The tour began in Berlin, which was quite convenient for me. I took a quick 4 hour train from Dusseldorf to Berlin, checked into the hotel, and met my new roommate for the trip. My roommate was great, her name is Andrea and she's from California. She's in college and was studying abroad in Barcelona this past semester. We decided to take a quick walk before the first meeting and dinner with our tour group. Our group was 28 people from US, Canada, Australia, and Brazil, and our tour manager (Laura) and driver (Pete). We went over some initial administrative details and then ate dinner at the hotel (with spargel! It's in season, so we saw it a lot.)
After dinner, ten of us decided to walk by the Reichstag and then hit some bars, since it was Saturday night in Berlin. We ended up going to 3 different bars near Alexanderplatz and the last one was a little pub with the funniest old bartender and his buddy. His buddy was trying to take a group picture for us and accidentally leaned over a candle and lit his hair on fire. Also, we were at a beach themed bar and decided it to get into a canoe there and take a picture - all 10 of us. Absolutely hilarious night! This group of ten turned out to be the group of people that I became very good friends with and we hung out the rest of the trip together. We even gave ourselves two nicknames - "Top Ten" and "John & Kate Plus 8". The second nickname started because everyone in the group affectionately called me "Mom" the entire trip and one of the guys in our group was named John. As usual, my motherly tendencies were evident and the group appreciated me taking care of them and making sure that we knew where we were going and when and had everything we needed. It also helped that I speak German and could get around Berlin fairly easy.
Top Ten at the Reichstag
Brandenburg Gate
The next day, we began with a walking tour of Berlin. We saw all the sites and walked all of the city with our local guide, Jacob. The weather was not very nice though. It rained and was a little chilly, but we were in Berlin so we had to see everything - The Berlin Wall, Museum Island, Brandenburg Gate, Hitler's Bunker, Checkpoint Charlie, etc. A few of us also went to the Pergamon Museum, which houses the remains of an ancient Roman temple and also the Ishtar Gate. Very cool things to see. Later, we ate dinner at a traditional German restaurant - yay for schnitzel! That night, we went on a bar crawl with our group, playing a spy game like the East Germans sending secret messages to avoid the SS.
Brandenburg Gate and the Jewish Memorial in Berlin
Hitler's Bunker and the Berlin Wall
Checkpoint Charlie and the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin
Statue of Marx and Engels and me attempting to climb the Berlin Wall
On Monday, we departed Berlin and headed on the bus to Dresden, Germany. It's a very pretty city (called the Florence of the North) and we saw the Frauenkirche then ate lunch. This was the coldest day on the tour (only about 45 Fahrenheit), so we just wanted to get back on the warm bus and keep going.
John Lennon Wall and me standing over the Meridian in Prague Old Town Square
The Astronomical Clock in Prague
Meeting up with Senta in Prague
The next day, Tuesday, we spent the entire day in Prague. We had a walking tour of the castle and part of the city. Afterwards, we got pizza for lunch, shopped for souvenirs, and got some ice cream and chocolate. We took the metro back to the hotel, and the metro in Prague was interesting. Ok, actually just the escalators were - they were the longest and fastest and steepest escalators I have ever seen. That night, we had another traditional Czech dinner. There was music and dancers, too! After dinner, some people from our group decided to join a bar crawl that is put on by a tourist company in Prague. It was so much fun, started out at a bar where beer and shots were included. I got to play some beer pong there. Then we went to 2 other bars before ending up at Europe's largest discotech. It's 5 stories with different music on each level. It was a good night, but everyone paid for it the next day, especially an Aussie guy - Will - who missed the bus the next morning and had to catch up to us by flying to Vienna.
Prague Castle and overlooking the city
Park in Prague and me touching the Charles Bridge
Atop the Prague Clock Tower and then out on the town with Kristina and Andrea
We drove onto Vienna, Austria that morning, with a quick lunch stop at a mall on the border between Czech and Austria. We all got KFC because we were still feeling bad from the night before and needed some good fast food in our stomachs. It tasted awesome. In Vienna, we did a walking tour with Laura and she showed up the palaces and museums and beautiful buildings. It truly is one of the prettiest cities that I have seen. Also, we went to the Swarovski crystal flagship store - and I couldn't resist, ended up buying 3 pieces of jewelry. That night was a really interesting event. We ate dinner at Schonnbrun Palace and then attended a Mozart and Straus concert. It was great, and the palace was beautiful. The next day, we had some free time to explore Vienna, and I decided to go to the Natural History Museum. It had quite an extensive collection of stuffed animals from all over the world, 1000s and 1000s of different species - pretty neat museum.
Vienna Fine Art Museum and the Hapsburg's Winter Palace
At the Schonnbrun Palace for dinner and a Mozart and Strauss concert
Cathedral in Vienna and outside the Natural History Museum
On Thursday, it was time to leave Vienna and go to Budapest, Hungary. Again, it was raining, so we did a bus tour of the city before checking into the hotel. After checking in, we went on a dinner cruise on the Danube River. The food was quite good on the cruise (and the wine too!) and we got to have a gorgeous nighttime view of Budapest and all of its gorgeous buildings. After the dinner cruise, we went to a bar with karaoke and very cheap beer (equivalent to about 30 cents). Needless to say, it was a very fun night. The next day, we got up and took a tour of the Parliament building, which puts the Parliament in London to shame. It is unbelievably beautiful and still functions 100% today. It also holds the Hungarian crown jewels. After this, we had free to time, so we 5 girls set off to do some souvenir shopping. Then, we had a girls lunch, very Sex and the City - esque. To cap off a great girls day, we went to one of the thermal baths which Budapest is known for and got massages and relaxed in the sauna and baths. It was a perfect day and very much needed since we were all very tired from the traveling and sightseeing (and partying). That night, we decided to venture out into Budapest to see if we could find some more nightlife. Well, the boys apparently had other plans and ended up leaving us girls on a random street corner while they followed some local girls to a bar. Ok, so maybe that is slightly overdramatic, but basically they did leave us to go to a bar with some random Hungarian girls. We were fine with this and just went back to the hotel and got a decent night of sleep. And, of course, the next morning, we did not let the boys hear the end of it.
Budapest Castle and overlooking the city (Pest side)
Heroes Square in Budapest
Dinner Cruise on the Danube River
100 Forint beers = about 30 cents and outside the Parliament building
Inside the Parliament building and the Hungarian crown jewels
Inside the Parliament building and at the cathedral in Budapest (where St Stephen's mummified hand is on display)
The following day was a long day on the bus. We ate breakfast in Budapest, Hungary; had lunch in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia; and ended the day with dinner in Krakow, Poland. The travel was actually not too bad, as it gave us time to sleep and rest up. And, the sun finally came out this day and it was warm! This certainly put everyone in a good mood. Lunch at the square in Banska Bystrica was wonderful. It’s a cute little town and the weather was great, so we could sit outside and eat. After lunch, we entered Poland and arrived in Krakow where we checked into the hotel and then went for dinner at a Jewish restaurant in the old Jewish ghetto. Dinner was good and we were entertained again by a little band and singer. After dinner, it was Saturday night, so we obviously had to go out. We went for a couple drinks at an Irish pub then found a neat club in Krakow.
Saturday night in Krakow!
On Sunday, we did a walking tour of Krakow, saw the Jewish Quarter (and Oskar Schindler's factory - which is being made into a museum but won't open until later this June), Wawel Castle and monastery where Pope John Paul II used to live. We ended up in the Old Town Square which is the largest town square in Europe. We ate lunch (pierogies!) and did some shopping. There was a nice jewelry market in the town square. Afterwards, we drove out to Wieliczka to a salt mine for a tour. We went 100 meters below ground and toured the salt mines which had been first mined in the 1100s! There were lots of interesting carvings and even a huge chapel, all carved by hand – no dynamite.
Oskar Schindler's factory and the Wawel Castle in Krakow
Statue of Pope John Paul II
Old Town Square in Krakow
Salt Mines at Wieliczka
Chapel carved entirely out of salt 100 meters below ground
Salt Mines
The next day was a very important day, and probably the best thing I saw on the entire trip. We visited the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz and Birkenau. This was the largest concentration camp and the one that was the most preserved after World War II, because the Nazis did not have enough time to destroy it before the Allies liberated the camp. This is easily the most horrifying place that I have ever visited. I cried throughout the visit, and some parts were slightly nauseating. But, I am so glad that I went and saw this historic place. It’s difficult to think about what people actually went through at this place and then to see their actual belongings and pictures makes it very real. The hardest part was a room where they had a bunch of womens hair (which had been shaved when the women arrived). It was extremely creepy, and hard to fathom that this event took place only 65 years ago, particularly when so many of the other sites that we visited on the tour were over 500 years old.
After a difficult morning, we drove to Czestochowa for our lunch stop. We stopped here because there is a very famous religious relic in the Jasna Gora church and monastery – the Black Madonna. It is a painting of the Virgin Mary, painted 2,000 years ago by St. Luke. It was not very exciting, and we were astonished at all the people who were there to see it. Laura even told us that this place receives 5 million visitors per year, while Auschwitz has only 1 million visitors per year. Why?
Jasna Gora and the Black Madonna
That afternoon, we arrived in Warsaw, our last city of the tour. We stayed at a wonderful Marriott near the airport, and even though the hotel was far from the city center, we all were grateful for a nice American-style hotel. Although, all of the hotels we stayed in during the tour were very decent and had good breakfast. We enjoyed a nice dinner (even though almost every dinner seemed to be chicken and apple pie) and decided to hang out at the hotel bar that night.
For our last full day, we started with a bus/walking tour of Warsaw, seeing many historic sites related to the composer Chopin (who is Polish, not French!) and World War II. Warsaw was completely destroyed in WWII, so most buildings are only 60 years old. But, they did try to reconstruct buildings to look the same as before the war. There is also a beautiful town square here, and after a lunch of wonderful pierogies, we walked around town exploring all the pretty buildings, churches, parks, etc. We also saw the Palace of Culture, which was a huge building gifted to Warsaw by the USSR after the war. A local Polish girl that we ran into on the street told us that they refer to it as “Stalin’s Cock”. How fetching. Then, we had our farewell dinner a nice restaurant near the park. Following dinner, we went to an Ice Bar. If you have never heard of this, it’s a bar that is chilled below freezing and the bar/tables/walls are all ice. They give you big coats to wear inside to keep warm. Then, we went to a fun bar to dance. This was our last night together as a group, so we had lots of fun before we went our separate ways.
Chopin Park and the Old Town Square
Pierogies for lunch and the statue of the Little Insurgent (kids used to run through the sewers to deliver secret messages during the Uprising against the Nazis in WWII)
Warsaw Uprising Memorial and a view of the Old Town Square
Palace of Culture in Warsaw
Last night out in Warsaw (Ice Bar and the Underground)
Wednesday morning, I got to sleep in for the first time which was wonderful. I had a lovely breakfast with Sarah and Carmen and then we checked out of the hotel. Luckily, our hotel was right at the airport, so I walked across the street later in the day and got on my plane back to Dusseldorf. I was completely exhausted, but satisfied with another awesome trip with great people.
