Still on the road

We are now in Nice,France and have had a day to relax. Walked to the Mediterranean and enjoyed the view. Also spent time in the park.

Since last blog we have been many places and have seen many things and will tell about them in a later blog.

All is well Later
Bill & Karen

Former Eastern Blok

We have visted Hungary, Romania and now Bulgaria.
In Romania we vistied the palace that former communist dicator Czaucescus was building before the revolt in 1989. It is 2nd only to the Pentagon in size cost over 1.5 billion $$ at that time and was only 70% complete. Avery useless building has it is mainly large halls on many floors and lots of marble and crystal. Even the glass doors are crystal not glass. He also built an office for his wife. That building was so hugh, it is now the Marriot hotel.
They had to relocate 70,000 people to build this thing and part if includes a replic of the Champs Elysees in paris, only it is one meter wider so that if would be larger. The Romainians hate this area and it is never used.

The communist were very good at relocating people and putting them in these ugly concrete apartment buildings. They moved people to put them where they wanted for manufacturing, or just to have a larger city.

We are now in Sofia, Bulgaria. Next Greece.

BUDAPEST

This city is pronounced as Budapescht and is composted of the merger of two ancient cities, Buda and Pest. It is a small country and really of no value to countries that ruled it except that is is on the way to somewhere. \the country was founded when two tribes the Myams and the Finns were traveling thru, the Finns continued on to found Finland. The language is unique to itself and there is no other like it ,but has some small relationship to the Finish.

We are in a former communist country and it is still very evident in the way the country was run down, with not repairs or maintenance given to building parks, etc. Even though the Russians provide a lot of money to rebuild after WWll they were not allowed to restore or rebuild churches. They are doing that now and restoring buildings as funds are available. The communist also built large ugly apartment buildings which are evident all over.

It is interesting how all of Europe that we have visited is so westernized. Very easy to travel, no border stops, shop and eat.Most things are in several languages and if not you just figure it out. They do a lot things better than we do and any fears we had about traveling here are now gone and having a good tome.

Last two days only eating native Hungarian food and it is delicious.
Until next
Bill and Karen

Veinna and More

Here we are in Vienna and have seen the summer palaces of the royalty. It was designed by the same architech as the Palace of Versailles and is very similar only smaller. Very beautiful and interesting and much is original from the Hapsburg family that ruled for 640 years.

Tomorrow to Budapest.

I find it very interesting on how much has been rebuilt since WW ll. The cities are very modern in areas and old in other areas.

Back in Vince we did some sight seeing, had a marvelous fish dinner in a quaint restaurant on the fisherman's island. Seafood lasagna, seafood spread for the rolls, shrimp. calamari. etc. Very good, but Karen had steak.

We had a gondola ride with musicians, accordion and vocalist and a kiss under each bridge.

We have seen and enjoyed a lot of different cultures and have been eating the foold that is customary to the region we are visiting. The meals that are included in our tour are always the food of that particular area. Tomorrow we go on a Danube River Dinner cruise with Hungarian food. Should be good.

Karen has been having some balance problems and is getting bruised. Fell while stepping over the side of a bathtub, fell going into a shop. She is OK.

More later
Bill & Karen

Week 1

We have been to London and toured the city somewhat and had an adventure trying to get back to the hotel. After several attempts we made it. The next date left for Amsterdam from Dover via ferry. Amsterdam is about 2,million people with 1.5 million bicycles, which have the right of way. An interesting city of canals which we toured by boat.

Next to Cologne. Germany where we visited the Cathedral that took 600 yrs to build and somehow survived the bombings of WWll while everything around it was destroyed. Later a cruise on the Rhine River and then on to Mannheim for another overnight.

The next day we stopped at Heidelberg and walked the city and enjoyed a framers market complete with fresh fish van and a meat market with butcher. Then to Munich and then to Innsbruck for the night. Sunday we went to Venice stopping at Verona and viewed among another things Juliets balcony from Romeo and Juliet.

Today we spent the entire day in Venice, very interesting and will write more later as am running out of computer time.

More later

Finally the Day is Here

After months of planning, making lists and checking them twice, packing and re-packing the first day of our European adventure is here.

We have a neighbor boy to mow the lawn, if it ever needs it again. We still have not reached 90 this summer, but it has been very dry without any measurable rain for weeks. The pool is closed. The house is clean, somewhat. Itineraries given to relatives, wills made, medical directives completed, flights confirmed, everything ready, we hope.

Our flight leaves Grand Rapids, Michigan at 3:00pm to Detroit and then we connect to to London Heathrow where we will arrive around 7:00 am London time. Then we will be picked up and taken to our Hotel and the tour begins.

Since we will not be carrying a laptop with us, we will be dependant upon finding Internet cafes to update our blog and hopefully ad some pictures as we go.

As a side, it is also our 47th wedding anniversary today.

Until we can make contact next time.