Touring Central and Eastern Europe - Part 2

From Dresden we spent most of a day driving to Oświęcim, a town which is better known under the German form of its name - Auschwitz. We arrived at about 5 pm, and had already booked a room in a small modern hotel - Hotel Galicja. We walked to the old town for a brief exploration, then returned to our hotel for dinner. We ate in the hotel's Italian restaurant as the main restaurant seemed more formal, with a richer menu.

The following day we took a guided tour which visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. I am still thinking about or reasons for visiting such a place on our holiday. As much as anything it was on our route, and as we are interested in the history of places we visit, it was too important for us to ignore. 

In the morning we spent about two hours visiting the original camp which the Nazis used initially to house Polish political prisoners as well as Jews and other minorities. When that tour was over we took the bus, along with our guide, to the second camp, Birkenau, which was set up specifically as a death camp, devoted to gassing and cremating people on an industrial scale.

 The guide's narrative and the exhibits were disturbing, and the visit stirred many thoughts and emotions. The big questions I need to think of are"How did a nation get to the position where its people would allow this?" "Would I recognise what was happening if something similar started here?" and "Would I have the courage to oppose it?". 

We ended the afternoon by driving an hour or so to Krakow where we would spend two nights with a full day for sightseeing.

The full Flickr collection of pictures from the trip is here, the pictures from Auschwitz-Birkenau are here.

Touring Central and Eastern Europe - Part 1

Just before leaving Prague three years ago, Sue and I spent two weeks touring North Bohemia. We intended to visit Slovakia and the Tatra Mountains, but needed more time. This year we finally decided to remedy that and set off for a two week trip via Dresden to Poland, the Western Tatras and Slovakia. Our first day would be long, so we left home just after 6 am to drive to the tunnel and then set off on a long haul across Belgium and Germany before arriving in Dresden just after 8:30 pm. 

We parked and checked in to the hotel where the receptionist told us that there was a beer garden at a nearby park. The day had been hot and it was still a warm  evening as we walked to the park and enjoyed a refreshing Radeberger wheat beer.

We had dedicated the next day to sightseeing in Dresden and walked through the park again to the old town. Our first stop was the Neumarkt, with its rebuilt Frauenkirche, finally restored after many years of ruin. We then visited other sights in the old town before lunch at a tapas bar - Spanish food was more tempting than the local fare in 30° heat.

In the afternoon we crossed the Augustus Bridge to enter the new town where we discovered the Kunsthof, something of a counter-culture area full of quirky little brightly-painted courtyards full of craft galleries. We stopped for iced tea and admired the artwork before taking a tram back across the river. I had been intrigued by the old Yenidze tobacco factory, styled to look like a mosque, and was delighted to find that it had a rooftop beer garden.

We then walked back to the north bank of the river to admire the view of the city as captured by Canaletto. A 7-person bicycle passed us, giving a city tour with a difference. Once we crossed the river we passed the Soviet-era Culture Palace with its Socialist-Realist mural before heading back to the Old Town for dinner. We wanted an early night because tomorrow we would be driving to Poland. 

See our Dresden pictures here.