Well that was a productive day!

You have to love it when a plan comes together. We had a lot of things we wanted to accomplish on our day trip to the city of Hereford and we got all of them done without a hitch!

More Trip Planning

We're getting spoiled with a continuous source of quality internet access! So I've been making the most of it and doing a lot of planning for the next five weeks. Of course you all know that we're headed for Iceland next week, but the rest of October is going to be busy as well!

House Sitting

Well, only a couple of days left in our current house sitting assignment. This is the first time we've looked after a pet as part of the job, and we really enjoyed it. Have you considered house sitting? We thought we'd tell you how we got into it, and what our experiences have been like.

Want to save on car insurance?

It's actually pretty easy and most people could pocket at least a couple of hundred dollars a year by making a few simple phone calls.

Bond...James Bond

Well it's been raining on and off here for the last three days. I don't think it ever stopped on Monday, and then right through the night. We have managed to get out with Harvey though, even twice yesterday. But it's wet and muddy up on the common.

Slovakia on $43 a day.

When we think of Slovakia now, we think of hiking. Slovakia is a hiker's paradise! We were in Slovakia between August 14 and September 3 for a total of 21 days and we went hiking on 13 of those days. A beautiful country, and we will return someday!

Czech Republic on $28 a day.

Reflecting on our six and a half weeks in Central Europe. We arrived in Prague July 23, and departed from Budapest September 7. We spent three weeks in Czech Republic, three weeks in Slovakia and four days in Budapest, Hungary.

The Top of Sugar Loaf Mountain

It was only a short 5 mile (8 km) hike yesterday, but it took us to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain which gave us some beautiful panoramic views. With the wind it was still a bit chilly, but we were lucky that it was a nice sunny day for the most part.

Another Border Hike

Last Tuesday we went for a hike along the Wales/England border in the Black Mountains. Yesterday, we headed about an hour south of here to do another border walk along the River Wye near the village of Tintern, Wales.

An Interesting and Productive Day

Started off with a haircut yesterday. For those of you who don't know, Ruth used to be a licensed hairstylist. In fact, that is how we met...she cut my hair! But of course all of her haircutting supplies were left inside Sherman (our motorhome) when we left Mexico in May.

Bought a new coat!

When we came on this trip across the pond, we only brought the necessities, and we figured it was summer anyhow. So I only had a light sweater and a light jacket. But it's starting to get cool here. Highs now are only around 16C (61F), and if there's a wind or we're out hiking at higher altitudes it gets chilly!

100 Meters Underground

We had a busy day yesterday. After taking the dogs for a walk, we headed into the city of Abergavenny, Wales. It's a small city, with a population of around 15,000 and Tuesday's are market days.

The leaning church of Cwmyoy!

Our hike yesterday started off in the village of Llanthony, Wales. There's a public car park at the Llanthony Priory, a ruined monastery dating to the 1100's. It was about a half hour drive to get there, and it was about 11:00am when we set off.

Castles in Wales

The official Wales website says that there are over 600 castles in Wales. That is more per square mile than any other country in the world. When you figure that Wales is about the size of the state of Massachusetts, that's a lot of castles!

Where we are staying is less than two miles from the border of Wales, and we visited there yesterday.

Iceland?

You may have noticed that we are going to Iceland! I don't know why, but I've always wanted to go to Iceland. It's not really a place that you make a point of going to though. But we were trying to figure a way back to Canada, and this interesting deal came up.

Harvey has a friend!

We did our normal morning and afternoon walks with Harvey. Still exploring different trails from the house, so we don't have any need to go any further afield yet. I got the hoover (vacuum) out and did some housework. Ruth did the bathrooms and got the other bedroom ready for Tony and Helen. And she baked some chocolate chip cookies!

A visit to Dore Abbey

Dore Abbey is near the village of Abbey Dore. It's only about 1.5 miles from the village of Ewyas Harold where we are staying, so yesterday morning's walk with Harvey the dog took us over the common area and down to the Abbey.

Tipping

Three months ago today, we arrived in England. Since then, we've also been in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. And, we've eaten in more restaurants in the last three months than we have in the last three years!

Three ponies and a pig!

First of all, thanks for all of your thoughtful and helpful comments regarding yesterday's blog post. There sure is a lot of tugging back and forth sometimes between your heart and your head!

$500 and counting...

How much would you pay to fix a 20 year old cat? Many of our regular readers will remember that when we set off motorhoming five years ago, we gave our cat Molly to my sister Elaine. Molly was already 15 years old at the time, and we didn't think she would readily accept the transition to living in a motorhome.

Our flight with Jet2.com

We had the opportunity to fly with Jet2.com for our recent trip from Budapest, Hungary to Manchester, UK. There are a lot of discount airlines buzzing around the UK and Europe, so it's interesting to try one out first hand to see what some are doing differently from others. Here's our review.

Getting to know the area

Sunday morning, we went for a walk around the village and then into the surrounding hills. There are so many trails in the immediate area that it's going to be easy to find somewhere new every day!

Harvey the dog!

So when we left you in yesterday's post, we were attempting to sleep in the Manchester airport. We've tried this before on some oddball connecting flights or like yesterday when we had an early morning train connection. It never seems to go well, and this time was no exception!

Last day in Budapest

On Friday morning, we hopped on the bus and went to the other side of the Danube River for our walking tour of the castle district. It was a gorgeous day, with clear blue sky and perfect temperature of around 24C (75F).

The Best Hotel in Budapest!

Well, we don't know if it's the best, but we can't figure why anyone would want anything better. The Casati Budapest Hotel has everything you would need, as well as a helpful staff that are proud to show off the newly renovated boutique hotel.

Interesting Budapest facts

Yesterday morning, we did a walking tour of the area on the Pest side of the Danube River. As we mentioned before, Pest is the area on the east and Buda is on the west.

Ruth has a new friend!

Budapest Tourism supplied us with two of their 72 hour Budapest Cards to try out so that we could review the services offered with the card, and to enable us to see as much as possible in the short time we have in Budapest.

Budapest at night

This is the second post of the day, so you might want to check out part one first.

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2012/09/exploring-budapest.html

Exploring Budapest

Budapest is a fairly large city, in fact the seventh largest in Europe with a population of 1.7 million people. The city is separated by the Danube River which runs from North to South through the city. On the west side of the river is the area known as Buda, and on the east side of the river is the area known as Pest.

Arrived in Budapest!

Well, we had a long travel day yesterday, but we did make it to Budapest. We were up at 6:45am and on the bus at 7:40am. Three trains later, we arrived in Budapest at about 3:30pm!

Slovak National Uprising

Got our bags all packed up yesterday morning at 10:00am and asked the desk girl if we could leave our bags in their office until late afternoon. Turns out that she didn't speak any English. So it was Google Translate to the rescue!

Half way to Budapest!

When we were figuring our route to Budapest from Poprad, we had considered doing the journey all in one day. But that would have been a long travel day since there was no easy direct route between the two cities.

Dobsinska Ice Caves

Yesterday morning, we walked to the bus station and waited for the bus to take us to the Unesco listed Dobsinska Ice Caves. Any of our regular readers will know that we like to visit caves, and the ice cave was one of the reasons we wanted to visit this part of Slovakia.

August expenses

Our August costs came in at a total of $1,087.28 and while that sounds very good (and really, it is!) it's also about $200 over our budget for the month. Almost everything else was pretty much within the range that we expected it to be, but accommodation was the category that put us over the $1,000 mark.