Today was our tour to the Auschwitz and Birchaneau  concentration and death camps. It was a pretty surreal experience. I have been to the Holocaust Museum in DC several times and each time I was there it always hit me a little bit differently. However, today was different. To be on the exact spot where so many innocent people were treated so horrendously and then forced to die such horrible deaths was really something. It just still blows my mind how 1.1 to 1.5 million people died either from disease, starvation, or the death chambers and yet no one knew anything or did anything about it.

 

There are no words to describe my feelings when being told how these innocent people were deceived into arriving at these camps. Most times having absolutely no idea the horror and pain that would be ahead of them. I think one of the saddest parts is that except for the small few who died right before liberation, there are no graves and no bodies for the families to visit or pay respects to like we often do at grave sites.

The SS agents were so into hiding all evidence before the liberation that the burned down or blew up the death chambers and many of the buildings that held the personal belongings of the people who had been at the camps.

I agree with the survivors that I just hope that people can learn from this place of sorrow and destruction so that we do not let this piece of history repeat itself.

When we returned to Krakow we visited the Old Town Square and did a little shopping at the Cloth Hall which is the local market place.

We will soon be headed to the train station for a new adventure....a night train from Krakow to Budapest. Stay tuned for what I am sure will be an interesting story.

Today was a travel day and we have safely arrived in Krakow, Poland via the Czech and Polish rail systems. The process made me once again wish that we had a better rail system in the States. How great would it be to be able to hop on a train, be able to sit back, relax, maybe get some work done, and arrive somewhere for a vacation or weekend getaway in a matter of hours. The trip was uneventful and we even met many nice young Czech men who helped us get our luggage on and off the trains. In fact, everyone we have met so far has been so friendly. They are willing to go over and beyond to help.

 

While we were on the train we met a nice retired teacher from Australia named Maggie. She is on her retirement bucket list trip. She has been gone since February and will return a year from this August. She has done so many interesting things since she has been gone and she was great to talk to. She stays mostly in hostels, cooks her own food, and does her traveling cheap. She was just so full of information and I respected her so much. I don't think I could travel on my own and be away from home for 18 months. Meeting her just reiterated for me that one of the best parts of traveling is the people you meet.

We had a great traditional dinner tonight of beet soup and cabbage rolls. They were YUMMY. We even got a taste of the homemade lemon vodka the restaurant made. They even gave us the recipe: vodka, lemon juice, lemon peel, honey, and vanilla...let it sit for 3days. Great!

Today we visited Kutna Hora, a city which contained one of the largest silver mines in Europe in the 14th and 15th century. The mine was the deepest in Europe at the time and the riches it produced made the town the second most important city in the Bohemian Kingdom. We walked around the quaint town with Misha as she showed us several of its beautiful buildings. The most impressive was the St. Barbara Cathedral. I think it was more impressive than any of the cathedrals we saw in Prague. Just as in Prague it took several hundred years to complete due to how the silver mines were doing at the time. This cathedral reminded me a great deal of Norte Dame in Paris with its many gargoyles and flying buttresses.

Of course, being the ones to never miss an opportunity, Stevie and I decided to take a tour of the silver mines. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of this as they told us to leave our bags behind because the spaces were small. Do we have problems with claustrophobia they asked? No we bravely said as they handed us our miner's hat and lantern and led us down the 167 steps to the bottom of the mine. I was already sweating thanks to the fact that I sweat at the drop of a hat and the fact that I had on that attractive miners hat on! We wound our way through the mine and we learned something important....although back then our height may not have been a problem, it would have been a major tight squeeze unless we visited the local Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers. The tour was interesting and it makes me more appreciative of my silver jewelry.

Finally Misha took us to Kunta Hora's Bone Church. Next to the church, during the many plagues, the victims were buried. Inside the church we found the bones of over 40,000 plague victims decorating the ossuary. It was originally decorated by a blind monk, but was later renovated by its "new owners" in the 1700s to its current conditions. It is supposed to represent the transientness of human life. It was morbidly interesting and my first thought was that this was a place many of my teenagers would perk right up in during a tour. Stevie though it would be an interesting place to teach her kiddos symmetry and patterns...skull, bone, bone, bone, skull. Very interesting and just makes me wonder who exactly came up with the thought  hey...the cemetery is getting crowded...let's use the bones for decoration...and say it shows how life constantly moves. 

 

Here is the coat of arms of the family who owned the church and redid the decorations.

Notice the raven eating the human head....real nice.

 

 

Do you like this chandelier?

 

 

 We ended our last night with dinner in our little part of Prague and had the biggest shish kabob I had ever seen followed by some yummy crêpes and coffee courtesy of our hotel. They sure have spoiled us and we will be sad to leave tomorrow on our train to Krakow.

 

 

 

 

Today was the East side of the river with Misha. This included the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter. We started our morning with a nice walk across the Charles Bridge. It is amazing to me that this bridge is still in such fabulous condition 600 years after it was built. The views from the bridge are beautiful and many local artisans sell their work on the bridge. They had some nice work and what we were impressed with was that there was no pressure buying. The artists greeted you and let you look without staring you down.

The astronomical clock in the main square was quite a site. Think of a huge cuckoo clock where a quick show comes up at the top of every hour. The best part of this clock is that in order to really be able to tell what time it is they had to put a "real clock" at the top of the tower because today no one really understands the clocks at the bottom. I told Misha that my kids at school can barely tell time on anything but a digital clock nowadays.

The majority of our time was spent in the Jewish Quarter visiting several synagogues and learning about the history of the Jewish people in Prague. The Pinkas Synagogue is the location of the Czech memorial of those who were lost to the camps during WW II. The names of over 77,000 Czech Jews are hand written on the walls with both their birth dates and the dates they were sent to the extermination camps. Behind this is the Jewish Cemetery were there are close to 100,000 Jews buried. Due to the lack of space the bodies were buried sometimes 7 or 8 deep and over the 350 years that this was the only places Jews were allowed to be buried in Prague the ground settled leaving this crowded crooked cemetery.

Finally we visited Old-New Synagogue which is the oldest synagogue in Europe and is still in operation today.

 

Finally, we ended our day with a visit to the underground passages of Prague where we heard several stories of those who were imprisoned there hundreds of years ago before there executions on the Old Town Square. The most famous of these were those Protestant prisoners the Hapsburgs had put to death for not converting to Catholicism. Many of these underground passages have only recently been uncovered.

Once again we return to a lovely snack left for us by our hotel. I think we are getting spoiled.

 

Today we met Misha who will be our tour guide for the next three days in the Prague area. She is a wonderful and knowledgeable woman who grew up during the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. She spent much of her early adulthood working as a shore excursion coordinator for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and she is very knowledgeable.

We visited Prague castle and she shared much of Prague's history with us including how it went from being liberated from the Nazi regime straight to becoming a communist country because its main liberators were the Russians. Also, although the Czech Republic has  had a president since the early 1900s, this year was the first time the people finally got to choose and vote for the president. It was a very close race.

The views from the castle quarter were gorgeous and my favorite part of the area was the St. Vitus Cathedral which was started in 1344, put on hold for over 400 years because of plagues, and finally finished in the early 1900s.

 

 

The most interesting thing I learned from Misha today was that this city was taken over by the Hapsburgs in the 1600s and thus all people were forced, to become Roman Catholic or be put to death. Then when the communist rule came after WWII all religion was banned completely, although Prague's places of worship were saved for some reason. Therefore, in this beautiful country although 65% of the population are Catholic only 10% practice. 2% of Czechs are Protestant and thus Czech Republic has one of the highest atheist populations in the world.

Here are some views of Prague.

We went for our beer tasting and discovered that statistically Czechs are the largest beer consumers per person in the world. Stevie and I tried to keep up at the beer tasting, but as I am a serious lightweight AND I am the navigator on this trip and had to eventually get us back to our room I am afraid much of our seven samples were not finished. After all, they started with a sample bigger than a regular US bottle and moved us on to six other samples the size of 1/2 of that. I guess you take a clue when the "beer master" only takes a few sips of each of his. We learned lots including that Czechs made the first Pilsner.

We ended our day with a Ghost and Legends tour with a great guide who is from NJ and is over here teaching English. It was a great informational tour about the medieval history of Prague and some of its more colorful stories.

We arrived back to our room to this nice fruit gift from our hotel. What a nice snack to end the night.   

We have arrived...after 4500 miles added to our Delta Skymiles.

We are here in Prague safe and sound. Our suitcases arrived a little worse for wear, but all on one piece. The flight was uneventful, which was fine. And as predicted very little if no sleep was had. If someone can possibly explain to me how in the world people sleep on planes then please share it. I am at a loss. Unless I run into some wealthy teaching option that would afford me those nifty lay flat seats first class had I don't see sleeping on a plane happening. Oh well...we have arrived so LIFE IS GOOD.

Our hotel is a quaint little place right the foot of the tower of the Charles Bridge. Great place and a great staff that is so willing to go over and beyond. We explored the area a bit this afternoon and know we are going to love this home base for the next few days. Prague, even in the hustle and bustle of tourist season is so peaceful compared to the large city of Paris. To end our day we found a nice place to sit in the cool breeze, have a cold drink, and soak it all in.

Today was a day of relaxation. Tomorrow, begins the touring, learning, and discovery of new cultures.

And we are off...

After much deliberation about what to pack, for the first time in my European travels I truly cut the amount of my items down to one suitcase which had so much extra room I was able to pack an extra tote bag to be my carry on item on the way home for the fun things we buy while there. Although I only have my new 31 backpack as my carry-on, with my camera equipment in tow I may have a sore neck by tomorrow!

Leg one was uneventful and here we sit at JFK for our 5 hour layover. Don't get me wrong. This is the way I had it planned as the last time I was in this airport I had to hand Stevie my carry-ons (notice the plurality) and run for it as our plane landed as the other was supposed to take off. All ended well, but that was 4 years and many pounds ago. I figured I  just wasn't up to it so instead here we sit relaxing and doing what is one of my favorite past times...people watching at the airport. Am I the only one who finds this fascinating? All these people, wondering who they are, where they are going, what their stories are. I bet there is a book or two that could be written. Some dramatic, some informational, some self-help, and from some of the parent/child conversations and interactions I have witnessed some humorous.

So, here is hoping for a calm, relaxing, peaceful, and safe flight to Prague. And as every traveler can attest to here is praying that our luggage arrives with us and all in one piece.