Sunday May 24….The Slovak Castle tour day.

We started out with the ambition to leave at 8:00 am, but didn’t get out of the hotel until 8:36! At least the breakfast was peaceful since the busloads of Norwegian and English school children had left the day before. This will be a new experience for David as this is one of the few parts of Europe that he has never seen. We left town for a 2 hour mountainous, wiggly-piggly road drive through the Southern Polish (Lower Poland and Silesia) countryside. It reminded us of Norris Dam in Tennessee in the “olden days” of going to Florida. We drove through many towns, each with its own Catholic church, and all of them full on a Sunday morning. Joy enjoyed taking pictures of many of the churches and the different styles along the way.

We went through the town of Żywiec, where they make the famous Polish beer we had been drinking. The factory (now owned by Heineken) still looks pretty old. Then we crossed the border to Slovakia, bought a highway sticker for 25 Polish złotys ($7), and drove through some very impoverished villages on our way to our first castle stop at Trenčin.

Our GPS lady (Betty) drove us right up to the front entrance gate of the Trenčin castle, but where we couldn’t go any further, even through we tried to bump a few tourists off of the small pathway leading up to the hill. To get there, we were really supposed to park at the bottom of the hill and hike up. We decided that this was simply too much effort, and instead chose to take pictures from the bottom of the mountain. Interesting was the football stadium next door, with its “magnifying glass” looking overhead lights.

The next stop was the castle ruins at Beckov. We knew this was just a picture taking opportunity, so we drove in circles around the castle base, trying to get to the “money shot” picture. Next up was Cachice castle ruins. We drove up another narrow, 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) lane to an impromptu parking lot about 500 yards from the castle base. From here we had to get out climbing the mountain to see the ruins. Why all of the effort? Mary wanted to see where the “Blood Countess Elizabeth” lived here in the 1500s. She was said to have killed over 600 young girls to drink their blood, which was supposed to maintain her young and comely looks. Of course, her portrait on the sign outside the ruins depicted a young looking woman indeed. The hike up the hill was well worth it, as we had been sitting in the car for more or less 2.5 hours, and needed to get out and move around.

After driving back down the harrowing path, we drove across the country side to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia and our destination for the night. Our hotel has a wonderful view out over the Danube River, with the modern bridge, and its revolving restaurant. Mary was sure happy to see the bath tub after 3 days without in Kraków.

Throughout the day, we were reminded of both Poland’s and Slovakia’s communist past, given the contrasts in building styles – pastel colored, old Austrian architecture vs. drab 1960s – 1970s style communist block houses where many people still live.

We quickly unpacked the few things we needed for this one night stand, and headed out to the old town. And guess what the first thing was that we saw? The American Embassy, of course! It is located right behind our hotel in the main park area, where we bought some souvenirs before viewing the Opera House, the Philharmonic and several other important buildings. Bratislava has even bought in some “fun statues” – our favorite being the “man at work”, which is a bronze statue of a construction worker climbing out of a manhole. It reminded us of our cross country trip last year to Rapid City, South Dakota, and Sheridan, Wyoming (both of which have statues located throughout their towns too).

We decided that we were going to eat Slovakian cuisine for the one night we were here, and ate at the Pressburg Restaurantja. Pressburg is the German name for Bratislava, when it was part of Austria. Mary had the Slovak potato soup, and a salad, while Joy partook of the local shish kebob with fried potatoes. Jeff had several goulash and sauerkraut dishes, while David had the old fashioned Wiener schnitzel. We were back in the Eurozone, so we could recognize the prices. Slovakia is cheap!

Back to the rooms to review our pictures, send out our mails, and go through the accounting. We are leaving on a city tour in the morning before we are off in the afternoon to Vienna. Only a short visit in both places, but we want to make the most of it!!

Saturday takes us to Auschwitz.

We boarded the bus at our hotel at 8:45 after eating a hearty breakfast, and making sandwiches to take with us. There are no restaurants in Auschwitz so we are going prepared. We drove about an hour on back roads to get to the first camp. A video was shown during the bus trip to provide us with background information on the Holocaust, World War II and Auschwitz itself.

We received headphones with a receiver so we could listen to the Polish guide (speaking English). The place was very crowded so we had to be very careful to stick together and stay with our group. Last night at dinner we met a couple from Norway and they were also with our group. We enjoyed interacting with them. The tour lasted about 4 hours and there was a lot of walking between camps.

As for comments about the day, I am not able to do that for you tonight. It is going to take me a little time to process the day. It was very moving, sad and most informative. I had dreaded going but am glad I did. This is something Mary has wanted to do for a long time so for her sake I am glad we were able to work it in. As most of you know 1.1 million people were killed of which 91% were Jews.

When we returned to Krakow and Mary treated us to a horse and buggy ride through the city. This lifted our spirits some so we did a little shopping and found the perfect Polish restaurant for dinner…that is after much discussion as to why we should not eat pizza!

Home to pack for Sloyakian castle tours tomorrow and hopefully send you this email with a few pictures from Auschwitz.

Hurrah for Joy . she was able to access the internet in the lobby
this morning so you did hear from us here in Poland. What a day we
have had in Krakow starting with a huge breakfast in the hotel. Joy
and I both slept really well and surprisingly did not touch! David
opted for the floor and Jeff got the bed. They hope to get their
room changed tonight. Then we started out on foot to see the sights
with David as our tour director. Showers were in the forecast so we
did take our umbrellas.smart move.

Krakow was the original capital of Poland (now Warsaw) and has
Catholic churches about every 500 feet. This is an old old city
dating back to 1000 AD which originally was surrounded by a wall and
moat. We could see portions of the original wall. The beautiful
Planty park was built where the wall use to be and now surrounds the
city. We walked through the gate to the city, called the Royal Way,
which still stands. As we entered the Old City we encountered an
authentic Polish Band, dressed in costumes, playing lively music.
Pictures flashed.

Our first stop was to stop at McDonalds.because when they built this
building they discovered a Gothic cellar so they excavated it, added
seated, and called it medieval McVault. We thought it was fun to
see. (Picture)

Strolling further on Florianska (the main shopping street) we ducked
into several souvenir shops until we arrived at St. Marks. This
church has a huge shrine attached on the outside of the church. Then
to the Jagielliln University, the 2nd oldest university in Europe
(Prague has the oldest). Pope John Paul II and Nicholas Copernicus
both attended this university. We were fortunate to be there at
11:00 when the clock with the revolving apostles chimed. Tons of
school children were there to see this take place. From there we went
to the music school where Chopin studied. Just around the corner is
the Archbishop's Episcopate (house) where Pope Paul II lived and
started his career. There is a beautiful statue of the pope in the
courtyard with billboards showing highlights of his priesthood.

From there we moved on to the Dominican Church of the Holy Trinity.
Noon mass was about to begin. 89% of the population of Poland is
Catholic.

Our next stop was lunch, pretzels, which are sold on every corner,
and coke. We sat under a tree on a bench and enjoyed ice cream cones
for dessert to rest for the long ride up the hill to Wawil, Krakaw's
main attraction, the royal castle of the kings and the adjoining
cathedral where coronations and funerals for all the royalty were
held. Again, there were several school groups there to see these
historical sites. The tapestries and the medieval furniture in the
castle state rooms especially caught out attention.

Finally we got to the Cloth Hall which is an old building and housed
all the souvenir shops. We delighted ourselves with more than 100
vendors and bought several things.
Our original plan was to have dinner at the Wentzl, which was
recommended by Bill Tway's friend who lived in Krakow, where we
started out with the prize spot on the town square but a thunder
storm blew in and we had to move inside. We consumed more wine than
usual trying to outlast the storm before we started our 15 minute
walk home. It had turned cold but we did have our umbrellas!!!!
Wonderful, but exhausting day.

Thursday May 21….Drive to KRAKOW ….written on Friday morning.

We were packed and were on the way by 8:15. Today is a holiday in Berlin (Ascension Day) so the traffic was light. To our surprise the highway was new most of the way to Krakow, so David was able to drive fast…97 on cruise control. However, as soon as we reached the Polish border at 9:30, things changed. We bumped along on very rough roads for an hour but as I said, surprisingly the roads were new the rest of the day. Along the way Jeff entertained us with more Fun Facts and included a Polish language lesson. We did not do very well. We came up with Jac Samash…for “how are you”.

We encountered our first Polish joke, just 12 miles outside of our lunch stop, Wroclaw….”How do you set up a Polish Construction Project”? Well, first you squeeze all the traffic to one lane on the left which brings you to a complete stop, then you allow the traffic to flow in two lanes for about 10 meters, and then you squeeze all the traffic to the right which of course causes another complete stop. This costs us about 45 minutes but we laughed over their ingenuity.

We thought Wroclaw was beautiful. Fortunately we were able to park in the luxurious Sofitel hotel (French) parking garage, use their facilities (which were free…most places we pay $.50) and only walk a short distance to the very large square. There were a lot of restaurants around the square but we did notice there were very few souvenir shops, much to Joy’s chagrin. We picked the Town Hall restaurant and fortunately we had looked at pictures of Polish food in our guide book that morning so we had some idea what to order and the menu was in English. David had Zurek soup in a bread bowl, which had mushrooms, white sausage and hard boiled eggs in it along with a huge order of fries! They are big on hard boiled eggs, I’ve noticed. Jeff braved the goulash and had a Bigos…not sure what that was…cabbage, meat, and mushrooms all mixed together. Joy choose the Pierogi that was delicious. It was ravioli stuffed with meat (who knows what kind) sauerkraut and mushrooms. We were shocked that we got ice with our drinks without even asking. Naturally, Mary had a large grilled salad with lots of vegetables.

After lunch, we walked around the Old Town Square admiring the Dutch Golden Age architectural style buildings. We stopped to go inside two of the churches (now we are in Catholic territory), the church of Mary Magdalene and church of Saint Elizabeth, which had a bust of the pope as he had spoken here. Took lots of pictures and returned to the car for our 2 ½ hr. trip to Krakow. This was a toll road, paid to get on, and paid to get off, and because of more construction we did not arrive at our hotel until after 6PM. This was the one hotel choice which David was nervous about as the town is full of tourists and he had trouble even getting us a hotel. And nervous he was when he saw the small room, small double bed and small everything that he and Jeff were to share! Mary and I made out fine, except that the bed is almost on the floor…but quaint it is and typical Polish located in a residual neighborhood and a 10 minute walk to the square.

Poland is a very poor country, being under Communists rule for so long they are still struggling to repair the country. With only 10 yrs of Capitalism experience they are still learning “:how to do”. The legal age to drink in Poland is 16, 18 to drive and fight in the war and 14 for sex…interesting, don’t you think?

We picked a restaurant where David had been before that had good ole American food that he yearned for after driving all day. It was like a TGI Fridays. We enjoyed sitting outside and people watching as it took forever to get our food etc. There are so many young people around and not many white hairs. The meal was wonderful and because David does not speak any Polish, we ended up with 8 orders of French Fries when we only ordered 1...that was a hoot! The Polish money is called Zolty and fortunately David pays, and Jeff keeps the accounting. Mary and I just trust. When we returned to our hotel it was close to midnight and we fell into our little bed. Happily we discovered they offer free internet, however the signal is so weak in our room we hope to send this from the lobby downstairs. I am still in the dark as to who won American Idol and it is driving me nuts! Off to tour the city today on foot after hopefully sending this to you. Free breakfast in the hotel restaurant….

The pictures of us are in Warclaw, having lunch, David in front of ING bank, where he works in Amsterdam, Mary in the square with flowers, and the Days in the square in Wroclaw.

The other two pictures of the buildings alone were taken in the square in Krakow.

Wednesday, May 20th Potsdam

We were on our way to Potsdam by 8AM with the Wall Street Journal and USA Today on hand. Joy was thrilled to see that Shawn Johnson won Dancing with the Stars and Jeff was saddened that the market lost 29 points. Potsdam is located in the former German Democratic Republic, just outside the wall surrounding West Berlin.

It was great that we got to Sanssouci (“without a care”) early. This is the Palace of Frederic the Great, who used it as his summer home. We strolled through all the beautiful gardens and enjoyed seeing the interior of the palace for 12 euros to see 12 rooms. There are 740 acres but we opted not to see it all!!!! Frederick the Great (King of Prussia for 46 yrs.) built this palace in 1745 in the rococo style, his favorite and famous for its vineyards .We walked around the grounds for an hour viewing the statues, vineyards and flowers…what a treat! David and I went down another lane and ran into the Chinese Tea House…Jackie would have loved it. As we left we stopped by his grave where he and his 8 dogs are all buried …no wife…she never came here but chose to live in the palace in Berlin. Wouldn’t you know she was barren.

Outside the grounds we grabbed a quick lunch from an outdoor stand as it was warm and sunny. Joy had a boiled egg sandwich, Mary had a German pizza, and Jeff and David ate sausage etc. It was good except for our day’s disaster….Mary lost a part of her tooth…she’s ok…noticed it has not stopped her from eating. From there we drove to the New Palace, also built by Frederick the Great, which was only 6 euros to see 24 rooms. “Twice the palace for half the price”, was David’s comment. Even though it needs a lot of work the part we saw was much more elegant than Sanssouci. This palace was one of Germany’s most extravagant and most dazzling. Part of this palace (the guest rooms) now houses the University of Potsdam.

We went from there to Alexandrowka, which is the Russian colony in the northern part of Potsdam. It consists of 13 wooden houses in the Russian style which were built between 1826 and 1827. Very unique! Frederick Wilhelm III had these houses built for the Russian singers of the Prussian Regiment….as he loved music. Some of those ancestors still live in these houses today.

From there we drove to Cecilienhof, the site of the Potsdam Conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945. Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Clement Atlee met to decide the future of Germany and post war Europe. Mary was chagrined that we opted to not pay 6 euros to see the room where this took place, as she had been there before and it made a lasting impression on her. We elected to buy lots of postcards instead.

Then we drove by the Dutch Quarter which was built in 1732 at the request of Frederick Wilhelm I, the soldier king. This was a series of three streets that looked a lot like Amsterdam with their gable roofs.

Our last site out of Potsdam back to Berlin, only 17 miles, was the Glienicke Bridge where prisoner’s exchanges were made during the Cold War. Creepy!

Now all we have to do today is decide where and what to eat for dinner and pack and be ready to leave by 8AM tomorrow. Just as a reminder, we are now going to Poland so you may not hear from us for a few days. Hopefully we can find an internet café as we are not counting on our hotel having internet connection.

Monday May 18….Jeff’s 52nd Birthday

Our 8AM departure commenced at 8:15…delayed an additional 5 minutes for Passport check. We have 450 miles to travel today to Berlin. Halfway thru the rush hour traffic to Utrecht, Mary discovered to her dismay that she had left her pillow which has not left her side for lo these 70 yrs and David refused to return. Oh, the joy!

Jeff entrained us with fun facts about Amsterdam and the Netherlands as be began our road trip to Berlin. For instance, Amsterdam had only 26 traffic deaths and 18 murders last yeast in this city of 750,000. Also, this population has 465,000 bicycles of which 54,000 are stolen in a year. When you get too old for a bicycle you buy a Smart Car. There were 100,000 Dutch Jews deported to concentration camps of which only 876 returned. Only 20% of the population of Amsterdam attend church. 60% of the population lives below sea level.

We stopped for gas which was approximately $8.00 per gallon. At 10 AM we crossed into Germany which has no speed limit. David floored it to about 90MPH…and many other cars passed us; At one time David was going 110MPH…it was a little scary and I opted to fasten my seat belt even in the back seat.

Our first tourist stop was at Xanten, Germany, where we saw the largest archeological open air museum in the country. Here we walked among the ruins of a walled city where 10,000 Romans lived in the 2nd century.

In order to clean our David’s refrigerator her packed ham and cheese sandwiches for us to eat in the car…this saved us some time for sure.

We had an impromptu stop at the Kaiser Wilhelm monument. He was the first emperor of Germany as he united all the German speaking areas into one country in 1871. It was a beautiful ride thru the forest to get up to the site of this giant monument that was built in 1892-96. It was his grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm 2nd that had the monument constructed. Wilhelm 2nd was the Kaiser during WWI.

We arrived in Berlin with a brief city tour driving into town starting with the former East German border crossing into West Berlin. We drove through the Tiergarten to the bombed out ruins of the Memorial Church. We then arrived at the Marriott where the bell boy got very excited over the quantity of luggage he had to bring to our rooms for a mere 5 euro tip. Checking in was no problem, thanks to Kelly Steward’s special arrangements. We have two rooms, each with two queen size beds overlooking the Potsdamer Platz right in the middle of the former “no man’s land” of the Berlin Wall. While unpacking Mary discovered she had not left her pillow after all…whew!

At Jeff’s request we picked a German beer hall for all the traditional German food, including Wiener schnitzel with white asparagus (Joy’s favorite) and Hunter sauce, sausages and dumplings…way more than we could devour! Of course David and Jeff pounded back a liter and a half of German beer each!

To walk that all off, we took a walk through the newly finished”Monument to the Murdered Jews”, which consists of 2711 stelae (marble slabs). These are on a rolling hill on the top of Hitler’s bunker where he killed himself. From there we proceeded to the Brandenburg Gate which was the symbol of the division of Germany. We saw the new American Embassy across the street from the new French Embassy as we stood in East Berlin looking through the gate to the West. After taking lots and lots of pictures we walked to the Reichstag, the German Parliament. This is the building that the Nazis burned down in 1933 to wrestle the reins of power from Hindenburg, while blaming it all on the communists. We did get back to the hotel right before dark. Tomorrow we plan a bus tour of Berlin…Happy birthday, Jeff!

After we went to bed last night we listened to the rain on the
skylight all night. We chose to delay our departure due to the
inclement weather and instead Joy and Mary chose to update our blogs
and photo logs! We so enjoyed our leisurely morning. Jeff, our
accountant worked on our finances as he is keeping up with who owes
whom. At noon we strolled to the van Gogh and Rijks museums which
are located close to each other. The line was way too long at the
van Gogh so we sat on a picnic table in the park where Mary and Joy
shared a chicken salad sandwich which was delicious and cheap. David
had a hot dog and Jeff continued to fast just for the day…not sure
why. David is a member of the Rijks through his bank, so we were
able to get in the fast lane and go to the head of the line paying
only 11 euros for all four of us when normally it would have cost us
11 each. It was Joy and Jeff’s first time and they really loved
it…especially the Rembrandts. It was pretty awesome to see the huge
“Night Watch” canvas. Of interest was the special exhibit of
Johannes Vermeer on loan for three months from the National Gallery
of Art in Washington DC. David then took us on a two hour walking
tour of the canal district, with cobble streets, bicycles, and trams
going every which way. The canals and the architecture of the
brownstones with their magnificent gables were explained expertly by
our own tour guide, David. Fascinating!

At the Western Church which is where the kings are crowned we were
intrigued by the Homomonument…three marble triangles. One of the
marble points dips into the Princes Canal…lovely.

Around the corner is the Anne Frank House where Jeff and Joy took the
tour. It was an unforgettable experience to see where 8 people lived
for 3 ½ years in that tiny space. Mary and David enjoyed sitting by
the canal watching the pleasure boats drift by.

The today’s disaster struck (we are hoping this will be our last)…Joy
tripped over a cobblestone coming out of the Anne Frank house and
fell flat on her face. Her knees are banged up again but it has not
slowed her down any. Sorry Jeff did not get the perfect photo.

We took the tram home as the afternoon rains came. This time Joy and
Jeff had umbrellas and by the time we got home, it was over. For
dinner we walked around the corner to Sardegna’s … a neighborhood
Italian restaurant. We celebrated the eve of Jeff’s birthday with
crepes complete with ice cream and figs for dessert following pizza
and ravioli. The Day boys presented us with Mother’s Day cards…they
sort of got their Sunday’s mixed up…but we loved being thought of in
that special way. Returning home we packed for our 14 day sojourn.
We motor to Berlin tomorrow.