This morning we had a tour of the historic Wieliczka Salt Mines—at one time salt was as valuable as gold that it was called White Gold. That is because salt was once the only way to preserve food.Our tour started by walking down over 700 steps to reach a depth of about 100 meters or… Read More White gold
I feel like I needed to give you some more information about our visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau. There was a bookshop at the end of the tour and I couldn’t resist buying a couple of books about the Holocaust. One was called “Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Past and the present” which explained the Nazi’s rationale in… Read More Why? Why did they do it?
The weather definitely changed today and instead of heat and humidity of the past 10 days we had rain, wind and cold. Just what you would expect for a trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the factories of death where 1.3 million people were deported. Yet when we arrived a little after 1 pm after taking… Read More Auschwitz and Birkenau
Today was a travel day, and on our 9-hour bus journey (which included lunch and bathroom breaks) from Prague to Krakow, our tour director Paul Vladu showed us the movie made in 2005 about Karol Wojtyla, the Polish priest who became Pope John Paul II and served from 1984-2005. It was a stark introduction to… Read More Karol: A Man who became Pope
Today was a free day and we did not have our usual 6:30 am wake up call, giving us the license to sleep in. So what time did I wake up? 4:00 am. Hah! When we arrived in Prague, I went to an ATM, and tried to choose the lowest amount possible since we will… Read More Dvorak was here!
Following lunch, a small group of us went on a walking tour of Prague’s Jewish Quarter. At one time, the Jewish population of Prague numbered 118,000. Of these, 80,000 were sent to concentration camps. Today the Jewish population of Prague numbers only 1600. Our visit included several synagogues, most all of which are now only… Read More Prague’s Jewish Quarter
Despite being extremely tired after a long day on the road, most of our group went out after dinner to see the famous astronomical clock in old town Prague (by the way, old time Prague dates from the 14th century; “new” town Prague dates from the 15th century!) We were too late to see the… Read More Highlights of Prague—in 24 hours
It was a travel day so we left the hotel with our bags to drive to Prague, about 200 miles away. A few days ago, our tour director, Paul Vladu, took some time to tell us about life under Communism. He was born in Romania and someone mistyped his last name on his birth certificate,… Read More On the way to Prague
Happy music. That is how one of my fellow GoAhead travelers described the concert we heard at the Palais Palffy, the very same site where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed here with his sister, Nannerl, in 1762. That would make him 6 years old. The concert hall seats about 200 people and as far as I can… Read More Happy music
The day began with a high-speed ferry boat ride on the Danube River to the town of Bratislava in the country of Slovakia. It just so happens that Bratislava is the capital city of Slovakia, and is located on the border of Austria and Hungary, which is highly unusual. So one of the very first… Read More A day in Bratislava