WE arrived in Dublin yesterday after a relatively short (6 hours) flight from Philadelphia. However by the time I had renewed my Global Entry and traveled to and from the airport, we had spent 12 hours on this trip. I did not sleep on the plane so when I rived here I was disoriented. Immigration lines were long so it took a long time to get into the country. Thankfully our driver was waiting for us and whisked us to the Conrad. The hotel has been completely refurbished on the interior n the last two years and is quite beautiful . It is all done in Irish decor which is modern understated with muted colors. Wherever they could they have interjected a bit of Irish history. The bar is named Lemuels (after Gulliver). They have a ... read more

WARSAW Yesterday was a travel day from Wroclaw to Warsaw. We boarded the train in Wroclaw at the train station. The intercity trains are new and look very much like the bullet trains we rode in Japan. Its all EU money that paid for these. Since we had first class tickets, we had reserved seats. The ride lasted 4 hours. The train rode very smoothly. The train went about 84 miles per hour but there were many stops. It was full however. We arrived at Warsaw and our guide was waiting for us at the station. We had to get our two small suitcases out of the car and onto the platform. This was made more difficult by the fact that there was a large gap between the train car and the platform. But between the ... read more

WROCLAW The Polish alphabet is extremely interesting. It has 24 letters. No V and no X. However it has other little strange letters. These all have a different sound. They have an L with a slash through it, a t with a slash thru it, an a with a little tail, and e with a little tail, and a z with a little dot over it. Ad on it goes. As a result the town that we cal Lodz (Lod zee) should be pronounced wuch. So to see a town name in Polish is still to have no idea how to pronounce it. The same goes for the town we are staying in tonight, Wroclaw. Not pronounced at all like it looks but rather as Vroystadt. During WWII the Germans renamed many polish towns I think ... read more

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU Today we left early (7:30am) with Barbara and Michael to go to Auschwitz which is 40 miles outside of Cracow. It is a two lane road and traffic coming into Cracow was heavy. The countryside that we drove through was beautiful. Lots of lilacs blooming. The Polish name for Auschwitz is Oswiecim, the Germans renamed the area Auschwitz. There were three Auschwitz camps. The first , Auschwitz I, was opened in June of 1940 when the first Polish political prisoners arrived. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) 3 Km away was started in 1941. There was only one gas camber at Auschwitz I and two ovens. The Nazis started rounding up all the Jews in Europe. It became impossible for Auschwitz I to handle all of them. They put two gas chambers in Birkenau and more efficient ovens ... read more

KYOTO TO NARITA- Today is our last day in Kyoto. We met Makoon for our last temple visits. The first temple that we went to is very popular averaging 13,000 visitors a day and of course even more in high season. Fushari anari, or the Temple of 10,000 tori. We got there early and it was already quite busy. The guardian animal of this temple is the fox. So there are fox at every gate. After passing by the major temple where people can make wishes or make vows of things they are committed to doing, the path splits and starts climbing through the first Tori. The first line of Tori number about 100. Then there is a second split with another 100 on each side and on it goes climbing up the mountain until the ... read more