Featured Eastern European Tour 2024

Well I won't bore you with the 2 days to get to Berlin, so I'll jump right in and tell you about our trip to Potsdam, to see the house where the decision was made to murder millions of people, better known as The House Wannsee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference
The day had started with torrential rain, having breakfast and looking out on the streets of Berlin, with the rain chucking it down, I thought bugger it, I've got my wetsuit with me, so let's get on with it.
Imagine my surprise when me and the better half walked out of the hotel, only to find that the rain had stopped. Result or what. As we've been to Berlin a few times, we saw no point in seeing the same buildings over again, let's face it, they're not going to change much are they?.
So with this in mind we decided to take the train, bus and the tram to Potsdam.
Now we bought the ticket, which was a 24 hr pass to use all the above, as many times as you wanted, all for the price of 10 Euros each. An absolute bargain, me thinks.
So off we go, and long story short, it was a doddle to get around Berlin using this 24 hr pass, the only strange thing was, NOBODY looked at, or checked our ticket.
It was dead easy.
So to the house then, it was very interesting for all the wrong reasons, and there were displays telling you what went on, and which murdering tosser took part in the conference. This is a free to enter exhibit. The one thing that I struggle with is that they were almost all sitting down having tea and biscuits, and deciding on how to wipe out a race of people that one man had decided was the cause of all of Germany's problems back then.
The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the Park Sanssouci which had many fantastic buildings to go and have a look at.

The tossers below.

The room below was the room that they all signed up to mass murder.

 

The next day was spent on the coach on our way to Wroclaw.
So to our visit to Wroclaw.
This is a beautiful city that unfortunately, was under threat from being flooded, from the recent torrential rain that Poland, along with others, had experienced. We got there about mid day and had a good few hours walking around and taking lots of pictures.

 

The next day we made our way to Auschwitz Birkenau, I've been to this place 6 years ago, and this place on the entry side of things, has now changed, it's got a new area that you have to go into for a security check, and then you await your guide for the tour to begin. Some people don't like the new arrangement, saying it's now a commercial business. That may, or may not, be true, but the fact remains that this sort of place must be kept, in order to teach the human race, of just how low we can go, in pursuit of an ideology. Some people have a really hard time in this place, but for some reason it doesn't affect me at all, I'm not immune to what went on here, and at other death camps, and I still can't get my head around these people who say it never happened, I suppose I just can't believe that we can do this to another person, and seem to enjoy it too.???. The tour around Birkenau was a bit of a disappointment. Having been here 6 years ago, and wandering around the whole complex, the amount that was left out, was staggering to be honest. The weather was fantastic today too. In fact I've been to a few death camps over the years, and I've never had rain at any of them, only boiling hot sunshine.

The wall below is where they just shot people. It's NOT the original wall.

The Gas chamber.

 

Now to Birkenau

 

Onto the next day in Krakow, now we don't as a rule take the guided tours on these trips, as you never really see that much, but the included guided tours, we do take. This is because we mark down on the maps what's what, and where it is, and then we jump ship, and off we go. And this is what happened in Krakow.
Now Krackow is a must visit place if you get the chance, to say it's stunning is to do it an injustice. Krackow, like Poland, is just beautiful.
We first visited the Osckar Schindler museum, just a 45 min walk from the centre of Krakcow, it's got plenty of displays to see, and artifacts from the Jewish people. They're pictures too, of the people he saved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler's_Enamel_Factory
Walking back into Krakow, we spent a further 2 and a half hours walking around, it was boiling hot too.

 

Onto the next day and a visit to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, now if you're in this area, for God's sake DON'T miss this place, it's unbelievable what's underground. You have to see it to believe it. You have to walk down the mine, but there's a lift that takes you back up to the top, and they cram 9 people in this lift, so if you don't like being close to other people, you might struggle with the ascent to the top.
But it's worth it for what you see underground.

 

The next day we had an overnight stop in Kosice in Slovakia. On the way


A new day and we're off now to Budapest in Hungary.
We got to Budapest in time for dinner, then off again for the night tour of Budapest.
Sadly the Parliament building was not lit up, due to the fact that the Danube was at the foot of the building, and water and electricity don't mix, so they turned the power off. The better half was busy marking off the sites on the map, ready for us to walk around Budapest in the morning.
So to the Budapest walkabout day, We joined the tour but jumped ship at the opera house. We spent from 10.30 right up till 18.00 walking around Budapest, and I have to say that this place is just stunning, helped also by endless sunshine again. Put this place on your to-do list, it's worth it.. Back at base for dinner then a nice hot bath.


This is a memorial to the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

 

Well another day arrived and this time we're off to Vienna, it's been 35 years since we were last here, and like before, we jumped ship and began our waking tour of Vienna, and like before, the weather was glorious. In the evening Pat wanted to go to a concert, well as your in Austria, you've got to really. I wasn't so keen, not being too cultured and all that, but she wanted to go, so off we went. Well when this woman came out screaming her head off with another bloke in some other language, doing the same, I thought Christ almighty, I hope it's not like this all night, I'd forgotten my ear plugs too. To be fair some of the music was great, like the Blue Danube, I think everyone likes that one. It wasn't too bad if I'm honest, but I won't be rushing out any time soon for another one.

This is the only Russian soldier allowed in Vienna, it's part of the peace treaty which states this must be maintained apparently. Some bloke from Russia visited it a few years ago

 

Another day, and today we're off to Prague, well we arrived in the afternoon and they let us loose for a few hours, then onto the hotel for dinner, then the obligatory night tour, that inevitably you can't see a bloody thing. Well after dinner the short tour began, and it was up to the castle to have a walk around. Now this was lit up good and proper, and it was just fantastic to see it like that. After the tour, we all piled into a Czech pub to taste some beer, well that was wasted on me as I don't drink, so Pat had her beer, and a bit of mine too.

 

The next morning came, and along with unbroken sunshine.
Today I wanted to finish something I started 6 years ago on my last visit to Prague, and that was to see the Crypt where the Czech hero's hid out, having successfully managed to kill Rinehard Heydrich. It was 6 years ago that I last came here, and on a Monday too, and it was shut, I was gutted, so this time being in Prague I was on a mission to see this place, and place a comment in the visitors book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius_Cathedral
You can't imagine what they must have thought when they were discovered, to say that they were Heroes, is an understatement.
We were there for about an hour or so. The bravery of all these men is astounding.
I duly signed the book, " To stand where heroes once stood, is an honour ".


Off now to Wenceslas Square, which is getting a major update. Off to the Charles Bridge, which was packed, and up again to the castle to see it in daylight, and to get an overview of Prague too, then further up to the Little Eiffel Tower. Or the Petrin Tower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petřín_Lookout_Tower
As we'd been walking all day, we took the lift up and down. It's a great view of Prague when you get up there too. On our walk back to the hotel some 40 mins later, we popped into Tesco's, yes Tesco's, they have one in Prague, to buy some nibbles for our journey to Belgium, and the end of our trip.
So that's it our 13 day trip to the eastern part of Europe is over. The weather had been brilliant, to say the least, the only day that wasn't up to much was Berlin, every other destination that we visited had glorious sunshine, the only rain we had was when we were in transit. Not a bad result I'd say

Here are 2 links to the 1400 pictures I took on our trip. I know I go a bit mad with the pictures, but you don't get to do this every day, so I just click away.

This one's from the phone. Eastern Europe Tour. Phone 2024

This one's from my main camera. East European Tour 2024

 

I've just noticed that I put the heading Easter European Tour .
Poland is stunning, it's spotless too. The views are breathtaking.
Put it on your To do list, you'll not be disappointed.

Just changed the title

 

Dutch bulb fields in May, other things in the pipeline, but not yet confirmed.