Wa-a-ah! I want trains like those over there! So fast and comfortable! Easy, convenient! They connect with the airports, subways and buses! The stations are full of useful stuff, like information and bread! Add bikes or scooters, and the car stays at home! While we were struggling home for 3 hours in our own car after arriving, exhausted, at SFO, a nice train to SAC would have been SUCH a help! But it's almost a cliche to praise the train system in Europe. What to do?
Bedding! Always the same! Once again, not news to other travelers, but each individual, even on
a bed for two, has a pillow and a comforter, folded neatly in thirds, laid out. Simple, comfortable.I didn't keep track, but I encountered quite a few different flushing mechanisms. Not one lever, though. I got the gist after examining the first toilet I needed for about 20 seconds before I realized
that I had to push the big, flat, unmarked panel on the wall (looked like just a pipe cover or trash receptacle). After that, I pushed many shapes and kinds of panels, and buttons on tanks, walls and floors--it became quite a curiosity. We haven't been nearly as creative or interesting when it comes to commode flushing.Cemeteries are interesting everywhere, but these are especially curious to us for a couple of
reasons. First of all, in the village where our friends, the Vajnas live, a person's plot keeps its place for only 20 years. Then, it's dug up, the contents cremated, and stored elsewhere, and someone else is buried in that spot. For another thing, the plots are meticulously planted and maintained by the family like a little garden. So, the graveyard is a beautiful patchwork of tiny landscapes, some with candles or lanterns. We were there in as it was getting dark, so the pictures are not so easy to see.We saw, usually from the train, so many charming
towns and villages, nestled into green valleys. The houses are mostly white; the roofs mostly terra cotta colored and pitched at a steeper angle than most homes here. So there's a lovely uniformity, exotic to me, viewing from a distance. Steeples or towers poke up above most little towns. Castles, or the ruins of them, are perched on the surrounding hilltops. Usually a nice river flowing by. Just every day scenery, there.That's all for the moment.
--Sandy
