Poland photos

Outside Polish supermarket comparing car sizes



Hotel fire instructions in Jaworzno, see line 2



Outside Krakow Cathedral, Wawel Hill



Kate in Krakow Castle Cafe



Krakow Cloth Hall



Auschwitz-Birkenau

Italy

Am facing a massive backlog of stuff now having spent the last week in Italy going sightseeing crazy, what with running out of time and all (I know, smug still) so a quick ready reckoner;

Venice - flooded. Couldnt walk anywhere or get into Basilica and almost ruined shoes. How they sell suede in this town I do not know. Apart from that, though, really cool to wander around, esp. once we managed to lose the ever-present American tourists talking about how much they missed their X-boxes. Wanted to shake them and scream "youre in Venice!"

Verona - calmer but cool. Lots of Roman stuff esp. Arena, must come back and watch something here next year. Stayed on Lake Garda which was beautiful.

Florence - slightly disappointing as v hectic, and also went there on a monday which meant the Uffizi amongst other things was shut. Santa Croce amazing though. Also having problems getting around as I managed to deck it and smash up my knee - doh! OK now though.

San Remo - nice campsite. Only arrived a couple of hours ago!

Pictures from Germany

Crossing the border from Germany into Czech Republic







Pragerstrasse, Dresden



Karl Marx statue, Chemnitz



Obligatory bratwurst in Nurnberg



Oktoberfest



Oktoberfest mk II

Hungary and Croatia

Spent a couple of very weird days in Budapest - found the language utterly impenetrable, and unfortunately for us most people's second language is German rather than English. But it's a beautiful city, empty of tourists at this time of year so we wandered around Buda castle practically by ourselves. Really interesting historical museum which completely blanked out any part of the Soviet years apart from one room showing photos of the 1956 uprising, despite having gone into plenty of detail about every other era from prehistory onwards.

Not to be put off, we went to the Statue Park, outside the city, where they have resurrected a lot of the Communist statues which were originally in the city itself. From our point of view it seemed incredibly kitsch, and they seemed to know it as all the souvenirs were "amusing" in some way or other, but I saw some elderly people obviously very upset by the memories it brought back. Very odd indeed. Would recommend a visit in the future, as they are in the process of building a museum there which would put them in context.

On the way to Croatia we stopped off at the southern tip of Lake Balaton and swam outside in a thermal lake - really weird feeling, as the air temperature was 8C but the water was 27C. Also there were waterlilies growing in it and an all-pervading whiff of egg. Getting out into the cold was an ordeal though, as you can imagine!

Blasted through Croatia to Split without stopping in Zagreb as we had originally planned, as running out of time (only 2 weeks left!) and also it was freezing up in the mountains. Went through a couple of 5km plus tunnels and emerged into the sunshine finally. Diocletian's Palace is amazing, didn't realise the scale of it before we got here! Thought about going to the islands for a day but the weather has turned bad again, but did manage to meet up with another of Will's cousins and his girlfriend for dinner, which was cool. Finally got to have some seafood after a month of little other than pork and dumplings! Driving up towards Slovenia then Venice, Verona and Florence in Italy, then Avignon and the Camargue, then home. I am still touching wood about the van making it back, obviously! As long as there's no rain or mountains to cross... Photos will eventually follow, as per usual.

pictures from Czech Rep

Kate and Rachel learning Polish in an underground restaurant in Frydek Mistek (or Fried egg mistake as we insisted on calling it)


Excellent Soviet-era Lada - one of many
Mucha stained glass window in Prague Cathedral and random statue in Prague

Poland to Austria

Have been incredibly lame at updating this I realise, sorry! OK, about a month ago we went to Krakow, which was lovely, reminded me of Prague in some ways but without so many tourists and tat vendors. Roads in Poland terrible, with potholes and extreme rutting, so we nearly shook the van to pieces. Went to the salt mines in Wielicza which are quite kitsch - a lot of gnomes sulptured out of salt - but also amazing cathedral all underground carved from salt as well. Dropped off Dan and Rachel at the airport then crossed 3 borders in one day in epic drive through Czech Rep. and Slovakia to Austria. Stayed in Vienna (well outside in the forest nearby) which had loads of cool Baroque buildings but was v expensive compared to all the places we had been to recently.

Germany and Czech Republic

First of all Germany - we headed for Munich for Oktoberfest which rocked our world(s?) - lots of drinking steins of beer and dancing on tables to an odd mixture of traditional songs and Bon Jovi medleys. Munich itself is really cool, lots of people in lederhosen and dirndls which pleased me greatly. After recovering from our hangovers we then went to Neuschwanstein, a fairytale castle near the Austrian border which was cool in a kitsch sort of way, but unfortunately it was v misty so we couldn´t see the Alps behind. Then went to Nuremberg and ate a lot of sausages (a running theme throughout the country) and walked around the city walls and old town. Tried to get some small adjustments to the van in a place called Chemnitz where we were helped out by a man who turned out to be another customer, but realised we cannot fix the ongoing gas bottle problem (long story, not dangerous but annoying) until we are back in the UK.

Then spent a lovely day in Dresden, which has been rebuilt and restored massively after WWII but all the old buildings are still blackened with smoke. Went on a big wheel ride like the London Eye for views of the whole city. Will did not make this, with his ´´entirely rational´´ fear of heights but Rachel, Dan and I did, with some German old man who kept muttering to himself.

Crossed the border into the Czech Republic with little fuss then realised no Euro so had to reconvert our brains to deal with Korunas instead. Felt pretty cool carrying around 1000 Kč notes (worth about 25 quid)! Prague was lovely, not as touristy as I had feared apart from the Charles Bridge area, then we went on to Brno in the south east and then stopped in Olomoucs for about an hour as it was getting dark and driving at night is not much fun. Stayed over in a brutally East European motel one night, over-advertised massively in the brochure they leave in your room - but they forgot to mention the overriding odour of pigshit for some reason. Weird, I know.

Off to Krakow tomorrow, from where Dan and Rachel are leaving us to fly back home. Will hopefully get some more photos up soon.