The real Oskar Schindler? (and Larna's photos of Krakow)

Yesterday we did a walking tour of "Jewish Krakow" which was mainly focused on the Jewish quarter (Kazimierz). Our guide told us that before the war there were something like 70,000 jews in Krakow, a community dating back to the 14th century. Now there are just 97 left.

We are doing these free walking tours - most of the major cities seem to have them. You basically pay what you feel, which means that the guides try and be as interesting and entertaining as possible. They also tend to be controversial and say things like "now do you want to hear the real story about so and so..."

Our guide yesterday talked a lot about Oskar Schindler. His question was: "Was he a hero or not?" Among the things he told us were that yes, Schindler did save lives (so he is a hero), but that there was no "list" as in the one drawn up by Isaak Stern in the movie. Those who wanted to escape the camps had to pay Schindler a lot of money, and even those who did, many still ended up being sent to their deaths. Furthermore after the war (all this, according to our guide) Schindler was living in Argentina and was penniless. He apparently wrote to the Israeli government and demanded they pay him back for all the money he spent saving jews.

His other main point was that even if Schindler did save jews, there were many others who were equally, if not more brave, but did not receive the recognition. "Schindler just had better PR," the guide said.

Our tour ended in the Podgorze district, across the river, the site of the Krakow ghetto, where thousands of Jews were killed or sent to the camps. We were huddled in a shelter as it was raining and outside there was an exhibition of chairs on the square dedicated to those who died in the ghetto - the Nazis made the jews throw out all their furniture, as they believed that they hid their jewels inside their chairs, couches and tables.

Larna has been taking some great photos around Europe. Here are just a few she took around Krakow:

That Slovakian Slug, Polish bus road rage and thoughts on European beer

So here's the picture of the slug we encountered on our walk through the forest in Banska Bystrica early this week. That's Larna's finger you see - she bravely volunteered to hold it there - to give a sense of how big the critter was.

Just a couple of random things to report...

Yesterday, on our bus back from Auschwitz, we experienced, first hand, bus driver road rage. And I am talking here about someone driving a proper sized municipal bus, (not the mini-bus we took to Auschwitz).

We should have seen it coming. Our bus driver - a skinny, middle-aged, balding, ball of tension - drove like a bat out of hell through the narrow country roads back to Krakow beeping at pedestrians, cyclists, and swerving to avoid on coming vehicles (before beeping and muttering to himself). But when he got into the city itself, that's when he unleashed his full pent up frustrations (he must be upset about many, many things). A car, which he had cut off, hooted and swerved past the bus. The bus driver flipped the driver the finger and then proceeded to weave in and out of lanes trying to catch the guy in the blue Fiat or whichever make of car it was. Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact that he actually had to stop the bus to let people off, I am sure he would have chased the guy all over town. He did have a whole lot of religious symbols above his seat (crucifixes, pictures of the Virgin Mary etc) so perhaps he felt protected from on high. The passengers didn't though!

Today was hot and sunny and we spent most of the afternoon in a beer garden in the jewish quarter (Kazimierz) drinking (on my part, Larna had coffee and cake) the excellent local brew, Żywiec and people watching. Most entertaining was a group of about 15 Scotsmen (some in kilts) who managed to get the word "wee" (as in 'small") into every second sentence. Larna thinks they have the world's greatest accent.

The jewish quarter is full of great bars, restaurants and interesting people and is in a constant state of revival and renewal. It's bustling and lively with cafes and restaurants on every corner.

On the subject of beer, I am starting to realise that Australian beer is to European beer what sparkling wine is to French champagne. Drinking the beer here is like sampling fine wine, whereas back home it has a more primary purpose. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to give up beer back in Oz, and there are some very good boutique beers. But it's all about perspective really. It's like people who only know rugby league...and then they discover union!

Back on the subject of our travels, we have decided to spend an extra three days in Krakow rather than rush on. It's such an interesting and extraordinary place and there is so much to explore that we don't want to rush off. So we'll be here until Tuesday, when we take the train to Prague.

The horror and despair of Auschwitz

How does one describe a visit to Auschwitz? A journey to the gates of hell perhaps? A place of unimaginable suffering and brutality? Probably all are insufficent. Yesterday we spent the day visiting Auschwitz and the nearby camp of Birkenau (Auschwitz 2). It's a little over an hour by bus from Krakow. We travelled in this strange mini-van, posing as a municipal bus, which picked up people along the route so that by the time we reached the little town of Oswiecim (renamed Auschwitz by the Nazis. Incredibly, the town now bares the inscription, Oswiecim: city of peace) it was packed to capacity and stifling hot. It was a pretty unpleasant ride, (despite the very pretty Polish countryside we passed), but it did make me think of all these people crammed into those windowless cattle cars and though nothing at all like the horror of those cramped conditions, it felt quite appropriate to not be comfortable.



The two camps are joined by a free bus service. We first went to Birkenau. Beyond the famous main entrance and watch tower, through which the trains passed, the most overwhelming thing is the sheer size. It's enormous. At its peak there were 100,000 people living here under the most appalling conditions. Each of the barracks housed as many as 1,000 people. We listened to a guide tell a tour group that the prisoners were only allowed to go to the toilet twice a day and because there were so many, they only had about 40 seconds to use the latrine. Just one of many awful stories.

A lot of the barracks are still standing (where they are not, you can see the foundations so it is easy to get a sense of the scale). At the far end of the camp, at the end of the railway line, are the remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. They were blown up by the Nazis just before the camp was liberated. Despite the heaps of rubble you can see the steps down which prisoners were led, the changing room where they were forced to strip before being led into the "showers".



Auschwitz main camp houses the museum in the brick barracks (it was formerly Polish army barracks) where prisoners were held. Unlike Dachau, where the museum assaulted you with information, here it is relatively succint, leaving you to take in the exhibits. One of the barracks contains huge displays of what was taken from those before they were gassed: mountains of hair shaved off prisoners (the Nazis sold the hair to textile firms), spectacles, shoes, tooth brushes, and artificial limbs. There are piles and piles of these things, and this probably just a fraction of what was found.

The walls of the barracks were lined with photos of prisoners admitted to Auschwitz including their date of arrival and death. Some lived only a few days, some a few months and some more than a year or two. How to survive such a hell hole for a day let alone a year, I just cannot fathom.

It turned out to be a very sunny day. There were purple and yellow flowers growing among the grass and shady trees that offered respite. But the overwhelming sensation for me was incomprehension, sadness and anger. Though as many of you may know I am not a practicing Jew, I did feel a strong connection with all those who were lost.

At one point I found myself humming the tunes of Jewish songs we sang at King David High School, songs that I had forgotten or buried deep in my memory. Then I remembered we had a school teacher, Dr Yageel, who was a holocaust survivor from Auschwitz and had a tattoo on his shoulder bearing his prisoner number. I remember him to be a short man, with a beard and a lined face. I think he may have taught our class on a few occasions. I never really thought about what he went through or took the time to chat to him. I recall thinking of him as a survivor as if he were an ex-football player or someone who had climbed a mountain. What I mean is, I don't recall me or anyone else at school for that matter paying him the kind of respect he deserved. I wish now I could shake his hand.

Krakow, the world's most beautiful city?

We're in Krakow! What a spectacularly beautiful place! It was a real mission to get here; it took us nearly eight hours on three trains starting at 7.48 this morning from Slovakia, but it feels all worth it now that we are here. (For anyone worrying about us encountering flood conditions, they are up near Warsaw, so please don't worry as we do not plan to head up that way - our next stop is Prague).

Aside from Prague, I don't think I have been to a more amazing looking city in Europe, perhaps the world. After we put our bags down at our hostel (it's noisy and I feel about 50 years old as the average age hear is about 19) we walked up to the old town square along the cobbled pedestrian streets, dodging the occasional cyclist and funky blue and white tram. Each and every building is an architectural gem - grand, imposing, with just enough detailing or decoration, painted in shades of pink, blue, green or just allowed to fade or crumble elegantly to grey. The square, the biggest in Europe, is surrounded by all these grand old apartments, most at least 500 years old and fabulous gothic and renaissance churches.

Anyway, enough about architecture. It's so hard to describe buildings without knowing all the architectural terms. (Again, I have been roadblocked by a computer without a USB connection to download photos.)

This evening after our wonder around the old town, we stopped in a quaint corner cafe for a warm drink. It is actually quite cold tonight, cold enough for a bit of mulled wine. Larna had a hot rasberry fruit tea. Back at our hostel they have been passing out free vodka shots and I have a big bowl of popcorn at the computer. Getting to sleep tonight could be another story all together (we are in a dorm with some English lads).

Tomorrow we are either going to see Auschwitz or going on a walking tour of the city, depending on the weather. If it's good weather we'll do the walking tour, if not we'll go to Auschwitz. In any event we'll do one on each of the two full days we are here. The rest of the time will be to soak it all in!

Banska Bystrica...where the beer is cheap!

We're in the cute town of Banska Bystrica, Slovkia, nestled in a valley and surrounded by green hills. It was a bit of a mission getting here - we spent most of yesterday on the train - but it was well worth it. It's a really beautiful place and you can get a large glass of good Slovak beer for just a euro. When the waitress told me it was just a euro, I thought I had heard her wrong.

We had a picnic lunch today up in the hills across from the town. After lunch we walked through a lush forest, where I saw the biggest slug I have ever seen! I have taken a photo and will put it up when next I can. We walked for over an hour along this winding path, stepping over enormous fallen trees covered with mushroom-like fungii, with dead red-brown leaves scattered everywhere.

Would love to put up some photos of BB, unfortunately this computer does not have a USB connection, so this brief description will have to suffice: The old town in which we are staying has a lovely big square (it's more like a rectangle) with outdoor cafes and bars running around the perimeter. The buildings the make up the square are quite plain, but in that old classically European style (big sloping red roofs, well proportioned windows, tasteful decoration on the outside). There are also some old churches with towers topped with "bulbs", a clock tower which we climbed this morning and what looks like a medieval garrison wall made of stone.

Beyond the old town, before you get to the hills, you see the old square communist blocks ...if they are the same as the ones in Budapest, then the walls must be paper thin. Our guide in Budapest, who used to stay in one, said you could hear everything your neighbour was doing and smell what they were cooking for dinner.

Anyway, hope that gives you an idea of where we are. Tomorrow we have another long day of travel as we head off to Krakow.

Pictures from Pecs, off to Slovakia

We are back in Budapest for our last night in glorious Hungary. Tomorrow we have a very long train ride to a Slovakian town called Banska Bystrica, an ancient city dating back to the 13th century. We decided to give the capital Bratislava a miss since we heard it was expensive (on par with Vienna) and not all that great, though we are relying almost entirely on our lonely planet on this one, which is not always a great idea. Anyway we are hoping that Banska Bystrica will be as historically, culturally and architecturally rich as Pecs. Speaking of Pecs, Larna took some amazing photos just as night was falling a couple of days ago...

Greetings from the Hungarian countryside

Hi. Just a quick post. We find ourselves staying on a beautiful old farm in a tiny town called Kiskassa about 30 minutes from Pecs, which is 3 hours South of Budapest.

The town has just 280 people and is smack bang in the middle of nowhere. Around us are hills, fields and sky. The owner of the farm is a charming Englishman called Alan, who hails from Manchester and his wife is Eva, who is Hungarian. Here I was worrying about being able to communicate with our hosts, and he has a broad Northern England accent. We were meant to stay only a night, but are now staying until Saturday morning. It is so peaceful and relaxing here. Plus, in addition to goats, two geese, and chickens they have two dogs Bonzo, a black terrier cross and Gus, a hound dog of sorts. Gus in particurlar is adorable and wants to play throw the stick all the time. We took them both for a walk this morning following paths through the wheat fields.

For breakfast we enjoyed delicious breads with goats cheese, goats milk, jams and honey all from the farm. We also loved Pecs, which is full of gorgeous architecture, big squares and very old crumbling buildings. We are returning for another night on our way back, then a night in Budapest en route to Slovakia.

Communism "light"

(In the pic: famous East German and Soviet-era Trabant car. A real relic of the old days)

We braved Nordic winds, rain and wintery weather to do an excellent walking tour of Budapest today. Our guide, a Hungarian woman about our age, was a real character, very expressive and boisterous.

Speaking in a thick Hungarian accent, she told us that though the 1956 revolution, aimed at restoring democracy to Hungary, was crushed ruthlessly by the Red Army, it was not a total failure in the sense that it brought the country some freedoms not available in other Soviet-controlled countries.

Fearing another uprising, the then prime minister offered the people of Hungary a "lighter" version of Communism (then the hardcore version being experienced in places like Bulgaria and Romania) if people got with the program. In exchange for playing ball, Hungarians were able to listen to M-TV, drink Coca-cola and wear denim jeans. We were also surprised to learn that (according to our guide) the country is still incredibly corrupt and has fallen back economically, far behind its other Eastern European neighbours who joined the EU at the same time as it did.

Besides our walking tour, the other really cool thing we did was go swimming in the Gellert thermal baths, one of many baths in the city and a major attraction. They were built by the Turks, who occupied the country for 150 years (our Lonely Planet says, rather harshly, this is something Hungarians should be grateful for, the many Turkish baths the invading Turks left behind, "after all it could haver been the British").

It was so relaxing soaking in the warm, healing water. The hotter baths (38 degrees) were seperated into mens and womens sections, and this allowed a lot of old men to walk around in these little white sheets wrapped around their genitals, buttocks exposed. Quite comical outfits. I wore hired swimming togs and kept my buttocks well out of view.

Writing now, I feel very tired and ready for sleep after two hours in the baths.

Tomorrow we leave for Pesc (pronounced "Paisch") about 3 hours south by train. Lonely Planet describes it as being "almost Mediterreanean". We shall have to see. Looking forward to a quiet place to stroll and having a few Dreher beers and maybe a class of Tokay.

We have both loved Budapest. What a wonderful city...the old metro trains, grand architecture, suspicious communist attitudes, rich history, great food and "buzz".

Pic: Statue of a Hungarian policeman from era of the First World War, his belly full of hearty stew and beer.

Rain, terror and faded grandeur

The rain came tumbling down today, our first day in Budapest. It was a bit disappointing as we were so eager to explore the crumbling buildings with their faded grandeur. The city feels like a mix between Italy and Cuba. Italy for the wonderful architecture, Cuba for the peeling, crumbling buildings. A piece of a building actually came away in my hands as we walked down Andrassy Avenue, the main road through Pest, in the rain.

We have not done many museums in Europe because they are so expensive. But due to the weather, we decided to visit the aptly named Terror House (I have tried to put in exclamation marks and speech marks, but cannot seem to get them to work on this European laptop). It was the headquarters of the Nazis when the occuped Hungary for the last year of the war, and then the headquarters of the dreaded Communist secret police. It was an exceptional museum combining haunting music, photos, videos and artefacts to tell the story of the recent brutal history of occupied Hungary. There were harrowing videos of those who were convicted and deported by the secret police, telling of their terrible punishments and even one video were a group of woman confronted the guard who had mistreated them after the end of Communism (in 1989). Most distressing was the underground floor which contained the cells, gallows and torture rooms. One cell was shaped like a closet, so you could not sit down, the other wide, but with a low ceiling so you could not stand up - brutal.

As with the other Eastern European country i have visited, Czech republic, many of the older people in Budapest wear haggard, tired expressions and treat you with a fair amount of suspicion and distrust. Definitely a mindset the result of the terrible decades of Communist rule, where nobody could be trusted and their were spies everywhere. Having visited the museum, I have a lot more understanding and sympathy for this sad demeanour.

Terror aside, some pics from Budapest to enjoy....including our awesome accomodation:

Our boudoir, trains, peeling grandeur...

Our Hungarian haven...(and pics from Saltzburg)

The gods have been smiling down on us.

A short while ago, after a 3 hour train ride from Vienna, we checked into our guesthouse in Budapest. To say we are already in love with the place would be a gross understatement. Put it this way - it is like we have moved into a flat vacated by an ultra funky and eccentric, aunty. It is painted in bright orange with high ceilings, has a doorway made out out of old wooden cupboard and a cute little kitchen where we can cook meals and eat breakfast.

Our own room has a big bed raised above the floor with an old door resting on its side to make up the platform. We have our own little lounge, which has a wooden table straight out of the 1970s, two chairs and a red leather couch which looks like it was once the seat of an old Cadillac. The artwork includes a wooden oar, little black and white photographs, maps, quirky paintings etc.

And it is in this old crumbling building with stairwell in the middle, with the plater peeling and an iron balistrade running around each floor. After our shared hostel dorm in gloomy Vienna, this feels like paradise.

To be honest, I think I was already falling in love with Budapest just from our metro ride over. We rode in this old boxy train painted a deep blue, straight out of the communist era, the interior fitted with bright, circular silver lamps all the way through...

We are hoping to stay a few more nights here, if they are available. Anyway gushing aside, here are some pics from Saltzburg:

Hostel dorm room conversation...

I have got six minutes left on my internet account (we are still in Vienna, though leaving tomorrow) and wanted to recount a funny incident from last night in our dorm room.

We are sharing with five other people at the moment, which makes for some interesting conversations and can also be a bit awkward (who turns off the lights? what if you snore loudly? etc). Anyway we are sharing with among others a journalist from Serbia, a big, chubby guy with a gruff, deep voice and a young Turkish guy, softly spoken and very polite.

Last night the Turkish guy asked the Serbian if he could do a search for him on his laptop for train times to Prague and after he had helped him said thanks and crawled up into the top bunk above the Serbian to go to sleep. Then, with my eyes closed and about to doze off, I hear this conversation:

Turkish guy to Serbian: "Sleep tight" (in sweet, childlike voice)
Serbian: You too! (deep and gruff)

The hills are alive...

Greetings from Vienna. We just arrived after a train ride from Salzburg, a very expensive train ride I might add, though the train did reach 200km per hour at one stage.

Yesterday we had a wonderful stroll through Salzburg, while Larna hummed songs from the Sound of Music in my ear. We even saw an old nun in the Stift Nonneburg (Nunnery) above the city, which is apparently one of the locations for the film (I have not seen it since a kid.) Despite the guide book telling us Austrians are not the friendliest, we found the people of Salzburg to be very friendly and cheerful. We also visited the house where Mozart lived, saw two statues of Mozart (one with him sporting, bizarrely, a pair of breasts), the Mozart University and numerous other places named after the composer...funny that, according to the Lonely Planet, Wolfgang could not wait to get out of the town and left when he was 24.

On our last day in Munich we did a fantastic walking tour of the city. Our guide was Canadian but really well informed. Among the things she showed us were two discoloured squares on a wall. These used to be plaques put up by Hitler to commemorate the Nazis killed in the Beer hall putch (there were 20 names on the plaque but five were not even members of the party). During their reign, anyone who walked past the plaques had to do the Nazi salute, so many people would divert down a nearby alley to avoid having to do so (only 37% of Germans voted for Hitler). Of course there was an SS guard standing in the alley taking down names of those who came down the alley. if you came down one times too many and it may have meant a trip to Dachau. A great and horrible story and one "hidden" from normal view.

We are spending the next two nights in Vienna and then head to Budapest for at least 3 days before exploring some of the smaller towns of Hungary.

(I tried to post pics...but the damn computer won´t let me! Pics of Salzburg to come!)

It´s spring in Munchen!

Hello from Munich!

We have been very busy since I last wrote, making our way through the Bavarian countryside and stopping along the way at Wurzberg and Rothenberg op der Tauber, two beautiful old medieval towns on the "Romantic road".

Larna and I actually camped two nights alongside the river in Wurzberg in the rain and cold (I even made french toast in the rain!). The next day we stayed in a heated room in Rothenberg and felt a renewed appreciation just to be able to stand upright!

Needless to say we loved both towns. Wurzberg is an architectural masterpiece (mainly rebuilt since the town was bombed to bits in the war) an Rothenberg is like stepping into a fairytale. Indeed a plaque on the medieval wall says that MGM filmed the "Brothers Grimm" movie here in 1961. They would hardly have had to change a thing!

It actually feels like spring today! Very sunny, about 20 or so degrees celsius (I am estimating here) and we have taken advantage of the good weather by spending most of the day in the "English garden" an enormous park in the northern part of the city. Its some thing like the fourth biggest city park in Europe and goes on for miles. The locals were also out enjoying the sun, few to its fullest, by that I mean nude sunbathing! It is quite the tradition over here on a good day, but Larna and I did not partake of the ritual and remained fully clothed. We were meant to go on a walking tour today, but the main square - Marianplatz - was jammed with thousands of Bayern Munich soccer fans cheering their team who won the Bundesliga title yesterday that we could not even get close to the meeting point.

We spent most of yesterday at the Dachau Concentration camp. It is on the outskirts of Munich. It was the first concentration camp built by the Nazis and was the model for other camps. It is hard to grasp among the trees, sounds of birds and flowing stream the horror of what went on here 70 years ago. A lot still remains standing - the administrative centre where inmates were stripped of everything, the gas chambers and crematorium (a few barracks were reconstructed) - but it was the everyday things, a desk used to register inmates, an original sign saying "no smoking" uncovered from the layers of plaster that I found quite horrible. The museum has so much information - stories, videos, charts, articles from prisoners etc - it is quite overwhelming. A silent video in colour taken by one of the American soldiers who liberated the camp in 1945 is difficult to watch with emaciated figures staring back at the camera with looks of utter relief, but also torment.

Dachau concentration camp





























Our tent on the Main River in Wurzberg















Looking out over Wurzberg















A few pics of Rothenberg op der Tauber - hard to do it justice in photos

Frozen in Bavaria

We are in the stunningly beautiful Bavarian town of Wurzberg along the Main River, which is where we spent our first night camping in our tent.

When I went to pay for the accomodation, the owner of the camping ground let our a hearty Bavarian laugh when I told him we were staying a tent...and we found out why this morning, when we woke up in the freezing cold! Never mind summer, spring has yet to come to Wurzberg! For breakfast we cooked eggs and beans over our little gas cooker (thanks Frank and Liz).

The charm, beauty and stunning architecture make up for the cold and tomorrow we are hiring bicycles and doing a trip to some of the neighbouring towns. We cannot wait...pics to come.

Off to Bavaria - photos from Frankfurt, Koblenz and Melaka

A note first about this photo: surely enough of a reason to grant me a much deserved German and EU passport!

We're back on the road today, heading for Wurzburg in Bavaria. It's the start of the 'romantic road' which according to Lonely Planet is dotted with cute Bavarian villages and definitely earns its cheezy title.

Last night we had dinner across the river at a little tavern called Fichte Kranze, which I have no idea what it means. We ate Frankfurt Schnitzel (comes with a yummy herb mayonnaise sauce) and drank the local speciality 'Ebbelwois' (applewine) also very good.

My attempts to order the food in German had the waiter impatiently asking if I wished to see the English menu! Though there are quite a few words in German that are the same in Afrkaans ('mond' for 'mouth, 'klein' for 'small') I have gotten into the habit of just using an Afrikaans word when I don't know the German, which has resulted in a lot of confused looks from Germans.

Anyway enough of my attempts to forge a new German dialect...we've put together a collection of pics from the last few weeks:

The Rhine and Koblenz

Around about Frankfurt

Singapore (and very last pic taken in Melaka's chinatown)