Today we went the bell tower on San Giorgio island and took an elevator to the top. We saw a lot of Venice, we explored and dad bought a painting. Later we went shopping for glass at one my Aunt’s friend’s stores. We bought a lot of glass. We went Giudecca island to have dinner. We (mom, dad, me) werer going to go early to explore but our Vaporetto was late, so the rest our family caught up with us.
We had very good dinner at restaurant right on the edge of the water then we headed home.
We are on a train and I am going to sleep soon! We are on a sleeping train going to Venice. We had a good day visiting the palace but I was mostly excited to get on the train. We took the U-Bahn (subway) to the train and found our train at track 10. The 4 of us have a sleep compartment. I am sleeping on the bottom bunk, dad is in the middle, Eva and Mom are on the top bunks (6 people could sleep in the compartment). The train is stopping at stations. I am really cozy in my bunk.
I had a really nice sleep and woke up in Italy. It was a highlight of my trip. Pictures to come.
Vienna in a word, is imperial and impressive. Okay, that is two words. We are all jumping in to describe Vienna:
From its giant buildings to its giant Wiener schnitzel we loved it. (Zane is concerned that people may mispronounce Wiener Schnitzel .”Wiener” means from Vienna (Wien) and is pronounced “VEE-NUHR”). Yummy desserts, beautiful gardens, stunning museums and the Hapsburgs. The Hapsburg family ruled an enormous empire from a palace in Vienna with 1400 rooms. They actually had two palaces in Vienna. We visited their winter palace named the Hofburg Palace which is now a collection of museums. We visited the Armory museum filled with knights and their weapons and armor. We also visited the musical instrument museum. We finished with the Treasury which holds all the jewels and imperial clothes of the royal family. I liked the knight’s weapons. Eva liked seeing the pianos and to see how the wind instruments evolved over time. Eva was impressed by all the gold at the treasury and the enormous jewels. Jen liked seeing Beethoven’s beautiful piano.
Today we are going to see the Schoenbrunn Palace which has been kept as a palace. This is the palace with 1400 rooms and we get to tour 40 of them. We board a train at 21:00 for Venice and will arrive at 8:00 tomorrow morning.
Warning: this post is not for those with a weak stomach……..
Today we drove to the the Czech Republic for the day. It took about an hour to drove to a town named Lednice. We saw a castle and took a boat down a canal along a man made lake to a Minaret. Dad, Eva and Mom climbed the minaret to see the view. I wasn’t feeling well. We walked back to our car. It was really bot. Then we drove to a town called Mikulov. It was a very pretty town. We had lunch but I didn’t eat. I didn’t feel well. It was hot and late in the afternoon. We drove back to Vienna. I felt sick in the car and just slept on Mom’s shoulder. When we finally got to the hotel I got out and barfed on the front steps. I feel much better now. I am lying in bed resting and thinking about what we will do for dinner. It was a very good day!
This morning we went to a bakery for breakfast. Then we went to a synagogue. (Edtor’s note: the Dohany Street synagogue is one of largest in the world.) As you know, our family is Jewish so this was an important place for us to visit. It was a really big and beautiful synagogue. My favorite part was a weeping willow tree made out of metal in the shape of an upside down menorah. There are leaves all over the tree with names of all the Jews from Budapest who were killed in WW II.
Then we went to the market. When you enter, it felt like heaven to me. “That’s the best salami over there”. “Oh, there are sausages”! “Ham, steak , lamb chops, chicken feet, liver, gizzards,pasta, fish”. We bought dried fruit, nuts, and some salami. Then we had some lunch. I had a pasta dish with salmon and olives. Then we went to visit the Budapest Opera house. Here are some facts that I remember: It is ranked second in the world for its acoustics, it had many different levels of seating, it had 1300 seats, the seats were hard because it is better for acoustics, and it is very pretty.
Then we grabbed our bags and took the metro to the train station. It took us a while to find the right track. Now we are taking a train to Vienna. We will arrive at 19:56 (that’s about 8:00 PM). We will see my cousin Will and my Uncle Bob and Aunt Lynne!
At 10:30 in the morning on Tuesday we checked out of our apartment in Rovinj and drove and drove and drove and finally arrived in Ptuj, Slovenia (pronounced pitooey). The town is small and nice with a castle at the top of town. We walked around town, visited the castle and then we decided to go for a drink but then it started raining. I went back to the hotel with Dad and Eva. Then I put on my raincoat, grabbed Mom’s raincoat and ran all the way back to the bar to give it to her.
The next day we had a nice drive to Hungary. On the way we passed through Croatia again so we went through 3 countries in less than an hour (Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary. Finally we arrived in Budapest. Who did we find at our hotel?? Gram and Poppa! They had just arrived by plane from NH. We went lunch and Poppa had a little nap. We are staying in a fancy hotel and I .like my room a lot.
Today we went on a big walk around Budapest. We walked up to castle hill. We saw some guards do a traditional changing of the guards ceremony. At lunch time we had a delicious meal. The best part was the lemonade.
(Mark writes) Pula was once part of the Roman Empire, then later the Venetian empire. It is a port city and also served as the home for the Hapsburg Navy (it’s actually where Georg Von Trapp grew up). Now it is mostly known for having one of the largest surviving Roman amphitheaters in the world. Beyond just being a living relic, it hosts concerts in summer. Imagine sitting in a 2000 year old colosseum gazing out at the Adriatic Sea while Leonard Cohen performs (as he did two weeks ago). If we stayed another week we could see Joe Cocker performs…now that would truly be seeing an ancient relic come back to life!
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Here we are on the rocks on the last evening of our stay in Rovinj. We had a great day and we are all going to contribute to this entry. The reason we did not post yesterday was because it was a boring day. But we have a lot to say today. Eva will talk about cliff jumping, Dad will post about the 2000 year old Colloseum, and Mom and I will fill in. We had breakfast and then got in the car ( which we haven’t driven in awhile). We drove to Pula. There was a lot of traffic but finally we found a parking spot. We were there to see a roman Colosseum. Dad will write about it.
Next we drove to a cool peninsula named Kamenjak. We drove down a rocky, dusty, bumpy road and found a “beach”. We staked out our piece of rocky cliff and went swimming. The swimming was so much fun. When we got cold we took a break and then swam some more. Then we decided to get a drink at the Safari Bar but the line was too long so we went back to swim but instead got into cliff jumping. It took me a little while to jump, the I saw a boy try a back flip which inspired me. I thought if can do that I can jump too. Eva will tell you more about the adventure.
We drove home to Rovinj, cleaned up and went to dinner. Now we are sitting on the rocks after dinner. We are going to go have dessert soon (ice cream for Eva, chocolate crepe for Zane).
(From guest blogger Eva) At the “beach” there were cliffs to jump off and after a while we decided to try. First we tried small ones but after a little bit we tried bigger ones. After a while I wanted to try a bigger jump, but the next step was jumping from an over hang into a caveish cove. I decided to do a much higher 35ft but more open jump looking from the top scared me I had like 7 false starts. When I finally went I scared my mom so the pictures were not great. I don’t remember much but the pain ( I had terrible form when I hit the water). After doing it I’m glad but happy to never do it again.
Zane's World 