Auschwitz is huge and to think we are only seeing a very small portion of the camp as much of it was destroyed. Thousands of people are following their tour guides in total silence other than the narrative from the tour guide. Most of us walked in astonishment, disgust, anger and heart break as we listened to what the Nazi's did to these people. It was a very sobering experience and one that we thoroughly enjoyed. The Auschwitz portion of the tour took approximately 3 hours and then we were driven by bus to Birkenau to complete the tour. We didn't realize that Birkenau dwarfed Auschwitz but the atrocities only got worse. How a human being can inflict such brutality towards another is impossible to understand. Sadly, it seems like we have not learned the horrible lessons of history as atrocities continue around the globe to this day.
Up at 8 am and on the road by 9:30 am. We drove through the lovely Ojcowski region with some unique rock formations. We arrived at Auschwitz at 12:30 pm and waited an hour for the next guided tour. It began to rain the moment we arrived and continued for the duration of our tour. The crowds were huge, which was totally unexpected. The ticketing process, queuing and and trying to find your translator stations was nothing short of organized chaos. Once we found our English tour guide we were off. The initial gong show was well worth the wait.
Auschwitz is huge and to think we are only seeing a very small portion of the camp as much of it was destroyed. Thousands of people are following their tour guides in total silence other than the narrative from the tour guide. Most of us walked in astonishment, disgust, anger and heart break as we listened to what the Nazi's did to these people. It was a very sobering experience and one that we thoroughly enjoyed. The Auschwitz portion of the tour took approximately 3 hours and then we were driven by bus to Birkenau to complete the tour. We didn't realize that Birkenau dwarfed Auschwitz but the atrocities only got worse. How a human being can inflict such brutality towards another is impossible to understand. Sadly, it seems like we have not learned the horrible lessons of history as atrocities continue around the globe to this day.
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Today we have decided to CHILL! Got up at 8 am and had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room. Went for a nice long hike to the local village and lunch at what has become our favourite restaurant a few blocks away. Back to the monastery and took some photos, drank some wine and relaxed...what a great day! The staff here are wonderful and for whatever reason, I just love being here. Tomorrow we are up early and heading to Auschwitz with a few stops along the way. Auschwitz will take some time with a 4 hour guided tour to get us started. Today was going to be a veg day, just having a lazy Sunday hanging around the monastery and checking things out. But after discussing whether today may be a better day rather than a business day to visit Krakow. We thought being a holiday weekend, most people would be spending time with family at home but this is Europe and it seems that all Europeans like to spend their spare time in the company of other people, lots of other people. That is exactly what we discovered when we arrived at the town centre this morning. There were people everywhere. I'm not sure whether we may be getting bored of the castles, historic villages and cathedrals or whether they are just not as spectacular in the last two countries we have visited. Personally, I think we need another decompression break, a nice resort to simply park our buts for a week or so. We have put 12,000 kms on the old Peugeot in a little less than 3 months and that is a lot of driving. Krakow in my opinion was not that great however Leslie enjoyed it. I think my major problem was dealing with the crowds. I just cannot handle the masses. Another problem was we were constantly harassed by tour guides pestering us to part with our money. I'm not kidding when I say we were approached almost every 2-3 minutes with the high pressure sales tactics. I found the town itself to be a little boring. We spent 3.5 hours walking the streets and snapping photos of everything and decided to make our way back to the peace and quiet of our country side resort. It was a good choice. We opted to spend an additional day at the monastery and then head to Auschwitz on Tuesday morning. I am really not into visiting any more big cities like Warsaw or Gdansk. We were chatting with a Polish couple at our pension in Slovakia and they told us not to bother. Just a couple of big ugly cities. We will have to see what the boss has to say! After a big breakfast at the pension, we left for Poland with a number of stops along the way to take in MORE castles, churches, historic towns. No border crossing between Slovakia and Poland so once again, it was a breeze. Our first impression upon entering Poland was not great but within a half hour drive north of the border there was quite a transformation. The country side was rolling hills, trees and brilliant green grass. It was refreshing to see some pride of ownership again. 80% percent of the Pol's maintain their yards meticulously with beautiful flower gardens, manicured grass that looks like a golf green and bright colored houses that instantly make you feel happy. The definite highlight of the day was checking into the Hotel SW Norberta in Hebdow, Poland. This fabulous 5 Star resort was once a monastery built in 1160. The monastery & cathedral have been completely restored and the rooms are absolutely beautiful. The hotel is nestled in the countryside just 20 kilometres from Krakow. We loved it so much we extended our stay to 3 nights and will probably ad another. http://www.hotelswnorberta.pl/ The weather has been cool and wet the last few days but I don't mind getting a break from the hot and humid weather we have had since arriving. Today was a long, busy, WET, day! We covered a lot of territory on our way to northern Slovakia. Our first stop was Castle Spis, about 20 minutes form Levoca. The castle, or should I say castle ruins, is one of the largest in Europe and has a very interesting history, being inhabited by numerous families. We then went on to visit three other popular cities but the rain tended to dampen the spirit and thus the photos do not represent the true picture that we would have got had the day been sunny and warm. It is almost getting to the point that everything is beginning to look the same after close to 3 months. However I must say that the northern part of Slovakia is much more picturesque than the south with in mountainous landscape and lush vegetation a stark departure from the flat prairie landscape of the south. It would appear that the northern region is much more prosperous that the south but apparently that is not the case. The same story resonates throughout central Europe, the governments are corrupt, the majority of the people are poor, jobs are impossible to find thus wages are terrible and taxes are ridiculously high. Not to mention that according to most we met who are in business, the government bureaucracy when it comes to rules, regulations and the policing of these policies is a nightmare to deal with. Most every business owner we have spoken to claims they are in the red and in a big way! The economy is horrible, prices are high, real-estate is an incredible bargain and everybody is demanding change. Just to put things into perspective, the average teacher in Slovakia makes $300 Euro a month (according to a friend who is a retired teacher) and has to supplement their income by doing odd jobs like cleaning houses, etc. There are no government pensions or benefit plans either. Job security in these parts is unheard of. There is however one constant, the mega rich, like in North America, are living large! I am sorry if I sound like a broken record, but the people we have met on this journey and the friendships we have made have been incredible. Every country we have visited we have established some amazing friendships and Slovakia is no exception. Our stay at the Hotel U Leva http://www.uleva.sk was absolutely fabulous. The owners, Jana, Vladimir & Matej managed to make our brief stay one of the most memorable of all our recent travels. The room we had was superb, overlooking the town square in the historic village, simply picture perfect. If we could have extended our stay by a couple of days we definitely would have but unfortunately, the popularity of the boutique hotel demands you make your booking months in advance. Jana & Vladimir treated us to a wonderful dinner in their fine dining restaurant the last night of our stay and we could have stayed up most of the night talking. Thank you for making our stay in Slovakia so enjoyable and we hope we can return your generosity some day soon. Okay Helen, I am starting to feel the love! Yesterday we drove from Rajecké Teplice to Levoca. The landscaped changed like night and day. We are now in the hills and mountains of Slovakia and it is much more appealing then the south. We booked into a lovely boutique hotel in the historic village and are planning to stay 2-3 days. Hopefully the rain will subside for a bit but that is not in the forecast. We made three stops yesterday and were skunked on two. I think the towns were desperate to make something out of nothing so we just drove through and carried on until we reached #3 Nova Bystrica. This settlement has been restored and maintained and shows the extremely difficult conditions the people had to endure simply to survive. Given we have practically had to pay for the air you breath in Slovakia, we would have expected to pay for this venue but it was absolutely free. The icing on the cake was our arrival in Levoca. The village is like a postcard. The room in the hotel overlooks the village with a spectacular view of the cathedral and museum. It is a family run hotel and of course we met 2 of the family members and are meeting for drinks tonight. They mentioned that the south eastern part of Slovakia is very poor and not near as nice as the north west. It certainly appears that way from our standpoint. It looks like we may be enjoying Slovakia a little more from here on. Sorry Helen, I'm just not feeling the love so far. Slovakia is not what we expected thus far and maybe as we head into the mountains to the northwest our opinion may change. The country is not cheap and you don't appear to get great value for your money as you do in most of the other eastern European countries. We have found Slovakia to be not quite as clean as the other countries we have visited. They also tend to nickel & dime you a little more in these parts as well. We pulled into Rajecké Teplice this evening in a raging torrential down pour. This is another popular spa town and the Hotel Aphrodite at the center of the town plaza is quite spectacular. The spa looks like an ancient Roman Bath House. The town itself appears pretty upscale compared to what we have seen so far. We leave tomorrow for Levoca for a couple of days. http://www.spa.sk/sk/ubytovanie/hotel-aphrodite So far since entering Slovakia for Hungary, we are not very impressed. The country, from what we have seen so far appears to be quite dirty. We made a brief stop in the small city of Nitra and toured the village...not great but okay. We arrived in Bratislava at about 2 pm and our opinion did not change. We checked into the hotel, had lunch and made our way to the historic downtown. I have never seen so much filth and graffiti in my life. It got somewhat better when we entered the heart of the village but still pretty bad. It was another hot muggy day which is not ideal for touring but that has been the way it has been for much of our trip. We snapped another 300 plus photos and made our way back to our hotel about 6:30. We are headed to Zilina tomorrow morning so hopefully there will be some improvement. If not, our stay in Slovakia might be short lived. We have too much to much land to cover before we leave so we are not going to waste our time. Well were back in Budapest but this time on the outskirts of town at a lovely little boutique hotel. There are three small villages in close proximity known as the Danube Bend. The circuit started at Szentendre, then we made the 45 minute trip to Visegrad, which was a total waste of time and then circling back to probably the most interesting of the three, Esztergom. Szentendre was a neat little village with the typical cathedrals, crumbling walls, lots of the usual restaurants and shops. Not really well maintained but nice just the same. Visegrad was a total waste of time & gas. You drive up the mountain for about 15 minutes, get to the top where they rip you off for parking, then you make the 15 minute, steep walk to the top and your right back in the tourist trap zone. Disgusted, we about faced and called it a good work out and back to the car. The parking lot attendant took one look at my face and new I was on to the gig and wave us through. The last stop was Esztergom and it was definitely the icing on the cake. Perched on the top of a mountain, from the front you think your looking at Capital Hill. There is a great walk to the lower village that runs along the Danube. A nice walking path along the river and some great views from the bottom. One thing I have discovered, if your wanting to tour castles in Europe, nothing comes even close to the castles of France. I guess that is why we may sound so critical of castles in most other countries because France would be a very tough act to follow. Overall, it was another great day. Life is tough traveling Europe for 4 months!!! If it sounds like I am complaining from time to time, KICK ME IN THE ASS!! Life is great! |
Glen
I have always been a straight shooter and a go getter. Many have said Leslie must be a saint to have put up with me for over 40 years. We have been business partners since the day we got married and each played an intrigal roll in our business success. There is nothing more important to us than our Family & Friends. Our love of people and travel has allowed us to develop amazing friendships around the world. Archives
November 2017
Categories"The New Gineration"Disclaimer:
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