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

Santa arrived to Zurich

As usually, Santa arrived a little earlier to us in Zurich. This time on a Saturday afternoon, while we went on a big shopping and wine-tasting tour ... he was knocking at the door, but since nobody opened it, he left on our doorstep a nice Christmas deco (which you can see on the table) along with this note:
"Én vagyok a Télapó, úgy beb@sztam mint a ló, van zsákomban mindenjó: tampon, bugyi műdákó. Ne várjatok nem megyek,pornófilmet rendezek"

Visit to Brussels

One of the benefits of working for an international company is getting the chance to travel around the world (well, in my case it was only Europe and mostly Germany and Brussels this year, but still... ) This month I have visited my team in our Brussels-office, where we not only worked together, but also had a lot of fun in the evenings - like on the pic below, drinking the Gluehwein at the Christmas market:

Skiing in Engelberg (from 40°C to -15°C in a few weeks)

sAfter less then 2 months we returned to Engelberg, this time for skiing though.
The change from our last blog entry being quite big, i.e. from +35-40°C to -15°C, and from a 0.0m above sea level to 3100m, we were quite cold but we enjoyed a wonderful day of skiing and the panorama with our friends Katja and Jerome.
(sorry for the low quality of the pics but they were taken by a camera phone).

South - East Asia, the land of smiles

We decided that since this was a very special trip, we will make a special post on it. Instead of our usual blog entries (booooring...) we decided to let you explore SE Asia from our view on this map. (We hope you have large screens with high resolution.)



Obs. for the less computer nerds: you can click on the pushpins on the places we visited to experience them from our view (our camera's view anyway). Some of the routes we traveled (shown by lines) also contain entries. For some places you will need to zoom in close to see all pushpins!!! Best viewed in Full-Screen (press F11)

Olvasoinknak, akik szamitogepek teren kevesbe jartasok: a terkepen kulonbozo helysegekre vagy utvonalakra kattintva, fedezzetek fel Del-Kelet Azsiat a mi szemszogunkbol. Egyes kornyekeken, ahol sok kozeli pont van, kozeliteni kell hogy minden bejelolt pont latszodjek!!! Teljes kepernyon a legelvezetesebb (F11-et kell megnyomni)


ATTENTION! GAME: we have a game and we have a prize: the first person to comment (not email) on this post with the correct order of the pushpins on the map as we visited them, wins the prize. (which is a surprise present we brought home with us, and it's not the malaria).
SECOND GAME: the second game is hidden within the photos, the one to find it and answer it correctly (by posting a comment, no email) will win the second prize.

Have Fun.

BTW: view the pictures from Picasaweb.com and not .hu or .ro, etc. These do not have name tagging enabled yet :-(

Phi Phi Leh, Paradise on earth

This island, as this youtube video, based on the the movie "The Beach" which was filmed here, says: "Somewhere on this planet... there must exist... a place... an experience... an encounter... that changes everything... I found it...". Its true its a place that changes a lot, the way you feel, the way you look at nature...

Phi Phi Leh is really an amazing place. Due to the fact that its a national park it is uninhabited and thus somehow protected. The beaches are white, clean and undisturbed, all surrounded by huge limestone rocks which are so full of vegetation, that one can't help to ask: where to these plants grow from??? its all rock!!!



We hired a longtail boat from Phi Phi Don and visited this little island.
Our favorite was the little, less known romantic Pileh Bay, where we enjoyed almost perfect privacy and peace:



We did some snorkeling in Koh Samah, sinking into marine live that one would think only exists in an aquarium.

Then we headed for the most well known beach in the area, the Maya Bay, which was the setting for the above mentioned movie with Leo DiCaprio:



This is where the sunset began, which meant we had to leave, again a difficult thing to do :-(

All our pictures from Phi Phi Islands, Paradise on earth

Phi Phi Don

After a few rainy days, we arrived to the Phi-Phi Islands on a perfect sunny day with blue sky. The journey could only hint on what a beautiful place we where heading to. The ferry made a circle around Phi-Phi-Leh, the smaller of the two islands, before heading towards the harbor in Tonsay bay. This gave us the chance to take probably the best pictures we took during our entire trip.



After arriving we checked in into our room, with the most amazing view:



We felt like the luckiest people alive, not only did we arrive to paradise on earth, but it was the day of the Loy Khratong festival, when Thai people launch flower rafts on the water as a sign of gratefulness for the rainy season and to wash away all the harm they did. Our hotel staff was kind enough to offer all their guests a Krathong for us to float and we all celebrated this nice festival together. They, the hotel staff had a large, extremely elaborated Krathong, prepared with great care throughout the day:



A further element of this festival is the launching of the Khom Fai (the linked video is from Chiang Mai though where since they don't have a sea they only launch lanterns, but a lot of them), a hot air lantern. As soon as we got ready to launch one, a group of nice little local children gathered around us to help out. It didn't take long for our Khom Fai to rise beautifully up into the night sky.



Later in the evening, we enjoyed a spectacular fireshow on the beach before returning to our room for a well deserved sleep:



The next days we spent by enjoying the beach, the perfectly white sand and the "view":



We didn't leave though without climbing up the painstaking 300+ stairs and further steep trail up to the Phi Phi Viewpoint (in tropical heat, TWICE!!!: once for sunset and once for sunrise) which rewarded us with great panoramas over the narrow stretch of inhabited land between the two bays of Phi Phi Don Island:



The only bad part of our visit here was that we had to leave, which wasn't easy :-(
All our pictures from Phi Phi Islands, Paradise on earth

Phang Nga Bay

Probably 90% of the tourists traveling to the southern part of Thailand and Phuket island would sign up for a day-trip to Phang Nga Bay - and most of them would expect the James Bond island tho be the biggest attraction of the tour!



Well, the James Bond island is certainly the most famous spot in this bay, but it is just one of the hundreds of spectacular limestone cliffs raising out of the sea. We have found the scenery of the entire Phang Nga Bay very spectacular as we have been cruising between the limestone islands, most of them being covered by evergreen mangrove forests. Along the tour we also had the chance to explore some hidden coaslines and caves by paddling sea canoes:



Another famous spot of the bay is Koh Panyi, a muslim fishing village; here we had our lunch, as most of the tourists boats organize there lunch at one of the seafood restaurants of the floating village.
Our tour ended at the Suwankuha Temple, also known as the 'Monkey cave'. Zoli decided to feed the monkeys with bananas and approached them with a lot of enthusiasm. All of the sudden, he was surrounded by a group of even more enthusiastic monkeys determined to get a piece of the delicatesse in his hand. There were many of them coming from all over, even mother monkeys with little babies hanging on to them. It wasn’t long until Zoli dropped all the bananas and looked around with big scary eyes (saying "baszzatok meg") - as you can see on the picture below:



For all pics on the Phang Nga Bay, click here.