So I travelled alone through Eastern Europe for 3 weeks after my program in Spain ended. I figured it was not only a great opportunity to travel, but a means of proving to myself just how much I'd grown in the last 9 months, and a good way to transition from Spain back to suburban Colorado.
Budapest
Budapest along the Danube by night.
View from the citadel.
Below the Buda Castle.
Elisabeth Bridge (Erzsebet Hid)
Inside one of the famous bath houses, Gellért.
Országház (or the Parliamentary building).
Very imposing facade of St. Stephen's Basilica.
Istanbul
View from Galata Bridge; a thin link between Asia and Europe.
Silk flower wreaths for sale.
So many ceilings to ogle at - and mosques are so fun to visit, you get to take off your shoes!
6th century Hagia Sophia (UNESCO World Heritage Site)
Christian cathedral from 360 to 1453; mosque from 1453 until 1931.
View of the Sultanahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque) ...I'm pretty sure.
A view of ...good heavens, so many mosques, it was tough to keep them straight!
This little lady posed for me, and then took a few herself.
So many cats, this city is the home of tons of cats.
Inside the 11th century Chora Church, home of some absolutely beautiful mosaics.
To the lighthouse.
Hard to see from this angle, but this statue overlooks a dump.
Vienna
Theseus Temple
Life sized plaster cast of an olive tree.
Whopping parliamentary building.
Town hall.
Monument to plague victims (the lower part of the statue is terrifying).
Istanbul is to cats as Vienna is to horses.
Theseus kicking some centaur butt.
This city loves Gustav Klimt, and now I do too.
Schloss Belvedere during a beautiful sunset.
I'm quite proud of this: it is a photograph of a man taking a photograph of a photograph at a photography exhibition. His fedora makes all the difference.
Peterskirche Wien (St. Peter's Church).
St. Stephen's Cathedral: like any other gothic Roman Catholic cathedral you've seen, except for these crazy lights that give it a sort of under-the-sea glow.
Kraków
I rode an ancient train to Poland, decked out in compartments a la Hogwart's Express.
Rynek Glówny, the Main Market Square.
Schindler's Factory Museum.
The ceiling of St. Mary's - I love the night sky painted with gold stars.
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
Auschwitz II-Birkenau, preserved as the Red Army found it when it was liberated in 1945.
Between 1943 and 1945, an estimated 1.1 million genocide victims (primarily Jews, Poles,
Roma and Soviet Soldiers) died here.
A view from my hostel one fine evening.
Above and below: in the classy old Jewish neighborhood, Kazimierz.
Prague
The famous Charles Bridge, with its many statues.
Old Town Square.
View of Prague Castle from Charles Bridge.
New Jewish Cemetery (clear across town, but worth it for Kafka and beautiful, lush peace and quiet.
Old Jewish Cemetery (due to space restraints, historians estimate 12 layers of bodies
buried one atop the other in some parts of this cemetery).
The beautiful Spanish Synagogue (yes, that is an organ, in the synagogue!)
Tyn Church.
Also, this happened.
Changing of the guard at Prague Castle.
Beautiful Black Madonna in the Loreta church.
St. Vitus Cathedral (definitely go inside, the stained glass is breathtaking).
