Posts for October, 2024

We arrived at Budapests Kerepesi station a bit past at 9:00 and were delighted to discover that our hotel was literally a 5 minute walk across the road. The plan was to have breakfast at the hotel, leave our luggage there and start the days tour activities. However by the time breakfast was over Nina's head was spinning and we were unable to join the group but rather pleaded with the hotel staff for a room so she could sleep until her "turn" had passed.

Today was a bit of a nostalgic day as Nina set off before 9:00 this morning to visit Vajdahunyad Castle and Heroes Square. These were places we visited and remarked on when we previously visited Budapest. Along the way she found a revamped City Park and the Ethnography Museum.

Today was a long day on the train travelling from Budapest to Vienna. The high point of the day however was that we ended up in Vienna a city we have not visited before.

Today was all about Schönbrunn Palace, a tour of this famous building and its grounds was included as part of the trip so first thing this morning we were all on the metro heading to the palace which is south west of the city center. The day was wet, the crowd was large and hence the tour was crowded. But still it was interesting to see how the wealthy of a bygone era lived.

Before I get to todays train ride, I should note that the only photos for todays entry are from Nina's early morning walk in Vienna. She found Belvedere Palace near the river, which had a menagerie (like a Zoo) established in 1720 second only to the menagerie of Louis XIV.

As you can see from the first set of photos Nina was out exploring Frankfurt again early this morning and got these photos before our train departed for Paris. The train ride was fast, up to 200km/h, and relatively comfortable. But one does not get much of a view of the scenery at that speed.

Today got off to an interesting start as the breakfast room of our hotel was on floor -1 which as you can see from the first couple of photos below was probably the cellar of the building in previous times.

When planning this trip we anticipated, correctly as it turns out, that we would need a day in London to recover and organize before the next stage in the journey. We booked a room at the Strand Palace Hotel based on its central location on the Strand and because it was near a metro station that connected to St Pancras station (where we arrived from Paris). The plan was, in addition to recovery, to re-acquaint ourselves with some of London's sights.

After our short stay in London we booked to visit our eldest son Brendon who is currently living in the German city of Freiburg Im Breisgau. We decided to fly from London as we had anticipated being a little tired of trains by this point in the trip.

We arrived in Dubai last night around 22:00 and boy was it an eye opening experience. The first hint of the size and audacity of this place was the 20 minute bus ride from the steps of our plane to the terminal, followed by the size of the airport terminal which could only be described as cavernous and palacial. During the drive to our hotel there was frankly too much to take in, high rise buildings everywhere and a diversity of shapes, and capping them all was the Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest structure at 830 meters.

Today we had an all-day tour of the modern city. At the start of the day we did not really understand what that would entail. But by the end of the day we would have been to the 125th floor of the worlds tallest building, discovered the best acquarium we have ever experienced, had lunch in a boat on the 54th floor, and been closeup and personal with Gentoo and King penguins.

Today was a slightly more relaxed day as we had nothing organized until the afternoon, when we were scheduled to get driven to a desert conservation area to experience some soft four wheel driving and dinner. Before that we relaxed and visited Dubai Mall again, this time for lunch.

Today we moved locations. From our hotel in Dubai we travelled 3.5 hours by car south past Abu Dhabi and inland to a desert resort called QSAR AL SARAB. Before departing Nina went for one of her early morning walks and from this contributed a single photo to todays collection. The drive itself certainly underscored the UAE's investment in infrastructure, the roads are first class and high speed (140km/h speed limit), massive long distance electrical wires, and a number of power stations and water desalinations plants to be seen.

When we went out this morning we found this (first photo) greeting on the front door step. Very playful of someone. The first set of photos are to remind us of the tone of the resort.

Another day of moving locations. This time a 2 hour car ride from the desert resort to Traders Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The hotel is located on a protected water way called Khor Al Maqtaa and provides a small white sandy beach onto this water way.

Todays guide was a Swedish lady named Julia who is living in the UAE with her Swedish husband and 2 children. We would eventually find out quite a lot about why the family moved here and with some some interesting observations about life in Sweden vs life in UAE. But the main part of the day was taken up seeing some of the spectacular sights in this city driven by Julia's enthusiasm and Nina's curiosity.

Our flight home was scheduled for 21:30 so we had almost an entire day to either waste or get in some last minute sightseeing, even taking into account that it would be a 2 hour drive to the Dubai airport from our hotel. As you might have expected Nina decided on the sightseeing and I decided to laze around in the hotel.