Travel Journal
Day 1: Flight and Frankfurt So the flight from DCA to Detroit was very bumpy when coming in for a landing. I hate turbulence by the way. The flight from Detroit to Frankfurt was reasonably smooth. The only issue was it was a full flight with people who kept hitting the call button and crying babies. Ok the babies I can mostly live with since the parents did do everything in their power to calm them down. The hitting the call button, was annoying. It seemed like every time I would try to sleep the call button would go ‘ding’. I did not sleep on that flight. Going through German immigration and customs was a breeze. The airport is rather boring. We met our bus driver who got us to the hotel and our tour guide Yonish. After checking into the hotel and getting settled we met up with Jim's German friends to walk around Frankfurt. Frankfurt itself isn't very exciting but the old area has a lot of nice architecture. It is quaint. They also have nice apple wine you can get sweet or sour. The sour tastes like apple beer. The only down side of the touring the city was I wasn't feeling good and was extremely tired. So I didn't enjoy it as much as I probably could have. However, I did take pictures of the important things. We had fun. Later this evening, we meet up with the full tour group and find out if we are the youngest people on the tour. So our little adventure across Eastern Europe has begun. Tomorrow we head up to Berlin.
Day 2: Drive to Berlin Well we met the rest of the tour group last night. It is official Jim and I are the youngest ones on the trip. The city tour of Frankfurt was ok, though we do find our tour guides slightly annoying. The tour guide says a lot of "ums" and "ladies and gentlemen" a lot. The people on the tour seem nice but like toasting almost everything. The first dinner was buffet, roast beef, with a free drink of your choice. The first actual day, started by getting up at 6:00AM to get ready, have our bags outside the room door by 7:15AM and then have breakfast so we can be on the bus by 8:00AM. Breakfast was a very large buffet, lots of variety including raw fish for those that like that type of thing. My personal favorite was tiny ice-cream cone type cups to put your jelly in. They were so cute. We spent most of the day on the bus driving up to Berlin. Honestly the German country side reminds me of Ohio and PA, just with more trees. There were also a lot of wind turbines. We stopped at two rest stops, were you pay to pee. It was interesting because you pay 0.70 Euro, to get to the restroom area. You go through the little turn style, grab your ticket, and then use the toilet. They have very unique seat cleaners. The whole toilet seat rotates though a little cleaner scrubber thing, it looks rather odd watching it rotate. The ticket you grabbed will get you 0.50 Euro off your purchase at the rest stop, which is like a turnpike rest stop. Jim actually made some money going to the rest room because people forgot their change. The rest stops were nice and clean. Lunch was at a rest stop along the way. We just had Burger King. We got to our hotel inside Berlin around 4:00PM; unfortunately the hotel had a computer glitch so we didn't get to check in right away. So the nice hotel manager arranged for everyone to get a free drink from the bar. We did finally get our room keys and got settled around 5:30 PM. We then went and walked around the square in front of our hotel with the matching cathedrals. We had a nice dinner at nice German restaurant. I had veal meatballs with lukewarm potato salad, both were very good. I'm glad that the waiter gave us English menus or I would have ordered liver noodles. That wouldn't have been good. Jim had Potato Sausage soup, which he said was good. We then stopped at the chocolate shop and picked up these cute little chocolate shot things. They are pretty good, but I don't think I'll be able to get any home, because they would melt on the bus. Tomorrow we do the Berlin City tour and Secrets of Berlin, which allows us to stop at Checkpoint Charlie and go to Museum of Terror which used to be Gestapo Headquarters.
Day 3: Berlin Today started out with a good buffet breakfast. They made omelets to order. After breakfast it was on the bus for the city tour, with a local guide. She was a very good guide, very knowledgeable and spoke English very well. We hit all the important landmarks in the city, including Museum Island, Berliner Dom, Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall, and Checkpoint Charlie, and the Reichstag. Now most of this was just out of the bus window as we drove by, however we did stop in a few places. We stopped at Brandenburg Gate to get a closer look and then at Checkpoint Charlie and the associated museum. Checkpoint Charlie and the museum aren't as fascinating as you would think. The museum is mostly just a lot of articles hanging on was with a few of the devises used to sneek into West Berlin. The little gatehouse is still in the middle of the street with some sandbags. The guide noted Germany does not really preserve items from WWII or tarnish the image of the country; consequently a lot of history is being lost. Now we saw one of the few remaining portions of the Berlin Wall, which was painted with a bunch of murals. After the city tour was complete we did the Berlin's Secrete Past Tour. The Secret Past tour was very good. We saw the areas related to Nazi and Communist past. The Jewish Holocaust Memorial you can easily get lost in, because it is just a bunch of concrete blocks in rows that are of varying sizes. The other part that I thought was probably the most interesting part of the tour was seeing the old Gestapo Headquarters. Now you can only see the remains of the basement, but along with that they show the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, which was very interesting. Above the basement you can see remnants of the Berlin Wall, without murals. It is all beaten and chipped up. I think this version of the wall is more moving and portrays more of the feeling held about the wall. After that is was back to the hotel and lunch. The rest of the day was on our own. We stopped for lunch at Curry Dom. We had sausage there, I had traditional spices and Jim had ostrich sausage. It was good. From there we walked to the sunken library. The sunken library has no books and is under the site where the Nazi Book burning occurred in May 1933 in front of the Library and University. From there we walked down to Museum Island and stopped in the German history museum. Then we walked down further to get a better look at Berliner Dom. From there we did a little shopping, which included a stop in the Appleman shop. Appleman is the guy on the crosswalk signs, he is everywhere. Well tomorrow we have to be on the bus by 6:50AM to start our journey to Warsaw, Poland.
Day 4: Trek to Warsaw Today we got up at 5:00AM to be on the bus by 6:45AM to start our journey to Warsaw Poland. Ok, according to Google Maps the trip should take about 8 hours. It took more like 10.5 hours, this is because we stopped three times, one of those for lunch and took a detour to drive past where Chopin was born. It was a very long day on the bus. I was disappointed when we crossed into Poland there was no sign indicating you were entering Poland. We ended up stopping at what used to be a documents (passport) verification center for a potty break and to change money from Euros to Zloty. Exchange rate if your curious is 3 Zloty = 1 US dollar. The next stop was in the city of Poznan, for lunch and to watch the clock tower show at noon. At noon, two mechanical rams come out and then but heads 12 times. This is supposed to represent the rams that saved the city from burning to the ground because they were fighting in the town square. What I thought was cute were the small school children there on a field trip to learn their history. They also counted out loud the number of times the rams butted heads. From there the long drive began in earnest. Since the freeway is not complete yet we had to take back roads. Some of the people outside the houses looked like the ones in the very old photos mom has of the relatives. We stopped once at a McDonalds and gas station. (Gas was 5.15 Zloty per liter) Yes I know I'm in foreign country I should be eating their food, but sometimes you just need McDonalds. Though, we found out their McDonalds sells the original shakes not those triple thick things. They also have Mt. Dew in Poland which makes Jim happy. From there it was a detour to see the birth place of Chopin. The tour guide is in love with Chopin. It really wasn't worth the side trip because we just drove past and all you see out the bus window is a stone wall. Then from there we were on some very bumpy and still under construction roads. We finally arrived at the hotel around 5:30PM. We also had an included dinner tonight at a Polish Restaurant. The served us tomato soup, chicken in mushroom cream sauce, fried potato wedges and steamed green beans. For desert it was apple pie with ice-cream. It was a good dinner. Tomorrow is the city tour of Warsaw and then some free time.
Day 5: Warsaw, Poland Today started off with our TV turning on, all by itself as our wakeup call at 7:00 AM. Now this was annoying since we weren’t going on the tour of Willano Place and were supposed to get to sleep in till 9:00 AM. Our city tour started at 10:30 AM. The city tour was good, and the local guide was very informative. We did decide the saying "ladies and gentlemen" and "You must believe me" might be Polish coloclisims. Because both the local guide and our tour guide do that and they are both from Poland. The city of Warsaw was completely decimated during WWII by German soldiers who blew up each building individually with TNT. After the war the Poles and the Russians came to an agreement to rebuild Warsaw partially how it originally was (old town) and then how the Russians wanted (new town). All of Old Town is made with bricks from the originally destroyed building and rebuilt to how it looked before it was destroyed. What I found interesting was that if pieces of the old building remained they incorporated those pieces into the rebuilt structure. I'm amazed at with the beautiful architecture on many of the buildings as well as how they are painted. We had lunch at the Polish Kitchen. Jim had rabbit (he got half of a whole rabbit) with potatoes and cucumber salad. I had bignos (meat with sauerkraut) and dumplings. Lunch was good. From there we tour the old town some without the guide. Stopped at the souvenir shop where I picked up some reasonably priced amber jewelry and some pisanki (wooden painted eggs). Then we walked around some more and tried to find the panczki (Polish donut) shop that was pointed out, but failed in that attempt. So instead we settled for a Belgian type waffle with whip cream and strawberries on top, from one of the food carts. From there we headed back to the hotel for tonight’s dinner. Tonight’s included dinner at the hotel was kind of lousy. When the only redeeming portion of the meal is the salad that says something about how lousy the dinner was. The dinner consisted of salad, pork wrapped in something and a buckwheat and mushroom thing, with desert being a strawberry mouse. At least lunch was good. Tomorrow it is off to Krakow, with stops along the way at a monastery and Auschwitz.
Day 6: The road to Krakow Today started early, we had to be on the bus by 7:00 AM. Not to terribly bad. We had two main stops planned and a potty break planned before our arrival into Krakow which was around 5:00 PM. Just so you get a feeling for distance without the stops, it would take about 4 ½ hours to drive directly from Warsaw to Krakow. The first main stop was at spiritual center of Poland, Czestochowa. There is a beautiful monastery here along with a painting called the Black Madonna. Its other claim to fame is that Pope John Paul the II was born up in the mountains near the town and the monastery. The little chapel where the Black Madonna is located is pretty, a little gaudy but nice. However the basilica attached to the chapel is larger and nicer but it was undergoing some renovations. Also the monastery was very crowded with children making their first communion. All the boys and girls basically wore the same types of clothes, no variety in the dresses. They all looked cute. Those priests were also cranking out those masses, because there were a lot of first communion groups there. From there we headed out to our second main stop of the day. The second main stop was Auschwitz. This is a very crowded destination and you are only allowed to tour the camp, with a guide. The camp is a lot smaller then you think because it was only one of a three camp compound. The second camp is 2 miles down the road is much larger and is where most of the war crimes took place. The secondary camp is also where the train with cattle cars of people would come to off-load the people. The third camp was destroyed. The tour was good, and the guide provided a lot of details. It is not the buildings themselves that invoke emotions but the displays on the inside of the buildings. The displays showing all the clothes, shoes, luggage and personal items give you just a glimpse of understanding of how many people lost their lives at the camps. It also makes you question why and how this happened. After this sobering experience we continued our journey towards Krakow. We arrived at our hotel in Krakow around 5:00PM and the included dinner was in the hotel. We were served a vegetable soup, salmon, and sherbet for desert. Dinner was reasonably good.
Day 7: The City of Krakow Today we actually got to sleep in till 7:00 AM since we were not going on the salt mine excursion our day started with breakfast then on the bus at 9:20 AM for the city tour. The city tour of Krakow was nice. We walked up to the castle and toured that briefly then walked down the royal way into the market square to see Saint Mary's Church. The castle is a mix of Baroque and Renaissance architecture. It is a rather nice castle, but I wish we would have spent some more time there. However it was overrun with school children learning their Polish history. From there we started our journey down the royal way, stopping to look at the former residence of John Paul the Second when he was Arch Bishop of Krakow which is near St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church. Then we continued onward, to the market square while the tour guide pointed out more churches. There are 150 Catholic Churches in Krakow. When we got to the market square we headed towards the Saint Mary’s Church. We waited outside the church to see the bugler perform the melody used to save the town form a Turkish invasion. He performs every hour, playing the same melody. Apparently, if you see the bugler twice in one day it brings you luck. We saw him twice. We then entered the church. There was defiantly a lot of gilded objects, and the alter was a little gaudy in my opinion. However it was nice, and the alter is like a giant puzzle so it can be deconstructed and hidden in case of war, just like it was hidden during WWII. As a side note you need to pay 5 zloty to get a sticker so you can take pictures inside the church. I got my picture pass which the other people on in the tour group forgot to do. So I’m the only one who got pictures. After that we got to wander around on our own. We had lunch at one of the cafes and had perogies. They were good, they make their potato ones slightly different with some type of cheese mixed in. From there we wandered around the square and the Cloth Hall where the market is. We actually lucked out because this was the week and weekend of the craftsman’s festival, so we had a lot to choose from. I also stopped to pick up some vodka, for my dad. Since it was so hot today, we decided to take the bus back and not go back to the castle to look around some more. The Polish Folk dinner was very good. We had sausage, these fried/baked eggs, mushroom soup (taste like the lentil we have for Christmas) stuffed cabbage and strawberries for deseart. Everyone also had to do a shot of Polish Bison Grass Vodka. The vodka is only made in Poland and comes from a pasture in the forest where the only herd of European buffalo roams. The vodka was good and didn't upset my stomach. They also had traditional music and put on a show of traditional Polish Folk dances, then invited everyone to dance with them. I would say all those years of polkaing with Skipper Grandma in the kitchen paid off. Also just so you know the drinks, including the vodka were unlimited, some of those old people really got into it. In all it was a good time.
Day 8: Road to Budapest Today we had to be on the bus by 8:15 AM for our journey to Budapest, Hungary. In all it wasn't a very exciting trip, under normal conditions the drive would take about 6 hours, but with the planned stops it took closer to 7 and half hours. Let me tell you the countryside really isn't that exciting. We drove through Slovakia on the way to Hungary. We stopped for lunch in the Tatar Mountains at a Slovakian ski resort. We had chicken soup, cabbage salad, and free range chicken and rice, with crepes for desert. The meal was really good. Then we continued our journey. Budapest does not give you a warm fuzzy when you arrive. It looks very run down and dingy. Also when both the tour guide and the hotel information book say beware of pick pockets it makes it less appealing. Tonight we go on a dinner river cruise and then tomorrow we get a tour of the city.
Day 9: Budapest Last night we went on a river cruse down the Danube River. They served us a variety of cold dishes and then beef goulash, summer stew, and chicken paperkash. The cold dishes were good; Jim really enjoyed their selection of salamies. All the hot dishes were good, and defiantly heavy on the paprika. Since this was a night dinner cruise, we got to see the sights of Budapest light up at night along the river. The city looked absolutely beautiful at night, especially the castle. I hope my night shots came out ok. The next day was the city tour, which was good but not one of the best we have had on the tour. We drove around past the important sights then walked up to castle and spent some time there looking out over the river and the Pest side of Budapest. We opted not to walk around the city, since it has a high rate of pit pocketers, and stayed with the group for the tour of the Hungarian Parliament, lunch and shopping in a small town just outside of Budapest. The Hungarian Parliament is beautiful inside, lots of gold and stained glass. We also saw St. Stephen's crown which is the royal crown of Hungary. I also hope those pictures came out decent since we couldn't use flash. From there we went to the town of St. Andrew for lunch and shopping. The town is rather small but nice. We had a good lunch of beef stew, turkey with spatzel and this wonderful desert with apricots. Then we had time on our own to explore the town. We stopped at a few shops and picked up a puppet, some paprika, and some liquor of the region. We had a nice relaxing time. Tonight is an included dinner at a Hungarian wine cellar. Tonight’s dinner outside of Budapest was at a family restaurant, which has a 900 year old wine cellar. Before dinner we did a small wine tasting of three wines, a white, a rose, and a red. I preferred the white and I was surprised Jim actually said it wasn't too bad. This is impressive since he doesn't like wine. As a pallet cleanser we were given Hungarian potato bread rolls, they were actually tasty. Then dinner was salad with smoked and dried thin sliced ham, pork chops roasted for six hours (very tender and juicy), and new style plum torte. It was all very good. They also served a very good apple and grape juice for those who didn't want wine with their meals. After that it was back on the bus to head back to the hotel. Tomorrow morning we'll see the secret treasures of Budapest including the mummified hand of St. Stephen. Then we are off to Vienna.
Day 10: Journey to Vienna Today started with having to be on the bus by 8:00 AM to do one last tour of Budapest, The Secret Treasures Tour. This was a nice tour. First we stopped at the sight of one of the World’s Fairs, where there were reproductions of famous buildings and architectural styles from Hungary. These reproductions included a place, Dracula’s castle tower and a church. What made this amazing was the original structures, (full size) where originally made from paper-mache; latter on they made them out of more permanent and sturdy materials. We also were treated to an organ concert by Budapest's top organist. While it was only an electric organ, not a pipe organ, the acoustics in the building were excellent. We were treated to Dracula's theme song (Toccata and Fugue in D minor), the Hungarian National Anthem and two songs I can't remember. From there we went over to St. Stephen's Cathedral to see the Cathedral and the mummified hand of St. Stephen who was also king of Hungry and got blessed by one of the popes. The Cathedral is beautiful inside, and not horribly ornate. Also instead of having Jesus on the cross up front it actually St. Stephen in the front with the alter and then the cross is in a side alter. Then little side chapel where they keep the hand is nice. Then the box that houses it was made of gold and porcelain. It is very pretty and ornate. After viewing the hand and the rest of the cathedral we went for crepes. They were very good. Then it was on the road again. We headed out of Hungary towards Vienna. On the way we stopped at the town of Goyr for lunch. Everyone headed to the McDonalds. Sometimes you just need a taste of home. The town would be nice except for the fact it has a large gypsy population thus a high potential for pit pockets. From there we got back on the bus to continue our journey to Vienna. Tomorrow we do the city tour of Vienna and have some time on our own.
Day 11: The city of Vienna Today we got up at 7:00 AM to be ready for the city tour. Breakfast at the hotel was good, nice selection of food at the buffet. We had a nice seat by the window that looked out over the Danube River, it is not blue. The city tour was nice, we drove around the inner ring road and the important buildings were pointed out, including the two symphony music halls, the opera house, the palace and city hall. Then we walked from St. Stephen's Cathedral (they have a lot of Stephen's Cathedrals in Europe) to the place which now houses all the museums. From there the rest of the day was free. We had lunch at one of the sausage stands/kiosks just like Anthony Bordain did on No Reservations. Jim also got his little Jegermister bottle, since they sell liquor to go with the sausage. It was pretty good simple lunch. From there we walked back to St. Stephen's to see the inside of the church and go up and the elevator to bell tower. The inside of the church is beautiful, even though they projected fake stain glass lighting onto the pillars. The pipe organ also sounded nice. We walked around the inside some then went up the elevator to the bell tower, since I wasn't going to walk 320 stairs up to the other tower. Going up the bell tower was worth the 4.50 Euros, we had an impressive view of the city. We were actually on the outside of the tower, thus it was very windy. The two parts I didn't like was walking on the metal grating just above the roof and up the narrow steps to the secondary platform, even if they were all enclosed in a metal cage. My fear of heights is getting worse. Not sure if my dad could do it might not be enclosed enough for him. From the Cathedral we walked over to the winter palace to try to go to the Armory Museum. Unfortunately that museum is closed on Tuesdays along with the Treasury Museum. Thus, no museums for us since we didn't want to see art today. From there we went to a cafe and had a strawberry Sunday in this goblet type bowl thing. The desert was very yummy and had fresh strawberries and whip cream with vanilla and strawberry ice-cream. After our little break we headed over do a little shopping. Then it was back to the hotel on the metro. Today was a good day. Tomorrow it is off to the last of the cities on our tour, Prague.
Day 12: Road to Prague Today we left Vienna behind and made our way up to Prague. The trip was rainy and wet. Plus the tour guide provides us a long diatribe on the Czech Republic which I tried to sleep through. We had two stops one at a McDonalds for the morning "coffee break" actually it is a bathroom break because heaven forbid we go longer than 2 hours without stopping. Then the next was in this small Czech town for lunch. The town was nice but it was raining. We ate at a little restaurant and had some ham, dumplings, and sauerkraut with coke. Jim also had their garlic soup, which he said was like a lighter version of French onion just with garlic instead. We also stopped at a little convenience store to pickups some snacks with included marshmallow Smurfs. They are blue, there for special. We then continued on our way to Prague and our hotel. Tomorrow we explore the city of Prague.
Day 13: Prague Today we explored the last city on our tour's itinerary, Prague. We started with the castle district in the morning. We only got small glimpse of the castle which we easily could have spent the whole day at. We went through the three court yards, viewed the main gate and the church located on premises. The in was a lovely gothic style church. It was a large cathedral with very intricate stone work. It also had a very large ornate pipe organ. From the castle district we traveled down to the old town square to watch the astronomical clock. The walk to the square was along Paris Street which has a lot of high end luxury stores. The old town square was kind of small, and that might have been due to the stage they had set up for some festival. We all crowed in front of the Astronomical Clock on the city hall to watch Death come out turn the hour glass over, the 12 apostles circle past and gold rooster crow. Honestly I found the rams butting heads in Poland more exciting. After we watched that we were released from the group to do our own thing. Jim and I went inside the two churches in the square. It took a bit of effort to find the entrance to the first church, which was down a small alley way. The church was done in dark stone with gold accents, it was beautifully gaudy. I determined some of the paintings inside probably needed cleaned/restored from all the candle smoke accumulation over the years. Sadly we could not take pictures in this church. The second church was in stark contrast, with its white interior and crystal chandelier. It also had a small pipe organ in one of the upper chambers. We ate in the town square at a little restaurant/cafe, and determined Czech food is very greasy. We had to skim the grease off the top of the soup. The sandwich I had was rather good, though the cabbage salad that came with it was too vinegary for my taste. We also did a little shopping. I picked up some garnet jewelry and some Czech beer. We finished off our day by walking down the Valta River to see the Charles Bridge. It was featured in the movie "XXX". Looks just like in the movie but with crowds of people on it. From there we walked along the river to our hotel, which wrapped up our day. Tomorrow we head back to Frankfurt to wrap up the tour, then the next day head home. Jim can't wait to get home so he can order some pizza from Pizza Hut.
Day 14: Return to Frankfurt Today we left Prague this morning and started our drive back to Frankfurt. On the drive back, we drove through the town that makes the famous Czech Beer and makes SKODA cars. It really wasn't that exciting. It looks like a standard factory town it just happens to have an old wall in it. Plus there really was no point to this side trip since we didn't get out of the bus and you couldn't see much anyway. From there we drove across the German-Czech border on to Nurnberg, were we stopped for lunch. It was a nice little town. We watched the glockenspiel clock thing, which was slightly disappointing. We also walked most of the way up the hill to the castle but not all the way since we didn't have enough time to tour it. From there it was a straight shot to Frankfurt. We arrived and decided not to do the Farwell dinner. Instead we opted to conquer the Frankfurt train system. This worked well for us. We made it to old town and had dinner before the tour group. Thus have more time to relax from the hectic pace of the tour and repack all our luggage for the flight home tomorrow. Tomorrow it is on the plane back to the States. It will be good to get home.
Day 15: Closing Thoughts and Lessons Learned
We left Frankfurt, Germany early this morning. It is interesting zooming along the autobahn in a cab at 150km to the airport just because you can. The flight was uneventful. Immigration and customs was quicker than I expected. I think today was one of the fastest times I cleared immigration, customs and security. We got home, being the apartment, around 7:45 PM. It was a long day.
This trip reminded me why I started doing the individual tours. I hate being stuck on a bus full of people. The tour in particular didn't seem to give you a lot of time for self exploration of the city, since we always came in so late. Really most these cities are 4-6 hours apart. I'm used to driving to Ohio in 6 hours and getting there no later than 1:00 PM if I leave at 7:00 AM. Apparently on the tour you have to add an additional 2 hours for potty breaks. Plus most people on this tour expected you to be social all the time, sometimes one just wants space and not have to chitchat. Thus for me it is back to the individual tours.
(If you are wondering our tour group was mostly 65 and older, with about 85% Australians, 10% Canadian and 5% Americans.)
Overall I would say the cities we saw were good, and some of them I would like to go back to for a few extra days. I think in 2 years I'll go back to Europe to better explore some of those cities. But next year it will be sun, sand, fun and lizards in the Galapagos.