The theatre in Krakow.
The last five days I have been in Krakow and Berlin. I loved Krakow (Poland). It’s a beautiful city and very clean. With its cobblestone streets, it felt like you were stepping back in time, but still in the present with all these little restaurants and bars. Each one different from the next. I’ve never had such fresh food. Krakow feels very alive and has a lot of character. I could have easily stayed there. I loved seeing all the different horse and carriages walking through the city.
During the two days I spent there, one day I spent visiting Auschwitz. Auschwitz is pretty self-explanatory. I thought we would have seen more, but it was definitely heart-wrenching. I tried to not let my mind go too far into my imagination as I was walking around, otherwise I think I would just have run out. I took it as a learning experience and I certainly learned a lot. It made everything you read and see in pictures all of a sudden become very real.
The other day, we did a city tour. We saw old churches and a castle, but my favourite building was the theatre. It was breathtaking (see photo).
Barthel and I drove to Berlin – a six-hour drive on the Polish roads, which sometimes are a bit sketchy. People drive a bit nuts and some roads are extremely poorly made, but they’re getting better throughout Poland.
I had a different image of Berlin in my head than what I actually saw. I can’t say I was disappointed, but it wasn’t what I expected. I was expecting a bit more of a glamorous city, but kind of silly of me seeing as it was destroyed and they have had to re-build it. But nevertheless, there are some very glamorous parts.
The Tiergarten is great. It is hard to believe it is only 60 years old. They have done an amazing job re-building the park around the city and the neatest thing is the zoo right in the middle. I couldn’t believe how big the zoo was. I didn’t go in. It was way too busy, but I was biking along the paths of the outside of the zoo, which is almost the same as being in there, but then it’s free 🙂 Biking the city is the best way to see it and it’s cheaper renting a bike than paying for public transit, and it also gave me a chance to keep exercising and burn the calories I needed to burn after eating out all the time.
The Berlin Wall.
My favourite part of Berlin was the Underground tour of Hilter’s lost world in East Berlin. I really recommend the tours to anyone visiting Berlin. It was fascinating. I learned so much about the war and about the actual city itself. I had a new appreciation for Berlin after the tour. After the tour it was small bike ride to the remains of the Berlin wall. It is also hard to believe that it was only 22 years ago it was knocked down.
Five days of history was my small summer holiday. Some days were hard to swallow as learning about a war is never pleasant, but I am really happy I got to go and see, hear about everything I saw.
Driving from Berlin back to Holland was also a six-hour drive. Thankfully we had no traffic. It was smooth sailing and my first stop was to go pick up my doggy. I had missed him and I woke up early in the morning to go straight to the stables! Both my boys ignored me for the first few minutes, but then were happy to see me again.
Next, I jet off to London to watch the Grand Prix Special on Tuesday. Full report Next week 🙂
GO Canada!!!!!
