Last summer was a traumatic experience for Margaret Island’s tribe of runners: after having heroically made it through the reconditioning of the track, which at least held the promise of a great reward at the end of the suffering, persecution began again in the build up to and during the swimming&other splashy sports world championships….
Tag: travel
An Hour at the Museum: Visiting the Restored Romanesque Hall of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts
In the past years I have occasionally complained to whoever was willing to listen (or not, it was not really their choice) that I miss visiting the El Grecos in the Museum of Fine Arts. The El Grecos, mind you, have not made any grand escape, it’s simply that the museum is closed for restoration,…
Crown of the Mountains: A Weekend in Brașov
Checking the Wikipedia page of Brașov I was informed that it’s climate is humid continental, the humid part of which disturbed me slightly, but I needn’t have bothered all that much, since during our four day stay we were faced with all four seasons, ranging from a hot and sunny morning to spritely spring rain,…
Underground Adventures: The Salt Mine of Slănic Prahova
There are two rather subjective reasons why I feel, as the blog’s industrious co-photographer would call it, a weird attraction for places called Slănic. Firstly, there is the trip I took with my grandmother to the resort of Slănic Moldova at the dusk of the communist era, where we were both subjected to asthma…
Farewell to the Winter Olympics on the Normafa Trail
It was completely and totally obvious that given the warm winter we’ve been having a cold snap would arrive, and it would arrive late, right about the time you consider checking out the state of your spring wardrobe, just in case. Well, at least it’s not here for Easter, and we hope it won’t return…
An Awesome Walk and ALT-J @ Wiener Stadthalle
Vienna on a Sunday morning is both very closed, and very open. Shops are closed, except for tobacconist’s, a few pastry shops and newsagents. The situation of the latter is, however, more complicated: those which are open are usually split in half with a rather random red tape, and beyond the tape lies a world…
Barlove: Viennese Coffee and Cigarettes. Still.
It was one of those very rare moments when I was loitering on a street in Vienna without the actual and definite purpose of going into a coffee house, which altered, and somewhat unnatural state was caused by my having just left Café Phil about half an hour before. But, as we have learned from…
Barlove: Café Phil Vienna
Borges once said that he always imagined Paradise as a library, and he was right, only you can go one better, and picture it as a coffee house with books, or a bookstore with coffee, depends on how you look at it. And breakfast, because if it’s done right, no matter at what hour, breakfast…
Sunlight through the Snowstorm: Vienna’s Kirche am Steinhof
I have often sung the praise of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s concert (Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker, a little gratuitous German never hurt anyone), which might seem odd for someone who is otherwise rather unattuned to classical music. Waltzes are however an exception, melodic and lightweight enough for the silly, familiar from Tom and Jerry…
Best of 2017 Travels
Sightseeing. The year began with an Arctic snap, which meant the Balaton was almost completely frozen over, and thus just in the perfect state for my tastes- its summery outing as a sea instead of a sea will stay forever alien to someone who grew up with an actual sea- it’s dark yes, and filled…
Pocket Diary Budapest 