A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 19 May 2026 - T for lots of photos

Hello lovely peeps, I'm still traveling. 

On Friday I didn't really show any photos of the places I'd been (only jokey ones). 

People have asked me for photos of what I've seen. Here are some photos of Vienna and  Budapest. 

First off Vienna:

This is the ornate entrance to the Belvedere palace gardens.

Wikipedia writes: The Belvedere is a historic building complex and art museum in Vienna, Austria. The complex consists of two Baroque palaces, the Upper and Lower Belvedere, together with the Orangery, the Palace Stables, and a formal Baroque garden.

Built as the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the complex was designed principally by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and completed in the early eighteenth century.

Above is the impressive parliament building.

The above building is the Palace of Justice.

Kohlmarkt, with the Palace of Justice in the background.

 The church located at Stephansplatz is St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom), seen below. It is the iconic Gothic mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna, instantly recognisable by its geometrically patterned mosaic roof and the 136-meter-tall South Tower

The Eurovision song contest was being held that weekend and some locations were cordoned off and there was a lot of screens and cables and cameras etc everywhere.

Then we went (by train) to Budapest in Hungary. We had a hotel opposite the Keleti train station. This is the view from my hotel room:

That building is the station.

We had a tour with a local guide. We visited the City Park, amongst other things, which has thermal baths:

This is from the Internet, just to show you how enormous it is.

The entrance looks like this:

It's just amazing.

And that's just the entrance.

I fancied an experience and went that afternoon:

I chose the premium experience as it came with a bathrobe, which I didn't have of course.

The underground in Budapest is very old, and still uses on the old yellow carriages. 

The stations look like this:

A lot of wood and tiles. Very beautiful.

Below is the inside of the opera building. Unfortunately there was no time to see an opera.

The Matthias Church has a beautiful roof:

Near the church is this stunning building topped with copper warriors! It also has a stunning roof. The building, once the Royal Ministry of Finance, it’s now home to the Ministry of Interior:

Would you believe there was a Jamie Oliver restaurant in Budapest!

The next day we got a train to Bucharest (Romania). 

Budapest is lovely. Even the station in was beautiful:

The station was called Keleti:

I'm joining T for Tuesday hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard so I need a drink:

This is my hotel room in Brasov in Romania. There is a coffee machine and there are wine bottles.

That is all for now. More photos on Friday.

Happy T-Day all!

Lisca

A Postcard A day - Friday 15 May 2026 - Friday Smiles (Lots of them)

 Good morning Smilers! On Fridays we find things that made us smile or at least find a silver lining in everything that's happened. Well I don't have to look far. I'm on holiday and I'm smiling every day.

I would like to tell you a few funny experiences I had in Vienna  and Budapest (Photo below: Budapest)

What a beautiful city! (Budapest)

But first Vienna. There we went to a coffee place (I like my pastries) and the toilets had glass doors. I didn't take any photos (for obvious reasons).... A bit disconcerting, but of course the glass went opaque as soon as you locked the door. Nevertheless, one lady hadn't realized that and called a member of staff to complain. She wasn't going into a glass cubicle! I smiled (I had already come out, so she hadn't seen my opaque door).

In that same cafe (the owner has a sense of humor) they had chandeliers with cakes:

and all the other lamps were made out of petticoats:

Another thing that made me smile was that I found a shop with my name on it! (Also in Vienna)

Shame they didn't spell it quite right....

We caught an early train to Budapest and in the station hall I found this cute lion and I thought Iris might like this 'cousin' of Henry's. His name is Marcus.

In Budapest we had a tour of the city with a private guide. We saw numerous statues and monuments, learned about the history of the country and ended up having coffee and delicious pastries (again) in a place called Müvész.

The pastries were a feast for the eye (and the palate).

Again, a trip to the rest rooms proved interesting. Here they had instructions in the ladies' toilet on how to go about doing your business. They made me smile:

I enjoyed Budapest. It is well worth the visit.

That is all for today. More on Tuesday.

Enjoy your weekend wherever you are.

Keep smiling!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 12 May 2026 - T for Travel (Photo heavy)

 Hello lovely peeps, 

I'm traveling! I've been looking forward to this trip for about a year and now it's really happening! I'm traveling from London to Istanbul, by train, slowly and stopping on the way.

But first let me show you a postcard:

It's one I bought in Zürich a few days ago.

Let me start from the beginning: I flew to Madrid, where I caught a flight to London. I had arranged to stay at a private address through HomeExchange. The couple who hosted me were really lovely. 

At the end of the street was a pub and I went and had a half pint of cider with my host:

As it is T-Day, hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, my glass of cider will be my 'ticket' to the party.

I had supper with my hosts and we talked until late. 

The next morning I had to be in St Pancras (railway) station at 6:30 to meet the group (8 other people and a tour guide). The tour leader was waiting at the statue of Benjamin Britten. I eventually found it and met my fellow travellers. They seem really nice. 

Traveling on the Underground was also an experience:

We took the Eurostar train to Paris:

In Paris private transport took us to the Gare de Lyon (another station) where we had booked a table at the famous Le Train Blue rstaurant:

A very beautiful restaurant in the station.

It was quite an experience and the food was excellent.

We traveled through the Alps, which was beautiful:

We were all seated together so we could get to know each other a bit. Most are English, apart from and American couple and an Irish lady. The tour guide is Latvian.

After lunch we ended up in Zürich (Switzerland). (Hence the postcard) 

We didn't have time to do sightseeing, but we had the whole evening to explore locally. Me and the Irish lady went for a walk.

We saw buildings with beautiful murals.

The Landesmuseum (I assume that is the municipal museum) was stunning:

Next morning we got a train to Vienna in Austria, and had a guided tour through the city with a local guide.

Vienna has lots of stunning buildings and a chequered history. The guide (an older man) was very funny, especially when he talked about his country's history.

Vienna has also got many beautiful parks.

At some point we ran into the Lippizaner stallions from the riding school being led from their stables to I don't know where:

At the moment I am in Budapest (Hungary), but that will be for another day.

I wish you all a happy T-Day,

I probably won't be able to do much commenting as I we'll be on a train most of the day. (But we'll see.)

Lisca