Congratulations

to Nigel - he married Paula last Saturday the 20th September

Also in the photos are Shounie and Rhianna - Nigel's daughters.

Well done bruv.......

Thanks to Lily for the photos.

Thomas

More pictures taken on the 8th September - so he is now nearly two months old - time is passing too quickly.

He's so lovely.

The Last few days of the Europe Trip

Although we missed lots of places, we briefly visited many beautiful places over our final days - from Innsbruck in Austria, travelling along the Romantic Road through Germany, along the Rhine to Koblenz, and finishing up in Le Touquet - Paris Plage, and .................

Boulogne Sur Mer ------ which was a surprise to me as it is much improved since I last visited it.

We are a little tired and weary from all of our travels ........... but we are now planning our next trip - check out the site for more.

Salzburg

Wandering through the streets we found this shop that sold painted egg shells - we just had to have a picture and I did buy one - not sure where to put it now though..








The food stalls were just magnificent - the produce range was impressive

We took the funicular up to the castle on the top of the hill which overlooks the city - the views were stunning and the castle was much bigger than I had expected.


After all of the sunny weather we had been having to get fog was a bit of a surprise but it did not detract from the wonderful Austrian scenery. This waterfall was not unlike the one we saw earlier in the year in Kings Canyon in California.

Vienna

Wonderful Vienna - truly a magnificent city, here I am in the Parliament building giving a speech to the Austrian ministers. The building itself was partly destroyed in WW2 but was rebuilt in the same style, fortunately the oldest and most historical part of the building was undamaged.






Here we are in the park with Mozart.











We took a tour of the Opera house the auditorium itself was quite small but the rest of the building - particularly the "behind stage" area was enormous.





I returned to Bad Aussee - I went ski ing here in my teens - unfortunately I recognised hardly anything of the place - mind you it is a long time ago and it was covered in snow last time.





Lake Wolfgang - I just had to have a swim - it was warm - believe me .................

Lake Balaton - the place where the Hungarians go for their holiday.

For us it was time for some relaxation.......

We had a couple of days here just chillin'

Highly recommended, the water was warm - very sandy and an enormous area .... 70+km in length, and on both sides of the lake are sandy beaches and grass verges to lie about on with loads of shops, kiosks and bars selling local produce.

Getting across the lake on the ferry is so easy and a great trip in itself.

Budapest

At last we arrived in beautiful Budapest and it certainly lived up to its reputation.

As it was Sunday there was free parking available in the city centre - fantastic - where else in the world would you get that, and the Chain Bridge was closed to traffic but was open as a market, where they were selling amongst other things sweet bread on a roll - very tasty.

We checked out the Cathedral - absolutely magnificent.

We stopped overnight in Budapest - so next day we went on a boat trip on the Danube, fortunately and unfortunately the Red Bull air display was on so we got great views from the river of the planes but the boat could not go up river as the planes were flying under the Chain Bridge.

In the afternoon we went up the funicular railway and checked out the Fisherman's Bastion and the Royal Palace - which is used as a museum of art.

Definitely a place to go back to.

KOSICE

This was one of those rare rainy days - though it was still warm.

Here you can see some of their sites including the best ever fountain display I have seen.


Here Suri is in the underground archaeological excavation site right in the centre of the town.

This is the Plague Column built in 1723 to remember the plague that went through the town at that time.


This is a dragon sculpture, where the stream disappears under the street.



And of course our usual coffee and cake - this time it was Chinese style apple fritters - mmm.

After Poland we headed into Slovakia, it was not easy to find, as the road signs just disappeared but we persevered and ended up in a lovely town called Bardajov.

This was a very quiet town which had a lovely old square with an impressive church and old town hall, here you can see Suri next to some old bells just outside the church.

I climbed to the top of the church bell tower for a great view.

Nearby was a particularly beautiful church, which as we stepped inside we found a wedding going on - this was not the first that we observed and would not be the last on this trip.

Oswiecim: Auschwitz & Birkenau

No Words.

WARSAW

Much of Warsaw was destroyed during WW2, but has now been rebuilt - pretty much as it was, and to some extent it is quite difficult to tell that the new buildings and cobblestones have only been there for a few decades.


KRAKOW

Set above the rest of the town is the old town which overlooks the river is the remains of the Old Royal Castle and the impressive Cathedral.




In the newer part of town. I climbed to the top of this tower, at the top was trumpeter who played each hour for a few minutes.











Looking down from the church tower - great view - in the centre was a market and to the right we enjoyed ........ another well deserved coffee and cake.




One of the many street artists that were to be found in most of the towns and cities.







The river Wisla - the longest in Poland runs majestically, we took a stroll along the towpath as it was a warm day, before we headed off South.