Two beautiful cities filled with amazing architecture, delicious food, friendly people, and fabulous culture. What more could a person want?
Not counting travel day, we had two days to tour each of the cities. The cemetery in Vienna was particularly interesting. Visiting a cemetery may not be at the top of everyone’s list for sightseeing, but this one was unique.
The best part of Krakow is how walkable it is! Stare Miasto, the Old Town area is very compact and utterly charming. It is surrounded by a park with plenty of benches that are perfect for taking a break from sightseeing. There are tour companies on every block offering tours to Auschwitz and to the Wieliczka Salt Mines as well as little trams that offer narrated tours (using headphones) that will take you to see Schindler’s Factory as well.
Every hour, a trumpet tune is broadcast from the Old Town Square. The tune ends abruptly. Legend has it that the original trumpeter was shot with an arrow, so the tune ends there.
It seems like every 3rd or 4th shop sells ice cream. My kind of place!
We did tours of Auschwitz and the Salt Mines, but were not able to get to Schindler’s Factory because it was closed for Armed Forces Day. Instead, we were treated to folk dancing and traditional music in the town square!
Tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau
Armed Forces Day Celebration in Krakow
After a nearly 7 hour train ride from Krakow, we arrived in Prague. Our hotel was right in the heart of Old Town; a short cab ride away from the train station. The traffic was horrible but it was around 6 pm, so that may be the reason why. We used an app called Taxify, which seems to be similar to Uber. It was very convenient because our driver spoke no English; we obviously don’t speak any Czech.
We stayed at the Pushkin Apartments which is right across from the Apple Museum. I am not sure why there is an Apple Museum in Prague and certainly don’t intend to spend any money finding out why, either! Fortunately, the hotel had good soundproofing because lots of partying in the streets was going on until all hours. Unfortunately, there was no air conditioning so in order to block out the noise, we had to close the windows.
We were in Prague three days. It is called the fairy tale city, and it is immediately apparent why. According to our tour guide, Hitler loved the city so much that he planned to retire here. That probably explains why Prague was not bombed like other major European cities. They only experienced one day of bombing toward the end of the war (May 7, 1945). After the Nazis learned that Hitler had killed himself, they attacked. That attack was short-lived and so there was very little damage here.
During our time here, we did a free walking tour of the city with White Umbrella Tours, toured Prague Castle, and visited the area called Vsehrad. The heat wave continued for our entire stay and it looks like Vienna, our next stop, will be excessively hot as well.
We arrived at the Berlin HBF mid-afternoon on a Monday with the heat wave going strong. We had booked a room at the Motel One near the HBF and were relieved to find that it had air conditioning. Rather than trying to do any sightseeing in the worst heat of the day, we dropped off our bags and returned to the HBF to do some “housekeeping” items so that we could hit the ground running the following morning. We had pre-purchased Berlin Welcome Cards and had read that we would need to get them validated before using them the first time so wanted to know where to get that done. We also needed to get another travel diary page for our Eurail pass. You are required to fill in each train journey you take; since we are taking quite a few, we knew that we would run out of space on our form eventually. Since we had some time, we figured that this would be a good time to pick up a spare. Apparently, 4 o’clock on a Monday afternoon is not an optimal time to do either of these; the lines at both the TI and the DB office were out the door. Not worth the wait!
The HBF in Berlin is very modern and has multiple floors. At first glance, it is quite confusing. Trains arrive and depart from both the top and bottom level. The floors in between are comprised of multiple shops and restaurants. We wandered through, attempting to familiarize ourselves with the layout. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, and then headed back to the room to finalize our plans for the next day.
The forecast for the week was for continued heat; by mid-morning each day, the temperature had already climbed to the 90’s and continued to climb until early evening, topping out at around 99. I knew that we would not want to do a lot of walking around in the heat but we really wanted to do a tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp so decided to do that on Tuesday. Wednesday, we would take the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. Thursday, we planned on visiting Checkpoint Charlie and the Topography of Terror Museum. There are so many other places here we would like to see, but realistically, it is not worth risking getting heat exhaustion or sunstroke, so we will return to Berlin another time in order to more fully experience it. There were several walking tours that we had planned on taking but again, given the weather, I knew I could not manage them.
Following Berlin, we headed to Warsaw for several days. Like Berlin, I had visited Warsaw in 1974. Things have definitely changed for the better there.
We will be visiting several Concentration Camps as part of our journey. These visits are deeply personal and meaningful for me, albeit very difficult.
As usual, click on the links below to read about our experiences:
We have survived our first week! So far, so good. We arrived during a heat wave; the weather has ranged from 90 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit. The forecast for the next week is for more of the same. This Seattleite is having a tough time dealing with the heat! Nonetheless, we are having a wonderful time.
My intention is to update my blog weekly. We are currently in Berlin, an amazing city and will be heading to Warsaw in a couple of days. Click on the links below for what we’ve seen so far:
travelswithheather 