Big Eastern Europe Extravaganza

Sorry everyone for taking so long to get a post up with pics and news from my recent vacation.  I've been trying to get back in the swing of things and catch up with life in Strasbourg and in general.

Our vacation began around 5 am on Saturday, October 23rd when we took the tram to a bus that took us to Kehl, Germany.  From here we boarded our first train, had a layover in Munich, Germany then finally made our way into the capital of Austria--> Vienna!  Vienna was by far the most expensive and luxorious city we stayed in, but it was still quite nice except for the abominable weather.
 
My favorite part of Vienna was the Belvedere Museum where we saw the former palace and lots of incredible art (including some of Gustav Klimt's bests!).  Here is the palace below.

Another cool part about Vienna were the crazy, artsy houses made by a guy named Hundterwasser.

One thing we made sure to check out as well was the desert called Sachretorte that is famous in Vienna.  Here was a big sign for it in the street. 

Other than this we mostly just saw neat buildings and architecture in this city.  Unfortunately, it sort of costs a lot to do some of the things the city is known for like music and museums.

NEXT we were in Bratislava, Slovakia!
This was the smallest and cheapest city we visited, but it had a lot of character.  Like it was known for a statue of a guy coming out of a man hole.

Oh and there were other statues too that clearly interested me more.

We visited a refurbished castle in this town, but there wasn't much to it except the view of the city and its big bridge.

 See above, the castle wasn't so impressive.  The city was much cooler for its small, eccentric treasures like this wall with random paintings on it.

The city center was pretty nice, though.

Moving on to Budapest...now we're talking.
This city was enormous and full of awesome sights!  They call it the Paris of Eastern Europe for a reason. To start with, here's a look at me and the city.

Ok, now I'm just gonna' start naming all the crazy things we saw.  Hope you are ready.
Here's parliament, which rests on the Dunabe river that runs through all the cities I've named so far.

Here's the Matthias Church which has a castle like structure surrounding it.

One of the many cool bridges that connects Buda to Pest.

The market we visited pretty much every day for local foods, dinner items and pastries.

More bridges!

Here's the largest Jewish synagogue in Europe. 

Heroe's square.

St. Stephen's Basilica and the square around it.

Typical architecture for the city.

Crazy statues of ex-communists leaders before the democratic revolution.

And... we found a bar with swings in it.

Then finally there was Prague...
Prague was by far the prettiest city we visited, but there were soooo many tourists!  It's become a very popular spot to travel in Europe.

The view of the city with the Charles Bridge.

Here were the dancing houses.

The largest castle complex in the world!

There was a hot air balloon you could go up in to see the city from above.

The Charles Bridge... Prague's tourist hot bed (see the difference between the early morning pics and the ones during the day).

Then again, everything along the river was lovely.

Fountains were really popular in this city...not sure why, but I certainly pumped them something fierce.

At the top of the astrological clock everytime the clock went on the next hour a guy in tights and medieval gear emerged and played the trumpet for a while.  We didn't quite understand why people acted like the Rolling Stones had come to town, but I suppose it was neat enough.  Oh, if nothing else the clock was awesome.

Statues, museums and such around the main plaza.

The city gate!

So that was the gist of our eastern adventure.  Somehow after 12 days of travel we all still love each other (even more so now, I would say).  This was just a snippet though of all the photos I took and belowe are three links to all my photo albums on photobucket if you wanna dig more into it.
Ciao until next time!

Prague
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m273/candokid902/Budapest%202010/Prague%202010/

Budapest
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m273/candokid902/Budapest%202010/

Bratislava
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m273/candokid902/Bratislava%202010/

Vienna
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m273/candokid902/Vienna%202010/