Tosca - Bregenz Seebuhne

Better later than never, isn't it? Sorry that we are late with this post but a lot has been going on since.

So, my parents have visited us in July and my Mother's birthday present from us were tickets to Puccini's Tosca on the lake stage at Bregenz.
Puccini's beautiful music was anyway given, the setting, the surroundings and the atmosphere were great too.
Throughout the opera, the main setting, its focal point being an eye, has changed dramatically from a grand painting in the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle

into symbolical representations of the Palazzo Farnese


and finally transforming


into the execution place of Cavaradossi, i.e. the Castel Sant' Angelo


The entire performance was an extraordinary experience and we all (all+7000+ other spectators) enjoyed it very much.
All pics:http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2008ToscaBregenzSeebuhne

Europa-Meisterschaft 2008 Austria - Switzerland

EM 2008, it was such a long preparation and it went by so fast. Not that I am a big football fan,but still a few games got me fascinated.
So to conclude: a lot of surprises (favorite teams for the title eliminated in the group sections, etc).

The atmosphere was sometimes really nice here in Zurich, mostly peaceful though. The fanmile was quite nice and the Hauptbahnhof was really set in the right mood by the huge statues of players (see picture below).


The end result? Well I consider that (at least based on their performance in the final) the Spanish deserved the title. And they surely knew how to celebrate.

I think I shouldn't write a lot more since there are probably thousands of people who wrote reviews of the EM, who surely know better what are they talking about. So just a few pics of the final from the perspective of the fanmile in ZH.

Holiday in France: the Loire Valley and Bretagne

Fairy tale castles, towers, turrets, drawbridges and landscaped gardens - the Loire Valley has it all, making it perhaps the most romantic region in France. The entire Loire Valley has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tour of the valley is like taking a trip back in time …
At the beginning of July we spent one week in France, visiting the castles along the Loire and Bretagne. Each castle of the Loire Valley has its own unique style and appeal, therefore it is really difficult to select one as the "most beautiful" or "most impressive chateau". We also had to choose several favorites:

Chambord, the largest castle in the Loire Valley that served only as a hunting lodge for François I, with a fascinating double helix staircase:
Cheverny, an important estate for hunting with hounds, with carefully maintained lawns and remarkable trees such as the Family lindens, the giant redwoods and cedar trees from the Atlas Mountains, Lebanon and the Himalayas, which can closely be admired while taking a boat tour on the canals around the castle:
Chenonceau, built on the Pont de Diane over the river Cher, with its exquisite gardens and stone terraces, where visitors can take a romantic night walk and enjoy the shade and light scenes of the Chateau and the Gardens of Diane and Catherine while listening to the beautiful music of Corelli:
Villandry, a true Renaissance-inspired masterpiece with the most beautiful gardens of France. In the Love garden each clump evokes one of the following four feelings of love: tender love with hearts and masks formed by edges of boxwood, passionate love with bleeding hearts, fickle love with clumps shaped like horns and fans, and tragic love with knife blades. The Vegetable Garden is laid out over 9 completely different squares with a clever mix of 250,000 vegetable and flower plants that have only a decorative purpose today, but one of very high design.
Usse is a chateau of dreams ... which inspired Charles Perrault when writing "Sleeping Beauty".
Then we continued our way towards the Gulf of Saint Malo. Saint Malo is a corsair city in Bretagne with a unique atmosphere and breathtaking coastal sceneries.
Mont-Saint-Michel is a rocky, cone-shaped islet not too far away from St Malo, connected by a causeway with the mainland. The islet, celebrated for its Benedictine abbey, has small houses and shops on its lowest level. The feel as you walk up the narrow "streets" towards the monastery is like taking a step back in time to pre-medieval times. A certain breathtaking experience.
Visit our entire album on the Loire Valley here:

EUROPE - FRANCE - Loire Valley & Bretagne

Jungfrau - TOP OF EUROPE

We did wait almost 2 years for the perfect time to go up the Jungfrau, but it was well worth it (as you can see also from the pictures).

We started the weekend by spending half a day in Spiez, a small town on the lake of Thun. Then we went up to Lauterbrunnen to spend the night at a camping site just below the highest of the (alleged) seventy-something waterfalls in this valley.

The next day we (we meaning the three of us, since we took our little friend Gulliver with us too) set off for (so far) the most astonishing experience in Switzerland, going up to the Jungfraujoch (aprox. 3600m). All the way from the valley, the journey was fabulous with breathtaking views all around. After changing trains at Kleine-Scheidegg, we entered the approx. 10km long tunnel in the Eiger massif that leads up to the Jungfraujoch train station at 3454m altitude.

Along the way the train made 2 stops where the tunnel had windows where we could look outside:
- one of these stations was overlooking the Eiger Nordwand, also called Mordwand, due to the more than 60 alpinists who died while attempting to climb it since the 50s. The view out of the window (situated at about halfway up the almost 2000m Nordwand) was absolutely amazing:
- the second station was called Eismeer, a properly chosen name, since all around there was nothing else than ice. In form of glaciers, ice-crystals or icicles:


Based on these marvelous views we could only anticipate what was waiting us on the peak. Well it was all we have imagined and a whole lot more.

The train station at the peak is a labyrinth of tunnels leading to an

• ice palast,
• the Sphinx,
• to the adventure park (Tyrolean, ski, hiking, etc)
• to an open platform with magnificent views

The weather was great all day, at one point it was so warm (at almost 4000m!!!) that we even took a sunbath (see pictures).
We visited the above-enlisted areas in turn and enjoyed the marvelous views each offerred. It was the first time (except from an Airplane) that we "look down to the alps" and it was something truly special.
In the late afternoon unfortunately we had to take the train back, but we left with great memories and beautiful pictures:

Jungfraujoch Top of Europe

Through the Gotthard Pass...

It was the third day after the Gotthard pass was opened this year... it sounded like real fun driving along the huge walls of snow, but Zoli realized very soon that this was a very challenging task in a foggy weather when you can barely see 10 meters ahead (like on the picture below).
Once on the other side of the Swiss Alps, we visited the Swiss-Italian town of Lugano, Locarno and Ascona, as well as the Swissminiatur Park in Melide.(Photo from Ascona)

Scuol and Bad Engadin

In spring-time the weather is usually very pleasant in Switzerland. However there are some rainy periods as well when there's nothing really to do in the weekend except for in-door sports or sitting in front of the TV... but these are unfortunately not very good options when our family comes to visit us. That's why we decided to go for a warm thermal bath in the little town of Scuol in Graubunden.
Then we ended the day with a nice dinner on our own terrace.

Sony went big again!!!

I know it doesn't quite fit this blog but I could not resist.

With a long history of large scale bold commercials (see below), Sony went big again with a new ad nicknamed "Foam city". I would have really liked to be there.


And here are some older ads:

• Paint

• Balls

• Bunny

Innsbruck and the Swarovski Crystal World

We spent the last weekend in Tirol, in the city of Innsbruck, surrounded by the beautiful Austrian Alps (the snow at the Arlberg Pass is still at least 3 meters high).

Innsbruck is well known for its sporting opportunities, especially alpine sports, as it is located in the Alps and surrounded by mountains, one of these being the Olympia ski-jump. The so called “Bergiselschanze” facility was constructed on the hill known as Bergisel - where two Winter Olympic Games took place - for jumps up to 104 m, from the top of which there is a splendid view on the whole city. Because of its design and prominent location it is considered a new city landmark.
We have also visited the Ambras-Castle, as well as the Old Town with its tyrolean style buildings , ending the day at the swimming pool on the top floor of our hotel.To visit our album, click on the picture below:

EUROPE - Austria - Innsbruck

Next day we stepped by Wattens, the home of the Swarovski cut-crystal empire, where we explored the Crystal World, that has become one of Tirol's most popular attractions. This three-dimensional adventure museum includes the famous Swarovski crystals, mixed with light and sound offering a real multimedia show.

(The entrance to the Swarovski Crystal World) Click here, to visit the full Swarovski-Album

Weekend in Ticino

Friday afternoon, on our way to South, we stopped in Bellinzona, the capital of Ticino, which acts as a gateway to the Italian part of Switzerland. The skyline of the town is powered by 3 fortifications, well-preserved medieval castles which are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

After a short hiking up to the castles, we continued our way to Lake Maggiore, where we visited the popular holiday destinations of Locarno and Ascona. We spent the night in a camping with a wonderful view on the charming, sunny bay of the Lake.

(The Promenade in Ascona)

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Next day we visited the Verzasca Valley, one of the most fascinating ones in Ticino. The Verzasca dam at the entrance to the valley is where James Bond once jumped 220m attached to no more than a rubber rope and where one can experience the "007 Bungee Jump" which lasts exactly 71/2 seconds… you can find a short movie on a real bungee jumping (and some photos) here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/VerzascaDamValley

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Then we spent the rest of the day in Lugano, the largest town in the holiday region of Ticino. With Mediterranean flair, Lugano offers all the advantages of a world-class city, combined with the flavor of a small town.

(Greetings from the Lugano lake)

1st of May in Zurich

Zsolt (Zoli’s brother), Andi, Lilla & Hazse visited us from Budapest on the long weekend of 1st of May. After a nice walk in the old town of and a boat trip on the Zurich lake, we enjoyed together the sunny spring weather and this view from Uetliberg:

Stuttgart and the Mercedes Museum

On our way back from Flocke, we made a stop in Stuttgart, where we took a pleasant walk in the city center.



Then we visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum, which was almost like a voyage of discovery through the automotive history, from the invention of automobile to the latest visions for the future (see entire Album here).

Flocke

For weeks, one of the main topics in our daily newspaper is Flocke, the polar bear in the Nuremberg Zoo (just like her older "brother", Knut - the little star from the Berlin Zoo last year).
One weekend we decided to make a trip to Germany and visit her. In the Zoo from Nurnberg, there was marked "the shortest way to Flocke" all the way from the entrance to her place ... and lots of visitors were waiting for the chance to enter the area in front of her compound. Flocke seemed to enjoy a lot the nice sunny weather, however she didn't feel like taking a bath that day - unlike her mother, who had a great time swimming and playing in the water. You cfan visit Flocke's Album here (we also took a few photos about other animals, but clearly Flocke and her mother were the biggest stars of the day):

2008 - Nurnberg Zoo - Flocke

(If you wish to find out how everything started, why Flocke is being reared by caretakers with a bottle, instead of by her mother, click here to her official website: http://www.nuernberg.de/internet/polarbear/background.html).

Once in Nurnberg, we also took the chance to visit the city, with its old castle and lovely old town. The whole atmosphere of the historical center was great, people were eating, drinking and having fun...
You can visit the entire Album on Nurnberg here.

Look-out from Uetliberg

We enjoyed the nice sunny weather last Sunday at Uetliberg, together with Zoli's dad, who visited us for a dew days. The view on the city and Zurich-lake was absolutely gorgeous, this is really a must see when you're traveling to Zurich - especially if the weather is so nice like here:


We took a few of more pictures, which you are welcome to view here: Uetliberg

Housewarming

We invited my colleagues from UPS to celebrate our new place with a typical Hungarian dinner: the traditional Hungarian Gulyas ...

Obviously the home-made red wine from the Gyenge family's cellar was not missing either - well, it might not be as famous as the Gulyas soup, but at least well-known by most of our friends ;-)

Tutankhamun - His tomb and its treasures

Last weekend we visited the Tutankhamun Exhibition in Zurich: http://www.tut-ausstellung.com/home-englisch.html

The centrepiece of the exhibition are the accurate, full-size reproductions of the child king TUTANKHAMUN's burial chambers exactly as they were discovered. Visitors to the tomb can see the burial chambers just as they were when Howard Carter uncovered them in 1922.
The exhibition contains dozens of replica funerary objects painstakingly recreated by Egyptian craftsmen, as well as a reconstruction of the opened treasure chests, which remain closed in the tomb itself.

2008 - Tutankhamun Kiallitas

Giardina garden fair

Yesterday we visited a great garden fair in the Messezentrum Zurich.
We had a lot of fun dreaming about furnishing our garden (that we'll have around our vila at our reserved land here)

All pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2008GiardinaGartenmesse

Moving to Zurich Seebach...

At the beginning of March we moved into a new apartment in Zurich Seebach! It is much nicer, bigger and way more silent (no cars are allowed to pass in front of the building). It is a bit further from the city center, but this little inconvenience is compensated with a huge terrace…and we’ve got a guestroom, too, so we are looking forward to have many visitors this year!
In the album below you can find some photos of our new apartment.

Various Zurich (Home)

Starting the year with skiing in Davos

Thanks to the great offer of Ms. Bourgeois, we had the chance of starting the new year by skiing in Davos.

New Year's Eve in Budapest

This year we celebrated New Year's Eve at Budapest taking part at the same time at the housewarming party of my brother in his new apartment.

All pics: See all photos here

Christmas Eve

As always we celebrated Christmas Eve at home with our family.
We started the evening at Krisztina's mother's place

and continued at Zoli's parent's house

http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2007Karacsony

Santa and Christmas in Zurich

We also celebrated Santa (5th of December)

and Christmas (one week before officially at home in Kolozsvar)

in our apartment in Zurich. We had an Advent Wreath and decorated a small but really nice tree as well.

Short visit to the Netherlands

For Santa, Krisztina surprised me with a short trip (I mean tickets) to the Netherlands.
We enjoyed the atmosphere of Amsterdam with its many canals and other (you know which) attractions :-) a lot.

We also took a walk in Eindhoven, the city where we spent the night, before returning to Amsterdam and visiting the Madame Tussuad's wax museum.
Netherlands Photo Album