Weekend of Towers

Yesterday the young men and young women went on a hike to the wood tower. It ended up being the four missionaries along with Elder Flammer and the branch presidents family. His wife is the yw president and Eldre Flammer works with the young men. I was the designated driver of the food and drinks.

They hiked through the town and past some cool looking statues in Deak Ter.

We like this one of a lion.

Sopron is such a beautiful place.

It is great that they have these towers so everyone can enjoy seeing the city.

After the hike up the 100 stairs and back down we enjoyed a picnic.

Today we drove to another wood tower that is above Sopron.

The mission leader and his family took us there. He is giving Steve some good missionary advise.

Battle on the logs.

It was so beautiful and well worth the walk to get to it.

We could see the first wood tower from this one and also the Neusiedler See (lake).

I did ok as long as I looked out and not down. This family was having a picnic.

We could see several villages in Austria

I think they call this a bird's eye view.

We saw a couple of butterflies and had some finom (delicious) treats.

What a perfect day.

The walk back to the cars was very beautiful.

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world and feel very lucky to see this part.

Alone in the car with the camera

Almost every Monday Steve takes the branch money to the bank and then takes the pouch back to the branch house. I stay in the car for a couple of reasons. One, it is really boring waiting in line in the bank. Two, if I stay in the car we do not have to pay for parking!

While I was waiting it was raining really hard and these two women were waiting for the bus. I thought it would make a good picture.

While waiting for Steve to go into the branch house I saw the rain flowing off the roof and down the rain gutter and out onto the sidewalk. There is a crack in the sidewalk that the water ran into.

Steve had to take the keys so I couldn't turn on the windshield wipers. It made the fruit stand across the street look really cool.

This is Torna Street that the branch house is on.

This picture is so cool because the rain drops would hit the water and make a bubble and the bubbles would float down the grate.

What a great way to entertain myself. Thanks for enduring!

Our trip to Pecs

Everyone told us that we must see Pecs before we leave Hungary.

We left Kaposvar and followed the Colleges through several small villages to arrive in Pecs the fifth largest city in Hungary. It is close to the Croatia and Serbia borders.

There were a lot more hills than we had imagined.

  

There were also more trees than we imagined.

The road took us right through the heart of towns.

It was so hot it should have been a two ice cream cone day but we settled for one.

There were some great statues ---

throughout the city.

We took a tour of a couple of churches. This is the front door of the Cathedral.

This is the Cathedral, very magnificent.

They are also very ornate!

And always great to see!

This is the Gazi Kasom Mosque.

It too was very beautiful inside.

As we walked down Janos Street we notices thousands of locks hooked to the fence. We found out that Pecs is also a city of romance and couples come from all over to lock in their love for each other. We didn't find this out until we came home so we are going to have to resort to other ways of locking in our love.

We visited the branch house and walked a few more streets and ate ice cream before we told the Colleges goodbye and found our hotel.

We had a very nice room on the top floor so I had to be careful getting in and out of bed on my side to avoid hitting the ceiling. It had air-conditioning which was the best thing ever on a 90 + degree day. We even had our own bathroom, another bonus.

After the best nights sleep we have had in Hungary we had a free breakfast. Three eggs with ham for Steve.

A sandwich with meat, cheese and vegetables plus a yogurt for me.

This was the view from our $38 room.

We agree, everyone should see Pecs.

Going South

We wanted to see what the other part of Hungary looked like. A lot of people told us we need to see Pecs  and Kaposvar before we go home. So we headed out to see the country!

I will never get tired of the vegetation along the roads here.  I LOVE IT.

This falu (town) had a lot of old OLD buildings, with a few that looked like they had occupants.

  We took the picture of the sign so we could remember the name of the town.

Beautiful streets (highways)

A lone statue in this falu.  (The name is below)

Try saying that!!

Or that!!!

There really is a Utah in Hungary.  The J makes a "ya" sound, the U makes a U sound, and the TA makes a tah sound.  Now we can say we have been in Juta (Utah) in Hungary. Who knew?

We frequently see statutes like this on the highways.

We stopped in Kaposvar to visit Elder and Sister Colledge.  With them are two elders who served with us  in the West Zone.  On the left is Elder Christensen. The tall one is Elder D'Angina 

The Colledges showed us around a little and we ate at a great pizza place.

Just a random statue in Kaposvar. Ok, it is really Shauna turned to bronze!

There are fat pigeons in Hungary!

Summer is a great time to walk around town even if it was a scorcher this day.

Coming up, OUR TRIP TO PECS.  We were told that this is one of the prettiest cities in Hungary, next to Budapest.