, which was good news for olivers head.  

We are so happy to be home for a few days before heading to the USA!

Budapest in a nutshell

Day 22:

I have to admit this right up front.  We have been traveling for 3 weeks now and we are all a little tired.  Budapest is an amazing city that I feel like we didn't give our all to, due to being tired and just a little over it.  That being said we did see quite a lot of it, so here it goes...

We arrived in time for dinner and went to a pub that was just around the corner from our amazingly lovely apartment (airbnb is awesome).  We then stopped by the shop to pick up some provisions (milk, wine, donuts for breakfast...) and headed back to the apartment.  At this point we didn't drive by anything that looked worth seeing, so I was thinking did we make a mistake, we are supposed to be right next to Buda castle.  

The next morning we walked up the hill that was right in front of us, this is where the fishermans bastion was.  And there was the things to see.  There is a lot.  From the fisher mans bastion you get a wonderful view of the city, mostly pest on the other side of the river.  

We walked around the fishermans bastion, sent into the church and walked along the top of the bastion wall.  

We decided to get tickets for the hop on hop off bus and ride it around the city, the tickets also included a boat ride.  We had to go down to the river side of the hill to catch the bus though.  I finally found Buda Castle, that is what they call the whole hill.  

We saw lot of the city from the bus, and the boat.  What is great about the bus is it gives you slot of history and information as you go around.

We did have an amazing time in budapest, unjust wish we could have seen more things in detail, we saw the outside of a lot, and got a good feeling for the city.  

We headed back home over Buda castle, we are at a restaurant at the top and all slept really well from another busy day.

Tomorrow we head home by way of Sibiu.  But first I have a little excess money to spend at a Tesco I saw on my way into Budapest!

Vienna, a city of palaces

Day 20:

We woke up early from a terrific nights sleep in the mountains and hit the road for Vienna.  I had decided that we would stop at the schonbrunn palace, it is a beautiful palace just outside Vienna proper.  I hadn't realized how big this place was.  The gardens are large and beautiful, it boasts the oldest zoo in the world, also supposed to be one of Europes best zoos, the palace itself is massive and grand, with a few meseums attached.  

We arrived at 1, and decided to have a picnic lunch in the gardens.  I thought we could do it all in an afternoon, but I was wrong!  So I gave the kids a choice, the zoo or the palace.  They picked the zoo of course so that is what we did that afternoon before finding our apartment.  

We had such a great time at this zoo and saw a lot of great animals.  Arctic wolves, pandas, lions, cheetah, panguins, bats... just to name a few.  Oliver was upset the polar bears weren't out to play.  The zoo had a terrific park where the kids spent the last 30 min playing. 

We found our apartment and walked to the local lidl to get something for dinner, we were all tired out from the day!

Day 21:

This day we were supposed to go into Vienna proper and walk around down town and see a different palace, but since we didn't see the palace close up yesterday the kids wanted to go back to that one.  Lillian really wanted to see inside it.  So that is what we did.

We drove back to shonbrunn palace this time to see the palace and grounds.  

We decided to do the children's Museum and the mazes.  Lillian and I would have loved to go through the palace rooms, but Oliver and Bronwyn would not have enjoyed that tour so well.  We chose wisely, the children's museum was a lot of fun for them and they got to see how little princes and princesses would have lived back in the day.

Next we moved on to the grounds and the mazes.  The kids had a great time here and there was an amazing play park to play in.

The gardens were beautiful and full of statues and fountains.

We left in the afternoon to drive to Budapest for our last city stop of this trip.  

On the road again

Day 18:

Today is Monday, and we drive out of Rome and into the countryside to Bologna.  I have to say I think I got really lucky with the days I chose to be in Rome.  The traffic coming in to the city as I was going out was horrible, and even the quiet spot where I parked my car for the weekend was swamped with cars and people this morning!  

We made it to Bologna, where we got the opportunity to switch apartments and stay downtown, so we did.  Upside is we got to see a bit of Bologna, down side is I had to pay for parking and we were a few blocks away from our apartment.  I decided that I didn't want to haul Bronwyns pack and play around, so she got to sleep in a big bed with me.  She did awesome, when it was time for bed she went right down and didn't move until morning... well that's not quite true, she sleeps like a whirlwind!

Day 19:
The next morning we stopped by McDonalds for some coffee and breakfast and while I was trying to order (they had the machines which were malfunctioning, or I can't use...) Oliver was messing around on the stools and hit his head.  This resulted in a rather serious cut that we went to the local emergency room for.  Needless to say I didn't get my coffee.  Oliver is going to be just fine, he didn't even cry!  Hopefully he won't have a scar, I am just glad it wasn't worse.

We finally hit the road and made it to Austria, we stayed the first night at Villach, with a hippy couple in their little slice of paradise.  It was an experience for the kids, we walked up the hill, saw some rainbows, did some face painting, and the kids had a great time playing in the awesome homemade jungle gym.  We had a terrific vegetarian curry dinner, that I want to try and make at home, and a great nights sleep.

Bronwyn went night 2 without a crib, I think we are on a roll here.

Tomorrow we visit Vienna!