'Summer stories' series: Badacsony vacation

It's high time to continue my summer stories series with our vacation at Badacsony.
Instead of writing lengthy sentences, enjoy the best pictures -and my comments on them.
First of all, let's see the protagonists:)

This is me,

and here are we.
Here we gooooo! Where? To Lake Balaton!

Badacsony at dawn, on the 18th of August (more pictures of and comments on this day a little bit later:))

The beautiful landscape of Badacsony

One hot day (crazy us departured around noon..)we went to the Badacsony hills: this is the path we walked up on (partly, 'cause later on the path became even more path-like, which mostly means rocky dirt roads)

On our way we saw vineyards

and a bunch of grape leaves (I love them so much that I had to take a dozen pictures of them).

Grape leaves here

and grape leaves there. Grape leaves around everywhere...
Okay, I think that was enough of the beloved grape leaves...so now let's turn to the grapes themselves. Relax, just kidding;) (tricky question: which of the following pictures depict real grapes?)

We also drank (okay, only tasted) the red and white product of the grapes: the various Badacsony wines

that made us (mainly me) a little bit dizzy...

Arriving at the top of the hill, another mania of mine appeared: photographing landscape with the presence of trees (see, normal people usually avoid the presence of any kind of inhibitors that disturb effective photo-taking acts. On the contrary, I consciously and dauntlessly seek for the presence of these 'inhibitor-creatures', since I believe they make photos more unique:)) Take a look and make a decision of your own.




When it was enough of trees, then came the clouds,


and when nature photos became too natural (due to all those trees and clouds), a little human presence could be added, too.



All in all, we had a great time!

A little interruption of 'Summer stories' series

Today I should have gone babysitting my four children. However, because of a few reasons due to them (sickness and other stuff), my visit was postponed to next Wednesday. So given plenty of free-time (okay, everyone needs a break, or not?) I started looking at pictures taken in the past 2-3 months, and this is what I've found:

I have not the slightest idea who this little girl is, but I remember finding it in a magazine at Kornelia's house in July. The reason I photographed it is that I thought then (and I still think this way) that she extremely resembles Ariana! Of course, not as much the newborn, baby Ariana whom she still is, but mostly an Ariana who already turned into a 1.5-2 year old (and has grown her hair and body length plus has a healthily tanned skin colour:))

This is how Ariana looked like in July:

I will be interested if my insight or vision will do anything with reality, or she will become different in appearance. We'll see next year!:)

'Summer stories' series: An appetizer for family, friends and foreigners

I have been planning to upload pictures and write about all of my summer memories for ages, sorry for those who were waiting for this moment so long...

I cannot promise I'll reach the end of my story-telling today. To tell the truth, it's very likely I won't. But at least I will start it....and finish it at another time...maybe tomorrow.Or the day after tomorrow. Or another day after tomorrow.You know, just to keep spontaneity. :) And to satisfy your needs to hear of me. :)

Those who truly know me should be aware of the fact that my stories ALWAYS go hand in hand with some helpful aids...and what are these aids, can you guess? PICTURES, of course, what else!:)

So let's see now how it all began...(dating back to the moment I began my vacation on the land of Hungary and not counting the great-great tour to and in the U.S.).

If you choose Hungarian Railway system,- the so called MÁV, which we mostly chose this summer- to reach one's final destination isn't an easy task. Our first great scene of vacation was near Lake Balaton, at Badacsony. Imagine, it took almost five hours from house to house to get there, including both my half an hour small journey with lovely little HÉV and METRO, not to mention the four hours trip with the even lovelier little MÁV.

See, one fact surely distinguishes Hungary from the States: our unique and 'wonderful' railway system!:)

It's even cheaper than flying, so why not exploiting it?

Therefore, we did it: using lovely little MÁV, almost all of the time. To make our journey simply unforgettable.

Surprisingly, from MÁV windows , you can also see Hungarian sunflowers (okay, it wasn't photographed through the windows, but only because windows were not transparent ENOUGH to do so...maybe a heavy rain would help on that).

However, after travelling everlasting hours with our Memorable and Ádorable Vehicle (MÁV) and reaching our place of stay, we felt extremely lucky to get space in a seven stars hotel*. Look at the picture, can you imagine that the hotel was just fully renovated and was extremely convenient with all those high-quality facilities? Can you? If yes, good.We couldn't.

* note that seven star hotels are only available in Hungary.

Still, after a while--to tell you the truth, --I began to love it. So now I am sure it was worth buying it.

What do you think?

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Okay, people, time to end irony. No worry: this is not reality. Hopefully. I'm just only getting sleepy (no more 'i' endings, please...)

Actually, Hungary is a lot better than that. I only tried to provide you with an 'appetizer' to our 2009 vacation. If you got interested in it (and if you long to read words and look at pictures that reflect things how they really were), I think you will have to join me next time, too, as I'm finishing it off for today (the call of the Goulash Soup--and the rumbling of my stomach- is stronger at the moment than anything else, even my determination to do creative movements on my blog...)

sorry...to be continued...soon....hopefully (and for today, really, no more 'i'. Yeah, I promise thee).

:)