Budapest, Hungary

A city that I've long wanted to visit.  I don't really know why but maybe it had to do with the fantastic postage stamp they used to issue.  Beautiful city at night.  Again, seeing the old buildings and impact of WWII followed by the Soviets was amazing.  So difficult, so many generations.

 

Vienna, Austria

Vienna is a classic city that is full of elegant buildings and palaces.  You can see the wealth is tiny nation once controlled.  Our 34th anniversary was spent in there.  Before we attended an evening Baroque classical concert in a palace we had coffee and dessert at Cafe Central, where Freud and Trotsky often dined.

Cesky Krumlov

A middle ages town in a hilly region of Czechia.  For us, it was a very wet afternoon.  The good news was that the dinner restaurant had schnitzel platters and smoked beer on tap.  Oh ya, the rain clouds broke in early evening and wow - some of my best shots of the trip.

Prague, Czechia

Our hotel in Prague was classic Soviet architecture.  Square.  Block.  On the light side the bath tub was only about a step of 24 inch or 60 cm to get into and out of.   We were a 10 minute tram ride to the old centre of the city.  Beautiful old buildings and one of my highest step days ever.  The cemetery was across the road from the hotel. The place was amazing.

Auschwitz and Birkenau

During WWII Jews from across Europe were rounded up and transported to concentration camps.  Ninety percent of the arrivals to Auschwitz and Birkenau were sent directly to the gas chambers.  The other 10% endured slave labour, medical experiments, disease, starvation and a life expectancy of about 2 months.  It is estimated that 1.1 million people died here.  The images below show green grass but during the war there was no grass, as the prisoners would eat anything they could find.

In such polarized times such as we seem to find ourselves in, currently, this tour seemed appropriate.  Appropriate in that we must never forget what hate, false or otherwise, can lead good people to do.