Lilian's Tree

Royal Palace, across the Danube River. Parts of the palace are now home for a collection of Hungarian Fine Art, in the National Gallery. The castle is lit up at night and looks beautiful.   The Hungarian Parliament building. Built between 1885 and 1896, in time for the Millennium parliamentary session. It is 268m long and is symmetrical. The dome is 96m high. St Stephen Basilica. Named for King Stephen 1, third ruler of the nomadic and pagan Hungarian tribes. He converted to Christianity and after his death, was canonized. Construction started in 1851 and it was finally opened in 1905. Heroes' Square was built in 1896 for the millenary anniversary of the Hungarian conquest. The Millennium Monument is 36m high, with the Archangel Gabriel on the top. The National Heroes'  Monument was built in 1929 and is just in front of the Millennium Monument. It also has the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Budapest is a fascinating city and one we enjoyed exploring. Tur

Morning, I've uploaded my photos to the PC, 2898 was the total. An average of 483 photos a week! My camera has GPS, so I've downloaded that information as well and with my journal entries, I will be able to name them. Another thing I did, before I went away, was to start a new email, just for the trip. I then asked people if they would like to get my email updates and I ended up with around 40 on the list. When I emailed they were all BCC and I emailed it to my usual email. Thus giving me a copy of what I'd written. This is the plastic case I kept the SD cards in. I think that it came with a card, ages ago. Bye for now, Lilian

I know some of my friends travel way more than I have, but I've discovered some things that I thought might be useful. Photos. Boy how we love to take photos and with a digital camera we take heaps. Before we left I purchased six SD cards, labelled each one, with the countries we were going to and slipped them into labelled snap lock bags and then into a plastic case. The night before we left a country, I'd change cards, and LOCK the one I'd just removed. This way I only have photos from one country on each card and am only dealing with small amounts of photos at a time. (I haven't counted how many in total, will let you know.) Keep a journal. I promised myself that I would keep a journal, on the iPad, never happened. My husband bought me this journal, for Christmas, it hasn't any dates, like travel journals, so it was perfect. I picked up the four coloured pen at Sydney airport, as I'd managed to pack the other pen in the suitcase. I dated and named e

42 days, 6 countries, 9 stops, to many plane flights, bus rides and train trips to count, no lost items or luggage equals one amazing trip! We travelled to Budapest, Berlin, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Athens, Santorini and Istanbul. Saw amazing sights, revelled in all that history, stared goggle eyed at painted ceilings, ancient ruins and beautiful gardens. Eaten and drank local food and wine. Walked for miles and miles exploring these places and it wasn't an organised tour. When we decided to travel to Europe we had some specific places we wanted to see, looked at tours and went, not for us. Our travel agent was amazing, working out the most direct way and easiest way to accomplish this, with out blowing our budget. Everything that we could organise, book and pay for, before we left Australia was done, so the we only had to pay for extra side trips and food. So much easier that trying to do it there. Doing it this way gave us down time, in each stop instead of the rush, th