Tour de Hungary day 4

Reflections on the trip:
Avot: "My favorite part was Csesznek, and camping at random places.  I liked the archery too!"
Lek: "The castles and the last two nights of camping.  No more on the castles, I don't want to spoil it for anyone going there."
The Goob: "I liked Csesznek and the Balaton."
Chugger-dude: "I loved the castles!  And, some of the castles' names were Csesznek and Eger. And...

Here is the Csesznek castle...the fave of so many!

Csesznek at last!

Some random goats that were just wandering around...check out those horns!

"Don't climb on that!" came a voice from behind us. "It is more than 700 years old!"  Oops!

Love the view...and the cute little girl. Wait!  Is that Spooner?

And the bricks!

Here we are at the top.  We could see the areas for the different rooms.  So cool!

Papaya is crying because she wants to look over the edge on her own, not because we are dragging her close to it.

Imagine storming this castle!

Or defending it from above...

I've been thinking a lot about castles, about how much work it would have taken to build them on top of the mountains, and all the advantages that came with having them up there.  It made me start thinking about building our own spiritual fortresses--dour own castles-- on the mountain, the temple of the Lord, and the advantages that come with it.  Labor of a lifetime, rock by rock, but so worth it!

My little girls...

There's the Goob, climbing again.

Hava is holding up the mountain single-handedly

We kept trying to get her to "suck in her gut" to get her face more in it...she just kept poking it out more :).

"Haha!  The joke is on you, dad!"

Someone is not happy :(

We Singing Bees have anger issues, apparently :)

Check out that bridge

Here's a close up

A view from the other side of it

Want to walk across?

I don't think so!

The rocks are alive...the only remaining residents

 

Nice, Lek :)...all this "royalty" stuff has gone to his head.

Some views from afar, a very nice setting for a castle!

Yes, it is a tick.  Yes, we found no less than 10 of these on different kids.  Nasty.  Fortunately, we were heading to the Balaton, which meant swimming suits and lots of skin bare for the checking!

A fun bridge we crossed leaving Csesznek

Another view of our route to the Balaton:

When we started driving on this bridge, I had to wonder if we were going

Q-dawg took advantage of the accomodations there on the beach for changing. 

Q-dawg is getting in on the action

Lek and the Goob

Chugger-dude

Pipalicious

Liliputian and Lek...just chillin'

It was a great beach on the Balaton.  They even had this playground nearby!

Papaya on the move again!

After only 4 or so baths, we are still trying to get Spooner happy with the water :).  He seems alright with it for now.

Ahhhhh...Beautiful Hungary.  With a sigh, we went back home.  Here is a little interchange with us and the nice man we rented the car from:
True story:
We were picking up the rental car last week to do our "Tour de Hungary" with the kids, and the man setting us up helped me explain to Q-dawg how the toll road passes work. "Do you need a slip to display on your windshield?" Q-dawg asked. "No," we told him, "you just give them your license plate numbers when you pay for it and then you are in the system as legal to use the toll roads for those days."

"Really?" Q-dawg said. "How do they know?"

The man's response, in all seriousness, leaning over closer and under his breath, "Big Brother is watching." He even looked around a bit!

Eerie! I felt like I was in Orwell's "1984"!