Relishing summer memories

I realized that I never put any pictures up of my summer travels. When I was trying to come up with an entry for today ... I decided to share some of my favorite photographs with you all.

This is all I packed for 5 weeks of travel. (When I went to Italy with BestFriend in March, I used the same backpack and purse!)

Budapest! As seen from the Buda side of the Danube. Lovely, isn't it? On the day that I took this photo, I first woke up early and left my hostel to visit the Liszt Academy. Former professors of mine had studied there many decades ago, and I wanted to visit the famous music school. After a self-guided tour, I sat down in the nearby square and wrote in my travel journal for almost an hour. Then I decided to visit the Szent Istvan Cathedral before meeting up with hostel friends for a hike over the bridge to Buda. Although there's an incline system that you can pay for, we hiked up the hill to the Fishermen's Monger, where I took this picture.

Ahhh, Salzburg. This city was magical. I think it had as much to do with the loveliness and charm of the Old Town as with the charm of my first European romance. I met up with a sweet British guy (and I developed a monstrous crush on him at the time) ... and ... the cool part is- we're still in email contact, nearly three months to the day we met. :-)

Vienna ... I suppose this should have been my favorite city because I'm a musician. After Salzburg, it just wasn't as magical as I would have expected. I did enjoy it ... and ... I did take the opportunity to visit the graves of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Strauss! This statue is of Mozart.

Loved this window ... in the church where my choir performed in Hungary. We'd just sung at an extremely prestigious venue the previous evening ... but this concert was even more special. All of the townspeople gathered in this church. It was so overflowing with people- standing room only for a 2 hour concert! They were so appreciative of the music ... and the moment of silence that followed our major work was awesome. That pause between the last chord and the start of the applause was one of those times when I thank God for the gift of music.

Bratislava! The figure on the left is a statue. (I believe the sign is there because apparently the figure has been run over more than once.) The figure on the right is an actor. :-)

And Prague ... charming city! I definitely want to go back because 2 days wasn't enough!