Our last stop in Europe was the Rhine Valley area. On Saturday, July 24, we took the train from Bamberg to Kaiserslautern, leaving Bavaria, crossing Baden-Wurttemburg and slowly making our way through Rhineland-Pfalz. The last train we took, called an S-Bahn, was like taking a light-rail metro but through entire towns and the countryside. In Kaiserslautern, two German men, Jonathan and Dieter, met us. Jonathan, the younger of the two, met us at the train station. He asked us a question in Chinese! He had spent one year in Tainan five years ago and still remembered a lot of his Chinese. Dieter, we later found, also had quite an extensive knowledge to Taiwan things: he knew where Neihu was and had been to Alishan. Even later we found out his girlfriend was from Taiwan. No wonder. :) … You might be wondering how we found these two men with such close ties to Taiwan in the middle of the countryside in Germany. (Kaiserslautern, despite having a large American military and air force base, is quite off most tourist’s beaten path). Well, actually, they had found us. I’d posted a question in one of the couchsurfing groups about our plans in Germany and Dieter offered us his hospitality. Thus we made the slight detour to Kaiserslautern before hitting the Rhine valley.

Walking into Dieter’s home with the boisterous Yen-sheng cooking fried onion bread was like walking back into Taiwan. For the next one day and two nights we’d be treated to constant Chinese chatter and welcoming Taiwanese hospitality. From Yen-sheng we learned all about the difficulties of learning German with the weird pronunciations and gender pronouns. We also would find out how much it costs to ship a mop and dustpan over from Taiwan (because the German ones make a person stoop to the ground). We’d get treated to big breakfasts with soft Japanese bread and chewy Germany bread (not until then would I know that German bread with its hard crust is too tough for most Taiwanese teeth). While experiencing German culture we also got a very refreshing taste of home. In a way, it only made us look more forward to our impending departure from Europe.

On Monday, July 26, we took trains and buses from Kaiserslautern to Bacharach, a town in the Rhine Valley. Of the two, the valley was pretty disappointing. It’s riverside cliffs are more like steep hills. The Rhine, on the other hand, is quite an impressive thoroughfare. The river is quite wide with many ships traveling it and there are also highways and trains running alongside. The most impressive bit about the Rhine valley, especially the section between Bingen and Koblenz, is the number of castles lining it. There are castles you can sleep in (including the youth hostel in Bacharach) and ruins you can visit, like the Rheinfeld’s castle in St. Goar that even has underground tunnels you can crawl through and get lost in. These castles were used by noble medieval families to tax the merchants shipping goods along the Rhine, making it quite an expensive trip. Bacharach itself is a quaint medieval town with parts of its wall, cathedral and castle remaining. The oldest building, the Altes House, dates back to 1368. A Cathedral had been built on a hill above the Protestant church but now lies in ruins. The hollow shell that remains evokes the town’s more distant past. Meanwhile, the trains constantly rumbling through beside the town bring one back to reality.

On Tuesday, July 27, Mr. C and I took a boat from Bacharach to St. Goar, then a train from St. Goar to the Cologne/Bonn airport and finally a plane to the London Stansted airport. I like to think that each mode of transport got more and more cost-efficient especially considering the low cost of flights around Europe on discount carriers.

London was simply the period at the end of one very long sentence. We were lucky to be hosted by Ivo (through couchsurfing) and found a pub with fish and chips near his flat in Notting Hill. We flew out at noon the next day. London to Kuala Lumpur (11+ hours) and Kuala Lumpur to Taoyuan (4+ hours) brought us back home.

Notes:
Click here to see just how remote Dieter’s town is. In Chinese, we would say this is a place where even a bird wouldn’t lay an egg.
Room in Bacharach: 38 Euros including breakfast. How many different kinds of jam we had with our breakfast: five.
What I’ve discovered about double beds in Germany: they’re almost always composed to two twin beds with twin-sized blankets placed next to each other.
Local drink in the Rhine valley: white wine, particularly Reisling. It was nice to have some wine after three plus weeks of beer.
A “happy weekend” group ticket (that we took from Bamberg to Kaiserslautern): 37 Euros.
Boat from Bacharach to St. Goar: 10 Euros one way, 12 round trip.
Train from St. Goar to Cologne/Bonn Airport: 22.30 Euros.
Easyjet flight from Cologne/Bonn to London: a little over 30 Euros per person total.

Pictures
One of the many castle ruins sprinkled around the Rhineland-Pfalz

Biking around the Kaiserslautern countryside

With our hosts Dieter and Yen-sheng

Bacharach

The Altes Haus

Church ruins

Rothenburg is Germany’s best preserved medieval town, rivaling Disneyland in kitsch and tourists. Behind its almost-too-perfect exterior of half-timbered houses and cobblestone streets is a town waiting to impress and please. The first night we got there, we arrived at 11 p.m. and walked from a fairly normal-looking train station, up a quiet and normal-looking street, through a brick entrance tower and straight into the Middle Ages. Rothenburg’s wall is completely preserved and much of it can be walked, which Mr. C and I did the next day. Besides the town itself, Rothenburg’s other major highlight is a Medieval Crime Museum. Outside is a device called the “Baker’s Chair,” in which bakers who skimped on their rolls by a few ounces were placed and dunked a few times in the river. Indeed, bread was very important in the Middle Ages. Other interesting devices and weird contraptions were shame masks, chastity belts and various devices for locking someone. Torture devices, we found out, were used for securing the necessary confessions out of the suspected, likewise causing me to suspect the fairness of medieval convictions.

I don’t believe I’ve brought up the subject of beer gardens yet. Let me do so here. I first confused beer gardens with the beer halls Munich is so famous for. But actually a beer garden is simply a place where beer is served outside, often under the shade of large umbrellas sporting the name of the brew on draft. The beer garden is often located beside a restaurant that serves food but not necessarily. Seasonal joints are often set up in the countryside, like the beer garden, Unter den Linden, that Mr. C and I went to twice while in Rothenburg. I suspect Unter den Linden means “under the bridge,” but I’d have to google it to be sure. The beer garden is simply a building that serves food: brats, pizzas, salads and breads, next to the river where tables and chairs are strewn about. A swing and sand play area provide entertainment for the kids while the adults drink their beer. While not rowdy like the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, beer gardens in the countryside allow you to enjoy feeling like you’re actually doing something “local” for awhile.

Continueing on our journey of discovering medieval Bavarian cities, Mr. C and I headed north to Bamberg after two full days in Rothenburg. Bamberg, I had been told by the couchsurfing host we would stay with there, was much more worthy of our touristic energy than Rothenburg. In fact, he had stated in an e-mail that we could simply pass through Rothenburg on our way to Bamberg. After all, according to him, Rothenburg has only 70 or so medieval buildings whereas Bamberg has hundreds and is a protected UNESCO World Heritage site to boot.

Bamberg is indeed enjoyable though I do not regret the time we spent in Rothenburg at all. Rothenburg is a tourist town. Bamberg is a real, live city with people weaving their historic buildings into the modern tapestry of everyday life. Rothenburg is to be enjoyed like a living museum, Bamberg is to be lived in. The city has its share of historic squares, monuments and churches perched on hills, but we found it could be easily toured in one day and no more time is necessary unless you came to bike in the surrounding area or enjoy one of the city’s many local brews.

Pictures
Welcome to Rothenburg … and the medieval ages

Walking along the wall

Rothenburg

The Baker’s chair

Scene from our bike ride around the Bavarian countryside. Could be from Wisconsin!

Resting during our four hour mostly uphill Bavarian countryside bike ride :)

Bamberg

More pork knuckle :)

The Deutsche Bahn (German rail) has one-day, regional train passes called “Lander tickets.” For 28 Euros, you and four of your closest friends can travel on any regional train anywhere within one of Germany’s regions all day after 9 a.m. It’s quite a good deal, even for two people. Mr. C, being the penny-saver he is, was even hoping we could meet some other people traveling to Munich on July 18, a Sunday, at the train station. We didn’t have to go so far. Serendipitously, two other Dutch women were leaving our home accommodations at the same time and, what would you know, they were headed to Munich. We quickly joined together for the sake of saving money and ended up spending the rest of the day with Olga and Ann, especially after we discovered we even booked the same hostel.

Mr. C had asked me why we were going to Munich, especially after our stay was whittled down to only one night. There were only two answers I could give him: First it presented the best chance at church in English and second I needed to visit the city’s famous beer halls. Both objectives were accomplished, the English service at Munich International community Church was located only four buildings down Mozartstrasse from our hostel and the beer hall, Hofbrauhaus, only a half-hour walk. Anne discovered that her necklace, an heirloom from a grandparent, was missing. She went back to Berchtesgaden (on a total of a six-hour-long trip) to recover it. After church we went with Olga to discover Munich’s old city and beer. We had our second pork knuckle at the Hofbrauhaus with its one-liter-large glass mugs, live Bavarian band, servers in Bavarian clothing and painted, arched ceiling. Anne found at our Berchtesgaden accommodations not her necklace but Mr. C’s belt, which she brought back with her. We had another beer at the hotel to help her forget her sorrows. She focused her attention much more readily on the fact that Olga and I were drinking Radlers, a mix of beer and lemonade and apparently a travesty to the beer-making tradition.

On July 19, a Monday, we left Munich with every intention of spending the night in Fussen, near crazy King Ludwig the II’s castles. We took an early train, 6:51, and were using the last day on our rail pass when Mr. C had an ingenious idea. Why not take the train all the way to Rothenberg (a 5-hour trip) after visiting the castles to make the most of our rail pass? We called our Rothernberg accommodations, checked the schedule at the train station and discovered it was possible.

King Ludwig’s castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, are located on the Bavarian mountains near the Austrian border and south of Fussen. Hhenschwangau is Ludwig’s parents’ castle and his childhood home, whereas Neuschwanstein, the “Disney castle” is where Ludwig lived out his medieval fantasies. King Ludwig II was born in the 19th century. Due to certain historical events, Ludwig was downgraded to a constitutional monarch during his reign. This seemed to damage his idealistic sensibilities and he proceeded to spend all his money building for himself a medieval castle and world where he still had supreme authority. The question of whether or not King Ludwig was crazy can be answered after witnessing the finished interiors of Neuschwanstein. He was. Fourteen carpenters worked for four years on his bedroom interior and furniture alone. Nearby he could walk into his own personal cave theater to enjoy a Wagner symphony. In 1860-something the Bavarian government informed Ludwig that he had been declared insane, was no longer king and thus had no more money to build his castles. A short time later Ludwig and his psychiatrist were discovered dead in a lake. Nobody knows whether it was an accident, murder or suicide. I suspect Ludwig chose suicide when his medieval dream world collapsed around him.

Notes:
One night in the “Easy Palace” hostel in Munich: 15 Euros per person. We switched rooms after we discovered a strange man sitting in our room doing nothing for an uncomfortably-long period of time.
The Deutsche Bahn Lander pass, 28 Euros and even includes subway transportation in Munich.
Entrance to one of King Ludwig’s castles, 9 Euros. Two together are 17. Time saved in line by making a reservation: easily one hour.
Train time from Berchtesgaden to Munich: almost three hours, change in Freilassing. From Munich to Fussen, two hours, change in Buchloe.

Pictures:
The beer hall … ceiling. I really liked the painting and Romanesque style

The Bavarian band

Olga with a one-liter glass of beer. For her sake, I’ll point out that she’s posing with Mr. C and my beer and she only had a pint for herself. :)

Hohenschwangau and the Fussen area

Neuschwanstein

Evidence we were there

When planning this 11-week trip around Europe, I considered two main factors: train journeys from place to place and weather. Weather is why we started out in the south of Spain (mid-May) and made sure to cover Italy and Greece before July hit. Weather is also the reason why we saved Germany, the northernmost country on our trip, for last. As we traveled throughout Europe and experienced bits of German culture in Switzerland and especially Austria, anticipation grew more and more in our minds. For one, Germany promised to be more orderly than Italy, which is a beautiful but stressful country to travel. If Germans were anything like Austrians, we knew we’d appreciate their polite and straightforward natures. As an American that can claim almost full German ancestry, I was also finding many similarities between my family culture in Wisconsin and what we were discovering about German culture. Of course, the traces of World War II as seen in Auschwitz and historic but empty Jewish neighborhoods in Krakow and Prague also peaked our curiosity about modern-day Germany. So, on July 15 we finally crossed the border between Austria and Germany and arrived in the last but most anticipated country of our trip.

Berchtesgaden is located on a little bit of Germany that seems to curve and twist to reach just below Salzburg, making it geographically belong more to the Salzkummergut than Bavaria. The area boasts two main attractions: Lake Konigsee and the Eagle’s Nest.

Truth be told, we went to Berchtesgaden because of Lake Konigsee and it was entirely of Mr. C’s doing. I felt Hallstatt was a pretty enough lake and there was no need to see two. But Mr. C had researched Lake Konigsee (translated as “King’s Lake” in Chinese) and felt it was also worth going to. I really do believe there’s something about the Chinese culture’s attachment to the combination of mountains and water because we were not by far the only Chinese or Taiwanese people there. Compared to Hallstatt, Lake Konigsee appears even more grand. It’s bigger, with even more sheer cliffs and mountain faces diving into the water. A 15-minute hike from the bottom of Lake Konigsee leads on to little Lake Obersee. A small, oval-shaped lake, Oversee perfectly reflects the sheer mountain face that drops to a small meadow right on the southern end. Austria lies on the other side of the mountain. Hiking to the meadow, one will discover small swimming entries and a farmer’s house in the meadow selling fresh buttermilk. Welcome to Germany.

On July 17, our second full day in Berchtesgaden, we went to the Documentation Obersalzburg museum before heading up to Eagle’s Nest. The museum, covering the entire National Socialist (Nazi) era from the party formation to World War II, was exactly what we were looking for to answer questions that arisen from Auschwitz. Though there will never be any answers for the Nazi’s terror, the museum helped to explain the situations that allowed it. My only beef about the museum was that the audio guide was a bit TOO thorough. Two hours in we’d only finished half the museum. We ended up skipping much of the section on World War II to check out the bunkers located underground. The Obersalzburg area of Berchtesgaden had become a favorite vacation spot of Hitler in the 1930s and a place where he manufactured the image of being a friend of nature and children. The area became a second headquarters of the National Socialist (Nazi) party with administrative and residential buildings. The jewel on the crown was the Eagle’s Nest. The road to the Eagle’s Nest and the building itself were completed in a little over a year to be presented to Hitler for his 50th birthday. Today it houses a restaurant and offers stunning views of the entire Berchtesgaden area all the way to Salzburg, Austria.

Notes:
A private room (zimmer) in a home located 10 minutes from the train station: 20 Euros per person/night including breakfast. The walk up the steep hill to the house took twice as long as the way down and was exhausting enough to only be attempted once a day.
Nightlife in Berchtesgaden = nill. Nothing happens after dinner.
Book finished while in Berchtesgaden: Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes.
Residual effects of learning two years of German in high school: slight. After all, anybody can guess “Was ist gut” is “that is good” right?
What Peter had to eat the first night in Germany: Pork knuckle. The first priority on my list: dessert.

Photos:
Berchtesgaden

Berchtesgaden at dusk

Beautiful Lake Konigsee

Small, picturesque Lake Obersee

Eagle’s Nest

View from Eagle’s Nest

Folks that we stayed with in Berchtesgaden

When one visits Salzburg, the “Sound of Music” tour somehow nudges its way up to the top of one’s sightseeing priority list. Forget about the Baroque old town or Mozart’s birthplace and childhood residences. We’d already shaved one day from our time in Salzburg by going to Cesky Krumlov and we’d only planned two full days anyway, so that left one day to do the Sound of Music tour.

Actually, the tour itself was pretty cheesy. The tour guide, a talkative, beer-bellied, middle-aged Austrian man, drove the eight of us (two grandparents, parents with two grade-school aged kids and Mr. C and I) around in a minivan. We went to the Hellbrunn Castle gardens to see the “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” gazebo. We skipped cross the lane where the von Trapp kids hung from trees. We saw a house facade and the lake where the kids fell out of the boats. We even saw the church where the real von Traps got married, and later the church where the movie von Trapps got married. The highlight of the tour was stopping at a restaurant that overlooked the Wolfgangsee lake for coffee and desert. The Wolfangsee lake is just one of the lakes in the Salzkammergut region.

Ah, the Salzkammergut. This region of Austria includes Salzburg and one other destination I’ll talk more about, Hallstatt. It’s a region of lakes, mountains and rivers. It’s the region where hills are alive with the sound of music. It’s beautiful.

On Tuesday, July 13, the day after our Sound of Music tour, we headed to the town and lake of Hallstatt. It was in Hallstatt that I learned my two favorite German works: Zimmer Frei. We’d already booked our room in Hallstatt through the TI (tourist information) before we got there. After confirming directions at the TI office, we headed down the street, past the lake, cross a big street, down a little street until we got to Frau Stangler’s cute home. We were standing outside the gate, trying to figure out if the wood house with the garden in front was indeed our accommodations. There was a “zimmer frei” (rooms available) sign. Then an elderly lady waved and called to us from the upstairs window. She learned quickly that we didn’t speak German, asked if we wanted coffee or tea for breakfast, and showed us our room. The room, the smell and the feel or it, brought me back to sleeping at my grandma’s house as a child. The stencil-pattern wallpaper was either beige or yellowing, the light had a fabric cover, the dresser was real wood with an iron latch … I was taken back to Wisconsin. Rooms in private homes in Germany and Austria may be my favorite type of accommodation on this trip so far. They even come with breakfast, which is characterized by rolls, cold cuts, cheese and coffee … or tea.

Hallstatt’s main attractions are two: the lake and the salt mine. Directly behind our zimmer was the cable car station going directly to the salt mine, the history of which dates back to the iron and bronze ages. There is even an era of prehistory called the “Hallstatt era.” People early on discovered the salt reserves in the mountain and were mining them. Salt back then had value beyond taste to preserving meat. Nowadays, groups of tourists dress up into “miners” outfits and follow their guide into a tunnel, down two slides and around salty underground caverns. It’s cheesy yet fascinating.

The salt mountain nudges right up to Lake Hallstatt, leaving the main part of town only a narrow strip to settle on. That narrow strip connects to a river valley with a bit more space for houses. The lake affords excellent swimming and panoramic views of the town. We were sad to only spend two nights in the area, but on July 15, we were heading to yet another lake, this time in Germany.

Notes:
Renting a boat: 15 Euros for a slow boat that took us halfway around the lake in one hour
Room in a zimmer: 21 Euros per person, including breakfast
Boat across the lake from the train station to the town: about 2 Euros. Time: 10 minutes.
Walk from the TI to our zimmer: 15 minutes. Walk from our zimmer to the cable car station: less than 1 minute.

Pictures:
The 16-going-on-17 gazebo

Where the movie von Trapps lived …

And where the real von Trapps lived

In Salzburg

Hallstatt lake

The town of Hallstatt

Us in our silly mine touring costumes

Mr. C rescuing my sunglasses which had fallen down a ditch

We took a boat ride in Hallstatt, this is a house along the lake

Sunset in Hallstatt

Dawn at Hallstatt the day we left (Mr. C took this picture, I was sleeping!)

When I told people I was going to Prague among other destinations in Europe, the word would almost always draw a gasp and something like “Oh I really want to go to Prague.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure what the attraction was. I’d heard the stories about how it was kept intact during World War II because apparently Hitler liked it too. This even applied to the Jewish quarter, Josefov, as Hitler planned for it to become some sort of a museum for an extinct race (what a sick man). According to my Rick Steve’s guidebook, Prague is the most happening former Eastern European country. Though if you ask a person from Prague, they’ll never agree to being called an Eastern European or former Soviet country. They prefer the term “Central European.”

Prague, indeed, is nice. Looking at it from above, the pointy, crimson roofs distinguish Prague’s cityscape from others. The buildings in styles like Art Nouveau, Renaissance and Neo-Renaissance, Baroque and Neo-Baroque, etc, are nicely maintained. The world’s largest castle complex, aptly named Prague Castle, towers above the city from across the Vltava River. And sidewalk cafes offer Europe’s best beer.

As a former communist country, the Czech Republic differs from Poland, the other post-communist country we visited, most greatly in the area of religion. Under communism, the powerful Polish church remained a voice of the people. In the Czech Republic priests were compelled to preach the communist line. That may be part of the reason why today Czech’s churches are empty. Our walking tour guide (who herself was baptized when she was a student in America) explained that she went to the Christmas service at St. Vitus Cathedral, which is the large church that towers over the city as the centerpiece of the castle complex, and only about 30 other people were in attendance. That’s the Christmas service at Prague’s largest, most important church. Nowadays, churches have nightly concerts to pay for maintenance costs. Or they are closed, or have become museums. As our tour guide explained, 75% of the people in the Czech Republic are atheist, 15% Roman Catholic and 10% Protestant. Truth be told, I did sense a certain level of hedonism in Prague that is also present to some level in other European societies. The last night in Prague Mr. C and I were at a bar with our Prague host, Lisa, and suddenly a lap dance started at the front. At first I assumed it was a “reward” for the table that was winning the beer count (yes, tables at the pub competed with each other and other pubs on # of beers drunk and the scores are shown on a screen at the front of the bar). The lap dance was hard core, escalating to a point when, to everyone’s astonishment, the stripper went completely nude. It turns out that there was a stag party happening that night in the bar and they had invited the stripper in to give everybody – not just the groom – a show.

Anyway, Prague is still quite nice. We spent three days touring the city, taking paddleboat rides, climbing towers for views and sampling Czech’s well-known beer.

Pictures from Prague
The market square

Looking down at all the people looking up at the astronomical clock

Us and Prague

St. Vitus cathedral in Prague castle

Before there were addresses, people used …

On the paddleboat

The city from the paddleboat

On Friday night we went back to Lisa’s house to figure out where we would stay in Salzburg the next day. Unfortunately, good hostels can be hard to book at such short notice during the summer. So instead of dishing out more Euros for a hotel room of questionable quality, we decided to change our plans and head to Cesky Krumlov for a day instead. Arriving in Salzburg one day later, we could book the hostel of our choice. We took a really cheap bus (6.30 Euros) to Cesky Krumlov where the bus abandoned us at a middle-station without our luggage (see the two-month-update post). Still, we managed to recover our luggage and our nerves at the idyllic Czech town of Cesky Krumlov (pronounced “Chess-key Kroom-love”).

Just looking at the google map of Cesky Krumlov one can tell it’s a beautiful place. The river makes a backwards S curve with the castle (world’s second largest castle complex after Prague’s) on one part of the curve and the old town on the other. The river flows rapidly all the way to Prague, making for good rafting. Finally, the old part of town including the castle complex has been left unchanged for hundreds of years. The beautifully restored buildings; narrow, uneven cobblestone lanes; and wood bridges crossing the river bring one back to a time long past. The sign in our hostel said it right when it said, “travel slower, stay longer.” One day is simply not enough. Yet that’s all we had and we were glad to have visited this nice little Czech complement to Prague. Oh, and the church was full for Sunday mass.

Notes:

Typical price for a pint of Czech beer at a non-touristy joint: 35 crowns (less than US$2).

The one museum in Czech Mr. C and I went to for the history: the Museum of Communism. One ticket 180 crowns (US$9), includes 20 minute film that explains the protests that led to the undoing of the communist government, otherwise known as the Velvet Revolution.

Flavor I miss the most after two months of traveling in Europe: Spicy.

Quality of food at a cafeteria inside a mall where the bus stop was: terrible. Price: about 80-100 crowns (US$4-5).

Question I have yet to resolve: what other countries call themselves “central European.”

Pictures of Cesky Krumlov
The city

Sunset

In a way, you can’t help but feel sorry for the people of Krakow. They’re residents of a beautiful, medieval, college town. Touristically, it’s the most accessible destination in Poland. It’s also the springboard for day trips to the most notorious Nazi concentration and death camp, Auschwitz. So this post will have two parts, one on Krakow, the other on Auschwitz.

I’ve started to pick up on a pattern many European cities share: there’s the old part of town with narrow streets and a town square. There’s the centerpiece or highlight be it a church, palace, castle or ancient ruins. Then there’s the area around it where normal people live. Krakow of course fits the mold. This is what makes it special: the largest medieval square in the world, one of the oldest universities (where both Copernicus and the Karl who became Pope John Paul II studied), mature parks surrounding the old city center and Polish culture. One of the first things that struck me about the people in Poland is the lack of diversity especially compared to other European countries. Later our couchsurfing hosts explained that almost all the people in Poland are ethnically Polish. It wasn’t always this way. Other ethnic groups were either driven out during/after World War II or under communism. Immigrants are attracted more to richer European countries and the Poles aren’t very nice to them to boot. The second thing that struck me about Polish is their religious devotion. Mr. C and I weren’t able to make the English service we’d found online so we went to Polish church with our hosts. The church was packed – both in front and behind the alter – with young people. Our hosts explained that young adults like that church because the priest doesn’t bring up politics in the sermon. Other Polish churches are more politically active, and we just happened to be in Poland on the fourth of July which was more importantly the day of their special Presidential election. Hundreds of people crowded into this church which has several masses a day. Mr. C and I were astounded. Compared to the relative lack of religion in the rest of Europe, Poland stood in stark contrast. I do, however, suspect that this religiosity is reserved for Sundays and that faith still doesn’t play a huge role in most people’s lives.

In Krakow we spent the first day getting to know the town, mostly in the old city center. The second day we took a day trip to Auschwitz. Then on the third day we toured the Oscar Schindler factory which had been made into a museum on Krakow’s people (Polish and Jewish) during World War II. We toured Krakow’s historic Jewish city, then dinner and a night train to Prague.

Pictures from Krakow:
The main square

The castle

We took a horse carriage ride in Krakow

Our couchsurfing hosts told us that before World War II, Krakow had around 80,000 Jews living mostly in Kazimierz. Most of these Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust. About 1,000 Jews live in Krakow today. On Monday morning Mr. C and I took an hour and a half bus ride through the Polish countryside to the town of Oswiecim, which was translated into German as Auschwitz. As we approached Auschwitz, the weather slowly worsened and when we got off the bus we were greeted by a good rain. Fortunately the weather cleared up soon after we got into the museum entrance. After a 15 minute film showing the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz we took a tour. The guide explained to us that Auschwitz actually had several parts including two bigger camps called Auschwitz I where we were and the bigger, more notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau. Our tour of Auschwitz I where the indoor exhibits were would last two hours, then a shuttle transfer to Birkenau and an hour-long outside tour there.

The images from my visit to the indoor exhibits would haunt me for a few days afterwards. Most of the exhibits contained Jewish belongings that couldn’t be destroyed in time by the Naxis as they evacuated the camp. Two thousand kilograms of human hair, shaved off after the Jews had died in the gas chamber, to be used for fabric. Suitcases with the names and birthdates of the owners as well as they city they were coming from. Some of the birthdates were only a few years before 1944, one of a child that must have only been one year old. Shoes, hairbrushes, toothbrushes, child’s clothing were all left behind. When the Jewish people were transported to death camps from the ghettos they had been forced to live in before the “final solution” was implemented, they were told by the Nazis that they were simply relocating into Eastern Europe. Squeezed into cattle cars, they that survived the trip were brought directly by the train into Auschwitz-Birkenau. The tour guide explained that Auschwitz had two parts: a concentration camp and a death camp. Most Jews who came to Auschwitz never actually lived there. They went through a selection where five to 20 percent were chosen to enter the concentration camp. The rest were told they would take a shower. The undressing rooms of the two large crematoriums at the end of the tracks had hooks and benches. People were told to remember the number of where they left their clothes. Then they were escorted, naked, into the gas chamber for their shower. The tour guide pointed out the calm expressions of people in the few photographs taken during World War II. Despite the persecution they’d already endured at the hands of the Nazis, people arriving at the death camps didn’t know they were headed into deadly gas chambers.

The concentration camp had Jews as well as Polish political prisoners, Gypsies, etc. Laborers in the concentration camp weren’t meant to survive and most died of starvation. They only received a bowl of coffee for breakfast, a bowl of thin soup for lunch and a piece of bread for dinner. The 300 or so calorie diet was simply not enough for the 12 hours of work they were forced to do every day. Add on top of that the diseases that spread around the camp due to terrible sanitary conditions and most people didn’t last a year. Many women, who didn’t even have running water to clean themselves in their barracks, only lasted a month.

The question that remains in my mind after visiting Auschwitz is how such evil on such a massive scale is possible. I know answering that question runs into the danger of making excuses for the perpetrators of these crimes. The fact that most of the Auschwitz SS didn’t see justice is terrible: every single one should have been tried for war crimes. But I do want to learn more about the conditions that allowed such evil to flourish. Of course, the Holocaust was not the most recent large-scale masseur of a group of people, but I think it continues to stand as a haunting example because of the systematic nature in which it was carried out, its relative recentness and the fact that it was carried out by an industrialized nation.

Pictures
The fence

The famous “labor makes freedom” sign

Three-level bunks

The toilets

What is left of the bunkers at Birkenau

Pictures from the Jewish cemetery that we went to the next day

I sit on a night train from Krakow to Poland and stare at the white space on the computer which is Notepad. I wonder how I can start this next post about Vienna. Stephen Hsia has already poked fun of me, saying I claim each new place Mr. C and I have been to in Europe as my new “favorite.” I claimed the first place we went to, Granada, as my favorite. Then Paris was my favorite city. Switzerland is heavenly so it doesn’t seem fair to put her in the competition. I’ve already been compiling a list of favorites in my head including favorite countryside and favorite ancient building. But that blog post is for another day.

If Vienna were to claim a superlative, it would be the “most” livable city. Both Mr. C and I agree that if we lived in Europe, we’d want to live in Vienna. “Well of course, there’s all the music,” you might say. Yes, there is music. Performances take place in venues from the National opera house to historic churches, one in which we listened to Mozart’s Requiem. But it’s not just the music or theater or even the many festivals. There is also:

Europe’s best public transportation system (especially fun for joyriding):

Underground subways, trams, mini electric buses in the center. With so many choices there’s almost always a direct way to get from point A to point B and it’s arriving in three minutes.

Oh, the food:

Perhaps because typical Austrian food is similar to typical German food and there’s not much to say about either, Vienna has some of the best ethnic (Austrian, Turkish, Chinese, etc) variety in Europe. Plus, the food is not as expensive as Italy, France or Switzerland. The food in those three countries is simply too expensive.

The people:

Viennese are direct and unassuming. They have an underdog mentality (always being bullied by and likened with Germany) yet enjoy the best quality of life in Europe.

Public life:

Flea markets, summer film festivals on a big screen at city hall, wine tasting events, opera simultaneously broadcast on a screen outside the building, boisterous Pride parades … there’s something for everyone.

This is how we spent our time in Vienna:

Day #1, June 30. Arrived in the morning via night train from Rome. After napping, showering, eating, etc, we walked around the city center, watching part of an opera from the screen set up outside the opera building.

Day #2, July 1. Took an audio tour guide of the city (rented it from the TI). Visited the Hofburg palace’s silver collection, Sisi museum and imperial apartments. I told Peter he should be like Franz Joseph (see notes).

Day #3, July 2. Met up with couchsurfer Manfred who had responded to our last minute request for a room after we’d already gotten a hostel. He suggested us a few places to go and agreed to meet up later for a wine-tasting event. So this would be our Vienna “wine day” with a visit to a wine garden and the event later that night.

Day #4, July 3. Went to Manfred’s nearby house for breakfast with him and two other couchsurfers he was hosting. After a leisurely breakfast, went together to a flea market then the Pride parade. After an hour of parading in the sun, we took the metro to Schonbrunn and rested in its free gardens. Dinner of schnitzel and beer, followed by a night train to Krakow.

How we ended up going to the annual Vienna Pride parade is still a mystery to us in a way but we’re glad we went. Manfred was going (he’s gay) and we decided to go at the last minute too. At the time I felt that even though I haven’t figured out completely how I feel about the whole issue, nor do I feel the need to have very set opinion on it, it was nice to support our new friend. I was glad we had gone when later at dinner it came out that Peter and I were active Christians. Manfred was surprised. Most Christians in Europe are Catholic and/or not really practicing. I hope we left in his mind a favorable impression of Christians. So I’d like to think I didn’t go to the pride festival because I’m a “liberal” or even a people-pleasing Christian, but rather because I believe that as Christians, we’re not going to get ahead by closing doors on others. We end up closing the door on ourselves and the Gospel.

Notes:

Bed in 8-person room in Hostel Ruthensteiner, “the original backpacker hostel in Vienna”: 19 Euros.

A roll, cream cheese, coffee and bread, in other words the hostel breakfast: 3 Euros.

A bratwurst underneath the Hofburg palace: 3,50 Euros. Price of a coke in the same place: 2 Euros.

Most interesting museum so far: the Sisi museum in the Hofburg Palace.

Most inspiring husband who was also an emperor: Franz Josepf, who placed a portrait of Sisi with loose hair directly in front of his desk where he spent most of his day looking at … Sisi.

Best breakfast so far: On Manfred’s rooftop terrace, with Ivan and Cynthia. Bread, fruit, cereals, yogurt, sliced dried ham, cherry cake, jam, butter, orange juice, milk, coffee … it was a feast.

Pictures:
Walking around Vienna at sunset

A tram in Vienna

The Hapsburg wedding church

One of the Hapsburg’s plates

Vienna’s vineyards

Vienna’s vineyards and us

Mr. C at the pride parade

What are the chances that it be July 10, exactly two months into our Europe trip, and I should happen to actually have time to write a blog post. I’m also hurriedly updating my blog so it doesn’t seem too ancient. Right now I am on a bus that has wifi (what would you know?), traveling from Prague to Cesky Krumlov, a small town in the south of the Czech Republic. The blog is updated through Rome, I’ve written posts through Vienna, which means I have yet to write posts for Krakow and Prague. So I’m a little behind. But first, the two month update:

Week 5: June 11-13. The first half of our time in Tuscany. Realized we didn’t like Florence very much. Pistoia and Lucca are nice though.
Week 6: June 14-20. Went to Sienna and fell fully in love with Tuscany. Visited as many hill towns as possible with public transportation. On Wednesday afternoon we traveled to Rome and fell in love with Rome at night. Two hot days in Rome later, we flew to Athens. In the evening of Sunday, June 20, we took a night boat to the Greek island of Santorini.
Week 7: June 21-27. Spent the first half of this week in Santorini and the second half in Naxos. On Sunday we took a six hour ferry ride to Athens.
Week 8: June 28-July 4. On Monday we toured the Acropolis then flew to Rome. Tuesday was the Vatican and a night train to Vienna. We had decided to skip Budapest in favor of more time in Vienna and a less hurried schedule. Vienna proved to be worth it and we stayed until Saturday, when we took a night train to Krakow. Sunday was in Krakow. The fourth of July came and went without fireworks.
Week 9: July 5-11. On Monday we visited Auschwitz, which was certainly the most important and meaningful museum we went to. Tuesday was the Oscar Shindler factory museum and Krakow’s Jewish quarter, then a night train to Prague. Prague is a beautiful city, certainly worth three days. On Saturday we went to Cesky Krumlov because we couldn’t book a decent hostel in Salzburg so last minute. And right now I’m on the train heading to Salzburg. Yes, this post is being finished one day after it was started.

Let me tell you what happened in the middle. Yesterday (July 10) we took the bus from Prague to Cesky Krumlov which stops in another town (Ceske B something) where we were told to get out of the bus and board the SAME bus at 3:20. We disembarked, used the restrooms, got a lunch and at exactly 3:20 were walking to our bus which we say waiting at the platform. To our horror, it started backing out. Realizing the bus was going EXACTLY ON TIME (something that had never happened to us before) we ran to chase the bus and our luggage. I’ll always remember the image of Peter yelling at the bus as it left the station. We were frantic. Being left in Ceske B something was no big deal as there were other buses to Cesky Krumlov but that bus had our luggage on it! We went to the information booth and the lady said the same bus would be back two hours later. We didn’t want to wait in Ceske B something for two hours and asked if our luggage could be taken off the bus in Cesky Krumlov where we could retrieve it at the station. That seemed to be difficult and the lady was frustrated at not being able to communicate why. Soon another bus from the same bus company pulls in and Peter goes to talk to the bus attendant from that bus. She tells us our bus will be in the station at 4:45. We decide to take a 4:00 bus to chase our luggage down. The bus is a local one, it stops at every country road, sometimes seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It pulls off the main highway to go into a small town then back. When we finally reach Cesky Krumlov we see our bus … heading in the other direction! There’s no people on it though, which we take as a good sign. The bus we’re on pulls in behind the bus with our luggage and we really feel like we’re chasing down our bus. A few minutes later we’re in the station and the luggage is safely back in our hands.

What I’ve learned, month 2:
Always be at the platform at least 10 minutes early for both trains AND buses.
What is true for one country (like Italy where everything runs late) is not true for the other (like the Czech Republic where buses will leave you behind without your luggage).
Former East European countries are much cheaper to travel around in general, and Italy is the most expensive of all because the food is so expensive but oh so good.
The rail pass we got was probably not that good of a deal once you factor in cheap regional tickets and mandatory reservation fees for the expensive trains. The pass is probably the best for train travel in Switzerland, France and Germany.
The European whirlwind tour is probably fine to do once but when we come back we’ll focus on specific countries or areas.

Just to check and see if anybody is reading this blog, I’m going to post this question for you to respond to:

Which Greek island would you rather go to? (And you can also guess which one Mr. C and I like better :P).

SANTORINI
White, cliff-hanging houses, stunning sunset views, black-sand beaches, a few towns and beaches all reachable by scooter, churches with blue domed roofs, strong winds, unbelievable Greek food including pitas.

Three representative pictures:
Sunrise (picture credit Mr. C … I was sleeping)

The donkeys

The sunset in Oia

NAXOS
Port, old town and beach all within walking distance, a shallow, waveless bay for swimming, sunset views with sailboats in foreground, an incomplete temple to Apollo, unbelievable Greek food including fresh seafood.

Three representative pictures:
Relaxing on the beach

Sunset at the port

The ancient, unfinished Apollo temple

So which one would you go to?

Which one do you think we liked best?

See the comment below for the answer. :)