Blogger's Block

Well it's been a long time....... I've been suffereing from blogger's block! I guess some of you will find this hard to believe but it is true. Mark has done such a good job of keeping you up to date with what has been going, on it hasn't seemed like there has been much left for me to say. This afternoon coming back on the tram I got thinking and here is the result of my musing.

Since I wrote last we have visited some amazing places. The parts that stick out the most are the different ways for remembering those who died in the holocaust, especially the Jews. In Berlin we walked through the memorial which is made up of nearly 3000 huge stones in straight lines. The stones vary in height. As you walk through them there are places where you can see your surroundings and there are places where you can see nothing but the stones on either side and the path before and behind you. The stones are all dark grey and the effect is very interesting. There was also a very thought provoking exhibition below the square.

Next we went to Auschwitz Birkenau. Probably the one most memorable place of all on our travels. We were there on a wet afternoon which somehow seemed right. We decided to take part in an English tour, where our guide was a young lady from the Czech Republic. She took us to some of the many bulildings that are open on the ex-military camp. Some of the buildilngs are full of huge piles of the possessions of those who perished at Birkenau. Quite overwhelming. In one of the buildings there is one single gravestone to honour all those who died and whose bodies lie in unmarked graves. We then took the bus to Birkenau where the size is what really strikes you. It took us 15 minutes to walk through the camp to get to where the remains of the gas chambers are. There is now a memorial with an inscription written in 20 different languages - FOR EVER LET THIS PLACE BE A CRY OF DESPAIR AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY, WHERE THE NAZIS MURDERED ABOUT ONE AND A HALF MILLION MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, MAINLY JEWS FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE. AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU 1940-1945.I would say that the whole camp is now being used as a memorial to what happened there.
The most beautiful monument from our trip so far was tucked away behind the synagogue in Budapest. It is called the Tree of life and it is made of granite and steel in the shape of a weeping willow. Many of the leaves are inscribed with the names of individuals and families who died or disappeared in the war. On a sunny day, it was a really beautiful and fitting way to help others, like me, to remember. So a very thoughtful trip so far with many interesting places visited and enjoyed and some great people met along the way!

Buda or Pest?

Fran thinks I'm a pest, so we're staying on the Pest side of the city.  Had a fun few hours trolling round beautiful sunshine on the underground, and now back to more free wifi, so blog ahoy!

We think we've got it good with this little tour and lack of work commitment, but today we've met a couple from NZ who are doing the same thing for 6 months.  And, it's the second year they're doing it!  How about 6 months a year cruising Europe and six months at home on the North Island?  Fair play though, they're retired so have earned it - we can aspire.  They've  bought thier swiss registered (monster) camper van and just lay it up when they go "home".

Our day 1 jaunt in Budapest...  There's a tourist attraction called the "Memento Park", which is reputedly a collection of gathered communist statuary, put together in a sort of park.  OK we thought, we'll give that a go.  Metro, tram and loooonnngggg bus ride later we get to this place (outside the city limits!), took one look, decided to give it a miss, and returned to the real tourist bits of the city.  Can't win em all ;-(

Arrived back in civilisation, and happened to pass by the EDS office that I came to a couple or three years ago - now rebranded HP sauce or something, but still spotted it.

Crossed the chain bridge, remembering that the lions on one side have tongues while the other side don't.  Watched a boat crane very gingerly navigating the highest point under the bridge and looking at the crew faces it was a tight thing (all except the guy on deck who could hardly have been more amused!).

Had a wander to St Stevens Basilica, and then a metro to the Heroes Square, then have come back for dinner at the "Bondi Bar".  Wish us health.  Castle and other attractions to follow on the morrow.

Update - food, pudding, beer and coke all good.  And for less than £10 all in.

Brain freeze!

Q: How do you cross a swollen river?

A:  With difficulty.  We've just taken a 60km detour to cross a bridge, because the Blue Danube is flowing very brown and a bit higher than the norm.

And we're now camped within about 50 feet of it!  On it's way back down now, but apparently the townwe're in was cut off for 5 days within the last fortnight!  Surprisingly, loads of mossies again tonight, so expect tales of woe and anti-hystamine next time...  Free internet though, so ups and downs!

All of which means, for you geographers out there, that yes we are now in the land of the Magyar (Hungary), having crossed Slovakia from Poland today.  We had some great weather and passed through / around the High Tatras mountains.  Sad to leave Poland behind actually, but I'm sure we'll come back for a better look at the middle and top bits - we have only touched the edge really.

We've had some nasty weather, which I think has plagued this region for a couple of months, so todays blue skies and 25+ degrees was very welcome.  It made the drive through the mainly green forests and hills of Slovakia very pleasant indeed - Fran didn't even fall asleep today.  The central bit we drove through is very pretty, a bit like Wales I decided, but bigger!

Back to Krakow briefly and a couple of snaps for you:

a) The Cathedral in the Wawel.

b) The Dragon on a break from the grotto, breathing fire - which he seems to do about every 1/2 hour for 5 seconds, so catching it was pretty impressive, I think!

c) Some art thing.


Budapest tomorrow and the plan is to camp right in the centre, so looking forward to that.

Busy days, lots to think about

Krakow is about 10km away and we've stayed in the same campsite for what will be 3 whole nights!  That's because there's quite a lot to do around here and we wanted to fit it all in.  The campsite is a nice haven to return to, and it has free decent internet from the bar too...  and good, cheap beer :-)

This part if the trip actually finishes the 3 main places we planned to visit, Barcelona, Bergen and Birkenau (Auschwitz).  So in theory we can head home now...  slowly. 

I had to put the stork picture in since they seem to encourage them to roost on the top of poles (no pun!) in most villages - and Fran noticed this one that had mum and baby on board.

So Wieliczka Salt Mine first.  I was more worried about leaving the van in the tender care of the mad group of flag waving poles than thinking about the mine.  But it was an impressive sight (it's on the world heritage list).  As our guide said - "it's not the biggest, it's not the oldest, it's not the deepest, but it is the best.  And I know the way out, so no argument!".

The chapel is something else, and some of the salt carving is pretty good, even if the subject matter is a bit choice (JPII appears everywhere in this country?).  I think the other one is God, and you wouldn't mess, would you?

Then Auschwitz-Birkenau, which we takled in the afternoon.  It's a big place and I still haven't absorbed the sheer number of people that were murdered here!  It is beginning to sink in, having had a night to ponder on things, that we actually stood in places where thousands of people were tortured and killed.  Not pleasant, but Auschwitz I and II do put some sort of scale and reality to what was history book and academic territory previously.

I have been told many times that it is a place you should visit in your lifelime, and now I understand.

And finally Krakow city.  Travelling by public transport (bus and tram) means you get to see some real life too.  We've seen quite a lot of old city centres in our travels, and Krakow has its own charms and individuality.  We had great hot chocolate/coffee and cake/toasties this morning in a little atmospheric back street cafe, within a stones throw of the central square (guess who had which?).  And I made Fran walk too far again, but she's getting used to it now!  A good stomp around the Wawel (Castle) and onto the jewish quarter was followed by a surreal pizza/pasta dinner watching Switzerland versus Chile, and missing the goal!  Then the return bus trip which was interesting in it's own right.  Todays photos not downloaded yet, so pictures later.

How time mosquitos by...

Nice little biters!  Both of us suffered from our stays by the riverside, and it seems that we are now in much more prolific mossie climes.  I guess the hot weather combined with some very wet spells has brought the little blighters out.  We've been to Scotland - we can cope...  at least you can see the mossies over the midges.

Since last blogging we had a couple more days in Berlin, highlights being a day at the zoo and some sightseeing by bus and S-Bahn train.

We also took Chris and Sarah on a drive to Potsdam, about 25km out of Berlin to see the pretty palaces and architecture.  Dropped the kids at the airport and stayed the night directly under the approach flightpath round the corner.

Then went to the Spandau Citidel the next day - anyone who knows the film "Gotcha" should remember the bit with the Strudel, when the woman gets shot standing on the top of the tower.

While we were inside the citidel, we were involved in a road traffic accident, or rather one happened to us.  An old boy struggling to park his son's Berlin Tractor (4X4) scrumphed along the side or Rufus and left what looked like a nasty scrape.  On closer inspection, and police report later [You have a legal obligation to report any damage accident, and the old guy had called them before we got back] my view is that it's a tiny scratch that t-cut should sort out and if that the worse that happens on the trip...

Now we've trekked to Poland, having skirted down the German / Polish border and then a breif excursion into the Czech Republic.  There is some beautiful countryside around these parts.  If we hadn't made the effort we could easily have driven around the whole country, given the route we were planning.  We thought about a drive by Prague, but the weather yesterday was shocking, so we just drove on into Poland.

The polish roads are everything they are cracked up to be, literally.  Although we have experienced some brand spanking new, flat ones, and an empty stretch of motorway (leaving Gliwice) that I had to check we were allowed on because it was so quiet!

Tonight we're camped south of Krakow, in sight of the Salt Mines. There is virtually noone else around - the campsite guy says that the tourists haven't come because of the flooding a few weeks ago - he says the salt mines are empty and normally at this time the campsite is full...  There's one other caravan here today!

The next few days will be spent in the city, down the mines, and visiting Auschwitz.

Not quite lost yet!

Have you forgotten about us?  We hope not!  Well, we've been out of contact / internet for a few days now and it seems like ages since this was updated.

So - 4 consecutive days camped on river banks, two rivers can be named, the other two a bit more tricky - stayed on the Rhine at Dusseldorf and the Elbe at Aken.  We also stayed, for free, on a smaller river somewhere in Belgium, and on whatever river passes through Hamelyn (of the pied piped and rats fame).  Have enjoyed some Greek food and some San Fransisco style Mexican today!  All good.

Ich bin ein Berliner (not a donut!), in a real bed, for a few days with the brother-in-law and current chosen life partner.  Had a great day sightseeing by tram and bus today and have seen most of the city, back tomorrow for the missed bits, but we've been to (not in the right order) up the Reichstag Dome, the Cathedral, the Holocaust memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Tor, Unter den Linden, Topographie of Terrors etc...  A couple more key sights to get in tomorrow, and painfully rubbish internet tonight, so in a bit of a rush.  May get Fran to update if we can do this in a more sensible fashion.

Marriage, beer, photos and dancing feet

What a busy few days!  All started with the boring business of replacing van tyres, heavy handed gardening and lots of cleaning/washing. 

Then the real reason for coming home:  One wedding, and two and a half days of party.  All started on Friday evening with the rehearsal and dinner at the pub, then all day Saturday with service, reception and knees-up.  The RAF band in the evening ensured the dancing shoes were put through thier paces.  Then today with a garden party and barbeque.  Copius quantities of wine, beer and port during saturday meant today was a slightly more sober affair.  Very impressed with Graham who was straight back on the hairy dog.

All in all a perfectly civilised(!) way to spend the weekend, and Sarah and Neil should have some wonderful memories...  plus a million photos if they get thier hands on all that were taken!  They now deserve to fully enjoy the 3 weeks R&R in Oz.

It was really nice to have the parties organised for us, and bringing eveyone together so we could catch up with some fun and frolics in the sun.  Packing and checking things is the order of the day for Monday, then it's all go for stage 2.  Bring it on.

Back in the U.U.U.K

True to form, we get back to the UK and it rains, and we get stuck in traffic on the M25!  A fairly uneventful trip since leaving the Netherlands - we stopped at the mandatory french hypermarche yesterday in Calais and did a bit of stocking up - more to be done at the end of the next tour I think.  Then we, slightly strangely, spent the night camped overlooking the port of Calais watching the ferries coming and going...  They were much busier yesterday than today, I guess because of the UK bank holiday.  It gave me a chance to have a run along the really quite nice, sandy beach and battle with the strong onshore breeze.

Stopped at a camping accessory shop on the way back and bought a new leisure battery, so maybe the fridge will stay on for more than about 6 hours at a time without help!  Plus another gaz cylinder for the cooking.  And a water pump, so when fitted we might actually have running water rather than bottle feeding ourselves - managed for 7 weeks though so can't be too much of a hardship.

Tonight we have the parents round to chow down on some mainly french nosh, which'll be fun.  Then it'll be washing and cleaning and new tyres and diy on the van.  Before the wedding at the weekend, with hopefully plenty of beer filled tales and joy.

Fran has just exclaimed how much she has enjoyed her first bath in nearly 2 months!  I'm on a different computer, so without photos at the moment, so I'll add something to liven the post up at some point.

We're now home for a whole week before we head off again - this time to the east.  We're mildy concerned about the flooding in Poland, but we'll keep an eye on things before planning a trip to a disaster zone.