Sailing

Brisk sail on Racquet Lake

Golden Beach

Our campsite at Raquet Lake

Webster New York

 We're staying with Nancy Lewis in our former neighborhood.   Fun visiting with old friends.   

Our camping in Allegheny St Park was notable for the amount of rain and a bear encounter.  We're recovering and fixing up a rip in our Noah's Tarp from our last camping trip to Martha's Vineyard where I thought it was a good idea to fasten one corner to the Jeep. 

Allegheny St Park

People used to ask if I was building an Ark. Doesn't seem so funny now 

First tour for S/V PERSISTENCE

PERSISTENCE ready for her first tour sleeping in a friends garage in Willow Valley.  Today we leave for Allegany State Park in NY and her second sail.  Stops at Golden Beach State Park on Racquet Lake, and Eggermoggen Reach in Maine are planned.  All ready renewing old friendships in the Wooden Boat Building Community. 

Linz

Spent much of yesterday cycling through the City of Linz and surrounding countryside.   Found a very nice family sports complex with a number of swimming pools, tennis courts,  and picnic areas.  Bought a senior day pass for 2.15 Euro.  Didn't spot any other tourist among the hundreds of other visitors.

Vienna

Starting our day on the way to the subway with new acquaintances Dan & Judy and Steve & Judy.  Church in the background is St Francis of Assisi built by Franz Joseph.

Vienna

Spent the entire day at the Belvedere learning about the Hapsdburgs and studying the art of Gustave Klimt.  The photo was taken through the old glass windows of the Upper Belvedere Palace.

Bratislava walking tour

Lots of bronze sculptures.  Man at work is probably the most famous

Bratislava Slovakia

In the capital of Slovakia today.  Very prosperous city which is home to the VW factory which produces the Audi Q7, Porsche Cyanne, and VW Toreag.  Walking tour of the city this morning, home hosted lunch at a small wine maker, cycling this afternoon.

Castle Hill

Matthias Church

Budapest

Walking tour of castle hill

Szechenyi Spa

Adventured out this morning with Dan and Judy to the famous spa of Budapest.  Included navigating the oldest subway in Europe.  I could have spent all day sampling all the features of Szechenyi!   In the picture,  the annular ring is a high speed powered stream that turns on for a few minutes at a time and sends you flying around.  Lots of laughter.   The stream is not on in this picture. 

We came back to here a inspiring talk by an economics professor at Budapest University.   Tomas became involved in organizing volunteers to help refugees fleeing Syria and other mid eastern countries who congregated at the main train station.

Finished the day dancing in the lounge.

Great cruise so far

Line dance

Dance Contest

Fun on the ship

The crazy guy with the green hair is Dom our cruise director

Budapest

Parlement Building from our riverboat.

Charles DeGaulle Airport

Our first time connecting through DeGaulle instead of terminating here.  Sort of a bad experience especially after passing through a well planned airport - Atlanta. 

It just gets worse.  They change gates with no announcement and the passengers know as much the airport employees. Very weird!

Paris Bound

Here's Carol at Atlanta Hartsfield & our ride to Paris.  Air France Boing 777 300ER.  Boarding soon!

Heading out

At the airport in New Bern

2018 Eastern European Trip

On July 19th 2018 we fly from New Bern to Atlanta to Paris.

 Then on to Budapest to begin our river cruise with the Grand Circle Cruise Line.  Romantic Blue Danube: Budapest - Prague

Riverboat Route on the Danube then overland to Prague

Upon arriving in Prague we visit for  a few days and then at the end of our River Cruise we fly to Dubrovnik to begin our second tour Overseas Adventure Travel's Crossroads of the Adriatic

Tour Route from Dubrovnik to Ljubljana where we fly home 

We return to New Bern on Friday 17 August. We will be posting photos and some commentary as we go but formatting will be very limited since we will be updating from an Android Tablet.
Final formatting and publishing will await our return in August.