Finally, Internet

It has been a while since we had a good computer to use, so sorry that pics haven't been posted. Sorry also if there are any crazy spellings. I've been trying to work my way around these keyboards...the letters aren't always the same.

After we left Prague and went to Terezin concentration camp for half a day. It is considered to be one of the more "tame" camps, but was still very difficult to see (and to not tear up when reading about those who stayed or died there). I think that 33,000 people died here; most were sent onward to Auschwitz. Especially moving were the rooms where drawings and poems of different artists were displayed, with many of the personal descriptions of these people ending with their termination in Auschwitz. Often the artist or poet talked about was a child.

From Terezin we caught the bus back to Prague, made a made dash from one station to another (got caught by the station agents with our tickets a half hour over the validation period. no mercy and a $60 fine) to catch our bus to Cesky Krumlov with pre-booked Student Agency bus tickets, and then we were off to the countryside.

I've head many people refer to Cesky Krumlov as a "little Prague" and I would agree. Krumlov lies on the winding Vltava river near Austria and dates back to 1253. The central castle that you see in the pictures was once owned by the Rosenberg family and later the Schwarzenbergs. It was taken as state property by the Soviets after WW2 and now is a UNESCO Heritage site.

From Cesky Krumlov we caught a transport to Vienna and then took the train from Vienna to Poprad, Slovakia. Stayed there one night and then took the bus to Slovensky raj National Park for two days of hiking. Martin made a special effort to tell the bus driver where we needed to stop (according to directions off of the hostel website where we were to stay). When we did stop, and the driver indicated that we were to get off, we were pretty sure that he had decided to wreck revenge on us dumb Americans because we were roadside in the middle of nowhere, standing in the fog. Luckily there was a regional map nearby. We had remembered that the hostel mentioned a lake, so we started walking along the road in the direction that the map indicated a (maybe "the") lake to be. 2 km later we saw the hostel sign and all was well again.

Slovensky raj is dominated by a mix of spruce and deciduous forest (seemingly always foggy while we were there) and tiny villages dotted here and there and a maze of hiking trails, many of the trail sections are one-way assisted sections with ladder or railing. We were definitely visiting in the off season because we didn't see anyone while we were hiking (lucky). We spent two days of hiking here. The first hike started near an orphanage for Roma children.

From Slovensky raj we took the train to Kosice and then to Eger, Hungary. We decided that we didn't have enough time to visit Serbia, so Eger seemed to be a nice stop on the way to Budapest. We rode the train with a Kiwi who had had her credit card info stolen and was going back to Budapest to file paperwork. She told us about her time in Eger and it sounded nice enough. Her bad luck must have rubbed off on us because after we got there and walked the twenty minutes into town we quickly learned that the whole town was booked full that night. After walking around from hotel to hotel for almost three hours in the dark we finally had enough of the place and just wanted to flee. We walked all the way back to the station and tried to get a train out, but learned that the next one wasn't until morning (I was ready to sleep in a park at that point but Martin was more sensible). The ticket lady did suggest that we try upstairs as there was a tourist motel with rooms available (go figure). So we did end up spending the night and seeing the city after all. Probably wouldn't go back though, at least not on a weekend.

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Part of trip: Eastern Europe

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