When we pulled back the curtains in our Wroclaw hotel room the sun and a completely blue sky was revealed for the first time in a fortnight. What a magical feeling it is to have the sun and summer warmth back again. Even the local people look happy. As we drove out of the city we sat beside a car of very happy young men at a set of traffic lights. “Bonjour” they called out waving a bottle of nice red wine. “Gidday” we called back, “We’re Kiwis”. “Ah, Kiwis” they replied with a laugh, and after cheery farewells they were gone in a cloud of exhaust. The drive to Warsaw was an all day affair, one of our longer drives. For most part the road was two lanes all the way with quite a good ... read more

Oh dear how boring this is getting. It was raining again this morning. We have had rain for at least part of the day for the last 12 days. So we headed off from Katowice without seeing much of the city as it’s too wet to explore what might be on offer. Driving through the city we see a mix of the shiny new buildings with their glass walls rising skywards and the old buildings looking as though they have seen better days. Opening the car window to take a quick photo we were enveloped in the smell of coal smoke. Coal is in abundant supply in the area as we have seen many working mine pitheads. The roads through the city have been some of the best we have encountered. It didn’t take long before ... read more

On a cool grey Polish summer day we went to Auschwitz and nearby Birkenau-Auschwitz ll concentration camps. These are names that for all our lives have been associated with horror and cruelty: humanity’s capability of inhumanity. We went first to Birkenau, where all is left just as it was with very little change, except for some ruined buildings that must have fallen over time. The sheer size of this camp took our breath away. We entered one or two of the accommodation blocks which are open to allow people to see the living conditions of those who suffered here. We walked and we looked, trying to grasp the reality of what we saw. Everywhere in this huge camp there were people also walking and looking, mostly in silence, witnesses to this horror. In the midst of ... read more

As we woke this morning things were not looking promising for a fine day. The surrounding hills had wisps of low cloud and the sun was struggling to fight its way through but no matter what the weather had in store for us we were headed for Krakow. Before we left Demanovska, near Liptovsky Mikuláš, we took a quick drive further up the valley. The road was quite busy and as we got near the end of the road parking attendants were busy directing traffic. In the winter these carparks would be full of cars bringing people to the ski fields. Today, promising to be a beautiful day, people were obviously coming for a hiking experience. Our route to the Slovakian-Polish border took us over a small mountain pass through spruce forests and mountain pastures. Yesterday ... read more

On advice from our friendly hotel receptionist, we set out this morning to take the tram into the city to explore Bratislava’s old town. Tram tickets could be purchased from a machine at the next tram stop but one, a mere 5 minutes walk away. The walk over, we realised there was no ticket machine at the tram stop, so approached a young man who luckily spoke some English. He was unsure where we might find a ticket machine, but suggested asking at the petrol station across the road. He then insisted on taking us over and asking the attendant on our behalf (in Slovakian). The gist of the response was that vandals ruin the machines at some tram stops so they are located away from the stops, in this case the lady thought we should ... read more