Mini honeymoon in Austria

On Monday evening we came back from our little honeymoon weekend, which was GREAT!!!

We drove south on Friday afternoon, taking the old road (Roßfeldstraße) that used to connect Germany with Austria. Some of that road goes on the mountain range right on today's border. The views from there are amazing, really breathtaking.

On the way to Austria

You basically cross the border in a village called Halein, which some of it's houses are in Germany and some in Austria. Totally cool, but also a bit funny... Imagine that your neighbors that live just across from you live in a different country. Today with the EU there is no real border in between, but there used to be a check point there.

Bumblebee!

So we drove down to Salzburg (the region not the city) and ended up next to Abtenau (a small town), in a nice B&B that Rob's siblings booked for us as a wedding present. The B&B was really in the middle of a very small not-even-a-village, and the view from our balcony was so beautiful, it was nice just to sit there and stare.

The view from our balcony

The next day we went to some gorge in the area, and had a nice walk in it, next to the river Lammer. It was a really nice one and a half hour walk, very easy and pretty.

Lammerklamm

The Lammer

After that we drove to a lake (Halstättersee), and did a bicycle tour around it. Of course I was all tired when we had to go up hill (sometimes the path next to the lake went on the hills) and had to push my bike up...

Halstättersee

I managed to ride around 3/4 of the lake, and then we sat down on a nice beach and got a little bit of a tan.

Halstättersee

Rob went to get the car from where we left it, and we drove back to the B&B. In the evening we went to the "Big Festival" of Abtenau, only to see that a big festival in their eyes is the small pedestrian when it's full of ppl, and the choise between saussage and chicken in the food stands. It was really nice though, and we sat most of the time with the daughter of the owner of the B&B and her friends.

On Sunday Rob went up the Postalm (a mountain nearby) with his bicycle, and I met him afterwords in the parking lot (I came with the car).

On the Post alm

View from the Post alm

We walked up the mountain, had lunch on top, ran away from mad cows, went down and drove to a really nice lake to swim and catch a bit more tan.

View to Wolfgangsee

The weather in these few days was so amazing, the sun was always shining, and everything looked so clear that it was so tempting to take more and more pictures. I promise to add them to this post later, but now I don't have time to download them- and apperantely also no space on my hardrive...

On Monday morning we went white water rafting, which was also a part of the present from Rob's siblings. It was so much fun!!! I, of course, was a bit worried and afraid before that, but it was really not as chalanging as I thought it'll be, and I really enjoyed it.
After that we had lunch in Abtenau, and then we went to a Summerslide (which is actually called a Toboggan in English), we waited on top of the mountain for more than an hour in the sun, and in the end we both thought that it wasn't quite worth it. Anyway - it was a nice experience for me, since I never took one before...

We came home tired but really happy, we got to see so much in such little time, and also got to relax and really get away for 3 days. One really nice surprise that awaited us in our room in the B&B was a bottle of champagne with two glasses, on each the initials of one of our names. That was aranged by Rob's family of course, and was really really cool.

So, that's it- I really promise to put here some pictures as soon as I solve the capacity problem. I guess I'll have to start using my external hardrive only, when it comes to downloading pictured... bummer...

Wish you all a nice end of the week,

I have to continue studying now (exam in 2.5 weeks)...

Some impressions from Bavaria

As I promised, here are some stories about my travels with Yifat around Munich and Bavaria.

Lets start with a picture from our apartment, from the day Yifat came,
a day in which you could see the Alps (it was such a clear day):



On Sunday when Yifat landed, we went home for a bit and then wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day it was outside. The temperature was really high (relatively of course) and the sun shone in the blue blue sky. We went to the Olympia tower which is right in the Olympia park (where the notorious Olympics in 1972 took place), watched the views all the way up to the Alps, and looked at the whole city.




After that we went straight to the last day of Oktoberfest, which was really great, and we really understood why ppl from all over the world go there. Well... I guess once or twice is enough though...

In the next days we walked around Munich a lot, and saw quite a lot of it, which was really good for me, coz I wouldn't have learnd the streets so fast after moving unless Yifat came. Since she took most of the pictures in Munich, I'm not going to put any here, but I guess I'm going to put pictures from here in the future, concidering the fact that I'm going to live here in the next few years.

After wondering in Munich, we took two days to travel in Bavaria a bit, on the one day we went south to the famous castle Neuschwanstein, which was the inspiration to the Disney caslte:

The caslte in very nice Autumn colors

View from one of the windows in the caslte (yes, WOW!!!)

We actually drove there through the town Garmisch, a very posh ski area, and the views there were really breath-taking:

The middle of town: Garmisch

In the evening after the castle we drove back to Munich, stopping in lake Starnberg. On the way there we took these really nice country roads Bavaria has to offer, and got stuck in traffic. Not normal traffic, but this kind of traffic:


You see, there was a whole heard of cows walking back to their stable, after a day of eating and walking in the sun. We had to drive really slowly behind them, until they reached their goal. Was really funny!!!

We only got to the lake in the evening, to have a drink on the shore, in a nice Beer-Garten, but it was still very nice:



The next day we got up early and went east to Chiemsee. It has two islands in it (well two big ones, it actually has a few other smaller ones), on which there's a lot to see. Here are some pictures from the way (it was a very misty morning, which reminds me of the song with the same name, by Bob Marley), and I got some really nice pictures from a rest area on the way:

Driving to the lake we realized that our day is going to be very hazy and cloudy and grey. Nevertheless, we had a nice day (even if it was cold) on the islands:


On the next weekend we drove to Rob's parents to walk in the old town there, and on Sunday we drove home through Regensburg, which is a really nice town.

I hope you enjoyed our little travels in Bavaria, lets hope that there are going to be a lot more!

Our trip to Spain

(this post was written a few days ago, but due to the lack of internet connection is being posted only now)

Madrid

We got to Madrid on a Tuesday in the evening. We flew with Easy Jet, therefore our flight was obviously late in one hour. In the airport in Berling Rob worked on his thesis presentation, while I just slept.

Charles and Ana were great: they came to pick us up from the airport. There's nothing nicer than someone picking you up from the airport! Meeting them again was so nice. I really misses them. We went straight to have dinner, knowing that if we go home we'll never want to go out again. They took us ti the center, where there's a lot of Tapas bars. Of course we ate Tapas - and it was really good food. We realized that the food in Spain is going to be really expensive, and so it was.

When we got to their apartment they continued the good hospitality with giving us their own bed while they slept on the sofa.

The next day Rob and I just walked around Madrid (ALL DAY LONG!!!) and saw quite a lot of things. Madrid is a really nice city, but I must say, in the end it is just another beautiful capital city in Europe.

Madrid

We got to the palace,

and realized that the guards are changing.

It was a really nice little ceremony with horses.

I love these Facades.

It makes the city so special.

Toledo

On the second day in Spain we took Ana and Charles's car (have I mentioned that they were really good hosts?) and drove to Toledo. The drive took about an hour and we were there. Luckily we had a GPS in the car, which made things much easier, even though it wasn't so hard to get there.

Toledo is a really nice old city, that used to be the capital of Spain hundreds of years ago. We went to the old city which is still surrounded with walls. It was a really beautiful place, and you could really feel the history in it. Toledo also has a long and cast history of Jewish people that lived there, sinice they held high positions, of course, until they were exiled from Spain. Because of that there are two synagogues in Toledo, though one was transformed into a church at some point. The big one was actually kept almost as it was, except for the fact that it's empty nowm the walls are covered with the decorations from then- which was a few hundred years ago. It was really ineteresting for me to go see such an old synagogue, especially coz there's really old churches and cathedrals everywhere, but synagogues dodn't always survive.We came back to Madrid in the evening, and brought some food to eat at home- which was really ncie coz Ana got lots of good food too and together it made into a really nice dinner.

On our third day we went to the Art Museum Prado in Madrid, which if considered to be one of the best ones in the World.. It contains of mainly paintings from really famous artists, such as Velazques, Rubens, El Greco, Goya etc. I must admit that both Rob and I decided that we're not fans of paintings from that time.

We went home in the afternoon since we all took a flight to Barcelona in the early evening.

The gate to the old city in Toledo

In Toledo there was a really nice mixture

between Judaism and Christianity.

You can see it until today.

The view over the roofs of Toledo

One of the cathedrals

Barcelona

When we landed in Barcelona, Ana's father came to pick us up from the airport. He took us to their house, and Ana's parents did everything to make us feel comfertable in their home. They live just outside of Barcelona, on the other side of the mountains, which really reminded me of the Carmel Mountains in Israel. We spent the weekend there, enjoying Ana's mother's great Spanish cooking. We took the train to Barcelon on Saturday and walked in the city and saw a lot of it. In the evening we went out. It wasw a special weekend in Barcelonam called La Merce, and there were a lot of concerts, street performances, and so on. The main event was on Saturday night: a fire parade.

The Catalan Government building in Barcelona

We walked into this church,

which was really really beautiful,

and suddenly we saw that there's a wedding going on!

We stayed till it was over, of course.

Fire fire fire!!!

A fire blowing dragon

It was a lot of fun, and only small damages were reported by Charles, who spoted some holes in his shirt...

The next day, Sunday, Ana spent with her dad at the Bull Fights (it was his favorite bull-fighter and Ana's first time there) so we spent the afternoon with Charles in Barcelona. It was a really nice day, and we walked along the beach, had a typical Spanish Paella for lunch, and enjoyed the sun.

The port of Barcelona

Beautiful beach of the Mediterranean

Paella, the Spanish specialty.

Jamon (ham).

The main dish in every Tapas Bar.

Early on the next day Charles and Ana left to Madrid, back home to work. Her mom took us in the morning to Barcelona (which was really nice of her) and there we stayed in a small hotel (which was right in the center, but ther street next to us was occupied by hookers the whole day!!! vert inetersting experience I tell you!) We stayed there till the end of our trip. We planned on going somewhere nice and warm in the last two days, to just lie on the beach, and get a tan and relax, but the weather..... OOOOOF!!! The stupid weahter decided that we don't deserve a real relaxation, and it was raining the whole time! Sp we walked a lot in Barcelona, and saw quite a lot of it. Wednesday was a holiday there, of the saint of Barcelona Santa Eulalia. They had a parade and in general the streets were full of ppl. On one of the dats we webt ti see the Picasso Museum, which was really nice, really really nice. The food was good, but again- really expensive. In general I think we really liked Spain, though we would have loved to have a few nice sunny days in the end...

In the last two days we went to see a lot of buildings

that were designed by Gaudi.

I like his designs, it makes the whole area much happier.

Park Güell

also designed by Gaudi.

Last picture:

the view from our airplane,

as we took of on our way back...

We went back to Dresden on a Thursday, and then started the marathon of me seeing everyone I wanna say goodbye to, and Rob preparing his presentation, that took place on Monday.

About that and more on my next post.

Beautiful Dresden

Last weekend Rob's older brother and his girlfriend were here. It was really fun!!! They came here on Thursday evening, we had dinner at home together and then we went to the old city to wonder around a bit. The next day we spent the whole day around town- and we got to see a lot of what this beautiful city has to offer. The next morning they had an event far away so they had to get up early and drive.

Here are pictures from that weekend-

one photo is worth a 1000 words...

(click pictures to see them in a normal size)

This is the Zwinger
Was build by Augustus the Strong
and today houses several art collections.
This is its Crown Gate.

The Frauenkirche
(the Women's Church)
Was rebuild in the last 10 years,
after it was almost totally ruined
in the bombings of February 1945.
It's pretty impressive (and huge!)



Blaues Wunder
(the Blue Wonder)
Said to be the first bridge in the world
to be build without any constructions in the water itself.
We crossed it from the side you see in the picture,
and took a cable car up on the hills.


Here it is again with some more view.

and again.

(these pictures were taken
from a really nice restaurant
on top of the hill
that has the nicest view in Dresden)


Here is the view to the other side-
The Elbe river and it's amazing valley.



On this side of Dresden
there is some of the nicest and
most expensive houses in town.
Even Putin himself used to own a house there
while living in Dresden
when it was still DDR (GDR).


Last picture- from Neustadt
the cool side of town.
We went to have dinner there,
and this is just a nice picture of the sunset.

Hope you enjoyed!!!
I'll sure miss this city...