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Published: August 1st 2008
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Poland - Krakow
It was great to see the main square in Krakow first thing in the morning and devoid of any tourists bar ourselves. By 10am I had found my accomodation, had the next leg of my journey sorted out and had even managed to have a fight with a barber who spoke no English (The barber won!). Spent most of the day in the Kamierez which is the Jewish quarter of Krakow. Bumped into a couple of English guys who were on the train from Budapest and ended up in a Polish Karaoke bar that evening (there appears to be a bit of a trend developing here) which was great craic - the music being slightly better than what we heard in Budapest. The following morning I set off for Auschwitz - Birkenau which is located about an hours train journey from Krakow. I had been to Auschwitz before but never to Birkenau (about a mile from Auschwitz) which is where the bulk of the slaughter took place. I'm not sure what disturbed me most, the sheer scale of the area that Birkenau covered with row after row of "barracks" for the concentration camp workers or the brutal cold
blooded efficiency of the slaughter. A very sobering experience but one that everyone should see for themselves.
Poland - Gdansk
The following day I was on an early morning train to Gdansk, the home of the Solidarity movement and Lech Walesa, to catch up with a Polish friend I had last seen 15 years ago when I worked for the summer in the US. It was great to catch up with Magda once again (and her family) and nice to have a personal tour guide of the city. I also had my first minor disaster in Gdansk as some clown broke my glasses when he jumped off the bunk bed in the hostel I was staying in ........ I mean they were perfectly safe in my shoe where I had left them the night before!! Luckily enough I had brought a spare pair with me just in case although I didn't think I'd have to resort to using them 3 weeks into my travels.
Lithuania - Vilinus
From Gdansk, I caught a night bus to Vilinus, the capital of Lithuania (There is no decent train service in the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia hence this mode
Norway
Reflections of clouds of transport). This worked out quite quite well as having slept (sort of) during the night I had a day to explore Vilinus which was great. It's not as up to speed with tourism etc. as the other Baltic capitals but it's definately getting there judging by the level of renovations etc going on. Definately worth a visit if not now, than in a couple of year's time.
Talinn - Estonia
That night I boarded another bus for Talinn in Estonia which was much more developed tourist wise than Vilinus (I could tell this because I counted 6 Irish pubs in Talinn but none in Vilinus). I made a bit of a cock-up of my schedule here in that the reason I was going to Talinn was to catch a 2 hour ferry to Helsinki so that I could do a loop by train between Finland and Norway. However, while going over the logistics of this I realised that I couldn't do this as I hadn't enough time left on my inter-rail pass - 7 days wasn't enough believe it or not - so I decided to go straight to Norway by catching a ferry to Stockholm and than
catching a train from Stockholm to Oslo instead.
Norway - Voss
The following day I travelled to Voss via the "Norway in a Nutshell" loop.This involved a scenic train ride to a height of 866m to Myrdal followed by a ferry trip down two of Norway´s most famous Fjoirds - the Aurlandsfjiord and the Naeroyfjoird. This was than followed by a steep and breath-taking bus journey to Voss where i spent the night. Voss was very relaxing as emplified by the fact that it was still relatively bright up to 11pm and you could still wear shorts and t-shirt while sipping a cold beer after a late swim whilst ooking out across a lake surrounded by mountains topped in snow. Perfect. After my lazy evening I than had a lazy day and that night caught the train back to Oslo where I spent the day exploring.
Norway - Andalsnes
The following morning I was on my way to Andalsnes where the day started badly enough when I missed the train. I´m going to blame my "new glasses" as I thought the platform no. was 10 on the noticeboard but it was in fact 16. It turned out to
Poland - Birkeneau
Didn´t feel right taking any pictures but I took this one to give an idea of what the concentration/extermination camp was like. The train would come through the notorious gates that you see in the background and would stop where the tracks end. The victims would than be offloaded onto the gravel section on the left of the track for selection. On average 70 - 75% of everyone on each train were sent to the gas chambers immediately - 2 of which, the remains (the Nazi's blew them up before fleeing) are on either side of the tracks that you see in front of you. The remains of another 2 are on the far left of the picture and the fifth chamber is in Auschwitz itself. (The Nazi's didn't have time to destroy that one). Behind each chamber is an area where corpses were burnt and/or ashes scattered. These are now memorials to the victims. be a blessing in disguies though as I was able to go on a different route with an hours wait in Eidsvol and a 4 hour wait in Lillehammer both of which were very pleasant experiences (spent half the day swimming and the other half lazing in the sun). I also had my first (and last) beer in Norway in a bar in Lillehammer - cost be 8 euro. Prices in general in Norway are as shocking as you will have heard everything being about 25 to 30% dearer than at home. After getting off at a place called Dombas I than took the scenic train to Andalsnes which was nice. Andalsnes itself was also v. nice being surrounded by mountains and looked like a great location to spend some time there but my inter-rail pass was to expire the following day so that morning I got the train back to Oslo and than onto Stockholm which after numerous delays, a train breakdown, stifling heat and having to get on a bus at one stage arrived in Stockholm at 11.55pm - 5 minutes before my travel pass expired!
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