Is Brussels really the most boring city of Europe...? NO!!!

At the beginning of July I've been working our company's headquarter in Brussels, where Zoli joined me for the weekend as well, so we spent some time together with my team.
Although the EU capital has recently been awarded by a survey of international travellers with "the most boring city of Europe" title (just beating out Zurich who came second in the race), there were a few things we found nice about the city:

The Grand Place in the heart of Brussels, one of the nicest town squares we have seen in Europe:

From EUROPE - BELGIUM - Brussels

Plenty of restaurants - bars - caffes all over with lost of people enjoying the evening near a drink in the crowded terraces of the city (just like we did):

From EUROPE - BELGIUM - Brussels

A huge variety of chocolate and waffles, which may not be a lot better than Swiss chocolate fondue, but Belgians certainly know how to 'serve' them:

From EUROPE - BELGIUM - Brussels

The European Union buildings however seemed to be less impressive than we have expected them to be in the "capital of EU", which doesn't mean though that Brussels is not worth paying a visit ... it will probably never take the place of London or Bangkok, neither of Vienna or Barcelona on the list of our favorites, but calling it the most boring city of Europe...? well, that must have been said by people who didn't like beer and good food...

London, one of our favorite cities...

The news were full of "London hit by 48-hour tube strike", "Travel chaos in London" and similar headlines just before we left from Zurich ... so we decided to rent some bikes to travel around in London with. Our plan however proved to be a little too optimistic, we found out when the guy from the rental agency said that he would surely not attempt to cross the city to deliver out bikes (at least not for the first day of our stay). So the first day we took some comfortable shoes and headed towards the river Thames ... walking on the streets of London, along with cars, motorbikes, horses and of course THE big red double-deckers:

From EUROPE - UK - London

The weather was so nice and sunny when we arrived to the south bank of the Thames, that we decided right away to start exploring the city by taking a ride on the London Eye, Europe's biggest giant wheel (and not risk to miss one of the city's musts in case the weather turns to rainy for the rest of our stay- after all, we were in the UK, we thought...)

From EUROPE - UK - London

After a nice ride with amazing views we crossed the Westminster bridge and continued our way towards the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (we also went inside the Parliament to watch debates and committee hearings, although there were barely a few Members of The House of Commons debating that day):

From EUROPE - UK - London

It's hard to describe all the amazing sights and places we have visited during our 4-day-stay in London, but we surely had a great time as we have been walking / riding (on the second and third day) around the city (see below the picture gallery of our favorite sights):

1 The changing of the guards at the Buckingham Palace:

From EUROPE - UK - London

2 The Trafalgar square, London's most famous public square:

From EUROPE - UK - London

3 Picadilly Circus and the Regent Street, one of the major shopping areas in London's West End, where you can find also find the World's biggest toy shop:

From EUROPE - UK - London

4 SOHO and the colorful Carnaby Street, a place to enjoy the crowd, vibrant street life and live music...

From EUROPE - UK - London

5 St Paul's Cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and a major London landmark (on the picture below: Millenium Bridge with St Paul's in the background):

From EUROPE - UK - London

6 The Tower of London, where we have been welcomed by the Beefeater who told us tales of the Tower and who himself admitted he doesn't know why he is called a 'Beefeater' ;-)

From EUROPE - UK - London

7 And last but not least, the Tower Bridge, one of the best-known landmarks of the city:

From EUROPE - UK - London

All in all, we had a really great time in London and found that the city has a special atmosphere which makes it different from any other European city.
You can check out our entire Photo Album on London here:

EUROPE - UK - London

Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine valley

We have spent the last weekend in Germany, visiting our friends in Mainz...
As I had a business trip to Frankfurt last week, Zoli decided to pick me up on Friday from Frankfurt:

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

After a short stroll in Frankfurt city, along the banks of the Main,

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

we visited our friends in Mainz and spent together the weekend by walking around in the city,

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

visiting the Gutenberg Museum and taking a boat trip along the Rhine valley (despite of the cool, rainy weather, we still enjoyed it):

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

You can see some more photos of Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine valley here .

Cycling along the Limmat: from Zurich to Baden

Yesterday we tried out the bike trail from Zurich to Baden - a very pleasant, about 30-km-ride along the Limmat:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

(at least it was supposed to be a nice, easy ride if we would have followed the cycling trails instead of choosing the narrow hiking trails uphill in the forest nearby the river valley... ;-)

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

When we reached Baden, we found that the entire Altstadt was full of huge hearts everywhere, painted in bright colors as part of the recently launched "Baden zeigt Herz" (Baden has Heart) campaign:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

You can see some more photos of our trip and a small collection of the painted hearts in Baden here.

The French Riviera

Last weekend we took a trip to the French Riviera. The main reason to go was the Monaco Formula 1 GP.
We started off Thursday morning headed for Marseilles, the great port city of France.

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

Then we traveled along the coast towards St-Tropez, deemed to be the pearl of the Mediterranean. Well people who say that surely haven't ever been in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I'm not saying St-Tropez is not nice, but to be honest "the best beach on earth"... come on, we could name at least a dozen of beaches we personally have been on, which would come before the beaches of St-Tropez. It appeared rather that the cars:

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

and the yachts:

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

are what give St-Tropez its name.

Let us focus rather on the amazing views along the coast:

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

The next day we went to Monaco, see the dedicated post to the Formula 1 GP here.

In the evening we joined my brother who was attending the Cannes Film Festival.

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

We had a nice evening together, Zsolt showing us around Cannes, knowing all the nice places since the Cannes film festival is not held without him for the last 7-8 Years.

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

Sunday we headed back to Zurich passing the most amazing highway we have ever seen: the A8 between Nice - Genoa"

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

We have a challenge for you:
How many tunnels did we pass through during this weekend?
A: 0-10
B: 11-50
C: 51-100

the first to post the correct answer wins a 1965 bottle of Tennessee Bourbon.

See all our pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/zoli.gyenge/EUROPEFRANCEFrenchRiviera#

Monaco Formula 1 GP 2009

I guess the title says it all.
Anyway a little more detailed... We arrived in Monaco early morning to still get a good place. We got tickets to the so-called Rocher sector, that is on the hillside above the harbor, the best place to view the GP (maybe after Casino place, but that is quite $$$).
We watched the Renault 3.5 and the F1 Saturday practice and qualifying session from the lower part of the hill, where you are closer to the cars being able to hear as they explode at each gear change with full throttle:

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

but you see mainly a small stretch only. But from here we could also see the action in the pitstops which at times was quite interesting too:

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

For the afternoon, we went up till the Royal Palace. From here one had a great overview on the entire harbor including the start/ finish line:

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

From up the hill we could see about 80% of the race track being able to follow the entire race (GP2 only since we were in Monaco only on Saturday):

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

As everyone knows, in Monaco the weekend has a lot more to offer than the race itself:
- The girls: Special dedication to MOZSI:

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

(yes, the third one is a BLONDIE)

- The Yahts:

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

- and some landscaping to make your place more comfortable:

From 2009 - Monaco Formula 1 GP

All our photos from the Monaco Formula 1 GP 2009

A friend did the Zurich-Monaco trip by bike in 3 days. Check out his unbelievable trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-kL2-zCR8

See our videos on youtube as well:

Cycling tour: from Arth-Goldau to Altdorf

Cycling around in Switzerland is always a great experience, since everywhere you can be assured of clean conditions, fresh air and beautiful scenery... but this particular ride we took last weekend was certainly one of the nicest cycling tours in the country.

We started our ride at Arth Goldau, riding from the Lauerzer Lake in the direction of the VierwaldstaetterSee (or Lake of Luzern):

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

After a short stop in Brunnen, we continued our route along the Lake, with the most spectacular views you can imagine...

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

... reaching the end of our apx. 40-km-long tour in Altdorf, best known as the place where, according to the legend, William Tell shot the apple from his son's head. His statue stands at the foot of an old tower covered with frescoes in the market-place:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

Friends in the town...

Mesi & Ors visited us this weekend. We had a great time together, although the weather seemed to cross our plans and unfortunately we had to postpone our hiking tour for the next time they'll come over (after all, they are living 'only' 400 kms away now, in the city of Mainz).

In the couple of days they have spent in Switzerland, we visited together the "Altstadt" of Zurich and Luzern, taking a boat trip on the Zurich-lake, too...

From Zurich

... end ending the day with a traditional Swiss raclette at our place.

From Various Zurich (Home)

April 2009 Family Events

As mentioned in our previous blog entry, after a short stop in Milan, we continued our way to Cluj to spend a few days of our short Easter Holidays together with our families.

2009 - Husvet

(Once I happened to mention to my manager about our Easter Monday's tradition when the guys, gathered in groups, visit the girls in turn, each waiting for the guys with food, drinks and colored eggs. He, my manager became then very jealous of this tradition, since not in his wildest dream could he imagine that he would be allowed to leave his wife at home and go with his buddies to visit a dozen women and furthermore drink all day long...)
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Next weekend we celebrated Zoli's birthday. Apparently I (Zoli) have been very good the last year...see the present I got behind me on the picture below.
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From Csaladi Esemenyek- Szuletesnapok

Couple of days in Milan...

As usually, we were planning to spend our Easter Holidays together with our families ...
searching for the best low-cost flight connections between Zurich and Cluj, we found a good deal for a Wizzair flight from Milan directly to Cluj. As we have never been in Milan before, we decided to use this opportunity to visit the 'city of fashion'.

First we took a nice walk to the Milan Dome. On the way to the Cathedral, we passed by the statue of Leonardo da Vinci on the Piazza della Scala. La Scala is perhaps the most well-known opera house in the world, and ... we could hardly figure out where it was. It was one of the buildings on the Piazza, but we wouldn't have known it if there hadn't been people taking photos of the building.
Then we walked though the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, which is a covered walking area with shops and art deco cafés everywhere:


On the opposite side of the gallery, we found the famous Milan Dome, a massive structure, incredibly huge and impressive. Unfortunately we didn't spot the stairs leading up to the top of the roof, so on the first day we only admired the Cathedral from the Piazza della Duomo and inside.

From EUROPE - ITALY - Milan

... next we walked by the Sforzesca Castle, but we didn't go inside the castle because it houses museums and we didn't have enough time for museum visits.




















In the evening we were heading towards the so called "I navigli' or "The Canals", which was told to be the best place for live music, pubs and restaurants. Well, we did really enjoy our dinner in a nice restaurant we have found, although the area seemed to be a little less characteristic and "special" as described on many travellers' blogs.
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Upon return from Cluj, while Zoli was already sitting on the train back to Zurich (I was flying a few hours later to Brussels), I had an attempt of visiting Leonardo's famous "Last Supper" in the Santa Maria Della Grazie, but without a reservation at least one week ahead there was no chance getting inside the Dome (although the place did not seem to be busy it all... ) so I had to content myself with a fine Italian ice cream instead (which, by the way, was far away from the best ice cream I ever had - - - at my favorite ice cream stand in Lugano ;-))

You can find our full Milan Photo Album here.

Flumserberg

It's been a long time since our last blog entry and this is not because we spent all our weekends at home, doing nothing. Actually we were very busy with enjoying the nice winter-time on the slopes ;-)
We had some wonderful skiing days in Flumserberg, the closest ski resort from Zurich - and not just the two of us, but this year Gulliver joined us with his little snowboard, too:

In February, Zoli's parents visited us, so we spent a really nice day alltogether in Flumserberg:

You can visit our full Flumserberg Album here.

Château-d'Œx - Festival de ballons 2009

This weekend we decided to visit the Festival de Ballons in the French part of Switzerland in the romantic alpine village of Château-d'Œx.

The first night we arrived just-in time for the so called night-glow, a show where a few dozen of balloons illuminated by their burners put together a marvelous show that was joined by a group of paragliders and some fireworks here and there.



After the show we headed into the village to party together with the visitors from all around the world who came to the festival.

The next morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day in our romantic hotel with a gorgeous view on the alps.


After driving back to Château-d'Œx (a 30km serpentine drive through some Alpine valleys with a few hundred curves each way!!!) we spent the day marveling at the balloons that were taking shape and flew up high in front of us.


A special thematic part of the show "special shapes" offered us great joy as some of our favourite cartoon characters were represented, our favourite being the smiling turtle.


Afterwards we took a short helicopter flight above Swiss alps which need not say, was a fantastic (but short) experience.


All our photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/ChateauDOexFestivalDeBallons2009?feat=directlink#slideshow