LivingDreams » Travel

Valentine hearts ;)

The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of “valentines”. Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged cupid. So how and where did I spend Valentine’s day this year? The good news is: I spent Valentine’s day with my Valentine! We spent the day (weekend) at Budapest. Budapest is a lovely city, a perfect ambiance to spend Valentine’s day!

Post Office Savings Bank

The idea for this trip started with Angelika’s proposal to visit Budapest. Budapest was (still is) one of those ‘must see’ cities on my list of places to discover. We traveled by bus from Vienna and spent the nights in a youth hostel. But most of our time was spent on the streets! Budapest is easy to navigate, the city is devided by the river Danube, ‘Buda’ at one side of the river and ‘Pest’ at the other side. While walking the streets, I felt immediately taken by the city’s atmosphere of rich culture and great history. So many remarkable buildings all together! Most visitors of Budapest will know the parliamant building, very dominant at the banks of the Danube. There are many more, but my favorite was the Post Office Savings Bank (Postatakarék-pénztár) of architect Ödön Lechner. The building is located at two narrow streets so Lechner designed a fairly straight face with not much ornaments, but the roof is all the more spectacular! The roof is designed of bright ceramic tiles and ornaments. All parts showed very much care for detail and I was very impressed!

I found a quite spectacular presentation of the interior of this building, have a look at: http://www.panoramablog.eu/media/convert2.php?format=qtvr&cat=budapest&file=kincstar4 (It’s an animation, press Left-CTRL and Left-SHIFT keys to zoom in and out, move the mouse to rotate)

Ethnologic museum - traditional burial

To Angelika and me, this was a first trip into another country together. I have enjoyed every bit of the trip; we had great fun, lovely moments and many shared interests. We spend several hours at the ethnologic museum which was quite an impressive experience to both of us. At the first day of our visit we found a very nice and good Indian restaurant where we made reservations for Valentine’s day to have dinner together. We both stopped at the same buildings when fascinated by the architecture. But we also enjoyed the funny or hilarious moments when making pictures in the streets. I have found my Valentine and travel companion..

I live my dreams together with her!

Categories: Travel, Uncategorized
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This weekend was my first motorcycle tour around Vienna. I loaded my camping gear as if I was planning a long trip and if the opportunity was right, I was prepared to stay camping. Sunny weather, no schedule and no planning, good spirit and only the desire to discover the world around Vienna. Unfortunately, I will have to keep this report short as the camera is still unavailable and the words actually need pictures to accompany the story.

Getting out of Vienna was the difficult part. I had decided to travel north and choose direction to the area above- and parallel to the river Danube. Once I got out of the city, the surrounding was a wonderful mix of smaller villages and country roads in a hillside country, farmer’s nature. The wine-grape plants beautifully red and yellow colored, leaves pretending to be blossom. Sometimes I drove through the center of a village, passing narrow roads perfect enclosures to amplify the roaring sound from the exhaust.

Rabbits, biiiiig rabbits!

Near Vienna, the farmer roads are all closed to other traffic. But at some point, I started to realize that more-and-more roads were open to all traffic. Invitation to explore and discover! Driving the BMW motorcycle, I always feel tempted to explore the dirt roads and drive off into nature. It only took 2 or three minutes driving to suddenly find three running rabbits, three magnificent silhouettes running along the rim of a hill. They disappeared over the top of the hill and I continued along my path, following the curve of the path along the foot of the hill and once I got at the other side, there they were again! Passing only 10 or 20 meters in front of me! One instant thought occurred to me: ‘how can people for God’s sake hunt these animals?!’.. It’s Beautiful!

Imagine driving along this grace for hundreds meters!

I continued the ride with these thoughts in mind until several loud, dangling sounds distracted the peace! I looked back, to find out that my passenger seat had come off and I was loosing my tools from the toolbox underneath! Shoot! So: I pulled over and stopped immediately, shut down the motorcycle and started walking back along the track. Upon returning with my passenger seat and all tools I could find, I found some company near my motorcycle: 2 deer were nervously looking at me from a distance of no more than 50 meters! I continued to return to my motorcycle and I placed everything back where it belonged, securing the passenger seat with a spare belt to avoid the same procedure. All the time, I was observed by the deer who meanwhile had become more relaxed. So I decided to approach them a couple of meters and sit in the grass. We spent a relaxed 15 minute brake together, sharing the peace between the three of us. I have to say: I can not recall my thoughts or feelings of those 15 minutes anymore. Those 15 minutes are gone, I call it a moment of freedom! To me it were just 15 minutes, but my 2 companions of that moment LIVE the freedom almost full time! I envy them..

At some point, the deer decided to leave and they passed me in graceful gallop. I returned to my motorcycle, started and followed them as they were galloping parallel to my track. To my pleasure, at some point 5 females joined the 2 males! Wooooww!……

Some time later (time had gotten subjective), I got a puncture in my rear tire. Since I had packed my travel gear, I had all necessary tools with me to repair my tire and within half an hour (including a short and friendly talk with a passing farmer) I was on the road again!