Road trip north, part 8

Near Krakow is a place where some of the most horrific acts in history were committed, the World War II concentration camp of Auschwitz.

The sign above the entrance reads "Arbeit Macht Frei," which means "work sets you free." You may have heard that the sign was stolen last year, later found and returned. While it was missing, it was replaced by an exact replica. I'm not sure if this is the original or the replica. Anyway, upon entry prisoners were given the impression that it was a labor camp, but it was much worse than that.



This site was originally a Polish army base and therefore contains sturdy brick buildings. When it was turned into a concentration camp, barbed wire was added. In these former barracks, prisoners (adults and children alike) were warehoused and made to endure horrendous medical experiments.



Nearby is Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. This place was built more hastily, with wooden stable-like buildings for housing prisoners before they were sent unknowingly to the gas chambers. Some were not even housed at all, but sent directly to be killed upon arrival because they were not useful as laborers.



Many of the buildings are gone now. Some were destroyed by the Nazis when they realized the Russians would soon arrive to liberate the camp.



Many people come to see the sites and remember those who suffered. We saw lots of different groups and tours being given in many different languages. It's sickening to hear about the events that went on here, but it's also important not to forget. More information available here.

Road trip north, part 7

From Slovakia, we drove north to Poland. There was a bit of flooding in the area at the time, but fortunately it wasn't bad enough to block our route.

We stayed in the southern city of Krakow, which is nicely preserved because it was not bombed during World War II.



Rynek Główny is the central square.



There are all kinds of vendor booths in the square's center, including this one selling pierogi.



We visited Krakow's engineering museum, which has an interesting collection of cars, motorcycles, scooters, trucks, trams and buses.



A lot of these models are not seen in the States.



You can sit in the driver's seat of the trams.



We tried to visit Oskar Schindler's factory, famous from the book and movie "Schindler's List." However, the museum is currently undergoing major renovations. We took a picture anyway.



There was a flea market one morning near our hotel. It was completely packed with people despite having few items of apparent interest, to us, anyway.



Krakow is a pleasant city to walk in. We saw plenty of people strolling. During a pause in the park, we saw this young person who seems to prefer driving. Can you blame him with a sweet ride like that?

Road trip north, part 6

From Vienna, we drove about an hour, crossing the border to Slovakia and had lunch with friends in Bratislava. We knew them back in Accra, and it was weird and so nice to spend time with them in a temperature less than sweltering.

Bratislava is divided into the old and new sections of town by the Danube River. The old part of town looks like many picture-postcards towns in Europe. The new part is full of boxy, concrete buildings. This 1970s era bridge leads to the new part. The authorities destroyed a section of the old city, including the Jewish quarter and synagogue, to build the bridge.

On a hill in the old city sits Bratislava Castle. It was reconstructed in the 1950s.

After lunch with our friends, we moved on to Levoca, several hours northeast. It's a medieval walled town with a very pretty central square. Here's the view from our hotel room.

Here's a view of our hotel (U Leva) from across the square. I highly recommend both the hotel and the restaurant, which are fancy and reasonably priced, especially compared to expensive Vienna!

Some of the buildings feature intricate surface designs, similar to those we saw in Bolzano and Austria.

Next we visited Spis Castle, the most famous site in Slovakia.

It's a 13th-century castle in the middle of nowhere, and it features prominently on Slovakia travel posters.

Sections were added over the centuries.

Much of the castle was destroyed by fire in 1780, but some of it was reconstructed in the 1970s. It's worth a visit if you happen to be passing by.

Between Spis and the Polish border, we were very fortunate to have found Tatrabob, a sort of alpine slide/roller coaster kind of thing with individual bobsleds for each rider. It wound in and out through a forest with sharp turns and deep drops -- fun!

Road trip north, part 5

When I think of Vienna, I think of Mozart, Freud, waltzes, coffee, and sacher torte. I don't think of modern architecture. But that's because I was not aware of Friedensreich Hundertwasser before our recent road trip.

He designed this colorful apartment building, full of whimsical details and reportedly crooked floors. (We didn't get to go inside.) It's quite a contrast next to the usual Vienna baroque style buildings.



There's so much to see in Vienna, and we'd normally go everywhere on foot, but happily we found City Bike, a super-cheap bike sharing program. It costs one Euro to register, and rentals are free for the first hour, 1 Euro for the second hour, 2 Euros for the third hour, and 3 Euros per hour thereafter. So, essentially for us, it cost 1 Euro each (total) because we'd park the bikes in one of the many spaces around the city before the first hour was up. Then we'd see some sights, get another bike, and park it again within an hour. What a great program! In Rome, the bike sharing program is a lot more expensive (not to mention dangerous due to Italian driving styles and lack of bike lanes).

Anyway, the bikes took us all over town. The Belvedere museum, whose fountain is shown below, is all the way across Vienna from Hundertwasserhaus, pictured above. It featured Jungendstil (art nouveau) works, among others. Perhaps its most famous painting is Klimt's "The Kiss."

Vienna is also nice for walking. There are wide sidewalks as well as some pedestrian-only streets.

Another feature of Vienna is the 18th-century-costumed tout. He or she encourages passersby to purchase tickets to concerts featuring classical greatest hits played by 18th-century-costumed musicians, complete with powdered wigs.

Ever heard of a Plague Column? We hadn't until this trip, during which we saw several. These columns were offered in gratitude that the plague had ended.

The photo below shows a cherub aiming at the personification of the plague. Wow.

Infiorata di Genzano

I interrupt our road trip chronicle to report on yesterday's Infiorata di Genzano. It's a festival that involves the creation of elaborate designs made of flower petals laid on the main cobblestone street of Genzano, a town south of Rome.

The townspeople create tappeti (carpets) with gazillions of different colored flower petals, sand, dirt, leaves and other plant matter.

Each year there is a theme. This year's theme is Caravaggio, 2010 being the 400th anniversary of the artist's death. This tappeto reproduces part of a Caravaggio painting.

Many, many of these boxes full of flower petals were put to use.

Here's a reproduction of Caravaggio's "Head of Medusa," which we saw last year in a museum in Florence. Gory!

The Caravaggios were interspersed with other designs such as this one:

The blue and bright green parts of the eye design below are made from colored rice.

The street is on a hill. Here's a view looking part way up.

The view from the top was so colorful. So many flowers!

This banner spells out the event: Infiorata 2010.

Here's a closeup. Does it remind anyone else of a Mark Rothko painting?

Road trip north, part 4

Halstatt, Austria is famous for its salt mine, supposedly the oldest (7000 years old) in the world. To get to the mine, one must first ride a funicular up the mountainside.

Once inside, tour participants don canvas overshirts and overpants and proceed down a long, narrow tunnel. To go down to the next level, you have to take a slide! It's fun.

At the underground lake, there is a trippy light show.

Can you believe they even have an animatronic miner? I'm not kidding.

So, the salt mine tour was somewhat hokey but enjoyable. It probably helps if you speak German, which we don't. Our guide gave long explanations in German followed by a couple of sentences in English. Anyway, it's worth it just for the two slides.

The town is pretty. It's on a lake surrounded by mountains, the Dachstein range of the Alps.



In summer, there is recreational boating on the lake, but there wasn't during our cold and drizzly visit. It still looked lovely, though.

Road trip north, part 3

Our first stop in Austria was the Olympic town of Innsbruck. We stayed at the Gasthof Weisses Kreuz, a hotel where Mozart stayed! No, not Joe Mozart, but Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the composer. It's a charming place, fortunately modernized, although some of the floors are slightly tilted.

It was overcast and drizzly during our stay. Here's one of the main pedestrian streets, where apparently some work is being done. That's St. Anne's column in the center, built to commemorate resistance to the Bavarian invasion (1703).

One of Innsbruck's most famous buildings is the Goldenes Dachl, built in 1420. The golden roof (actually gilded copper) was added by Emperor Maximilian I in the 16th century. (Well, I'm guessing he probably had someone else do it.)

Here's the triumphal arch built on the occasion of the betrothal of Emperor Leopold II to Maria Ludovica.

The yellow building behind the arch is decoratively painted in the manner of many buildings all over Innsbruck. Pretty.