Tag: pics

Salzburg

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Salzburg.  Wow, what a breath of fresh air after 2 days of stuffy train rides. The train ride through the Alps helped set the scene and mood of what was to come. So I suppose spending an unexpected night in Milano was a blessing in disguise, because the Alps train ride was definitely a highlight and had we taken the night train, we would have missed the Alps during the day. The steep mountains just surge out of the ground and go straight up. There are no foothills like Utah, it’s just gorgeous, bright green hilly valleys and then rocky mountain. It was so stunning, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. At times, I felt like I was in a train model with all of the bridges and charming villages, all centered around an old church steeple. We had a stop in Innsbruck, and it was a scene from the Sound of Music; was green as Hawaii, more exaggerated mountains than Utah, and the small European city. It help our sour mood too to see something worth seeing. This is one of those places where pictures would never do justice.

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Tirrenia

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Tirrenia is a small, busy, beautiful beach town near Pisa. There was no direct train to the town, so we took a train to Livorno, just a bit south of the beach. This train appeared to drop us off in the middle of podunk nowhere!  I was seriously half expecting to see sage brush blow by in the wind. We had to then find a way from the train to the hotel. This part of every city we visited usually turned out to be the most adventurous, since there just wasn’t enough time pre-trip to plan every detail of transportation.

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Rome

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Rome, Rome, where to begin with Rome.  This was one place we definitely wanted to get to while we were in Europe. It had the quintessential European big city vibe, but with a major difference; artifacts and ruins throughout, actually embedded within, the city. We’re talking about huge, show-stopping sights: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the largest monument I’ve ever seen, Piazza Navona, Arch of Constastine, and more. I can only imagine how much a real history buff would enjoy that place. The presence of the Roman Empire is just staggering and impossible to deny. While we were in Prague, I remember reading that it had been the capital of the Roman Empire in the 14th century. Prague is so far away and to think that the empire’s reach extended to the Czech Republic really says something. And then seeing the Colosseum in true form, it really puts it all into perspective.

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italy trip overview

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so I’m going to break up this trip into a few posts because the trip spanned several cities (in a couple countries), and if we tried to cram all the pics and info into one post, it would be huge. so this post is a basic overview of the trip as a whole, with the individual city posts linked in this one.

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Budapest

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Last weekend we went to Budapest, Hungary. It’s a 2.5 hour train ride so we decided to stay overnight. We left early Saturday morning (nothing says Trip like the alarm NOT going off at 4am when you have to leave by 5) on the 6am train. I was a little anxious about Skye and the train ride, but she did great on the way down. On the way home, though, she was a lot more restless and we had our stuff piled all over our cabin trying to keep her happy and entertained. Seriously, we had a cabin to ourselves, until the last 30 seconds a single guy comes in with a reservation (since it was a holiday weekend).  Poor bloke.

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Thanks, from Skye

So my family sent some awesome belated gifts for Skye’s birthday. These are all of the pics we could get of her doing a fashion show of her cute new clothes before she got ornery (or they were blurry because she doesn’t hold still even for a second).  Thanks again, the dog onesies were awesome (they sent onesies with Sam, Moxi, Kona, Lucy and Cooper on each).  Plus the way cute jacket and hat, it was all a really pleasant surprise. Thanks again!  We’ll try to get more pics of her in the rest soon.

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More Bratislava pics

We were going to go to Budapest, Hungary this weekend and visit one of their famous mineral baths/swimming areas. But the forecast said it was going to rain, so we decided not to go. As you can see from the pics, it was sunny and 70, just like it’s been for the last several weeks. So we went strolling around Bratislava instead.

This is Bratislava Castle.  Not the most spectacular castle, especially under construction, but it’s right down the street from our house, so we went. It’s very old (~3500BC, prolly why it’s not very pleasing to the eye), whomever has conquered Europe, held this castle because of the strategic location, the middle of Europe. You can see to Austria, maybe Hungary and the Danube from the vantage point on top of the hill. After our castle visit, we went to historic old town and had some lunch followed by the park.

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a good day

So we had made some tentative plans to go to Vienna sometime this weekend or next, and we woke up on Saturday, and just decided to go. The weather was mostly nice, and we still had time to catch the train. So we got all our stuff ready and left. After a few miscommunications by the bus schedule and some frantic bus catching, we finally made it to the train station with about 5 minutes to spare. We boarded the train and were off for another country.

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