Blue skies and red roofs

Having survived the Hungarian-Croatian border crossing (oh wait, all we did is wave our passports at some bored looking guards while the train sat in the middle of nowhere), we spent three lovely days lazing around Mljet. Our second day, we took a jaunt to a twelfth century monastery in the middle of a tidal lake on the island. The monastery rents out rooms, where my mother stayed over forty years ago. After weeks of traveling with three of her children all over eastern Europe in 1966 in search of relatives that had survived the war, my grandmother decided it was high time for a break and brought the family there for a week of swimming and sitting in the sun. So a touch of family history mixed into our lazy afternoon on the little island.

Then we headed to Dubrovnik, only to find out that no one was home at Villa Adriatica, where we had rented a room. Oops. A young guy finally showed up and brought us up to our room, where he proceded to tick off at least thirty rules related to opening doors, keys, use of the balcony, furniture, coffee making, etc, etc, etc. There were severe penalties, too, for rule breakers, including expulsion from the house, which would have been fine with us, except that the rule ridden room was accompanied by the best balcony in Dubrovnik. The glowing city walls stretched out in front of us to one side, complemented perfectly by the deep aquamarine of the sea. So, with a portrait of a very Victorian lady on one side of the bed and the Virgin Mary on the other, we endured the rules the best we could.

Dubrovnik itself managed to exert its charms, even when stuffed to the brim with wealthy European tourists. You can't help but find the place phenomenal.

Gabor and Dora

After Budapest, we boarded a very rickety train to head off into the Hungarian countryside. The train lurched along, making several prolonged and unannounced stops, but finally we landed in Balatonfured, a small town along Lake Balaton. There, we were scheduled to stay at what the owner, Gabor, claimed was a ˝castle-mansion house.˝ Except that when we arrived, no one was there but the house cat. Finally, Gabor's wife came to rescue us and welcomed us into the beautifully restored little ˝castle-mansion house.˝

We spent a lovely few days in Balatonfured, where once again I tried to buy excessive amounts of cheap knick knacks and Natty tried to distract me with ice cream. On our second night, Gabor, all smiles and an hour behind schedule, brought us to his friend's wine cellar. We weren't expecting much, but what we got was a little slice of paradise. Dora is a charming young wine maker who has taken over the family business. Their cellar overlooks the lake, the vineyards and the hills, and we got a sunset and a moonrise out of it too. The wines were crisp and paired to the delicious food and cost a whopping two dollars a glass. We spent four hours there, wondering how we could be quite so lucky, until Dora packed our tipsy selves into her van and drove us home.

Hungary

Budapest was marked by pouring rain, delicious fried street food, and the Danube River. We had a little apartment and great recommendations from Marton, a twenty-something entrepreneur who rents the place and will no doubt be very wealthy sometime soon. The apartment was on the Pest side, a block from the river, which meant that I could run to my heart's content by the Danube. Which meant that on our first morning, I found myself battling driving rain, thunderstorms and very odd looks when I showed up at the local market looking like a drowned rat, ready to buy bread for breakfast.

The city had an Eastern European grittiness to it, with some very new wealth sprinkled on top. We loved both aspects of the city and spent our days wandering the streets. The highlight? Visiting the Turkish baths at 1 am. The baths are underground in this cavernous room which looks like it hasn't changed much in the last six centuries. We emerged more relaxed than we've been in months.

We also loved the street fair on one of the bridges that connects Buda and Pest. I tried to buy every cheap touristy knick-knack, but Natty won out, and we bought giant fried potato pancakes instead. Good choice, since he probably would have been left hauling the cheap knick-knacks all over Europe.

We ended our stay in Budapest with a chat with a local couple at a bar outside our apartment. Turns out, we were staying in the Jewish corner and the woman's grandmother had hid out during the war on that same street. She explained the shoe memorial by the river, a tribute to the Jews murdered during the Holocaust. They bought us a round of Unicum, a liquor too potent for it's own good, and wished us the best on our travels.

Odysseus

Finding modern technology has proven a little more difficult as we have ventured into Eastern Europe. So no pictures for now.

We are on the island of Mljet, off the very southern tip of Croatia, not far from Dubrovnik. The water is a stunning azure and there is not a cloud in the sky. Which is good, as it took us nearly 36 hours of travel to get here. Suffice it to say that Croatian trains have not been updated since the middle of the Cold War. This morning, we rented kayaks, found a deserted corner of an island, swam and lay in the sun. So we're well recovered from the trip. We'll be here a few days before heading over on the ferry to Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik seems to host lots of beautiful, wealthy looking people, so I suspect we'll be able to add pictures of Hungary and Croatia there.

A Few More Vienna Pictures

Vienna at night was magical. Here are a few more pictures of some of our more decadent moments.

Khungasse 2

In Vienna, we hunted down the place where my grandmother lived. The neighborhood looked as though maybe it hadn't changed all that much. We then found one of the only synagogues that survived Kristalnacht, an inconspicuous place with heavy security. I felt haunted by the past for much of our visit.

There was much to do in Vienna, almost too much. We visited the Schonbrunn palace, built by an empress, where I managed to volunteer myself for a role in a apple strudel making demonstration. They dressed me up in an apron and baker's hat and now Natty fears that he may come home from class next year to find strudel dough strewn around our little apartment. We also visited the Kunsthistoriches, an art museum, rode a 1950s era ferris wheel, and spent much too much money on chocolates from Demel, the former chocolatier of the the Hapsburg empire.

Then it was off to Budapest!

Zell Am See and Alms

From Salzburg, we headed to Zell Am See, a lovely little moutain town on a lake. We stayed at a darling guesthouse with the world's most comfortable beds. On our one full day there, we hiked up one of the peaks looming over the town. Our goal? Alms, family-run cafes scattered through the mountains serving homemade cheese, sausage, and pastries. We passed four. All closed. Natty is still nursing a broken heart, but there is enough sausage in his future to help him get over it. The hike was gorgeous though and we managed to avoid the rain, despite being wrapped in fog for most of the way. After a nap at the hotel, we woke up to a rainbow outside our balcony. Serendipity!

Brezeln und bier

Four days into our trip and we have decided that aside from weddings, honeymoons are the best things ever. We started in Munich, where Sarah learned that vegetarian dining means giant pretzels and beer for every meal and Natty ate as much sausage as he could get his hands on. We are now in Salzburg, Austria, setting for the Sound of Music. It didn't take long for Sarah to start singing songs from the movie and Natty to start wondering why he let her put that ring on his finger.

Yesterday, we took a cable car up into the mountains and hiked around for awhile. There were gorgeous wildflowers scattering the fields and spectacular views. We saw a concert last night in a palace built by a prince for his lover and now we are getting ready to head to a small town in the mountains.