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4882. judithathome - 7/17/2013 11:17:19 PM Jen, there ARE options to tennis shoes or heels...find some comfortable flats, for cripes sake! 4883. judithathome - 7/17/2013 11:19:01 PM in Pelican Bay, about 20 miles northwest of Fort Worth.
Our little village jail...state of the art!...takes in run-over from Pelican Bay. Wonder if Neola ended up there...ha! 4884. thoughtful - 7/22/2013 2:04:09 PM We're back from our vacation from Prague to Budapest, down the Danube. It was even better than I expected. The riverboat affords a lot of special features...you don't have to keep packing and unpacking as your room moves with you...you get to travel while you sleep comfortably unlike getting up in the a.m. to spend hours on a bus getting to the next city....the scenery going by is phenomenal as you just sit and enjoy...the food and the staff were excellent and bent over backward to meet our every need.
Our favorite city was Prague because of its varied districts and its focus on the artsy...strains of jazz could be heard around the town. (Interesting perspective on history as the New Town dates to 1348!) And if you want to get away from the hustle bustle, it had Kampa Island along the river which is much more peaceful. But each of the cities we saw had something unique to offer. If you were paying attention, you could catch how they would spin the past. Passau no one mentioned it was the home for 3 auxiliary concentration camps and at other towns they talked about fire, but no one mentioned bombings. Here are only a few of the over 700 pics I took. (One gal I talked to said she took 500 pics in the first day!)
Prague:
Regensburg:
Wachau Valley:
Durnstein:
Budapest:
We also suffered from ABC: Another Bloody Cathedral.
The food was incredible...given that hubby is Slovak and I am Italian, Hungarian and Polish...we tasted an awful lot of food that tasted like gramma's cookin'. Wonderful. And the tomatoes were so tasty...not like here in the US....a sign of how broken our ag system is here.
We were also treated to a lot of special events including dinner at the Palais Palavicini in Vienna with a private musical event including ballet and opera. Just wonderful. 4885. arkymalarky - 7/22/2013 2:56:29 PM gorgeous! I told Stan I would love to go on one of those river boat tours. it looks like the way to tour.
and when you got a Jones for real tomatoes you need to come to Arkansas. we have the best homegrown tomatoes and they grow great here. stan and I have grown some really good ones. 4886. Ms. No - 7/22/2013 5:00:10 PM T'ful,
Did you do a Tauk tour? My friend has been with them for a few years. She used to run tours in the south of France but moved back stateside to manage other tour directors a year ago --- she's in charge of the river tours like the one you took. 4887. thoughtful - 7/22/2013 10:41:06 PM Yes, MsNo we took Tauck...this was our 6th tour with them and they really spoil you for going with anyone else...they just do it all so well with so many special touches. 4888. Wombat - 7/22/2013 10:46:57 PM Ah Budapest... Deep-fried breaded large mushroom caps stuffed with fois gras; grilled Lake Balaton pike-perch; salami heavily spiked with paprika.... My arteries harden.... 4889. thoughtful - 7/23/2013 1:47:44 PM Wombat I think I ate more cabbage (kapusta) in those 2 weeks than I had in the prior 6 months! 4890. alistairconnor - 7/23/2013 5:01:05 PM Oh lovely Tful. Was the river still high? Evidence of flood damage?
It's still in my master plan to do that ol' man danube on a bicycle. Not this year... retirement perhaps? 4891. Ms. No - 7/24/2013 8:58:03 AM K will be thrilled to hear you enjoyed your tour! I'm hoping to meet her in either Budapest or Prague in the spring while she's over checking in on various tours. 4892. alistairconnor - 7/24/2013 9:42:18 AM Budapest or Prague in the spring? You'll be shocked to learn that I still haven't been to either... Please consult as to travel schedule!
I went to Finland this spring, to visit the elder offspring before she came home from her foreign semester. That was fab, especially as it was the only time I saw the sun this spring... the weather was much better, and warmer, than France. Late August, we're planning a week in Croatia... never been there either. 4893. thoughtful - 7/24/2013 2:54:13 PM Surprisingly enough, we had perfect weather...every day was sunny and in the 70s, even in Budapest which we were warned would be very hot.
We were fortunate to go when we did as the trip was less expensive...most think it's too hot in July, and early trips did get cancelled or re-routed due to flooding including a major lock that was shut down for 2 weeks due to the water.
The only town that had any signs of flood damage was Passau where it was the worst in over 500 years. There were buildings that were being fixed and the smell of "damp" was apparent. Further there were water front cafes that simply couldn't afford to open any more. Down river, you could see some places where they were fixing edges and some trees and other wash, but for the most part it was terrific. Amazing especially after they pointed out the high water marks on the buildings. Apparently it was a huge community effort including college students and troops to do the clean up.
June 2013 flood:
 4894. thoughtful - 7/24/2013 2:57:42 PM AC from Passau to Vienna, the bike trail looked fabulous....all along the river so reasonably flat and the scenery is phenomenal...it was definitely a popular thing to do, but not at all crowded as to spoil the effect. I think there are boats that go along with you so you can stay comfortably aboard at night while you bike during the day. Or I'm sure they run land versions too where they truck your stuff to the next hotel. 4895. Trillium - 7/25/2013 12:42:46 AM Recent visitors from Germany describe cleanup work in the little riverside town where they lived in earlier years.
They said that the floods are expected, and so basements and ground floors are tiled for easier cleanup. Things that mustn't get wet were stored on upper floors.
Got me thinking about my damp basement and what it might look like with the right tile work? 4896. judithathome - 7/25/2013 5:46:21 AM Probably very good...and easy to mop whether there's been a flood or not! 4897. judithathome - 7/25/2013 5:48:22 AM I have a little hit, however...we live in a 50s ranch style house and had the kitchen countertops done over from yallow and green tile to white tile...with black grout. That was my idea...the tiler thought it was genius. 4898. thoughtful - 7/29/2013 2:17:44 PM If you're serving dark beer, put it on a red table cloth. Yum!
Bratislava:
 4899. alistairconnor - 7/31/2013 12:39:00 PM Oh ah mmm!
Beer. It seems to be a north/south thing in Europe : no country with a Mediterranean coastline has decent beer (or more accurately, none of the mass-market beers are any good). I will be getting a fix of the good stuff at the end of August in Munich (my nephew who lives there is having a wedding party), on the way through to Croatia (where I won't be expecting much of the beer, but I'm pretty sure the beaches will be better than Germany). 4900. thoughtful - 7/31/2013 2:24:18 PM So, on another forum I'm in a big argument about US food sucks....after having been to E Europe and finding all the produce tasting so fresh and with so much flavor, including delicious tomatoes, I'm finding US produce significantly lacking. And of course getting ridiculous pushback. For instance, people who say they raise their own organic veggies, and chickens and raise their own beef, and their food doesn't "suck". Or saying they take the time to hunt down good farmers at good farmers markets. Well duh! I've tried suggesting several times that they aren't experiencing the food that 98% of America "enjoys" and they should try it some time. Somehow, they aren't getting it that, if they have to go through all that effort to get fresh food, then QED, there's something wrong with the US food supply. They also don't seem aware that there are many areas of the country and inner cities where even supermarkets are not an option, let alone fruit and veggie stands. For the most part, I'm also finding that people who have been to Europe agree, and people who haven't, don't.
What's your experience? 4901. webfeet - 7/31/2013 2:42:08 PM Excellent voyage, thoughtful. Ive worked up quite an appetite reading the posts and appreciate the commentary and neat pictures.
Concerning the food, it is lamentably true. While a handful of people, like my sister and husband, who live in Amherst and Northhampton have a bounty of farmers markets to choose from, most of us who live in cities have to do without. Even our green market with high quality food does mot come close to the flavor of what they have here in France.
I ate a Monoprix cucumber yesterday and was just amazed. It was a 'madeleine' moment ; I forgot what a real, real cucumber tasted like. So, even here, supermarket food is much much better. But now we're in the Alps abd I am almost embarrassed to write how fresh, totally bio all the produce is, because belle mere knows this ailing farmer, Dede, who sells her like a blackmarket stash of potatoes zucchini, blah balh...
We ate sour cherries yesterday from his tree and I almost fainted.
There is such a gross inequality in food!
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