A New City Rush: the unapologetic art of inexpensive adrenaline traveling

Keszthely

Last pics

Sunny winter day in Budapest. Awsome clouds.

in the sun (February 2024), day 2/pt 1

Hungarian parliament & the Chain Bridge (Lánchíd). Also

Disney castle in the Buda part of

A good head start for sightseeing and morning sun in . Nothing better than a new day in a new city.

Budapest by night

New attractions in Budapest - the Hungarian house of music (Magyar zene háza) and Museum of ethnography (Néprajzi múzeum). Both beautiful.

Budapest: Hősök tér (The square of heroes) and Vajdahunyad vár castle behind it

The square of the heroes is very Vienna like. Budapest is like Vienna's younger sister. Both were a part of the same country until a bit more than a century.

Budapest in a drizzle

Montmartre - the day before yesterday in the morning

Leaving Paris...

Subway (metro) tickets in Paris cost 2.20€ - 0.90€ if you buy 10 of them. However, you can also get away for free in some cases. Just watch what the locals do because sometimes you can go for free through the exit - if it's broken (as one was constantly on my metro station here) or if somebody opens them for you (one person pays and opens the door for the others).

I rode the metro in this fashion for free a number of times. However, yesterday I ran into the control at the exit on Trocadero station. The way they operate is blocking the exits and checking everybody's tickets. What I did was just to go straight to another line for a station, go out there and walk one station back on foot.

A few random pics from Paris - just now...

Versailles - known for the royal palace. However, the modern town itself is also nice. The main street is unusually wide for such a small town.

Easily accessible from Paris via RER (a type of city train line).

Paris - day 3. Unfortunately, no clouds today. But not as hot as more to the south. Ideal city for random walking around - if one could walk so much. An e-scooter would be ideal.

Day 2 in Paris against the backdrop of beautiful cloudy sky. Also not too hot.

Paris - day 1, part 2

It's so much easier to travel now than some 25 years ago - with cell phones, mobile internet, Google maps, directions and so on...

I've completely forgotten how in Paris even random, normal buildings are great. Truely a majestic global city.

This Sunday - the City of Lights awaits for me! Gonna be there for a couple of days so expect a lot of pics .-)

One of the 'global cities', as I call them, and one of my favorites 🙂

A couple of days ago, I was in a small city of Palmanova in north-east Italy.

It's originally a Venetian military outpost (fort) from the 16th century. It's not overly beautiful but it was interesting and worth seeing.

As I always say, I want to see as much as I can - I don't really care if it's very beautiful or not. Even if a town is just 'ordinary', it's still worth seeing in my view. Seeing another place is always worth it.

The horses on the basilica of Saint Marc in Venice - today, its the replicas and the real ones are being preserved in the museum inside.

Originally, these were horses from the hippodrome in Constantinople of all places. Brought to Venice after the pillage of Constantinople in 1204, in the Fourth Crusade.

The funny thing is - Venice was originally a colony or a dependancy of the late Roman Empire ("Byzantium"). Thus, a novice conquered the master.

And the horses are still in Venice, more than 800 years later.

Venezia/Venice

My third time. Great as ever. But I'm always their just a short time. Would love to stay once for at least a week to explore less touristy places.

Long time no see (e.g. long time no significant travels). Tomorrow: la Serenissima 🤩

Vienna: wide spaces of Schönbrunn on a cold winter morning

There's monumental Madrid and there's small town Madrid. The trick is to look for crowded areas on Google maps - usually there's something there. Doesn't always work though.

Last time I was in Madrid, I was 10 years younger. Practically a kid. Who knows how old I'll be the next time. We have so little time in this world. Better use it well. A cliché that's painfully true.