Club Abbazia

This is a view of our building at Club Abbaziua from the street.










Our unit is on floor three -count three along from this end. It's quite warm because there is no air conditioning. I think Steve almost died on the first night!

Our street runs alongside a beautiful park. The leaves from the trees allow enough light through to give the place an air of 'magic'.






The staff obviously have a good sense of humour. This notice says that they have good cooking and have listed the weights of the Manager, chef and a kitchen hand.









We had a very enjoyable meal in the restaurant on Sunday night. The first night's drinks were free!










Here are some photos of the interior of our unit. Double bed upstairs (the loft?) and a divan downstairs. I bumped my head on the loft ceiling several times! Imagine what would happen to Steve or Duncan.


Steve checking out the local attractions.











Our bedroom in the loft.











The stairs are a bit steep but it's okay as long as you are properly awake when you try them!

Budapest by Night

Budapest at night is really wonderful. The still warm air makes walking really pleasant. Add to that floodlit churches and other monuments and you have a recipe for a super evening

Sonny Allison

It was while we were at Budapest we received a text from Tui (Lynne's mother) to let us know our good friend Sonny Allison had died. That was indeed sad news, the kind you don't like to receive at any time especially while travelling. We felt helpless being so far from Robyn and the girls but our love and sympathy are certainly with them.

On Lake Balaton

Steve picked up a rental, eventually, and we went fro a drive around Lake Balaton to a lovely spot where we paid the obligatory admission fee and enjoyed a swim and a picnic. As far as we could tell, there were people from Hungary, Germany, France, Austria and probably other places since Hungary has seven countries on its borders. Families were enjoying swimming in water at about 25-26 degrees Celsius, water slide, padder tennis, eating drinking and all those other things people do when they picnic by the water.

I even managed a swim!

We limited ourselves to a swim, eating, drinking and sleeping.

On our way back we made a small detour to visit Hevik, a well know spa town. We were there for only 5 minutes but what we saw was beautiful. I think it’s another of those places one has to spend time in to appreciate.

Breakfast

We had intended making an early morning visit to a supermarket to buy items for breakfast. However, the arrangements Steve had made for a rental car fell through and wouldn’t be completed until late morning/early afternoon so we walked into town for breakfast.

Budapest to Keszethley

The hotel staff had been kind enough to book our first class train ticket to Keszthely so all we had to do was find the station. We had expected some help at the station to convert our booking confirmation into real tickets but Steve tried three people including the ticket office to no avail. Since time was fast running out and platform 5 was not insight we simply ran to find it and boarded the train. When the conductor came around he explained that what we should have done was gone to a machine and punched in our reference number to receive our tickets. However, by now we were in the ‘too hard’ basket so he signed the confirmation/reference we had and we sat back and enjoyed the journey.

The countryside between Budapest and Keszthely did much to dispel any preconceived notions we might have had of rural Hungary.

This was a 3 hr 20 min trip and there was much to see and marvel at. The countryside showed all the evidence of a rural economy with crops of all sorts, including sunflowers.

Once we met up with Lake Balaton it was campsite/holiday accommodation ‘shoulder to shoulder’. It seemed as if everyone had left Budapest for the lake.

Steve arrives at Keszthely.

Cruising on the Danube

This morning we took a cruise on the Danube. The first thing to impress us was the multilingual hostesses who welcomed us and introduced the tour. Between them they did this in at least 10 languages! The recorded tour commentary was given in 16 languages.







The tour commentary here and on yesterday’s bus tour was the best I have experienced in any city. Today’s commentary took the form of a conversation/commentary between two characters, Buda and Pest. When Buda spoke we looked towards the old side of the town and to the new side when Pest spoke. We learned so much more about Budapest as a result.

One thing we could do if we ever returned to Budapest is visit Margaret Island – that looked like a lovely place for anyone to have a day out.

Evening Meal

We took our evening meal at a restaurant near the hotel. Lynne and I shared a pork knuckle that was meal enough for at least three people and Steve had to remind the staff that he didn’t get what he had ordered. They soon had the missing items delivered to him – sausage and quartered boiled egg!

Bus tour of Budapest

Today’s major undertaking was a hop on hop off bus tour of this city of 2 million people. I have always been a fan of these tours since they give you an over view of a city’s main attractions and some idea of its geography.








Steve and Raquel at the Fisherman's Bastion.

Lynne and I, also taken at the Fisherman's Bastion. This venue offered a brilliant view of the city from Buda. Often these tours are hop on hop off tours so you can spend time at the attractions that appeal to you. Our plan was to complete a circuit and then go back to those areas that interested us. However, once we reached the Fisherman’s Bastion we stopped to take in the magnificence of the city and run wild with cameras! We did the same thing with the Citadel.

After a lunch stop we went on to the Houses of Parliament, a really amazing building. It was so huge we couldn’t get good photographs of it. It was no good trying to stand back either because you couldn’t do that on the river side and nor could you do it from any other side and still capture the whole building.

Lynne and Raquel couldn’t resist having their feet in the Danube, which isn’t blue either. We made our way along the river bank to the Chain Bridge which had been closed for a market. There was a really good mixture of food, crafts and music; if we hadn’t already eaten it would have been easy to find something here.

Budapest here we come!

Getting from our hotel to Amsterdam’s international Schipol airport was easy and inexpensive. A tram from the museum quarter using the tickets we had bought when we arrived and a train from the main station for about 3.5 euros. We needed the two hours for checking in – the queues were long and moved ever so slowly.

Our journey to Budapest included a change of flight at Heathrow; British Airways offered the cheapest flight but that meant travelling ‘backwards’ before going forwards! However, we made it to Budapest airport later in the afternoon and caught a taxi to our hotel. The 200 bus and No 3 line tram would have been cheaper but it was late in the day and a taxi was still cheaper than the price of a shuttle for two people!

We met up with Steve and Raquel at the Marriott Millenium Court Apartments (we have a huge bedroom and ensuite each on either side of a lounge and fully equipped kitchen) and had drinks and nibbles before setting off on a walking tour of Budapest at night. They had been shopping at the market earlier in the day and had made some good choices. What an amazing city!

Our bedroom at the Marriott Millenium Court Apartments.

Piet Hein

The hotel we stayed in was Piet Hein located in the Museum Quarter - a combined Christmas and Birthday present from Raquel and Steve. This was an ideal location for us to walk, use the tram and generally take in the ambience of Amsterdam.

Rembrant and Van Gogh

We included two museums in our itinerary - the Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum. The day started off with light drizzle so we thought this was an invitation to stay inside for the morning. As with all museums these days, no photographs were allowed so there are no pictures from the inside today.

Most of the works we saw were those of Dutch Masters – they certainly had style and one could not help but be impressed by their work. One piece I was waiting for was Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’; to say it filled the room would be an understatement. In a way it contrasts with the Mona Lisa which also fills the room. The latter is small while Rembrandt’s work is very large.

The ability to see so many of Van Gogh’s pieces presented in various time periods was a real treat. Whether or not one likes his art one has to appreciate his insight, talent and capacity for work. He was a prolific producer and as with so many creative and talented people we were unfortunate to have lost him at such an early age.

We left Amsterdam with a very positive view of it – perhaps one day we will come back and visit the modern part of the city.

Bus tour

The two hour bus tour we were upgraded to included a 1 hour visit to a diamond factory. Again, this is an excellent way to get an over view of the city and its major attractions. We used it to pin point those areas we wanted to revisit on foot - like the free tour of the diamond factory.

The free diamond factory tour proved to be no more than an opportunity to make a sales pitch; similar in some ways to that which we experienced in Turkey with carpets, pottery and leather. We certainly learned more about the steps involved in bringing a diamond to the shop floor and how they set the quality and the price. However, we were not buyers today! During the tour I couldn’t help thinking about the messages/issues that came through in the film, “Blood Diamond” –it’s well worth viewing.

Canal cruise

A canal cruise was another ‘must do’. We took a one hour guided/commentary cruise to give us some insights into the canals of Amsterdam and are glad we did. Viewing Amsterdam from a boat is something I would recommend.

Canal cruising is peaceful and you see the street from a spectator perspective or in some cases, from the opposite view you would have if you were walking or riding in a bus.

This picture was taken out in the harbour.

This scene is replicated all along the canals we cruised.

Anne Frank's House

A visit to Anne Frank’s House was a priority. For years we had heard of Anne Frank’s story and all that it represented and it was great to finally be in it. The displays, video shows etc were very well done and provided an excellent insight into Anne Frank and the issues she raised. At the end we felt that the world missed the best of a person who could have been a powerful influence for change. We can be thankful for her diary and the record she left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank_House

Jonkerbos Cemetry

Our main goal for today was to visit the Commonwealth War Graves cemetry at Jonkerbos in Nijmegen. Buying a train ticket from Amsterdam Central to Nijmegen was straightforward. We didn't have to change trains either.







At the Nijmegen train station we were told to take lijn 3 or 4 which we did. I had written down on a piece of paper where we wanted to go and the driver indicated that he knew where that was and that he would let us know when we got there.

Eventually he indicated that we should get off the bus; he pointed forward and then left. We nodded that we understood what that meant!

He had let us off at what seemed to be a local cemetry so we set off on foot to find our destination. En route we checked with a man at a crematorium who indicated that we should go left, walk for about a kilometre and the cemetry would be on our right, How wrong can you get it?!

Half an hour later I walked into a workshop and sort further directions. There seemed to be some debate amongst the adults about where the cemetry was. In the end the boss' son was assigned to take us by car to where he thought it was we wanted to go. He was on the button and we were very grateful for his help. We were in the right area of the city so we weren't far away!

Our reason for coming to Jonkerbos Cemetry was to visit my uncle Leonard Hickford (Mickey); my grandmother's son from her first marriage. He was a Flight Sergeant and an air gunner in the RNZ Airforce and was shot down while returning from a bombing raid on 21 July 1944. As was the case with so many war casualties, he was only 21.

You might be able to see the poppy we placed at the foot of his stone. We laid poppies on the graves of all 21 New Zealanders in the cemetry.

http://battlefieldsww2.50megs.com/jonkerbos_war_cemetery.htm


On our previous visit to a war cemetry near Albert in northern France to visit one of Lynne's uncles who died in WW I we were quite unprepared and didn't take enough poppies but we did more homework this time and took enough for all the New Zealanders. There were too many here for us to have taken a poppy for everyone but we could see that some soldiers had already had visitors.

Here I am beside Mickey's head stone.











Mickey's head stone is in the last row of this quadrant of the cemetry, 3rd one in. He is buried in the same row as others who were killed on the same day/night. Presumably they were all in the same plane because there was a pilot, navigator, and gunners all in the same row.







We also wrote in the visitors' book.











War is never pleasant but we can give thanks to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for making Mickey's last resting place a peaceful and beautifully maintained one surrounded by tall trees.

Scotland to Belgium to Holland

We managed to lighten our load this morning by posting home a few non essential items. There was a definite feeling of summer about Brusells when we arrived. We found out where to buy tickets for the Ryan Air bus to the railway station in Brusells. We didn't have to worry about which station to get off at since it only stopped at one!

We managed to buy a through ticket to Amsterdam Central but nearly missed that connection because we took so long in the money changing queue! We thought we had plenty of time - my how it can fly though! On the journey we took lots of photographs of the countryside but could only name them "Countryside between Brusells and Amsterdam!" Your guess is as good as mine for the photograph shown here.

It was after 8 pm when we arrived at Amsterdam Central so we took a taxi to our hotel -Piet Hein. After a long day doing very little it's amazing how tired one gets! We have a very comfortable room overlooking a quiet street with Vondel Park beyond that.

The Mull of Kintyre

We had a great day today with Steve showing us around the south coast of the Mull of Kintyre, an area Paul McCartney used for his famous song of the same name. The map was uploaded from the official tourism site for Kintyre: http://www.kintyre.org/mullofkintyre/index.php - it shows the area below Campbeltown.






The light house at the Mull of Kintyre. The light house is as far west as one can go. official tourism site for Kintyre also has a great photograph of the Mull of Kintyre light house from the sea - something we didn't have time to do.






It is hard to describe in a few words the beauty of this part of the region with its fields of many shades of green, narrow roads, numerous stone fences or dry wall dykes, magnificent trees and of course the coastline itself.


Steve and Raquel beside an information board at the Mull of Kintyre.











Note the narrow road but beautiful trees, fields beyond and stone wall.










These stone gate posts are huge!











South End coast with Islands beyond.











Paul in St Columba's foot steps!











A burn on the way to the Mull of Kintyre.











Caravans on the southern coast of the Mull of Kintyre.












Some of the colourful inhabitants of the Southend country.