Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez: Katherine and Joe's Trip!

Arad, Romania

Katherine and Joe got here late Sunday night. We spent all day Monday and Tuesday morning in Arad. Katherine and I went to a spinning class at my gym here. We spent the afternoon driving around seeing Andy's office, the Galleria of Arad, and the grocery store. We caught a train to Budapest on Tuesday.

Train to Budapest

Budapest, Hungary

We stayed in the Castle District on the Pest side of Budapest. We spent Tuesday afternoon walking around the Castle District and went into Matyas Church. For dinner, we went to a delicious, authenic Hungarian restaurant! Katherine and I got up Wednesday morning and ran along the Danube river and onto Margaret Island. This was absolutely gorgeous! On Wednesday we did a guided Communist Tour. Our tour guide, Ester, took us to Statue Park and Memento Park to start. This is a park that conserves the statues that were in Budapest during the Communist period. After this, Ester took us around to different Communist and other historical monuments including the Statue of Liberty of Budapest and Hereos' Square. After the tour we went to the Szechenyi Baths. This was a neat experience. Wednesday night we went to a really eclectic bar called Szimpla. This was a very unusual and fun bar! Thursday we spent most of our day on the Buda side. We went to St. Stephen's Basilica, Great Synagogue, Great Central Market and Vaci Street. Andy drove in to Budapest to meet us Thursday night.

Matyas Church

Castle District

Walking Budapest

Heading to Central Market Hall

On our Communist Tour

Statue of Liberty

Anonymous Statue

Szechenyi Baths

Great Synagogue

Hallstatt, Austria

Friday Morning we got up and drove to Hallstatt, Austria. This is the cutest town that sits on a gorgeous lake. We had some great Austrian food for lunch and then rented a boat to take out on the lake. This was a very relaxing city!

Lunch

Boat on the Lake

Munich, Germany

Saturday morning we drove to Munich, Germany. By chance we happened to be there during the Champions League Final where Bayern Munich played Chelsea. Munich was filled with all the fanatic football fans. This was definitely an experience! We spent Saturday going around to all the Biergartens. We started at Augustiner Keller Biergarten, and then we rented bikes to head to the Englischer Garten ("English Garden") In the Englischer Garten we went to the famous Chinesischer Turm biergarten. ("Chinese Beer Garden"). We headed to the the Schneider-Weisse Biergarten followed by the Hofbrauhaus.

*pictures coming*

Rothenberg, Germany

Sunday morning we drove to Rothenberg, Germany. This is a very picturesque medieval town that lies within castle walls. The town is known for their Christmas decoration shopping. The ornaments were beautiful but too fragile to transport home. We walked along the medieval wall that encloses the town. Sunday night we did the Night Watchman Tour. This is a one hour comical tour of the town showing important landmarks and describing the job of a night watchman.

In the town

Medieval walls

Bridge along the walls

Medieval walls

Night Watchman Tour

Love birds on the tour

Interlaken, Switzerland

Our last stop was Interlaken, Switzerland. This was by far my favorite stop! The views were absolutely incredible! The mountains looked fake. We stayed in Gimmelwald, which is up on a mountain. This allowed us easy assess to beautiful hiking trails. We spent Monday afternoon hiking to Murren and around Gimmelwald. Tuesday we went into Interlaken for the morning, and then spent the afternoon hiking. On Wednesday we shopped around Interlaken and had lunch at a pizzeria. That afternoon we did a Canyoning excursion trip. Canyoning is hiking down a canyon, and you do different jumps, rappels, and slides. This was definitely an adrenal rush! Thursday morning we took Katherine and Joe to the train station where they headed to Paris, and we drove home to Arad. This was an amazing trip! We miss them already!