Cindy and I finally returned yesterday from a two week tour in Central Europe. We used Gate 1 Travel and have nothing but good things to say about them. Tours were well done and the hotels were top notch. We saw Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, Bratslavia and Prague. I actually did not take the day trip to Bratslavia and instead spent 5 hours at the Vienna Flea market. The only thing I bought there was a manual (hand crank) sewing machine for Cindy's collection. I visited every flea market and antique store I could get to during our free time and did not find a single chip, jeton or plaque anywhere. You would think with what I paid for that trip SOMEONE would have a few chips for me. Well at least the casinos did.

In Poland, Cindy found a type of stone in an antique store that she can use to make jewelry from and the stone is only found in Poland. The tour guide saw this and mentioned that Moldovite is a type of stone used for jewelry that is only found in the Czech Republic. Apparently they came from a meteorite that hit there and people mine for it. She had to have two pieces she found and only paid about three times what you could buy them for on Ebay.

I did manage to hit quite a few casinos and got some chips from each one for the collection. I also have some duplicates for sale that I will show in another post. This was one of those trips where I spent more time planning the trip than actually taking the trip. (OK some of us are a little type A) I got really lucky in Prague. First day I went to the Hilton but then decided the other places were too far away. On the last night of the trip I rechecked my map and discovered that two casinos were only a few blocks away. So after the farewell dinner and about 6 glasses of wine I ventured out to get a few chips. I never did find the closest place (Viva casino in the Marriott) and guess I should have gone into the hotel to ask since the website says they are still open even though I saw no signs outside. So I staggered to the second one and between that one and four others I found on the way home it turned out to be a good night.

We had a fun trip and look forward to the next one.