On To Vienna

With a trip as quick as the one we took we just got a full day and a half in most cities.  Vienna was not an exception.  I really liked Vienna, but I think I want to go see the western Austria towns some day.  Nevertheless, what history!  Vienna or Wien as it is called was a mystery that soon opened up and we were able to get around quite nicely.  Once again the Hop On Hop Off bus was indispensable in getting  places and they had 3 routes you could jump on and off of whenever it was needed.

This is the Belvedere Palace.  It has huge grounds and is a beautiful building.  It used to be in the country, but now it is in the city.  It didn't move, the city did.

Walking around Vienna, about every 50 feet or so it seemed you would come upon one of these things.  It is for the cigarette butts and trash.  I sensed that there were more smokers in Austria than we experience in the United States.  This was really apparent when we had lunch the first afternoon in Vienna at the Gasthaus Montroy.  Joyce doesn't handle smoke too well and I am not really fond of it either, but a voracious chain smoker set down roots about 10 feet from us and put away about 7 smokes in 25 minutes.  To me that would be hard to do.

 Here we are on the Karntner Strasse, which is a large shopping and commercial area.  We sat down at an outdoor restaurant, the Venezia, and Joyce said her lasagna was the best she had ever eaten.

 Karntner Strasse at noon.  It was cool, so everyone had jackets.

This is the Mozart House, at least Wolfgang lived up in the room on the right for a few years.  It was there that he composed Figaro.  He moved around a lot I assume because he didn't pay his rent very well.

 Schonbrunn Palace is huge and amazing.  This was just a quaint little country Schloss for the Royal Family of Austria.  I imagine they had a lot of hired help to maintain it.

Joyce took this photo with me on her iPhone in the panoramic mode.  I think it turned out pretty well.

St Stephens Cathedral right in the center of town.  It is a large, fantastically imposing edifice.  The architecture and the craftsmanship of this large European churches is something I never tire of seeing.

Swarovski's is located on the Kartner Strasse.  They have some pretty incredible displays of their quartz.  This figure of a woman swinging in a feathered type chair is all glass.  The picture cannot do it justice.

And these shoes in Swarovski's will not get you back to Kansas.

The morning we were going to really have time to explore Vienna, we had to walk from our hotel to the Schwedenplatz to catch the Hop On bus.  As we walked we passed a little shop with these beautiful painted wooden signs in the front window.  Late in the afternoon as we were returning to our hotel we passed it again, but it appeared it was closed.  I tried the door.  They were open.  This big wooden disc was painted by the owner of the store and it is in the Guinness Book of World Records according to him as the largest painting of its type in the world.

This young man  and his mother are running the shop.  There are all kinds of templates and paints in there and they insisted we look in on their little working area where all the signs are produced.

All in all the Viennese people were kind and very thoughtful in helping us enjoy their old, venerated city.  We had a great time there.  And the Apple Strudel!  There is a shop chain called Aida and they serve pastries, gelato and the like.  I had to have their Apple Strudel each night.  It was huge, light crust and I am sure low cal.

Hungary

Three days into our European adventure we took off from Zagreb, Croatia and headed to Budapest, Hungary.  It was a lot of fun driving the 5 speed diesel Citroen automobile we rented.  I hate to admit it for fear some will judge me harshly, but on those European autobahns one doesn't go under 90 mph very often.  It was a blast.  The first adventure was crossing the border from Croatia to Hungary.  The typical passport check happened, but then I had to pull over 100 yards down the road, cross on foot four lanes of traffic (Not very heavy at the time) and go into a white shack and purchase a vignette to allow me to drive on the autobahn road for the two days were were going to be in Hungary.  It was rustic.

Here is a nice view of the church up on the Castle District Hill on the Buda side of the river.  I really enjoyed the colors that are in the roofs of the churches and houses in this part of the world.  The orange colors are deep and when you see a whole village with the orange roofs it is an awesome sight.  The Buda side is totally different than the Pest side.  It is hilly while the Pest side is flat.

Here we are at the Citadel on the Buda side of the river.  The picture looks great with Joycie in it.

Here is another view of the Pest side from the Citadel.

We have a neighbor who recently started serving a mission for our Church in Budapest.  We hunted down the offices of the mission, thanks to the Garmin, but it was still quite a hunt.  We actually made a lucky turn and found it.  We wanted to leave him a note and the folks working in the office promised they would get it to him.

Here is the Opera House on Andrassy Utca right around the corner from our hotel the K+K Opera House Hotel.

Joyce working the souvenir vendors at the Citadel.

I really like this shot of the St. Stephens Basilica down the street from our hotel.  It is fascinating to negotiate the narrow streets, many times with cars parked on both sides, having only a few inches on either side of the car to maneuver.  I didn't drive fast down these roads.

Here is an interior shot of Joyce as we rode on the Hop On Hop Off Bus.  When time is limited it is the only way to go to get around and see a lot of stuff.  In Budapest they had just one route, but it covered a lot of ground on both sides of the river.  The Danube is not Blue, at least not there.

Driving to Vienna, leaving Budapest we found these incredibly large fields of sunflowers.  The yellow petals were gone so I imagine they are going to harvest the seeds.  I am accustomed to only seeing an occasional sunflower around here, so these large fields were something new.

In Slovenia

The second part of our European adventure took us to Slovenia.  Richard and Carrie wanted to take us to a place called Lake Bled.  It was gorgeous.  There was a stop before that at a castle called Predjama. Here are a view shots of our time in Slovenia.

This is a view out of the window of our room at this quaint, clean Bed and Breakfast near Lake Bled.  Richard and Carrie have stayed here a few times.

 Here are Richard, Joyce and Carrie visiting with Katja, the owner of the Inn.  They have a wonderful friendship with her.  Katja's English is strong and we had a great visit with her.  She is a tremendously hard worker and has developed a nice business.

 Dinner.  It was great.

 The Slovenian countryside is beautiful.  There are many fields that are being farmed.  It is really green and looks neat and tidy.

 This is the castle Predjama.  It is built into the rock of a huge, sheer cliff.  It is amazing to look at.  When you look at the walls they are incredibly straight and vertical.  It seems like it is impregnable but there are escape tunnels that go through the mountain.  I think this was built in 1593.

 Two blonds by a lake.  This is Lake Bled.  It is an idyllic lake with a castle in the middle of it.  It is beautiful and we are there just as the sun is starting to set behind the surrounding mountains.  It is a breathtaking view.

 A different view of the castle on Lake Bled.  It is a convent now.

 In front of our Inn, Torok Pension.  Richard, Carrie, Joyce and me.  A rather quaint group if I say so myself.  What a great time we had spending a day in Slovenia.

Croatia

Joyce and I spent a week in Eastern Europe and Austria.  We have dear friends, Richard and Carrie Westergard, in Zagreb, Croatia serving a mission for the LDS Church.  The following pictures are an indication of some of the experiences we had.  I have known Richard almost my entire life.  We were next door neighbors as little boys in Woods Cross, Utah.  We moved away from there in 1963, but returned in 1967 to Centerville, Utah.  Richard and I were teammates in high school, we played football together and were roommates in jr. college, we were at Utah State together and ended up in the same dental school together.  So it is has been about a 55 year friendship.  It was great to see them and they were fantastic guides and hosts in Croatia.  Here you can see Richard and me in front of the Roman Coliseum in Pula, Croatia.

 Her are Carrie Westergard and Joyce in the back seat.  (So they could chat with one another easier)  The boys stayed in the front seat for navigational purposes.

 Joyce and Carrie are doing their thing here in Rovinj.  Rovinj is a beautiful sea side town on the Adriatic across from Venice.  My friend Richard and I soon learned that it is quite an education watching these two go at it in the stores in the area.

 Here we had to stop to check out a missionary.  He had a tender tooth and wondered if he was going to have problems.  Richard is a dentist and kind of handles these types of questions.

 Here is a morning shot from our room on the bay near Rijeka, Croatia.  This sea side town is Opatija.  It was beautiful.

 This is a shot from the Citadel down on the little seaside village of Piran.

 Rovinj was one of our favorite places and here are Richard and Carrie spicing up the pictures.

 Still gracing the streets of Rovinj.

 Beautiful old town.  Rovinj at sunset.

Rapp or Reacher?

With the passing of Vince Flynn this week those of us who read his books and love his characters are saddened.  Personally, I also enjoy tremendously the work of Lee Child.  I still cannot accept the fact that Tom Cruise played Jack Reacher even though the movie itself was a pretty good adaptation of the novel One Shot.  Brad Thor and Daniel Silva are two others that I have enjoyed in that genre.

But Rapp and Reacher have been my favorite tough guy fictional personalities who take care of problems.  They tell me that real men always want to take care of problems.  Which is my favorite?  It is hard to say really.  I love Mitch Rapp and his no nonsense approach to dealing with problems with finality.  I love Reacher because he is big, tough and tender at the same time.  5 guys surround him and he wonders if it is going to be a fair fight, for the other guys.

As I have read about Vince Flynn through the years I have been impressed with his life, his character, his love for his family and respect for our American Heritage.  Many eulogies have been written the past few days and I mourn as a fan and someone who respected his work and his desire to succeed.  His wife and children are really in my thoughts.  I realize there probably will not be another Vince Flynn coming along.  Mitch Rapp will be in one more Flynn book that comes out this Fall.  As a tribute I guess I will start with Term Limits again and read all his books and have myself a Flynn-a-thon.

Yapping Dogs

This morning is lovely on the benches of the everlasting hills.  There were a few weeds to attend to, peach trees to water, some vegetables to tend to.  Nothing that couldn't be done in an hour or so.  As I write this the Sun has still not crested the mountains above our home.  Sounds tranquil, doesn't it?

Yapping dogs.  There ought to be a law against them.  Those pesky yapping dogs that have no reason to bark and seem to be without a brain.  There ought to at least be a class kind of like driver's ed, it could be called dog ed, or something like that.  There would need to be a least a full week on what to do if you dog is incessantly barking at 6 AM at somebody 60 yards away working on their own property.

I cannot imagine that all the other surrounding neighbors fail to hear the little beasties.  And the owners must have earplugs in or something because it doesn't seem to cause any reaction.  The thought came to me that their should be some device, a whistle or something that one could blow that would cause sufficient discomfort to the dogs that it would cause them to stop; of course without doing any damage to them.

Is their something about the little yappy dogs that can cause one's skin to crawl.  A big woof from a labrador or something like that doesn't seem so bad but the higher, repetitive pitch of the little canines is like fingernails on a chalkboard.  I must be alone in this because I have little yappers all around me.

The Glory of Their Times

I have read a lot of books over the years on baseball.  I would be hard pressed to come up with one that is better than this classic.  Honestly, I had never heard of this book before, but I came across the title in some blog and decided to check it out.  It is a fantastic read for anyone who has some appreciation for the history of baseball in the United States.  The author followed through with a personal desire to interview baseball players who played in the early 1900's.  So in the early 60's he sought out some of these old timers, traveling thousands of miles and spending a few years of his time.  He tape recorded the interviews and with little editing he has created a timeless baseball masterpiece.  This is one I give a heart felt recommendation.  It would be a great Father's Day gift for any dad who loves baseball.