Weekend getaway to Strasbourg

Zoli's parents visited us in July. As usually, we celebrated his Mom's birthday together and organized a surprise weekend getaway to the lovely city of Strasbourg for them. In the end, it was a pleasant surprise to all of us finding out that there was an International Food Festival in the old town, with great food & drinks to taste from various countries of Europe. Yameee! We could find here everything from Romanian 'mici' to Hungarian 'kurtoskalacs', Greek salad, Spanish tapas or Belgian beer (for Zoli's Dad). And, on top of everything, we had a delicious fruit-ice cream bowl we could not resist skipping:

From EUROPE - FRANCE -Strasbourg

We spent the rest of the weekend by walking around, climbing the tower of the Cathedral (to avoid ordering our dessert with a guilty conscience) and taking a pleasant boat trip around the old town.

In the evening, we visited the Summer Show, which is a 30-minute-water, light & fireworks show played daily in summer-time.

Visit our entire album on Strasbourg below:

From EUROPE - FRANCE -Strasbourg

Just enjoying the summer...

It's almost one month since we last traveled out of Switzerland (in fact, Zurich), so it's probably time to give another sign of life about us... well, we are definitely not getting too bored at home. This year the summer started unusually hot, so we're just enjoying the great weather these days with a lot of barbecue at the Limmat:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

... or at our place:

From Various Zurich (Home)

... and waiting, with more or less patience ...  for many exciting things to happen: our parents to visit us soon; birthday-celebration and of course our three-week-backpacking tour in Asia this autumn.

Work & walk in Madrid

Project work gives plenty of opportunity to travel, BUT: most of the time you don't get to choose the destination and working time is so long that you hardly have any time left for afterwork pleasures.

What makes it even more complicated in the world of logistics is that most of our facilities and offices are located in industrial areas, where it's not much to see - apart from cases, labels, walkie-riders and trucks ... which are of course all veeery interesting, but up to a certain limit ;-)) I was lucky enough this time to have an implementation project in Madrid, just when the summer kicked in (well, it was a pretty challenging one, but at least at the right location) so I took the weekend-work as an opportunity to visit Madrid together with Zoli, flying after me for couple of days... and tried to finish up work early enough to have some time left for sightseeing.

Then guess, what...? by the time we left the hotel, the weather got cold and rainy, so we started to look around for places to hide us from the bad weather, which wasn't too difficult in Madrid: one tapas bar next to each other, great atmposhere everywhere, people having fun on Saturday evening
- by drinking a Sangraia at 'the Mercato':

From EUROPE - SPAIN - Madrid

- or enjoying a Flamenco evening show: 

From EUROPE - SPAIN - Madrid

... like we did. Both of them.

Next day it was time to do some real sightseeing in the beautiful sunshine. We started  off at Plaza de Toros with a tour at the Madrid's famous bull fighting stadium:

From EUROPE - SPAIN - Madrid

... continuing our walk through the Plaza de Cibeles (where probably the soccer fans took their bath yesterday after beating the Germans out from the WC final)

From EUROPE - SPAIN - Madrid

... and through the 'Parque del Retiro', a huge and beautifully maintained park in the heart of the city, with a lot of green grass and playing areas, lake with rental boats, vendors selling drinks, snacks, balloon swords and ice cream.

From EUROPE - SPAIN - Madrid

This park is definitely one of the not-to-miss attractions of the city, besides the popular city sights like the Palacio Real or Plaza Mayor.

Madrid is a great place to visit with beautiful buildings & parks, great food and drinks and charming atmosphere. It is the type of place where you can really enjoy life and well worthwhile visiting.
You can find below our entire photo album on Madrid.

EUROPE - SPAIN - Madrid

Imperial Palaces of St. Petersburg

Our visit to St. Petersburg wouldn't have been complete without visiting the Imperial Palaces of Peterhof and Puskin.  We decided to approach Peterhof by hydrofoil (speed boat), which seemed to be the quickest way of travel with its 30-minute- cruising time.  When arriving to Peterhof, our first glance at the palace and gardens was already impressive from the sea-side and it got even better and better the closer we walked to the famous fountains.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

We wandered in the direction of the palace through the Lower Park, which lies between the Grand Palace and the seashore and boasts the world's largest system of fountains (150 fountains and 4 cascades in total). The most impressive is the Grand Cascade, located directly below the Grand Palace and featuring a golden statue of Samson grasping the jaws of the lion.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

Peterhof is often referred to as the 'Russian Versailles'... but the scale and granduer of the gardens of Peterhof even overcomes that of Versailles. As we walked up the stair to the Grand Palace, the view was just stunning... there is nothing to describe it better than this panorama:

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

After visiting the Grand Palace, which is also pretty impressive and well worthwhile seeing (see pictures in our Album), we walked around to enjoy the numerous fountains, statues, and pavilions within the Lower Park. Afterwards, we entered the Upper Garden, located on the other side of the Grand Palace, which is a typical French-style formal garden with five fountains including the one below, depicting Neptune, the God of the Sea:

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

Later in the afternoon, looking for a taxi to take us to Pushkin, we were lucky enough to find a nice lady at a fruit stall who arranged a cheap cab for us (1000 RUB - apx 25 EUR for a nearly one-hour-drive)... Cathrine's Palace, painted in light blue with its reach white and gold gilt decoration appeared magnificently in the middle of the park.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

We arrived at the castle just in time to enter with one of the last visitor groups. At least that's what we thought... It turned out however that it was already 5 p.m., one hour later than on our watches since we mistakenly only changed it by one hour. So our visit inside the Cathrine's Palace will have to wait until our next trip to St. Petersburg, but at least we did not oversleep and miss our flight back to Zurich as well ;-))  


Visit our entire photo album on Peterhof and Pushkin here.

EUROPE - RUSSIA - Peterhof & Pushkin

White Nights, onion domed cathedrals and Russian art collection...

... all of these you can find in one single place, if visiting it in the right season: St Petersburg. It was Zoli's old dream to visit this city, so we chose to spend a few days in Russia's second largest city in the beginning of June, during the legendary period of the White Nights, when the sun never really disappereas from the horizon; at 5 a.m. we woke up on the brightest sunshine ever - believe it or not, first thing Zoli was asking for while still lying in the bed, were his sun glasses -, and at 10 p.m. we were still walking around with them. There was something magical about it... we walked down the bank of the river Neva at after midnight to watch the raising of the bridges and the banks of the river were packed (with tourists, teenagers, families and yourng couples, all admiring the sunset). The sun was just starting to dip below the horizon, but the time between sunset and sunrise, around 2 a.m., looked like dusk and was very short.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

Thus our days were also much longer and had plenty of time for sightseeing and St Petersburg had enough to offer for our relatively short, 4-day visit:

• The Church on the Spilled Blood, the city's most Russian-looking onion-domed cathedrals was one of our favorites with its interior decorated with 7500 square meter of exquisite mosaics.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

• The Hermitage Museum, one of the largest museums in the world hosts a collection of more than three million works of art and artefacts of the world culture. The main architectural ensemble of the Hermitage situated in the centre of St Petersburg consists of the Winter Palace, the former state residence of the Russian emperors.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

• Unbelievable, but true: the financial outlay of the St Isaac's Cathedral (the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral) with its richy decorated interior was more than six times that of the Winter Palace. It is decorated with fourteen kinds of marble, as well as frescoes and 600 sq. metres of mosaics, more than 400 kg of gold, 1000 tons of bronze and 16 tons of malachite...

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

• The illuminated Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress was glowing through the dusk at midnight. Under the shining Cathedral tower rest nearly all the czars of Russia, including Peter the Great, himself.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

It is said that during the White Nights St Petersburg's residents become relaxed and charming, all enjoying the midnight sunlight and the festival atmosphere taking over the city, socializing and chatting with friends until late evening near a cup of coffee.

From EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

We don't really know if it was due to this special atmosphere of the White Nights, but it was a positive experience to find very friendly and helpful people everywhere ... it was quite challenging understanding their advice though as English is rarely spoken (not even among young people). However, the biggest drawback for tourism lies not in the language barrier and not even the entry tickets which were double as high everywehere as for locals, but the regime and state regulations - visa requirements, tourists having to register themselves at the local policy upon arrival, lengthy document and security control at the airport (we almost missed our flight, reaching the gate after well after scheduled departure time, even though we completed check-in well in advance). Despite the challenges though St Petersburg is still a very attractive tourist destination and has a lot to offer, which one may not find in any other place of the world.

You may check out here our entire Album on St Petersburg:

EUROPE - RUSSIA - St Petersburg

(Photos and blog entry on the Grand Palaces with follow soon...)

Gorges of Switzerland: Aareschlucht

A few weeks ago we were planning a hiking trip in Berner Oberland. Unfortunately the hiking trail we have planned to follow was still closed due to the snow in the mountains, so 'accidentally' we discovered another gorgeous place well worth visiting: Aareschlucht, or 'the Swiss Grand Canyon'.

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

We have never heard about this place before (but Switzerland is always full of surprizes, especially in the natural wonders category), so we quickly googled up: "the Aar Gorge is a section of the river that carves through a limestone ridge near the town of Meiringen. It is an indirect product of glaciation; 10,000 years ago, just as the Ice Age was coming to an end, torrential runoff from melting glaciers eroded a deep, narrow chasm through the limestone barrier. Although barely 1.6 km long, this passage is bordered by sheer cliffs up to 50 m high on either side. At the bottom of this steep drop the river is scarcely one meter wide.."
Again, we have learned something... and discovered another natural beauty of this country.
You can find here some more photos of Aareschlucht.
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Cycling Tour around Geneva lake

We're realize we are way behind with posting the latest news about our life (and travels) on the blog, but life is rolling now pretty quickly and we didn't have any free time for a few weeks. In the last three weeks, we did the tour of Europe, from Brussels to Eindhoven, then St Petersburg, Madrid... and this weekend going again to Kolozsvar for our friends' wedding. No complaints at all ... just looking for good excuses for being so lazy with the blog entries.

Well, let's get back to our cycling tour around the Geneva Lake, back in May. We have been planning this for a very long time and got finally the perfect timing: a long weekend (due to a bank holiday on Monday) and weather predictions for wonderful, sunny spring days.

Day 1: Montreux to Lausanne
We started the tour in Montreux on Saturday morning, by visiting the Château de Chillon, the most famous castle in Swizterland, which enjoys a spectacular location on the eastern edge of Lake Geneva.

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

The first 10-15 kms back to Montreux and then further on to Vevey were an easy ride, with spectacular views  and a few stops at well-known tourist spots, like the statue of Freddie Mercury in Montreux or the one of Charlie Chaplin in Vevey, continuing afterwards our way along the lake towards Lausanne, our end destination for Day 1.

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

However, the lake-side road ended at one point, so we had to cycle through the vineyards up on the hill, which was a little more demanding (there were however still no complaints at this point of the tour). Arriving to Lausanne after about 40 kms of cycling in Day 1, we still had some energy to do a little sightseeing and have a nice dinner together with our ex-classmate, Reka and her boyfriend.

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

Day 2: Lausanne to Nyon
Our plan for the second day was to continue our tour from Lausanne to Nyon (another 40 kms...) By riding around the town and especially along the lake-side in- and near Lausanne, we felt like this was one of the places where we could actually imagine living (if our French would be a little better than... nothing). It was probably the very large green areas full of people enjoying their Sunday morning piknik, children playing around, the atmosphere on the sea promenade and the nice houses on the backstreets which made us think that this was the place to live in (ahm, anyway, we still have some years ahead to improve our French... and save some money for a house).

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

Later in the afternoon we faced some real challenges with our efforts to find a restaurant or supermarket open to have something to eat (there was only one Mc Donalds, which we of course decided to skip only to realize later that everything was closed since lunch time was 'officially' over). Luckily cheese plates are sometimes considered as dessert, so after a short 'dessert break' we continued our ride... uphill ;-((... through the vineyards:

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

After an exhausting  afternoon ride, we finally reached Nyon, our end destination for Day 2 and had our wonderful, well-deserved dinner at the lake-side, after which we took a train to Geneva (first of all, because there were no rooms available in Nyon, and secondly, because at least one of us refused to ride any further).

Day 3: Geneva to Nyon
To cover the last remaining part of our Montreux-Geneva tour, on last day we decided to cover the remaining 40 kms from Geneva to Nyon. But first of all, we did some sightseeing in Geneva, cycling along the lake-side to the Jet d'Eau (one of the city's most famous landmarks),

From Geneva lake (Cycling Tour)

climbing up the tower of the Cathedral and cycling around the various International Institutes (WIPO, WTO, UN, WHO, WMO).


To view all our photos from this tour, you may check out our Album here.

Celebrations' time

The 'wedding and anniversary season' started again a few weeks ago - it's usually a very time- (and money-consuming) period for us traveling back to our home town for couple of days only, but we always love these celebrations as we basically spend the entire time in Kolozsvar with eating & drinking with our friends and families... sadly enough, we also realize from time to time that we are getting older and can't drink as much as in the good old student time any more (when Zoli just used to order his "one meter of Tequila" and was still able to walk home in the middle of the night from the party)

We probably reached our celebrations record in April, with 3 events within less than 3 days:

• The wedding of our friends, Mesi & Ors (who have finally decided that "it was time to get married" :D) - great party, lots of friends and drinks...

• My Mom's birthday...


From Csaladi Esemenyek- Szuletesnapok

• And, last but not least, Zoli's birthday...


From Csaladi Esemenyek- Szuletesnapok

Two weeks later, we returned again to Romania for our 10-year Graduation Anniversary (yes, we are really sooo old, can't believe it's already been ten years since I've last been at our highschool). It was really great meeting our ex colleagues, some of us have changed quite a lot, others still look and behave just like 10 years ago...

Talalkozo2010

Sechseläuten, the Spring Festival in Zurich

Each April, Zürich celebrates the Sechseläuten, which is a traditional spring festival (as good as we can translate the Sechseläuten word, it means something like "The six o'clock ringing of the bells" ;-)) It is such an important event, that the Monday afternoon is considered to be bank holiday in Zurich (too bad, neither of us is working in Zürich canton... but this year, for the first time, we decided to check out 'the actions')

The celebrations start on Sunday with a colourful children's procession, which is then followed by the main festival on Monday, when people in traditional costumes and marching bands, together with carriages and coaches, parade through the city centre to the Sechseläuten-Platz at Lake Zürich. Thousands of people gather here to watch the "burning of the Winter" by setting fire to the Böögg, basically a snowman whose head is filled with explosives:

From 2010 - Sechseläuten

It is said, the quicker his head catches fire and explodes, the finer the summer should be... well, the Böögg predics us a gorgeous summer in 2010 as his head barely resisted for 12 minutes and 54 secs:

From 2010 - Sechseläuten

Note for all our friends: this is now the right time, get prepared for visiting us!!! (pre-booking and early room reservation may be required due to the potential heavy traffic :-)) Shall  there be rainy weather during your visit, well, then you're just not lucky enough... but do NOT blame the Böögg, he has a few-hundred years of experience with this!

Some more pics on the Sechseläuten festival here.

Spring Break in Zermatt

We ended this year's skiing season with a 4-day-ski break in Zermatt during the Easter holidays. It wasn't really planned in advance, we were just looking for great last-minute deals all around Europe when found a free room in Zermatt at an affordable price ... ok, we have to admit that we did originally play with the idea of going for a few days of skiing to Zermatt, but seeing the sky-high room rates ($$$, 4-digit numbers) for the Easter-period, we gave up. It seems however that someone cancelled their booking and we ended up in a nice guest house with Matterhorn-view from our balcony ;-))

From Zermatt

... and it was THE REAL Matterhorn!! Sorry, we can't stand not mentioning this funny story, every time we remember it, we can't stop laughing... it happened on the Caribbean cruise we had back in January: we were chatting with some Americans in the jacuzzi about traveling, famous places in Europe, etc, when one of the guys asked us what was special about Switzerland; well, we mentioned the most well-known site, the Matterhorn, hoping that maybe this one would ring the bell although we did not want to place too high expectations towards Americans knowing too much about Europe. Guess what, we have to admit, the answer was so surprizing ... and shocking ... that we couldn't really decide for the first moments whether it was a joke or seriously meant: "Oh yeah, we know the Matterhorn - WE have THE REAL ONE in California, in Anaheim" (and this from a guy, who did already travel around a little in Europe). After we realized, he was actually not joking, we gave it a try to explain that Disneyland had a miniature version of OUR REAL Matterhorn, but we had no chance... No comment.

Getting back to our ski break: there are many reasons to say that Zermatt is one of the most beautiful places in the world for a skiing vacation. Let’s go over a few good reasons:

• Amazing scenery

When skiing in Zermatt, you are in some of the highest peaks in Europe. As you go up to the Gornergrat or Kleine Matterhorn you get amazing views of the mountains and an experience overall which cannot be matched no matter where you go. We could relax and just watch the amazing scenery from the cable cars as we were getting ready for our skiing.

From Zermatt

• Height and Length of Runs

In Zermatt you’re also guaranteed some of the longest and highest runs possible. The total length of slopes in all three resorts is about 350 kms, each resort having slopes in at least 3100-meter height, which means runs that are from 8 to 13 kilometers. It is also here the world's biggest drop from Klein Matterhorn (3883m) to Zermatt (1620m) - it took us 45 mins without the last portion of the run (from Furi to Zermatt due to the melting snow).

From Zermatt

• Sense of Tradition

In Zermatt you feel as if you’re truly enjoying a natural experience, as the entire place is car-free and their are plenty of traditional chalets and local resturants serving the traditional Swiss foundue or raclette... you may even spend the night in a traditional Iglu Camp in Gornergrat Glacier Paradise:

From Zermatt

On Easter Sunday we woke up on heavy snowing and a real winter-scenery with all roads and rooftops covered in untouched white snow. An amazing experience, we just had a wonderful holiday (again).

See our entire photo album on our Spring break in Zermatt here.

Geneva Car Show 2010

After 3 years, it was nice to return again to the Geneva Car Show to check out what did the manufacturers in these 3 years. Well, it appears no one gets away w/o a hybrid at their stands (even if its a "hybrid" in the sense of a 15HP electric motor coupled to a 300HP combustion engine like the Mercedec S which they are not ashamed to call a "Hybrid") and a couple of electric car concepts.

A new trend that we observed is that most sport-car makers seek to get on the family car market with cars such as the Porsche Panamera:

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

, the Aston Martin Rapide:

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

or the Bugatti Galibier (sorry no photo, there were just too many people around), all relying on the success of the Quattroporte.

Other than that, we saw a few new models such as the new  A8 or 5-er BMW, or Volvo S60. Nothing ground braking on that side.

Our vote for the BEST STAND goes for PEUGEOT:

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

But definitely the most fascinating were the concept cars, which we will most likely never see on the road in this form :-(

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

And finally the star of the show, the national pride of Romania: the new Dacia Duster:

From 2010 - Geneva Auto Show

Enjoy the rest of the photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2010GenevaAutoShow#