Beyond the Emerald Isle: Berlin, Prague & Krakow

departing cottage 6 with one of my travel buddies!!

Oops.  I meant to do this right when I got back, I had even already written my blog but then homework took over. Better late than never! To try and avoid a novel I am going to just try and do my favorite part of each city and then add some (translation: lots) pics.

brat #2

Berlin: We had two and a half days to spend in Berlin, the perfect amount of time in my opinion. Mostly we just wandered the city, no formal tours or anything, and made it a pretty laidback trip. My favorite part was the Topography of Terror museum which was all about the Third Reich and the Nazi party and the scare tactics they employed through the end of the war.  Okay two favorite things. We also went to the Olympic stadium used during the 1936 Olympics. It was perfect!!!

The Olympic Stadium with the olympic torch above Sarah's head (middle) 

The Berlin Wall, the West side, with the remains of the Third Reich and SS headquarters 

Brandenberg Gate

We dont get fall in Ireland, just green, so Berlin was very refreshing! We just went and sat in the park one day
because it was so nice!!

The East side of the Berlin wall, it was made into a memorial with artists from 21 different countries, making a point because when the wall was intact you weren't allowed to make a mark on the East side

Prague: We took a bus to Prague from Berlin, it was a pretty nice bus ride. Prague was not my favorite city, it was about 98% tourists which was a little obnoxious but the city itself was nice.  My favorite thing in Prague was this small Jewish cemetery, the oldish Jewish cemetery in Europe. In the little graveyard there are over 12000 headstones and over 100,000 people buried there because the Jews were only allowed to bury their dead in that one area.

Church at Prague Castle

Old Town square - like  I said, lots of tourists. 

Krakow: Krakow was my favorite city! My pictures below are all of death and destruction, but it was very interesting and I am glad I did it. We did a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter, saw Oskar Schindler's factory and the ghetto created in 1941. The next day we went to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau.  Auschwitz I is now a museum, the different exhibits are in the barracks. Birkenau was much more concentration camp-esque: over a hundred barracks, five crematoriums, the railroad right into the middle of the camp, etc. It was weird to see the difference. Birkenau was made to be a death camp, you could tell that it was built with that purpose in mind. On a more cheery note we also went to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, a mine of over 2000 chambers, some of which they rent out for weddings, conventions, etc. 

Ghetto memorial in Krakow. One chair for each thousand victims of Holocaust from Krakow (68 chairs total) . Most chairs faced the same  direction, four faced others. The one above faces Death Alley, a mass murder site in Krakow. 

Oskar Schindler's factory

Auschwitz I with the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign, "work makes free". I was surprised by how pretty this site was. 

Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Much different than Auschwitz I. The chimneys are each from a wood barrack that was burnt by the Nazis when they fled the camps.

Holocaust Memorial, located at the end of the train tracks surrounded by the remains
of the 5 crematoriums

 each small stone in the memorial is for one life taken at Auschwitz II-Birkenau = 1.1 million stones

Another memorial, just beyond the little pool is a mass grave site

Gas chamber - You can kinda see the shower heads. The hole in the ceiling is where they poured
in the Cyclone B gas pellets

Crematorium  - Auschwitz I

Luggage removed from prisoners

More things taken from prisoners. This one was tough because you know the owners of these items did not survive longer than a day, most likely just a couple hours, after arriving. The other (extra) tough part was the human hair display. Women were shaved upon arrival and the hair sold for wigs but they hadnt sold all of it before liberation.

One of the chapels (there are 40+) in the salt mine. This one is available for weddings. On the left there is a salt engraving of Da Vinci's The Last Supper. The chandeliers are also made of salt.

Overall, it was a great trip! The perfect amount of time in each city. We also decided to rent apartments instead of hostels which means we got to take a hot shower in a non-cold bathroom that lasted more than 5 minutes. Hooray! We got a little spoiled by our last apartment though, seven shower heads.  We had a delightful roomie reunion in the airport, our planes got in at the same time on neighboring gates so we saw them in the airport, dropped our bags and ran to say hi! Going home is going to be tough if I missed them so much after only a week and a half apart!!

Countdown has started though! My family will be here in 14 and I will be home in 27! I know it's a little early but just in case I don't blog again, happy thanksgiving everyone!!

michelle