My birthday pic!! Taken on the boat as we cruised down the River Danube towards Melk!
Greg and I still cruising!!!
The dancers and musicians at the Mozard and Strauss concert. This was the Blue Danube Waltz...
So beautiful..
Thursday, 16 August 2007
SOME PICS!!
These are some pics Silvia uploaded for us from our phone!! (Thanks SO much!!!!!)
My birthday pic!! Taken on the boat as we cruised down the River Danube towards Melk!
Greg and I still cruising!!!
The dancers and musicians at the Mozard and Strauss concert. This was the Blue Danube Waltz...
So beautiful..
My birthday pic!! Taken on the boat as we cruised down the River Danube towards Melk!
Greg and I still cruising!!!
The dancers and musicians at the Mozard and Strauss concert. This was the Blue Danube Waltz...
So beautiful..
LAST DAY IN KRAKOW
Day 167
National Polish Day.
Today we decided to look around Krakow!! A good thing to do seeing we've been here for a week!!!
And in that week we've have had 3 apartments in this week! From the first one being a luxury one with a bath..to the second one having our own kitchen to the one now that has a shared kitchen! Going down in the world..but it got considerably cheaper as we did go down..Poland, we've found, is SO cheap.
Our budget is well under!!!
The market square here is amazing. The biggest in Europe and so exciting. SO much going on...and after seeing the palace....and hanging around in the market square..we realised it was RED BULL AIR SHOW DAY!!!!
So..........what did we do?
Hung off the best spot up in Wawel Hill! For 3 hours!!!!
Here's a pic of the planes. (Thanks Silvia for uploading these from our mobile!)
Pretty cool hey.
Krakow has an beautiful old feeling...and we really felt it today as we strolled..we entered the old town through the Florien Gate and then walked down the main street, filled with national flags and banners..and into the main square...where St Mary's church overlooked the whole square.
There were heaps of jewellery made from Amber, the Polish stone, and i was SO tempted!! The lamp shade made from the amber..was exquisite..oh, i wish i could take that home!!!! (our adage: buy what you carry haunts me!)
The horse drawn carriages were everywhere..and the restaurants (restaurcja) were so colourful and smelt so yummy. We ended up stopping at a place that looked like a beer hall of Germany..and had vodka and red bull!! OF course!! The 'national' drink being vodka!!!!!! ANd because we were at the Air show sponsered by Red Bull (which is produced in Salzburg Austria) it was all half the price!!!!
We had chicken and saurkraut!!!!! Yummy! We were tryinng to get rid of our Zloty! which is the polish money (as we got out our usual and haven't spent hardly anything as we've been eating SOUP!)
Anyway...it was a great day..and a great way to end our stay here in Krakow!
Off to Prague tomorrow!!!!
xxx
National Polish Day.
Today we decided to look around Krakow!! A good thing to do seeing we've been here for a week!!!
And in that week we've have had 3 apartments in this week! From the first one being a luxury one with a bath..to the second one having our own kitchen to the one now that has a shared kitchen! Going down in the world..but it got considerably cheaper as we did go down..Poland, we've found, is SO cheap.
Our budget is well under!!!
The market square here is amazing. The biggest in Europe and so exciting. SO much going on...and after seeing the palace....and hanging around in the market square..we realised it was RED BULL AIR SHOW DAY!!!!
So..........what did we do?
Hung off the best spot up in Wawel Hill! For 3 hours!!!!
Here's a pic of the planes. (Thanks Silvia for uploading these from our mobile!)
Pretty cool hey.
Krakow has an beautiful old feeling...and we really felt it today as we strolled..we entered the old town through the Florien Gate and then walked down the main street, filled with national flags and banners..and into the main square...where St Mary's church overlooked the whole square.
There were heaps of jewellery made from Amber, the Polish stone, and i was SO tempted!! The lamp shade made from the amber..was exquisite..oh, i wish i could take that home!!!! (our adage: buy what you carry haunts me!)
The horse drawn carriages were everywhere..and the restaurants (restaurcja) were so colourful and smelt so yummy. We ended up stopping at a place that looked like a beer hall of Germany..and had vodka and red bull!! OF course!! The 'national' drink being vodka!!!!!! ANd because we were at the Air show sponsered by Red Bull (which is produced in Salzburg Austria) it was all half the price!!!!
We had chicken and saurkraut!!!!! Yummy! We were tryinng to get rid of our Zloty! which is the polish money (as we got out our usual and haven't spent hardly anything as we've been eating SOUP!)
Anyway...it was a great day..and a great way to end our stay here in Krakow!
Off to Prague tomorrow!!!!
xxx
AUSCHWITZ
Day 166
We ran to the bus AGAIN! Gosh we must be getting fit!!!!! I strode behind Greg and thought, again, as we got to the bus that my foot is just doing SO WELL! I really do think the more exercise i do, the better!
Anyway, this time the bus was to Oswiecim which is where Auschwitz is. It took us 2 hours to get there..and all the way i was wondering if it was going to be as bad as Dachau which was very depressing.
As we approached it struck me that the town is very beautiful. Picturesque. I guess you don't expect the Auschwitz area to look like that. This is the town they chose for Auschwitz because it was established and it was out of the city.
We got off the bus and walked up to the main building. There are two areas to Auschwitz. The Oswiecim which is KL Auschwitz 1 and Birkenau which is KL Auschwitz 11 which is the second camp known as part of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
We took the tour. It was for 3 hours.
And it was 3 hours of total repression. First of all we saw a film which outlined allt he atrocities that Hitler masterminded for Auschwitz. It showed personal stories..and i guess in a way it got everyone into the mood. The mood of total darkness.
The bus to the first camp we saw, Birchanau, which was 3km away from Oswiecim, felt like it must have been when the people came to the camps. Hot, cramped, repressed, fearful and like entering the unknown.
The political prisoners, the gypsies, the homosexuals, the soviet prisoners..and the Jews that came here must have really wondered what they were entering.
And to think..when the jews started coming, they were immediately put into the gas chambers...and cremated by their own people (who were later gassed as well).
The fear must have been horrendous.
This camp was in operation for 5 years during the war, from 1940 to 1945. IT was originally established for political prisoners and ended up becoming a death camp.
I couldn't believe how BIG the place was~! Birchanau was the second area to be built and it was just massive. The grounds were large and there were so many buildings...Men, women and children came and were gassed.
Rudolf Hoss was the commandant in charge. He was later hanged there for the war crimes he committed. We saw the noose.
ANd the one thing he did as a small compensation..is to allow the Polish Government to know what he thought (he wrote 'reminiscences' and in the trial outlined the terrible atrocities he performed)..and this helped them piece together what really went on.
Without the information he brought forward, and the 200 photographs a worker there (an SS worker) took, technical drawings that escaped destruction when the SS tried to destroy all evidence, artwork from prisoners and from the first hand experiences from the people who escaped or who were saved when the regime ended there would be lack of knowledge about what really went on.
Hitler was never truly found. They believe he was bombed in his headquarters..but now one really knows.
The pure crimes of morality that he committed were obscene.
And they were massive.
When we went back by bus to the main camp we saw evidence of what life must have been like for the people here. Who were eventually murdered. Some straight away, some after only 15 days of living there..and some after 2 years. Some were gassed, some starved to death and some died from torture and medical experiments. (which were prolific because the doctor, Mengler, like to conduct experiements which ultimately left the prisoners and children dead, for his research).
There were up to 1.5 million jews that were murdered at these premises. And thousands of others.
The evidence we saw were rooms full of photos on the walls..some that looked like they had been crying (apparently Germans got their photos taken and other prisoners did..until they stopped as there were too many)...
Rooms of hair..because they stripped the prisoners, cut their hair ready for a shower which in the end was where they were gassed...the hair was really spooky...there was so much of it. They kept it all..ready to recycle...and make into materials..
THere were shoes...thousands of pairs (they found 43,000 pairs after the war) of all sizes..children's...women, men...it was horrible.
And so many sets of shaving gear, toothbrushes...and there were suitcases just packed into rooms...that had glass in front so tourists could see. There were names on them..and the ages. Some only young....1 and 2 years old.
It just went on and on..the rooms..the pictures..the stories..the overpowering sense of loss..the devestation Hitler caused..the sense of sadness.
Huge sadness.
I cried. Others cried.
IT was an experience that had no real cause for lesson.
What could the lesson be...
That we have apathy for those who died..in the hands of a brutal murderer?
Some of the prisoners were tricked into coming to Auschwitz...when the Nazi's decided they wanted to exterminate ALL the jews in Europe..ie the Greeks and others, they were conned by the nazis to go to a better place (ie Auschwitz) and they paid for land...and took their best things with them, hoping for a better life, only to either die on the way there, from starvation as it took up to 10 days to get there...or they got there and were killed anyway..and robbed of their possessions. And even gold fillings from their teeth after they'd died.
Just a very sad loss of life of so many people.
IT was meloncholic and depressing, just as i thought it would be..but you know..i realised that it is still going on.
Look at Macabe in Zimbabwe?
Dictators..and politicans...ruling in the name of religion.
Why does it happen? Human nature and the cruelty?
Will it ever stop?
We arrived back late. With all of that weighing on our mind. We don't regret going..because it is part of history..and perhaps, upon reflection, the lesson to learn is..
Be aware. Never be ignorant. Keep your eyes and ears open.
And always keep learning.
And use the knowledge and wisdom for good somehow.
That's all we can do.
We ran to the bus AGAIN! Gosh we must be getting fit!!!!! I strode behind Greg and thought, again, as we got to the bus that my foot is just doing SO WELL! I really do think the more exercise i do, the better!
Anyway, this time the bus was to Oswiecim which is where Auschwitz is. It took us 2 hours to get there..and all the way i was wondering if it was going to be as bad as Dachau which was very depressing.
As we approached it struck me that the town is very beautiful. Picturesque. I guess you don't expect the Auschwitz area to look like that. This is the town they chose for Auschwitz because it was established and it was out of the city.
We got off the bus and walked up to the main building. There are two areas to Auschwitz. The Oswiecim which is KL Auschwitz 1 and Birkenau which is KL Auschwitz 11 which is the second camp known as part of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
We took the tour. It was for 3 hours.
And it was 3 hours of total repression. First of all we saw a film which outlined allt he atrocities that Hitler masterminded for Auschwitz. It showed personal stories..and i guess in a way it got everyone into the mood. The mood of total darkness.
The bus to the first camp we saw, Birchanau, which was 3km away from Oswiecim, felt like it must have been when the people came to the camps. Hot, cramped, repressed, fearful and like entering the unknown.
The political prisoners, the gypsies, the homosexuals, the soviet prisoners..and the Jews that came here must have really wondered what they were entering.
And to think..when the jews started coming, they were immediately put into the gas chambers...and cremated by their own people (who were later gassed as well).
The fear must have been horrendous.
This camp was in operation for 5 years during the war, from 1940 to 1945. IT was originally established for political prisoners and ended up becoming a death camp.
I couldn't believe how BIG the place was~! Birchanau was the second area to be built and it was just massive. The grounds were large and there were so many buildings...Men, women and children came and were gassed.
Rudolf Hoss was the commandant in charge. He was later hanged there for the war crimes he committed. We saw the noose.
ANd the one thing he did as a small compensation..is to allow the Polish Government to know what he thought (he wrote 'reminiscences' and in the trial outlined the terrible atrocities he performed)..and this helped them piece together what really went on.
Without the information he brought forward, and the 200 photographs a worker there (an SS worker) took, technical drawings that escaped destruction when the SS tried to destroy all evidence, artwork from prisoners and from the first hand experiences from the people who escaped or who were saved when the regime ended there would be lack of knowledge about what really went on.
Hitler was never truly found. They believe he was bombed in his headquarters..but now one really knows.
The pure crimes of morality that he committed were obscene.
And they were massive.
When we went back by bus to the main camp we saw evidence of what life must have been like for the people here. Who were eventually murdered. Some straight away, some after only 15 days of living there..and some after 2 years. Some were gassed, some starved to death and some died from torture and medical experiments. (which were prolific because the doctor, Mengler, like to conduct experiements which ultimately left the prisoners and children dead, for his research).
There were up to 1.5 million jews that were murdered at these premises. And thousands of others.
The evidence we saw were rooms full of photos on the walls..some that looked like they had been crying (apparently Germans got their photos taken and other prisoners did..until they stopped as there were too many)...
Rooms of hair..because they stripped the prisoners, cut their hair ready for a shower which in the end was where they were gassed...the hair was really spooky...there was so much of it. They kept it all..ready to recycle...and make into materials..
THere were shoes...thousands of pairs (they found 43,000 pairs after the war) of all sizes..children's...women, men...it was horrible.
And so many sets of shaving gear, toothbrushes...and there were suitcases just packed into rooms...that had glass in front so tourists could see. There were names on them..and the ages. Some only young....1 and 2 years old.
It just went on and on..the rooms..the pictures..the stories..the overpowering sense of loss..the devestation Hitler caused..the sense of sadness.
Huge sadness.
I cried. Others cried.
IT was an experience that had no real cause for lesson.
What could the lesson be...
That we have apathy for those who died..in the hands of a brutal murderer?
Some of the prisoners were tricked into coming to Auschwitz...when the Nazi's decided they wanted to exterminate ALL the jews in Europe..ie the Greeks and others, they were conned by the nazis to go to a better place (ie Auschwitz) and they paid for land...and took their best things with them, hoping for a better life, only to either die on the way there, from starvation as it took up to 10 days to get there...or they got there and were killed anyway..and robbed of their possessions. And even gold fillings from their teeth after they'd died.
Just a very sad loss of life of so many people.
IT was meloncholic and depressing, just as i thought it would be..but you know..i realised that it is still going on.
Look at Macabe in Zimbabwe?
Dictators..and politicans...ruling in the name of religion.
Why does it happen? Human nature and the cruelty?
Will it ever stop?
We arrived back late. With all of that weighing on our mind. We don't regret going..because it is part of history..and perhaps, upon reflection, the lesson to learn is..
Be aware. Never be ignorant. Keep your eyes and ears open.
And always keep learning.
And use the knowledge and wisdom for good somehow.
That's all we can do.
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