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| We went for a bike ride in the park. The steering was so worn that driving in a straight line was a real challenge. Hilarious fun. This is on the island im the Danube. |
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| Food is cheap in Budapest. $1AUD for a big slice of pizza or $2.25 for a Gyros, which is like a kebab. This was a posh afternoon tea we got from a fancy hotel, about $9. |
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| Trabant.. |
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| With innovative maintenance strategy. |
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| For Zappa! |
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| Morocco striles again! Mish's Marrakech bought shoes falling apart after a couple of hours use. |
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| Fixed! |
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| Hungarian Folk Dancing. 13 Euros each and worth every cent. Singing, music and jumpy shoe slapping dancing. Brilliant. |
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| The rather minimalist entrance. |
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| No expense spared. |
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| Our view. |
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| Velvet seats? Don't mind if I do. |
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| Selfie showing the bling in the background. |
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| We were in one of these boxes, 1st level. |
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| Bravo! |
We went to the Budapest Opera house to see an opera. We discovered that they do full dress rehearsals that you can attend cheaply. We bought tickets to the next one for about $18AUD. Turned out to be not opera, but ballet. And, not just any ordinary ballet, but Swan Lake! It's an epic, at just short of 4 hours including 2 intervals. Fantastic.
Amazing Budapest. Actually Buda and Pest, one each side of the river. Such a beautiful city with amazing people. A delight to travel around. It is very Melbourne like, with trams, some similar architecture and even a Docklands wheel! Even the ugly parts of Budapest are beautiful.
The Jemaa el Fnaa market. Madness. There is some beautiful parts to Morocco but the attitude towards tourists is appalling. Note that Michelle and I have both spent time in Asia and are used to the bargaining concept, in particular for market items. This is not in reference to anything like that.
Tourists seem to exist for locals to try and cheat as much money from as possible. It really is disgusting. Straight out lies, deceptive practices, a quote is never a quote. The final straw was when a tour operator made up information and told Michelle "her husband is a liar".
To go with this you have to deal with people nagging you or trying to help you and demanding money. You shouldn't have to tell a taxi driver 6 times that you don't need a taxi. You shouldn't have to put up with being insulted if you ignore their lie of "that way is closed" (in order to direct you to a shop they are connected to). No, that way isn't closed, we just walked from there.
Some of the people are amazing and very helpful. Many are not.
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| Go this way. Then down a few more passages. |
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| And you find a place with a brass covered door. The inside is like this. |
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| A full size clay bath. |
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| Pool and breakfast area. |
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| Breakfast. The Riad experience is fantastic. |
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| Preforming artist (pretending to be a statue) on La Rambla. Note the football (soccer) jumpers for sale in the shop behind. It appears that there is s law that in Barcelona every shop must sell them such was their popularity. |
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| Welcome to the Barcelona edition of the St. Kilda fore shore, even including the Docklands wheel. This area was built up for the Olympics, before it was a drab shipping port. The palm trees were imported from America. The sand from Egypt. Can you imagine the phone call? "Hola, got any sand you can sell me?!" |
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| Not everything in Barcelona is authentic. Faux stone wall. |
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| I did. It tasted like cardboard.. |
