Panorama Extravaganza!

You heard me. We've just been putting all of our panoramic shots together using a niffty program. They look sweet. These ones are from Hungary.

First two are from opposite sides of Budapest's length of the Danube river.

The second is from a castle in a town between Budapest and the Romanian border.

Bulgarian

Here are some of our photo's from Bulgaria. We spent 7 days in this small nation and discovered many things, including the World Arm Wrestling Championships!
Anyway I'll let the pictures do the talking:

This was a pretty cool fence I came across in Velinko Tarnovo. The faces of most of the soldiers had been smashed in, so that it looked like a skeleton. Quite spooky..

Literally a yellow brick road in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria

We came across these leaflets everywhere. They are posters to remember dead relatives, which people seem to put up yearly for their loved ones.

The spectacular view from the mountain we hiked up in Bansko, the ski resort town, which is currently undergoing major constructions by British investors. This place would be amazing to see in 12 months.

Wowser!! Check out those guns!

The one armed arm warmer on a MASSIVE Ukranian fellow.

And game time!

The hillside town of Velinko Tarnovo in the early morning mists. Beautiful.

The streets of Velinko Tarnovo

Romanian Rant

As Bab's sang " Mem'ries, light the corners of my mind" and before that light grows dim and I soon forget all our adventures from the 10 days we spent in Romania here are a few that have not grown dusty and weak:

-Romanian Driving! We soon learnt never to sit up the front of the bus so as not to be in constant fear of our lives. They pretty much play chicken with lories and what ever happens to be oncoming. Here is a nice example of the fine parking and general driver courtesy we witnessed:


A lot of stuff is falling apart in Romania. And a lot of stuff is being rebuilt to. With no particular rhyme or reason to it. Apparantly people will wake up to half a road turned up with no warning at all. This was a house in Sinaia.


This building in Brasov still has the bullet holes from the fighting that went on in the revolution in 1989. Chilling stuff.


Typical scene from the train window. Peasant life.


The trains looked like they were from the 60's (and probably were) but damn, the conductors had spiffy uniforms!


Public safety is not a huge concern here. We climbed up 140 (or something like it) rickety old stairs and ladders to get to the top of this bell tower in Sibiu, the european capital of culture for 2007. This was actually one of the better towers we climbed up.


Apparantly bugles are a bit of a problem here. This was in Sighisoara the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler (Dracula)


This is Andrew half way up Mt Bucegi in the Carpathian mountains. We climbed from 1450 metres to 2000 metres. Andrew realised he had quite a bad case of Vertigo on this hike. I think I was trying to give him an inspirational speech at this point.


As before for more photos go here

Hungarian Highlights

Well we have been reunited with Andrews beloved computer so I have just spent the last 8 hours loading the photos on and sorting them out. What I will be bringing you over the next few days/weeks is the highlights out of the 1200 odd photo's we took!
I have also posted some on Flickr so if you would like to look at a more extensive range you can have a squiz here.
Otherwise you can see the cream of the crop (or just the funniest ones ) here:

The view from the palace on the Buda side of Budapest

Budapest Parliament

Man playing the piano in the middle of a traffic island in Budapest

Old man on train from Hungary to Romania

Turkish Night in Goreme

Please, do not send fan mail.


Turkish night in Goreme consists of many Turkish families coming to an underground round hall/restaurant where they are then fed a highly average Turkish meal , given unlimited beer, wine and vodka and are entertained by traditional Turkish dancers, whirling dervishes and belly dancers. The belly dancer picked me out as the young vulnerable lamb I am. There's more footage but believe me it only gets worse!