Potpourri - Hungary

Here are some assorted photos from Hungary. The captions/descriptions follow each picture or set of pictures.

This is Keleti, one of the major train stations in Budapest. Our train to and from Pécs used this station. There is also a metro stop here. Overall, the public transportation in Hungary was very efficient.

Here is another picture of a metro car in Budapest .

Here is some of the typical large building architecture in downtown Pécs. This part of town has many buildings that are 100 years old. The newer parts of town have quite a few apartment buildings that are about 10 floors with very little charm and nearly identical architecture. There are also some nice residential areas. Many of the houses were stucco.

We did a lot of walking in Pécs. The conference hotel was a 15 minute walk from where we were staying. The town had many fountains. There were also many streets converted into pedestrian walkways. The walkways were usually quite full during the day and almost every cafe had outdoor seating.



These photos are from the countryside and winery area we saw on our excursion day. I'm not sure what the flowering shrub is, but we saw a lot of these in Hungary. There were varieties that had white, pink, and red flowers. The leaves were very rough, perhaps an evergreen. Since the climate there is similar to ours, I am wondering if I could grow one at home.

Here a three decorative tiles from the Zsolnay museum.

The above pictures are from the Vasarely museum. Vasarely is considered the father of op-art, essentially artwork that was abstract yet contained lots of visual stimulus or optical illusions.

This was a sculpture made of empty water bottles.



Here are some interesting sculptures we saw at the sculpture park on our excursion day.



A fountain on castle hill in Buda.



A nice area on castle hill.



A view of the parliament building from castle hill.



Some buildings in downtown Pest.



The name carved into the building reminded us of home.



This is the large market building in Budapest.



This is a decoration inside one of the large bath buildings in Budapest.

Potpourri - Paris

This posting contains pictures from Paris that were not included in previous posts.

Here is a statue at the Luxembourg Garden near our first Paris hotel. The Pantheon is in the background. The French Senate meets in a palace on the park/garden grounds.

Here is the Pantheon.



Here are two other pictures of the most famous landmark in Paris.



Here is the other Statue of Liberty.

The above four pictures are a few scenes from around Paris.

Here is another photo of the Champs-Elysées. This one is looking away from the Arc and toward the Place de la Concorde, containing the obelisk from Luxor. Beyond that is the Tuilleries park/garden and the Louvre.

Here is a statue of St. Denis. He was martyred (beheaded) on the highest hill in Paris (now Montmartre). After his head was chopped off, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked six miles, preaching a sermon along the way. You can see another statue of St. Denis carved on the front of Notre Dame (see our post from July 21).

One of the most fun things for me in Paris was simply walking around the town and seeing the various famous sights. The subway system made it very easy to get from one part of town to another. There always seemed to be lots of pedestrians wherever we went. I was also surprised to see all the small cars. It was very rare to see a vehicle the size of our minivan. There were also many people cycling and lots of motor bikes and scooters.

Home Sweet Home

We are finally home! After a very full day of travel, we finally got home about 10:30. Our flight from Pittsburgh was on a small plane, but very smooth flight. Elizabeth and Hannah picked us up at the airport and drove us home. Look for some other posts in the next few days for some additional pictures and final thoughts.

Back in the US

Well, they let us back in the US.  Not without a momentary detour, though.  Seems that we had to speak to the customs official specializing in agriculture because we had packed our leftover dried apricots and plums that we had bought for snacking.  They give you a customs form and one of the questions asks you "Are you bringing in any fruit, nuts, insects" and we had to answer "yes." So, you get to go in the special line and have your bag x-rayed and have the customs guy laugh about it.  You can't bring in fresh stuff, that might germinate seeds.

So, another flight to Detroit from Pittsburgh is seriously delayed and now all these people are here at our gate clamoring for seats and not caring about where their luggage is going. So, we are going to get on board and head for Detroit and Hannah and Betsy are planning on picking us up at the curbside.  We saw our luggage go on the plane, especially because we put neon yellow duct tape on the top and bottom of each bag.

Thanks for reading - hopefully we will get some more photos up in the next day or so. We are glad to be back!!

Let them eat - crepes!!

We spent the day at Versailles, seeing how the other .001% lived.  We understand why the peasants revolted and chopped off heads.  We enjoyed the gardens and the fountains and the history.

We are making this a simple post to let everyone know we are ok.  We had a nice dinner at Crepes a Gogo in our previous Latin Quarter neighborhood, overlooking the Pantheon.  We sat outside and people watched and feasted on our last French cuisine - crepes.  They were really delicious - Dave's had turkey and creme fraiche and I had potatoes and cheese and egg.  We were thinking about the traditional dessert crepes, but were too stuffed.

We leave early tomorrow, but may have an opportunity to post along the way. We have a lot of sitting around in airports to do.  See you all Stateside!!