Europe -- Summer 2007

Budapest,

         Western Hungary,

                    Freiburg and the Black Forest, and

                                  Paris

(Too much to see in three weeks, but we did it.)

TRAVELING ON A BUDGET

    We seem to manage to take a foreign trip, usually to Europe, every couple of years (in large part to see the grandchildren -- Chris's son Daniel's kids -- in south Germany).  For months beforehand, Chris spends long hours on the computer, tracking down affordable travel and accommodations, and generally comes up with some interesting places that we would not have thought of otherwise.  (Left: a nice apartment we rented for a week in Budapest, and below that, the view from the apartment window.)  We typically have spent $50-$75 a night for accommodations, sometimes at hotels, sometimes at smaller Gaststaette and pensions.  Several times in the past, we rented a car, but eventually decided that it was too big an expense, and getting places in a foreign country -- with unfamiliar rules-of-the-road and problems of parking, etc. -- was just too much of a hassle with a car.  Since then we have relied on trains, subways, and busses, and have found the experience thoroughly enjoyable and affordable.

OUR SUMMER VACATION

This title sounds (deliberately) almost as deadly as the old school writing assignment every fall: "My Summer Vacation." Let's hope this is a bit more readable.

    This past summer, we took a three-month trip -- only trouble was, we did it in three weeks.  We had planned to go to Germany, to see Chris's son and family.  But Kay's dad Stu Crossman and his Hungarian bride Gita were going to be in Budapest, so of course we had to visit there. 

    And Chris's roommate Peter von Pogany from the University of Hamburg in 1960, whom we had visited for just a few hours on our last trip, had invited us to stay with him and his wife at their villa (left) in a village in western Hungary (just north of Lake Balaton), so that was important. 

    And then a week in the Black Forest while visiting Chris's son Daniel and wife Mirjam and sons Oliver (5) and Patrick (3). 

    But then our friends Dale and Jane Gillette from Raleigh were spending several months in Paris, sort of Dale's last post-retirement sabbatical, and they invited us, and Kay had never been to Paris -- so there we were -- a three-month vacation squeezed into three weeks.