European Vacation 2004

In 2004 our family found ourselves with an inheritance after my parents' passing, a daughter in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria, and the 3 older kids having taken Spanish.  We put together a trip starting out in Spain, then flying via Brussels to Budapest, then took the train through Romania to Bulgaria, where we took the train still more.  This was not a restful vacation - particularly the Eastern European portion was even a bit uncomfortable.  The following shows some of the sights and a bit of the adventure.

These are shops across from our hotel in an old section of Madrid.  We walked the streets of this quite civilized city.  Our biggest surprise was that life seemed to start around midnight, well past our bed time.

Madrid was a mix of the old and new.   We were partial to the old.

We did the usual tours of the city, art museums, and palaces.  This ceiling was in the Royal Palace.   I had to lay on my back, using a pretty basic camera with good results.

We visited the old capitol of Toledo and couldn't resist the shot of my son in front of a tourist hotel.

I attempted to show the whole cathedral in Toledo but because I was stuck with a fixed lens - no zoom - this was the best I could do.  Toledo was delightfully old but all compressed in on the top of a small hill.

We found ourselves with a few hours in Brussels so we went to the old section of town.   There was a big crowd and some of the locals playing an antique game I'd never encountered before.  I had a camera film loading disaster so this is the only picture from that jaunt.  You can see me on the steps on the left, holding my camera and deluding myself.  I envisions superb black-and-white pictures, and had to settle for this one my wife took with her disposable camera.

This is a bridge over the Danube River in Budapest.  Despite our inability to speak Hungarian, we did reasonably well.  You can see part of our family underneath the right lion.

There was a fine old train station in Budapest where we started our trip to Bulgaria.  Minnesota lacks such a working train station.

The Citadel in Sighisoura, Romania (in Transylvania) was striking but we thought the fence around it was the best part.

This is the Bucharest train station, where we were stuck for some hours.   What stuck with us was the ghastly pay toilet, the most revolting we'd ever used.  I won't share those pictures with you.

This is the building project across the street from our hotel in Rouse, just over the Romanian border in Bulgaria.

This is a whimsical little chapel in Perishtitsa, Bulgaria, the town where my daughter got her first Peace Corp training.

This is a dilapidated monument to Russia on one of the hills overlooking Plovdid, Bulgaria.
The Bulgarians are grateful to Russian for helped free them from the Turkish Empire in the 19th Century.

This is the front yard of the house of my daughter's friend.   We stayed here when we visited Borovo, Bulgaria - where my daughter taught English.  Lots in Borovo are small and used intensively - with gardens, animals and fruit trees jammed into the yards.   Bulgaria has a mild climate so they can grow more than I can at home, including peaches which were ripe and delicious.

This is an edge of the small town of Borovo.

This is a walking area in Varna, Bulgaria, on the Black Sea.  My beach photos didn't come out that well so I won't inflict them on you.  We found ourselves at a disadvantage in Romania - we couldn't even read the street signs.   Our daughter had been in Bulgaria over a year and could communicate effectively - though Bulgarians told her she had a dreadful American accent - so we depended on her.  Trip was a fascinating exhausting exotic experience for us.