My European holiday

It was getting progressively hotter this summer and Andrew was looking at having to take a very quick trip to Texas that I didn't feel I was up to so I went to stay with our friends, Angie and Rob, in Austria. They had a lovely B&B in Millstatt and I became part of the family for about five weeks. Andrew did his trip and then went to Kuwait for ten days which was during Ramadan and I had no desire to be there then.

So I flew to Salzburg and took the train down to Spittal and Robbie came to collect me. My routine was very relaxed since the family was busy with a full house I had to spend my first five days in a neighbor's house which was nice too but I was happy to move into Angie's place to be closer. I settled into a nice comfy room with an amazing view over the lake with the mountains behind it. Every morning I would open my curtains and see something different. They had a house full with a big Italian family that didn't speak english and a few other couples. I stayed on a half board basis so Robbie feed me well as expected. After breakfast I usually stitched until the early afternoon and either played Rummikub with Angie's Dad, Dany, who we knew from Belgium or read my book and took a nap. In the evening I sat in a table in the corner and enjoyed a nice glass of wine and people watching. Angie and Rob had built up the restaurant business well and some evenings had to turn people away. What I didn't know before I arrived was that they had sold the house and were vacating at the end of September. So when they weren't working on the business they were packing up their apartment.

I have to apologize at this point because I have three links in here that for some reason don't seem to want to work right. So please highlight the link and drop it in your search box to see the pictures. :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/dani65652003/BeautifulAustriaAndTheKaiserfest#

After ten days I flew to London and met Andrew there for a week where we stayed in Harpenden as usual and then on the weekend we went to Whitney-on-Wye in Wales. The weather was great and unusually sunny. We stayed in a B&B called the Rhydspence Inn that was built in 1380 and we had stayed there for our first anniversary which was a special place for us. Andrew's eldest brother, Miller, used work there many years ago so there is a bit of nostalgia in it for Andrew.



After that I flew back to Austria and stayed for ten days on my own while Angie and family were on vacation in Italy. I had the whole huge B&B to myself and I walked up to the hotel at the top of the road for my meals.

Andrew flew into Budapest on the 11th of September and drove to Austria where we spent a night with Angie and family before leaving on our vacation of three weeks. Many of you know that we had planned on using this trip to look at houses in Hungary. What I didn't know was that Andrew had been looking at the property websites for France again and found out that the prices were coming down there and suggested that we should reconsider that before looking other places.

When we left Angie's place we turned right and headed through Italy. Only stayed one night in Torino and then up into France. I'm never going to say "no" to a trip to France! We went up to the Cruese region which is around Limoges. What a beautiful area and very much to our liking. We spent a day with a realtor and found two houses that we like close to our price range. After four days we decided we should head to Hungary and have a look since that was our original objective. We went through Switzerland and Austria and spent the night in Fulpmes up around Innsbruck. The next day we drove to Sopron in the northwest of Hungary and stayed for three days in a hotel to look around and rest up as at this point our bums were pretty much numb! We were not at all impressed with this part of the country and decided we should go to the Lake Balaton region to have a look around before we totally dismissed Hungary all together. The drive down improved as we got further south and once in the Balaton region it was really pretty. The houses around the lake area were very modern and clean. We drove to the Zala region just south of Balaton to look for houses. When we inquired about the properties around the lake we were told that you could purchase them but were only allowed to live six months out of the year in your house. The houses in the Zala region ranged from squallor to some relatively nice properties. But Andrew never felt comfortable or safe while we were there. Of course, the gypsies didn't help either. We spent four days looking around and decided it needed to be a little less eastern block for us before we could consider buying there. So, we got back in our shoebox of a rental car and headed back to Fulpmes and spent the next 11 days there just relaxing and enjoying good food and wine and the beautiful view. Not at all what we expected out of our holiday and the first time that we haven't went with what we planned so we were both sort of lost but it worked out just fine anyway. Most of our time was spent relaxing and playing board games in the afternoon or taking walks through the beautiful countryside. We even took a sack lunch one day and drove up into the mountains to a glacier and then stopped at the roadside and had a picnic. For those on the previous trip this place was even prettier than our picnic place! Of course Andrew was always on guard for the flying bugs and anything that might jump out of the trees. Other than that we spent one day in Innsbruck. We took the little train that bumped and grinded from Fulpmes to Innsbruck and took an hour for the ten mile trip. But the view through the mountains was amazing. We walked around the old part of Innsbruck and then went to the Swarovski factory. It was not at all what we expected. Very modern and futuristic with the designs incorporating well known artists and musician with the crystals. One of our last days Andrew offered to take me to Italy for lunch as the border was only about 30 minutes away. We drove south into Italy about mid-morning and enjoyed the view so much that we didn't really pay attention to the time. We stopped around 1:15 in a town called Termeno and tried to find a place to eat. It appeared there was only one restaurant open and it was full. So we walked through the narrow, hilly streets. The views were breathtaking and we never did get lunch but enjoyed our afternoon all the same.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dani65652003/InnsbruckAndTheSwarovskiFactory#

The last two days we drove to Budapest where we would be flying out. We stayed in on the Pest side and really enjoyed it. I told Andrew it reminded me a little of San Francisco because it was a good walking city. It had every kind of restaurant you could imagine. Of course we ate mostly hungarian food. Meat and potatoes and Andrew was a happy boy. The portions were huge and we felt a bit wasteful we had to send it back. They had an opera and theater district and it was a place that we would actually both go back to for a vacation.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dani65652003/MoreAustriaAndHungary#

Now we are trying to figure out what to do with the last 11 days of vacation we need to take before the end of the year.