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

Business trip to Helsinki

Thanks to the new project I've got involved to, I "had" to spend the previous week in Helsinki. The first 3 days we spent in business meetings, working hard during the day, and having dinner with my colleagues at local restaurants - trying out some tradional lapp food - in the evenings. We also took the opportunity to drop in for a short visit to the well-known ice bar La Bodega (you can't stay more then 10 minutes inside anyway).

Unfortunetly I didn't have enough time to visit Santa, but I was lucky enough to being able to extend my stay with an extra day to hang around and do some sightseeing. Surrounded by the sea, Finland's capital gives the impression of a modern city hosting plenty of shopping malls, business centers, restaurants and bars. Its central point is the Senate Square surrounded by the Government's buildings and the Lutheran Cathedral, the unofficial symbol of the city:

See all photos here:

Helsinki Photo Album

Autumn in Rome

Guidebooks say the best time to visit Rome is October: I could not agree more. We have had the best weather for sightseeing possible, constant sunshine throughout the day, but not hot to blow our heads up, and not too cold at night.

The first day was dedicated to the sights of the ancient Rome, ex. the Colosseum and the Forum.


On our second day we visited the Vatican city with its unique museum, the Sistine Chapel, the St Peter;s square and St Peter;s basilica of course.


We also spent great moments during our evening strolls through Rome by night, one such moment is well captured by the pic below.


Sunday's main attractions were San' Angelo's castle, a cruise on the Tiber and the fountains of Rome and the Spanish stairs.


The next day we went up to the Garibaldi square which had a great view on the city, then visited the Trestavere neighborhood, and various other sights around the city (see the captions in the album).



Our last day in Rome :-( we spend visiting a few missed sights in the downtown and then a nice golf cart ride around the huge park of the Villa Borghese.


And finally one panorama shot I could not resist not to put it up here:


All pics from Rome here

Pizol

I was thinking about calling this blog entry "yet another day in paradise" but I decided it would get boring and soon I would end up with too many similarly called entries. This latest trip we made was to Pizol, about one hour's train ride from Zurich. The hike itself, not a very easy one I have to admit, was between 1800 and 2500m above see level and offered a magnificent view of 4 glacier lakes. (Should have been 5 but we missed one by missing a detour). The weather, though quite cold, was gorgeous and the view....

Check out all pictures (sorry about quality but some of the photos were made with cell phone)

Oktoberfest

During a business trip to Munchen, I had a chance to have a quick glance to what the famous Oktoberfest is all about: a lot of beer, food, baierish people traditionally dressed eating and drinking in huge tents each the size of a medium sized sportlshall.

2007 - Oktoberfest - Munchen, Germany

Visit to Kolozsvar

After our weekend in Budapest, I spent a few days in Kolozsvar visiting my family and friends. It was a great opportunity to hand over to my brother and Molly their birthday presents - two flight tickets to Rome, which we are gonna enjoy together in two weeks.



I was planning to help Zoli's parents at harvesting the grapes, but unfortunately there were not too much grapes to collect this year and by the time I popped in, the grape juice was already being warmed up... so at least I took the chance to take some pictures of the beautiful garden:


See more pictures here

Weekend in Budapest

We spent a very pleasant weekend with family and friends in Budapest. We had a great time drinking bathing and playing (Catan) together. The photo below we made in the entrance hall of the Gellert furdo, probably the best known spa from Budapest.


We take this chance to upload a few photos of Budapest that we took this spring as well, these show, among a few other sights, the new Palace of Arts recently opened in Budapest.

All pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/zoli.gyenge/EUROPEHUNGARYBudapest

A Voyage to Lilliput

On our way back from Turkey, we “adopted” an Easy-Jet teddy bear called Gulliver, who will join us on our journeys and hopefully win some flight tickets for us ;-)

This weekend we spent altogether in the Italian part of Switzerland. After a scenic drive through the Gotthard Pass (over 2000 meters) and a short stop at Verzasca Dam (the highest bungee jumping place in the world) we visited Lugano, which is a typical Mediterranean-style town, very similar to the little Croatian towns along the coast.

(View from the top of the Gotthard Pass)

After spending the night in a camping by the Lake of Lugano, we started our journey in “Lilliput”, the Swiss Miniatur Park located nearby. It’s been an amazing experience, there are over 120 models of famous buildings (castles, cathedrals, town halls…) from all over the country, all placed in a very realistic-looking scenery: some of them at river- or lake-sides, others in the neighborhood of the Swiss Alps.
(Bundeshaus in Bern)

In this park, everything seems to be in a continuous motion: 18 railway models (running around on more then 3500 meters of rails), funiculars, rack-railways, cable-cars and boats - just like in reality!
More pics on the Gotthard Pass, Verzasca Dam & Lugano and theSwissminiatur Park.

Summer Holiday in Turkey

This summer's holiday we have spent in the "Gateway of the mystical east, Turkey".

We spent a few unforgettable days in Turkey's economical and cultural (but not political!) capital, Istanbul, probably the only large city that lies on two continents. This is probably one of the reasons Istanbul has a great atmosphere, filled with a flavour of mixture of different cultures.
We have visited here a great deal of mosques form the world renowned Ayasofya and Blue mosque to the less known, but nonetheless interesting Fatih, or Suleymanye. We also enjoyed a beautiful sunset, from the Galata tower, that provided a magnificent view of the inner city. We have also visited the two best known palaces, the older, Topkapi and the newer (the eighteen hundreds) Dolmabahce palace.


A mayor economical link (even nowadays) between the black sea and the Mediterranean see is the Bosporus, which is a splendid boat trip too:


After Istanbul we traveled to Kusadasi to have a few days of seaside-relaxation. The panorama below is taken from our hotel's balcony. Honestly not too much to say about this city other than it can offer some nice beaches, restaurants and that some of the biggest cruise ships anchor its harbor.


One trip we made from Kusadasi was to Pamukkale a mountain that due to calcium deposits of its springs is covered with a white layer that forms basins and other beautiful formations.


A great day we spent aboard a fishing boat that took us to a few less crowded beaches nearby and offered a great meal too.


Last but not least, a trip to Turkey would not be complete without a traditional Turkish night with all that such a night should offer (great food and drinks, belly dancers, etc)


So, in conclusion, we had a wonderful time in Turkey, and we came back with a lot of memories....
All pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/zoli.gyenge/ASIATURKEY

Arosa: "Just another day in paradise"

This Saturday we made a trip to Arosa, a small resort in the Alps at about 1800m. We were stunned, it is just amazing, as U can see we made probably our best photos ever!!! (make sure you click on the panorama pictures to view them full size).

A view of the lake at Arosa with the Alps in the background:


The panorama from 2800m:


and the water show (actually the initial reason we went to Arosa):

more our photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/Arosa

Why is the 31st of July my favorite day?

Simply because that's my birthday and I love getting presents (who doesn't?). In Switzerland I am especially lucky to having it right before the Swiss National Day, thus I get an extra holiday to fully enjoy it!

My birthday started with a huge surprise: a wonderful bowl of flowers was waiting for me at the reception, when I arrive to the office – and no sign about the sender ! (Later on, I figured out that my brother surprised me with that, but the note attached fell down by mistake) Afterwards I received congratulations, birthday cards and small presents from my colleagues’ side.
In the evening, we celebrated with a nice dinner, a bottle of champagne and my favorite blackberry cake:

I could hardly wait to open my presents! Zoli surprised me with a beautiful watch and a ticket for a real adventure: paragliding in Interlaken, the most beautiful region in Switzerland! I was looking forward super excited to the next day ... luckily it’s been a wonderful summer day, sunshine and clear weather, just perfect to admire the landscape from a height of about 1000 meters. We’ve been flying in tandem, with a professional pilot, for about 15-20 minutes … it’s been reeaaally amazing, one of the greatest experiences of my life!!!

Feel free to enjoy all our photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/Interlaken… and I’ll try to be patient, since there are still 363 days to go until my next birthday :-)

Trip to Uetliberg

Yesterday we decided to discover the Uetliberg-region (one of the highest hills around Zurich, with plenty of hiking trails). We chose a short, but quite steep trail to climb up to the top, where we enjoyed the wonderful view on the city and the Zurich lake.

Red Bull Air Race 2007

On Saturday we experienced something reeaaally amazing ... the 5th leg of the 10-race Red Bull Air Race World Series, took place in Interlaken, one of the most beautiful mountain resorts in Switzerland. The world’s most talented pilots raced at speeds of up to 400 kph as they tackled a challenging obstacle course in the sky. Out of the 13 competitors, Hungarian favorite Peter Besenyei qualified on 3rd place.
Enjoy some photos and videos below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/2007RedBullAirRaceInterlaken

Mom's birthday and Zuri Fascht

This week we had the chance to celebrate my (Zoli) Mom's birthday with a first fireworks of the Zurich fascht then a nice day with barbecueing by the Zurich lake and by enjoying the second day's fireworks.

Boat trip to Rapperswill

Last weekend we went on a 4-hour boat trip on the Zurich Lake with my parents, our destination being the so called “town of roses”, Rapperswill.

Rapperswill

I think it was the best season to visit this nice little town, since it’s been really full of roses everywhere, as you can see on many of the photos.

Mainau, die Blumeninsel

Mainau, an island we haven't even heard about a little time ago provided us with a great surprise. We can honestly say it is the most beautiful botanical (and not just) garden we've ever seen. As the name suggests, it is full of flowers. And when I say full, I means thousands of types of roses and giant dwarfs made of flowers. Along these one can see great water cascades and fountains, a palm house and last but not least a Butterfly house, something we haven't seen before and really impressed us.

OK, I guess this is already too much text about Mainau, better take a look at our pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/gulliver.gyenge/Mainau_Blumeninsel