July 2018 – A Traveling Fool

July 26, 2018

Poland: Risen From the Ashes

Crossing into Poland as part of a 2008 tour to Central Europe, our first stop was for lunch at Poznan, which is one of the oldest and largest cities in Poland. We had lunch in the Renaissance Old Town in a restaurant just across the square from the clock tower of the 14^th century Town Hall.

Poznan had been the capital of the Polans until about 1039, when the capitol was moved to Krakow. Poznan suffered an enormous fire in the 1500s, which burned most of the city. The 1600s and 1700s saw several wars, the plague, and floods. In the 1793 Second Partition of Poland, Poznan ended up as part of Prussia. In 1807, it became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, but in 1815, was returned to Prussia. At the end of World War I, however, it once again became part of Poland. During World War II, Germany declared it part of Germany, which changed again at the end of the war when it became part of Poland again and all of Poland became part of the Soviet Union. Poznan needed to be rebuilt over and over again throughout its history, including after World War II.

On our way to Warsaw, the current capital of Poland, it began to snow quite heavily, causing a major traffic delay. We had an included dinner that evening at the hotel. The hotel was informed we would be late and held dinner for us.

Though not as old as Poznan, Warsaw changed hands many times throughout its history as well. In the 1600s, Sweden, Brandenburgian (German) forces and Transylvania played a game of tug of war with Warsaw. It bounced back and forth between Poland and Prussia several times until, finally in 1918, it became the capital of Poland.

After a good night’s sleep in cozy beds in a very large L-shaped hotel room (Mom was around the corner and on the other end of the room from me) we awoke to see a pretty solid blanket of snow covering the ground. Fortunately we always wore nonslip-soled shoes when traveling (in addition to taking coats with zip-in linings plus gloves and hats – just in case). Our first stop after breakfast was the memorial to Frederic Chopin in Lazienki Park. Hiked through quite a bit of snow to get to it, but it was really quite beautiful with the snow on it. Nearby was the Presidential Palace, which we could go by but not tour.

Next stop was the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), which is located in what had been the Jewish Ghetto (which was completely flattened during World War II), on the spot where the first armed clash of the uprising took place. We also went by a memorial that consisted of an open railcar with burnt crosses and gravestones, which was near the Umschlagplatz Memorial, where the railcars departed for the concentration camps. This memorial is located on the actual site and was built to represent an open railcar.

There is also a memorial to the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which took place over 63 days as the Soviets watched from across the river while the Nazis destroyed 85% of the city due to the Polish Home Army’s decision to rebel. We were taken to Market Square, where we watched a film about the destruction and rebuilding of Warsaw. Then we had some free time to explore the restored medieval (15^th century) Market Square. The mermaid fountain was under restoration at that time, so I was unable to take a photo of it. But I got some great photos on a later trip.

We had an included lunch at a restaurant in the Royal Square that included a soup with sausages and hard-boiled eggs. It was so hearty, it could have made a meal all by itself, but we still had breaded chicken with coleslaw and roasted potatoes plus an apple cake for dessert. After lunch, we toured the Royal Castle. The contents of the castle had been hidden away during the war and the castle itself had been leveled after the Warsaw Uprising. Plans were drawn up to rebuild the castle in 1971 and the necessary funds were raised by 1975. Reconstruction was completed by 1984. The castle is used as an art museum (which includes two Rembrandts), for exhibits, and for conferences.

After another night in Warsaw, we set out for Czestochowa and the Monastery of Jasna Gora. The monastery was founded in 1382 by monks from Hungary. A painting of a black Madonna and Child is venerated, with pilgrims approaching the painting on their knees. The origins of the painting are disputed. Some feel it dates to the 14^th century, while others claim that it was discovered in Jerusalem in 326 and taken to Constantinople. From there it eventually got to Hungary and brought to Czestochowa in the 14^th century.

When we arrived at Auschwitz, I found it to be quite chilling to be there. I was allowed to take video within the concentration camp interiors, but not photos. There were enormous piles of luggage, shoes, and other items confiscated from prisoners on arrival. It was all terribly moving. It was the eyeglasses that especially got to me, possibly because I wear glasses myself. They are the first thing I put on in the morning and the last thing I take off at night. They are so personal.

There were also loads of photos of what was found when the Allies liberated the camps. We were told that experiments on women were performed in Building #10. Another part of the camp, Auschwitz II, is also known as Birkenau. Since the decision had been made at the time it was being built to exterminate all Jews, it was pretty much purpose built as an extermination camp. We spent a lot of time at Auschwitz I and just a short time at Birkenau. Then we drove to Krakow for the night.

We began the day at Krakow with a tour of the Jewish Quarter, in a portion of the city called Kazimierz. Parts of Schindler’s List had been filmed there. Film director Roman Polanski managed to escape as a child and basically hid out on his own after a brief time with a Catholic family. His mother was killed at Auschwitz, but his father survived the camps in Austria where he had been sent. A group of young men began to sing and dance while we were there – quite jubilantly.

The Royal Palace and the Royal Cathedral are at the top of Wawel Hill. There have been people living on Wawel Hill for about 50,000 years. We managed to climb the hill and enter the cathedral before it began to rain. Over 900 years old, the Wawel Cathedral is where the Polish kings were crowned and buried.

As we got to the large covered porch area between the cathedral and the castle, the rain came down in torrents. So we hid out there for awhile. It finally settled down by the time we needed to leave enough that we didn’t get drenched going back down the hill. The Castle is now an art museum.

By the time we arrived down in the market square of Krakow, everything was still wet, but the sky seemed to be getting lighter, like maybe the rain was truly done. We looked around a little in the square, especially at the Renaissance Cloth Hall. The lower level consisted of stalls with lots of things to buy, including tourist items. Then we went off of the square to find someplace to eat.

Usually the main squares where tourists hang out have the most expensive places to eat. So, unless we have a reason to want to spend the extra money, we usually would go off a street or two to find someplace quiet with what looks like good food, at a reasonable price. We ended up at a small, cozy, place down some stairs where we had something called zapiekanka, which was a toasted, open-faced sandwich on a baguette. It was pretty good. We both had hot drinks to go with it as it was getting a wee bit nippy.

Most of the group was doing an optional trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mine where historic statues and mythical figures have been carved out of salt. Mom was having some balance issues (she had Menieres, which is a balance disorder that would flare up from time to time) and so didn’t feel that it would be a good idea for her. We had planned to explore St Mary’s Basilica and the Cloth Fair, then take a taxi back to the hotel. When we came out of the restaurant, it was raining again. We went directly to the basilica as it was not far from the restaurant.

In the 13^th century, a trumpeter was sounding the alarm at the basilica as the Mongols were attacking when he was shot through the throat. Each hour, a trumpeter plays a plaintive tune from the top of the taller of the two towers at the basilica and stops suddenly mid-tune. The basilica was found in 1221-22 and was destroyed by the Mongols. It was rebuilt shortly after. The interior is very ornate and beautiful.

By the time we left the basilica, it was raining very heavily again and getting colder. So we gave up and took a taxi back to the hotel. Whenever I am someplace where I am not totally familiar (especially if I don’t speak the language) I get a card from the front desk of the hotel so I can just show it to any cabbie and they can read the hotel name and address. Wence had shown us before leaving us that the place to get taxis was behind the basilica. We had a short wait before any taxis arrived, then about three showed up at once. A very nice fella, who didn’t speak much English, took a look at the hotel card, nodded and said he knew that. The trip back to the hotel was through extremely heavy rain, but didn’t take too long.

We had snacks, fruit, and liquids back at the hotel or we could go to the hotel restaurant if we were really hungry at dinner time. We weren’t. They had a program on television called “The Road to Broadway”. It was about four musicals getting ready for the 2003-2004 Broadway Season. The musicals were “Caroline, or Change”, “Taboo”, “Avenue Q”, and “Wicked”. The narration was re-recorded in Polish, but everything the actors said (or sang) was in English with Polish subtitles. We watched it while taking turns taking bubble baths (I always carry bubble bath when traveling), writing in my journal, and getting things ready for the following day.

The next day we left for Slovakia and Hungary.

July 17, 2018

Germany: East & West

On a trip to Central Europe in 2008, we began and ended the tour in Germany. We went in late March, which was actually a little too early as we encountered both cold and snow during the first few days of the trip. When we arrived in Frankfurt, it was snowing. It was also Easter Sunday. Very little was open. Only one restaurant in the hotel (which was a modern high rise) was open and offered an overpriced Easter Buffet. We piled the food on our plates to make that our one real meal for the day and rolled ourselves out of the restaurant afterwards.

Feeling like we were possibly going to explode, we went for a walk afterwards to settle everything and found a gas station with some snacks that we purchased in case we got hungry at dinner time. We had a fridge in the hotel, so we also bought some liquids. We never did get hungry again that day, but the liquids definitely came in handy. We ended up just taking the snacks with us to use a little later on the trip.

Our tour director was a Croatian named Wenceslas (Wence). We had an Italian driver named Franco, from Sorrento, and a trainee tour director from Hungary named Esther. Franco didn’t speak much English, but both Wence and Esther spoke Italian, so no problem. We met them that night at an introductory gathering with wine and a few appetizers. The tour left the next morning for Berlin.

Our morning break was at Eisenach at the former East/West border. Eisenach was where Martin Luther translated the Bible to German and where Johann Sebastian Bach was born. I got some photos of the East German border crossing and guard tower as well as one of the town of Eisenach.

We had lunch in Weimer. Although Bach had been born in Eisenach, he spent a lot of time in Weimer, as did Liszt, Schiller, Goethe and Nietzsche. Martin Luther also used to hang around in Weimer and later hid out at a nearby castle. The Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald, was located not far from Weimer. It was one of the first and the largest concentration camp on German soil.

In the afternoon, before reaching Berlin, we had a break in Leipzig. Leipzig has been around for a long time and was first documented in 1015. It has the oldest remaining trade fair in the world. In 1813, it was the site of the Battle of Leipzig during the Napoleonic Wars. It was also bombed pretty heavily during World War II.

The province of Brandenburg (which used to be the core of the Kingdom of Prussia) completely surrounds the city of Berlin. Potsdam, which we visited later, is the capital of Brandenburg. We arrived in Berlin fairly late in the afternoon and had an orientation tour of the city before arriving at our hotel, which was in the former East Berlin. We had opted not to do the dinner that evening, so we had picked up some fruit, cheese and bread during our afternoon stop to have a light dinner in our hotel room. Just down the road was a small shop where I could get some cold beverages, so I took a walk down there shortly after we arrived. There were a couple of other people from our tour who apparently had the same idea.

The following day, we explored Berlin in earnest. We drove all over the East side and the West side. The book burning square, the Pergamon Museum (Greek & Babylonian antiquities including the Ishtar Gate and the Pergamon Altar), the Altes Museum (more Greek, plus Roman artifacts), the Nues Museum (containing prehistoric pieces and Egyptian art – including the bust of Nerertiti), plus two other museums with paintings and sculptures, the Berlin Cathedral, the Victory Column (which commemorates early Prussian victories), Checkpoint Charlie, the Holocaust Memorial, the Reichstag, and the bombed out Kaiser Wilhelm Church were all places that were pointed out as we went by.

We stopped off and spent a short amount of time at the square containing the Berlin Opera, the French Dome, and the German Dome. The square is called the Gendarmenmarkt and was created at the end of the 17^th century as a market square. The two churches (the French Dome and the German Dome) were built in the early 18^th century on either end of the square as enhancements. The Opera House/Concert Hall was built in the early 19^th century at the center of the square.

We also spent some time at the Berlin Wall, parts of which have been preserved as a memorial. At the Brandenburg Gate, erected in the 1730s, it began to snow. If you look carefully at both the photo of the Brandenburg Gate and that of the Reichstag (Germany’s parliament) you can see snowflakes.

After lunch, we visited Potsdam, where we toured Cecilienhoff Palace and visited Sansouci Palace. Cecilienhoff Palace was the location of the Potsdam Treaty Conference in 1945, which was signed by the US (Harry Truman), the UK (Winston Churchill), and the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin). We were able to tour most of the palace. At Sanssouci, the summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, only the gardens and the gift shop were open. Fortunately it was no longer snowing.

After visiting Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic, we returned to Germany, arriving in Munich in the late afternoon. Mom was feeling a little under the weather, and I had to admit that I was tired. So, after an orientation tour on the coach, we looked around for a bit and went to the hotel to rest up before the next day.

We spent the following day on the Romantic Road, stopping first at Nordlingen, an intact medieval town with walls, gates and buildings which was built inside of an impact crater in 898AD over a Roman settlement that dates back to 85AD. Then we went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, another village with intact walls, founded in 1170. We had lunch there at the Golden Lamb on Market Square. The fare was traditional German — bratwurst, sauerbraten, potato pancakes, sour cream, and apple strudel. That evening, we arrived back in Frankfurt for a farewell dinner before our flight home the next day.

Next time – Poland.

Weimer National Theatre with statue of Goethe and Schiller out front

Don’t know what this building was, but I saw it in Weimer and liked it

The Berlin Opera (aka Concert Hall) with statue of Friedrick Schiller

The bombed out Kaiser Wilhellm Memorial Church in Berlin

The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin as it is snowing

The Reichstag in Berlin (as it is snowing)

Street next to the Golden Lamb in Rothenburg

July 11, 2018

New Brunswick or “A Whale of a Time”

We began our day in Bouctouche on a small island where, in summer months, one can travel back in time and experience Acadian life with a village and show called Le Pays de la Sagouine. We were treated to comedy, music, dancing and stories, followed by a drink made from rum, fruit juice and a secret ingredient. Once again, since Mom couldn’t drink, I had hers and mine.

In Bouctouche itself, with a population of between two and three thousand, we had lunch. The area, with its population mostly descended from the Acadians, is completely bilingual, with most people speaking French unless spoken to in English.

After lunch, we visited the Olivier Soapery where we received a demonstration of soap making. Located in St-Anne-de-Kent in New Brunswick, the soapery uses recipes developed in France, Spain and Italy along with natural ingredients and Acadian methods to create their products. The guide we had telling us their history and about their products had a decent sense of humor as she kept us laughing throughout. One thing that I remember her saying was that a particular soap that contained several edible ingredients and smelled delicious should not be eaten as it would make us “fart bubbles”.

We spent the night in Moncton, which had first been settled in 1733 and is the largest city in New Brunswick. The capital of New Brunswick, however, is Fredericton, which began in 1690. We had lunch there the next day before visiting the King’s Landing Historic Settlement. It is a living history museum dating to the early 1800s where guests can experience some of the life of that period by trying some hands-on farming, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, among other things. They have costumed interpreters on hand, much as in Colonial Williamsburg and Plimouth Plantation. Many of the items made at King’s Landing are for sale in the shops there. Mom and I visited a church, three houses, the ox barn, the General Store, the Blacksmith’s shop (my dad’s father had been a blacksmith as had his father before him), and the King’s Head Inn.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to St Andrews by the Sea in order to do some whale watching out in the Bay of Fundy. St Andrews was founded in 1783 when some buildings were floated on barges from Maine just after the American Revolution. The waters in the area were also where my ship’s captain ancestor sailed, so I was elated to be out in a boat in the same place and seeing a lot of what he would have seen.

Nearer St Andrews we saw several small, rock islands covered with seals. I decided to use my video camera to try to capture what we saw (it’s too hard to go back and forth between a video camera and a photo camera when trying to capture quick action), so I only got two photos. In addition to the harbor seals, we also saw minke whales, fin whales, and humpback whales. I managed to capture some great video footage of every whale we saw. Whenever one was spotted, I got the camera on them so, if they did anything like leaping or spouting, I was already recording.

We spent the night in Saint John, which was originally settled in 1604 and was the first city to be incorporated in what was to become Canada in 1785. We began the following day by exploring the Old City Market and then seeing the Reversing Falls. This is a unique phenomenon where the high tides of the Bay of Fundy reverse the flow of the river within a gorge in the middle of the city. In the narrowest part of the gorge are some strong rapids.

There are several covered bridges in the vicinity of Saint John, so we visited the town of St Martins to see a few. Afterwards we drove along the Fundy Trail. Where the highways were, there were very tall chain link fences, which were to try to keep moose from running out on the highways and getting hit by cars. Around the trail itself on the scenic drive, there weren’t any fences. But the road speeds were much slower than the highway speeds, so hopefully drivers would be able to spot any moose in enough time to stop.

The tides in the Bay of Fundy have a wide range (about 28 feet) from low tide to high tide. One of the places that demonstrates this at its utmost is Hopewell Rocks. The rock formations were created by the extreme tides that can vary as much as 52 feet in this location. At low tide, people can walk around on the ocean floor.

We spent another night in Saint John before heading back to Halifax. En route, we spent some time at Peggy’s Cove, which is on Saint Margaret’s Bay in Nova Scotia since 1766. Originally a fishing town, its main industry now is tourism. That makes sense as it is very picturesque.

We had lunch in Lunenberg, another colorful, coastal town and went through Mahone Bay before reaching Halifax. Our last adventure was to sail on the tall ship Silva around the Halifax Harbor. I loved that. When it was moving along quickly, it felt like we were skimming along above the water instead of on it.

I guess 2007 was my year for having difficulties getting home. We were supposed to catch a flight from Halifax to Toronto and then another from Toronto to Minneapolis. The first flight was canceled so we had to re-book. We managed to get a flight to Boston, but our luggage had already been checked through to Minneapolis and loaded on another plane. So when we got to Boston and had to switch terminals with no luggage, they became very suspicious. We were each taken aside (Mom was 80 by this point), searched and questioned. Fortunately I had kept the original tickets, our luggage receipts, etcetera, so they finally decided we were okay and let us on the plane. We didn’t get to Minneapolis until about 10pm. Our luggage had beat us by several hours and was waiting there for us. We were relieved to be reunited.

Saint Andrews by the Sea (from where we went whale watching)

The lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia

July 2, 2018

From Halifax to Anne of Green Gables

After delays in our flights from Minneapolis to Chicago and from Chicago to Halifax, we finally arrived in Halifax in the middle of a thunderstorm in September of 2007. We changed our wet clothing (the rain was coming down so hard that we got soaked just getting in and out of taxis from the airport to the hotel) and went to dinner in the hotel before getting ready for the next day.

We started with a city tour of Halifax. Originally home to the Mi’kmaq, Halifax was settled by the British in 1749. The tour included the Halifax Public Gardens, which were laid out in the Victorian era, Fairview Cemetery, and The Citadel.

The cemetery contains the over 100 Titanic victims whose bodies were recovered from the Atlantic, but not taken elsewhere by family members. Roughly one third of these were never identified. One of the graves belongs to the “unknown child” who was finally identified in 2002.

The Citadel was originally built in 1749. The current version of the fortress was completed in 1856. While there, we saw a demonstration of musket shooting and another of canon firing. Nova Scotia is Latin for “New Scotland” and the uniforms at the Citadel include a kilt.

With a free afternoon, we had lunch at a café in the harbor of Halifax and then visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. This museum had three exhibits in particular that we wanted to see – the Titanic exhibit, the exhibit of the Halifax Explosion of 1917, and a special pirate exhibit.

The Titanic exhibit focuses on the role of Halifax in the recovery of the bodies and has the largest collection of wooden artifacts from the ship, including one of the deck chairs. The exhibit also includes a pair of children’s shoes that helped in the identification of the unknown child.

The Halifax Explosion of 1917 happened when two ships, one loaded with explosives, collided in the Narrows. The Explosion was so enormous that it leveled portions of the city, killing roughly 2,000 people and injuring roughly 9,000. This happened in December, so the weather was also a factor. Hundreds of people were blinded when the explosion took place. They had been watching the fire on the ship from inside their homes, businesses, etcetera. Many of the stories were really heart-wrenching, including one of a railroad dispatcher who stayed behind to warn incoming trains to stay away from Halifax and signed off with, “Guess this will be my last message. Goodbye, boys.”

The next day we set off for Cape Breton where we visited the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, which included exhibits on airplanes and the hydrofoil, in addition to the telephone. He had an entire peninsula on the Bras d’Or Lake opposite Baddeck that his descendants still own. We spent that night and the next at the Inverary Resort in Baddeck. The Bras d’Or Lake is essentially an inland sea with a mixture of salt and fresh water.

Mom was feeling a little under the weather when we arrived and our room was upstairs in the building we were in, with no elevator. So I left her sitting in a comfy armchair on the ground floor and took the luggage up the stairs and put it in the room. Then I came back downstairs and sat and talked with her until she felt better. It seemed to be just a passing feeling of being winded and didn’t happen again during the trip.

The next day we took the Cabot Trail through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, stopping for lunch at Cheticamp, an Acadian fishing village, where we had wonderful homemade food. The Acadians are the descendants of French colonists who settled in the area in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, some of who are also descendants of the indigenous people of the region. During the French & Indian War, many of the Acadians were expelled by the British who thought they might be in cahoots with the French. Some of the Acadians who were sent to France, were recruited by the Spanish to settle in what is now Louisiana. These people became the Cajuns.

That evening we took a boat ride on the lake and became acquainted with one of our fellow travelers, Colin from the UK, with whom I am still friends. He captured a great photo of a bald eagle and shared it with us. It was a beautiful night, not cold or rainy, and a lovely boat ride.

Our last stop in Nova Scotia was Pictou, which was where the first Scottish settlers arrived in 1773 on board a ship called the Hector. So Pictou is essentially the Nova Scotia version of Plymouth, Massachusetts. They have a replica of the Hector that can be explored. I really liked Pictou. It is a fairly small town (roughly 3,000) clinging to the side of a rather steep hill sloping down to the harbor.

Interestingly enough, an ancestor of mine, Captain Nathaniel Reynolds (a 6^th great grandfather), was a privateer for the colonies during the American Revolution who helped capture a British ship at Pictou. For that, the British labeled him a pirate and put a reward of £100 up for his capture. The daughter of his from whom I am descended, was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia.

After exploring the ship and having lunch, we boarded a ferry to Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. We explored the town during the afternoon, visiting St Dunstan Church and Provence House (which was where Canada was confederated into a country in 1864). That night we went to the Center for the Arts to see a production of a play based on “Anne of Green Gables”.

The next day we set off for North Rustico on the island, followed by a visit to the Prince Edward Island National Park. Our local guide on this part of the trip had a fun sense of humor. She said, “There isn’t a single mosquito on PEI.” After a pause she added, “They are all married with large families.” I thought that would work well for Minnesota too (where the mosquito is the unofficial state bird), so I wrote it down in my trip journal to remember it. To tell you how swift I am at remembering a joke, this is the first time I’ve used it.

Being a fan of “Anne of Green Gables”, I was excited when we got to Cavendish. There we visited the farm that was owned by a cousin of Lucy Maude Montgomery’s (the series author) grandparents. This was the setting for the books and is now open for tourists. The area in the vicinity of the house and town was also portrayed in the books, so we took a good walk to take it all in. Not only do I enjoy historic locations, but I also love to see where some of my favorite novels were based when the fictional story was in a real setting.

The next morning we took the Confederation Bridge from Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick.