celebration

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Pena Palace and Cabo De Roca in Portugal

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The previous post in this series is here..

After Sintra, we drove to the Pena Palace. This was a humongous palace. There was a garden on the way to the castle and we got to walk a bit through it with our guide.

The guy who built the palace for his wife did not get to enjoy it with his wife. A staggering amount of money went into building this in three different styles and connecting them. The artwork, the architecture (columns, staircases, ceilings, arches) are all very distinct and different in these three parts. This is a must see for any architecture fans and architecture students.. just fantastic!

This is one of my favorite photos from the entire trip. Had asked her to go and peek from that turret structure.. she came out with such a beautiful smile.. while this is all I got on camera, the rest is in my head.

Another favorite.. this was the closest to a “bench photo” for this trip!

These pictures and videos don’t do enough justice to this palace. If you are visiting Lisbon, do NOT miss a visit to this palace.

We met a couple from New York and another from New Zealand and had great conversations with them throughout this day trip. We also took photos for the other group. After the walk through the castle, we sat at the Palace souvenir shop and got some sweet popcorn. Then off we went back to the bus for a visit to Cabo de Roca.

This is the western most point in continental Europe. It was extremely windy and we spent a good hour here walking to the monument and back.

A landscape gallery

and a portrait gallery

a video highlight reel of this leg of the trip

Then it was time to head to the last stop in the tour.. Cascais.. that in another post!

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Vienna - a sampler visit

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The previous post in this series is here…

We left Budapest by train and reached Vienna later that evening after an almost 3 hour journey. We watched a glorious sunset on the way. The first order of business after reaching Vienna was to move our return to a later train. There was no way we were going to do every stop on the bus tour in Vienna and be back to pick up luggage at hotel and come back for a 5PM train the next day to leave Vienna. So we found the ticket place and moved to a 7PM train. We also paid extra to get a first class ticket. We were celebrating our 25th anniversary and after a very short discussion we both agreed that the extra money for losing the earlier ticket and getting new tickets was worth it. We were tired and running around all day. So why not get the extra leg room!

Once that was taken care of, we walked out of the massive train station wondering how long the walk was going to be to the hotel and would we find anything to eat. Just as I was about to pray to Lord Ganesha to give us some food, lo and behold, he was staring at me in the face in what appeared to be a psychedelic dream!

We got some naan, daal and rice to go and walked to our hotel which was 4 blocks away. The roads we walked on were deserted but the hotel MOOONS (with 3 O’s) was very nice. The staff were courteous and helpful. We told them we are going to crash, wake up, check out and leave luggage there and will pick it up later that evening and be off. It was going to be a day in Vienna. The receptionist said “I am not sure you can see what Vienna has to offer in a day!”. We told her “we will at least see all the main spots from the outside and get a feel for the city. If and when we come back, it will be great!”

The room was nice and the breakfast spread was great. We walked a half mile to get an Uber to the first stop of what would be an all day hop on hop off bus tour of Vienna.

We covered every place there was in this bus tour. There was no time to go into the museums. We did get tickets and go into the main palace and we walked with a self guided tour and finished it in under an hour.

There is a Public service warning to tired guys like me. There is two routes on the bus tour map. A Blue Bus tour and a Red bus tour. Here is the kicker. ALL THE BUSES ARE PAINTED RED OUTSIDE. IT ONLY SAYS BLUE OR RED LINE IN A SMALL INSET IN THE FRONT OF THE BUS!!!”. At one point we got off at a stop and when we came back I boarded a red bus (they are all red, duh, except I didn’t know it) and we were on the blue route. This cost us 30 precious minutes on a busy day. The buses also don’t operate like clockwork. There are more red than blue line buses and we waited for 45 minutes at one stop. We complained to the representative at the end, not that it made a difference. We took Ubers at two spots to go from one stop to another just to save time. Hindsight being 20/20, maybe we could have Uber’ed more.

There were lot of pictures from Vienna. It has taken me ages to process and select them.

This is what “happiness” looks like!

here are two galleries in portrait and landscape format.

A few Panos..

In the middle of the tour we realized that one of the stops was the train station! so some good happened out of that bus mixup. We changed our plan. There was an Indian restaurant a 10 minute walk from one of the stops. We would finish seeing everything important, go there for a late lunch (we found they were open.. again Lord Ganesha came to feed us), then get back on the bus and finish the rest of the stops and on the last bus get out at the train station. We rush to the hotel to pick up our suitcases and run back to catch our train!

My wife is brilliant. When she said it out loud, I thought she was crazy but I love it when she goes nuts like this. A million things can go wrong on such a tight plan, but surprisingly nothing did. We did exactly as we planned in-spite of losing 45 minutes at the last stop before lunch. There was some running from the Hotel back to the train station with the carry on baggage, but we had a good 15 minutes to spare before the train showed up!

Then we were off to the next stop.. we got treated to yet another amazing sunset. The ticket upgrade was totally worth it. They served us hot cocoa every hour ! We left Vienna with a smile on our faces!

A video highlight reel of the day in Vienna….

Did everything we wanted to in a day!

One of our biggest takeaways from visiting Vienna was the change a single woman leader brought, not just to this country but to Europe at large by getting girls and women qualified and into the workforce and giving them equality. Maria Theresa did wonders for the world! We have a lot to learn from history!

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Budapest by Bajaj Auto - aka Tuk-Tuk tour

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The previous post in this series is here..

The day in Budapest was going to be spent in two parts. The morning was a 4 hour Viator Tour of the city’s highlights in a Tuk Tuk (It was actually a Bajaj Auto that we use in India!). Our guide was a very nice person who was a local and spoke good English. He had the whole thing planned nicely. He asked us what we wanted to see in the four hours and we told him to hit most of the highlights and if time permitted, show some quaint stuff. He was to drop us off at a lunch place.

We also told him that our train to Vienna was at 6:30 PM and we had already checked out of the Astoria and left the luggage in the cloak room. He promised us information while dropping us off at the end of the tour!

Right after we left the hotel we got to see how the whole city had been flooded and rebuilt. While he was explaining this our guide got to understand us a little better. He knew that if he wanted to make us happy, San would need me to take great pics of her throughout the tour!

We passed the Central Market building to see the Szent Gellert spas. This place was just amazing! It is included in the local healthcare plan! We did not have time to do any medicinal bath here. Someday if we spend more time in Budapest, will definitely have to try this.

The ceilings and tilework here is magnificent! The spa staff and our guide were impressed with my back bending capability while holding an iPhone steady in hand !

This was followed by a trip to the Citadel area. They are building a new monument here and making this area a new tourist attaction. We went past the construction area to get some views of the Danube and the buildings on either side from the top. We were in an expensive area of Budapest on the hillside and we got to have some ice-cream and drinks at a fancy bar/coffee shop which is a hangout of the rich and famous there.

Then we went to the Garden of Philosophers which was nice and quiet and there were more views! This was my favorite view of the day!

Then we went behind Matthias church and quickly took some photos with the tuk tuk.

This was followed by a long ride to go around to the entrance to the church area. This whole area is beautiful. We got a history lesson and took some photos.

Then we went back down to the banks of the Danube and caught views of the Parliament building, went across a few famous bridges, the Opera house and Heroe’s Square. It was unfortunate that there was some work going on there and a lot of scaffolding. I have visited Budapest in 1996 as a grad student while enroute to Eger in Hungary to present at a conference! This was San’s first time. Hindsight being 20/20 should not have hyped this square to her before the trip!

We drove on Andrassy road for some time taking in the way this road goes for miles with trees and beautiful lamps on either side with famous government buildings lining it.

Our guide dropped us off at the Tratoria Toscana as we wanted some Vegetarian Italian food to play it safe. We said our byes and he told us that the Central market building we had visited earlier was just a 10-15 minute walk from the restaurant.

We ate a heavy and nice lunch and walked to the Central market to shop for souvenirs. This place is a maze..so many shops to check out and so many good eats as well.. We were already full from the lunch and had to just pass all of them by…

Our plan was to go have an afternoon Chai at. local Indian place. We walked a good 30 minutes to this place only to find out that they had a 100+ people party coming from India and were not accepting any guests. Wish we had known. . . However, the owner said they have a smaller place which was another 30 minute walk that would possibly serve us tea. So we walked through the city to find Delhi 6. We were both tired after all that walking and following maps through small streets. The chai made up for it.

Then we made the long walk back to our hotel. They let us use the restroom in the lobby area and we just sat there for another 30 minutes to catch our breath and rest before calling an Uber to take us to the train station. We had practically walked to the train station and back earlier!

The trains in Europe are awesome! Very punctual, clean and well behaved passengers! There is a lounge in the Budapest train station if you have a first class ticket. So we went and spent an hour plus there. The staff were very courteous and kept bringing us croissants and juice and hot cocoa! They beat US airports hands down!

A video highlight of our day in Budapest…

and just like that we were off to Vienna..

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