Days 65-67, August 15-17, Montenegro

Friday, August 15 - Into Montenegro

For the Montenegro Photo Album, Click HERE

Our plane left Prague at 1:30 pm and we touched down in Dubrovnik, Croatia and were in our rental car headed to the Croatia - Montenegro border by 4:00.  We are now out of the Schengen zone after 33 days.Our plan is to see Dubrovnik after our cirlce tour through Montengro, Boznia Hersgovina, and northern Croatia.  We didn't take into account that even though the distance beyond the border to our night's accommodation was short, it seemed everyone from Croatia was headed in the same direction for the weekend, and the border traffic was bumper to bumper and moving very slowly. I don't think the border oficials were very efficient.  There seemed to be some consternation over our rental car papers as the registration stamp was in the wrong place.  We alone held up traffic by 15 minutes as the the three people in the control room chatted back and forth scratching their heads looking annoyed.  Finally, they passed us through.

After being in the Schengen zone where there is no border control between countries, this was a real throwback, but we were happy to get some souvenier stamps in our passports.  The climate here was Mediterranean humid, with growing cloudiness over the mountains.  In fact while we were getting our rental car in Croatia, I photographed the formation of a funnel cloud and it was a bit scary as it was not far away, but for whatever reason it never touched down and was sucked up into the inky grey clouds as the storm passed by us.

We drove around a beautiful fjord on our way to Budva, where towering granite mountains dipped into the colbalt blue sea.  Wish we could have sailed our own boat here.  It looks quite protected now, but don't know if the water becomes more treacherous when winds funnel down from the mountain tops.  The subterranean surface is rocky so not sure how ground tackle would hold.  Nevertheless, it looks like a beautiful place to sail.

We arrived at our destination after 7:00, met our friendly host Dragan, ate at a nearby restaurant enjouing local food (lamb roast and grilled chicken with Serbian salads).  The temperature was warm all evening and we slept on top of the sheets, just as we did on our boat while in the tropics.  

Saturday, August 16

The following morning we marveled at the mountainous roads as we headed first south along the coast then up and over the granite passes.  The scenery lookind down on the villages sea, Lake Skadar, mounain farms, monestaries and churches hanging from the cliffs, were spectacular.

Our major stop of the day was at the Ostrag Monestary, the third most visited holy healing place for Catholic pilgrims.  The monestary is carved into a cliffside.  A road goes to the top, but the devout climb the stairs from the cliff bottom up.  The very devout climb the rocky stairs barefoot, and the most devout on their knees.  We noted a few barefoot people amongst the many stair climbers, and no one on their knees.  We were amongst the many cars driving up the hill to the last parking lot.  There was a gate with an English speaking guard that lead to the road and parking lot all the the way to the top.  When we toped to inquire, he said only infants and infirmed could go past the gate.  He would make an exception for us if we would be a good friend to him.  We were tempted but had used all of our Euros for lunch, so we parked in the parking lot for the not so devout and non-believers with and with one less good friend.

The monestary is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.  People were climbing to the top with empty containers to fill with holy water, and were camped out on the deck in front of the monastary hoping and praying for miracles to cure themselves or their loved ones.  A lot of improvements and construction was going on with 3 new holy water fountains.  Loud speakers in the deck court yard filled the air with chanting.  The holy retail store was doing a brisk business taking believers money for all of the holy goods they were selling....wine, olive oil, gilded photos and icons of various saints, but particularly of Saint Basil, whose remains are at this site.  

At many of the rental car places we have been in, there have been a little happy and unhappy face electronic surveys of "How was our service?".  Customers either push the happy face or unhappy face button.  Wonder what statistics the Catholic church gathers on the effectiveness of holy water and pilgrimages as a cure.  Would be very interested in knowing, but then if they knew, it might put a real damper on the miracle business.

After our day's drive through the granitee mountains, we arrived at a beautiful mountain lake, a reservoir constructed in the 1970's.  Our guest house had a nice view of the lake Pivsko, and we immediately, put on our swim suits and walked five minutes to the rocky shore.  The lake temp was about 74 and felt pretty brisk as the air temperature at 2400 feet was not as warm as when we were close to the sea.  Even though we were in in sunlight peaking out from passing clouds, dark ominous clouds were gathering on the mountain tops.

We ate our dinner at the guest house Zvono where we are staying.  Most interesting was our evening cocktail.  It was made with homemade honey mead wine, golden on the bottom with a red wine floating on top.  It was very picturesque ( but did not have my camera) and it was  a very tastey wine cooler.

Day 67 - We are about ready to leave Zvono Guesthouse and Restaurant and look forward to some more gorgeous scenery on our way to Saravejo.

All is Well with the Worrall Travel R's in Montenegro

Days 62-64, August 12-14 - Prague, Czech 2014

For photo album of 2014 Prague, Click HERE

We had read about and been told about the beauty of Prague, and it truly is a beautiful old European city, seemingly unscathed by the physical destruction of World War II. However, during Soviet times, we understand that this gem of a city tarnished and greyed as communism ate into its soul. There is a provocative memorial here to the human lives torn apart by totalitarianism.

Today, the city is colorful, vibrant and a tribute to human spirit and artistry.. Mid August the streets are filled with tourists from all around the world, and not because this is simply a disembarkation off a cruise ship (there are no cruise ships to the middle of the Czech Republic), but a mindful, planned destination of a major capitol city.

This is the old Bohemia with the spires of cathedrals, domes of churches, a magnificent gothic cathedral that took a thousand years of building, cobbled streets, red tiled roofs, palaces, and the largest castle complex in Europe, libraries, and bridges that span the Vltava (Weltawa) River. Commercial shops are filled with souvenirs, food, marionettes, amber and garnet jewelry, Bohemian cut glass and crystal, antique furniture, and interesting liquors including cannabis vodka.

At every turn there is interesting architecture of centuries passed, garden and street cafes, ice cream vendors, street musicians, and boxes of flowers hanging from windows. Churches throughout the city are the acoustic venues for classical organ concerts. The outdoor Senate stage provides numerous cultural shows throughout the summer.

We are on our way out of the city today to see the Karlstejn Castle built in early 1300's to house
royal treasures, holy relics,and Crown Jewels of Charles the IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roma Emperor.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's in Prague, flying to Dubrovnik, Croatia tomorrow.

Days 59-60-61, August 9, 10, 11, Wroclaw

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

Today is August 11, and we will be leaving later in the day by bus to the Czech Republic.  Currently we are staying in lovely new home still in the finishing stages of construction being built by our SERVAS host Greg.  Greg is a dentist in Poland and has had yesterday and today off to be of assistance to us.  Yesterday, Greg and another SERVAS day host Anna, took us out of town about 40 Kilometers  to  visit an old wooden church Kosciol Pokoju built in the 1600's in Swidnicia.  This church is so unusual it is on the World Heritage List.  Indeed it is very unusual because of its size in wood, artistry, and original construction.

Afterward we drove into the nearby hills to a lakeside beer house where we enjoyed ale and sunset over the lake, returning in the light of the rising moon back to Wroclaw for dinner and an evening walk through the city.  It was a warm Sunday night and a perfect evening end to our stay in Poland.

Prior to our one night stay with Greg, we stayed two nights with another SERVAS host Leslaw who is a German-Polish Interpreter and building construction import-buyer for a company in Wroclaw.  While Leslaw was earning his degree in language, he worked as a tour guide in Wroclaw for German tourists.  We were certainly in good hands as he took us to the most interesting sites in the city on August 9, and a wonderful Polish Restaurant for our 45th Wedding Anniversary dinner.

With all of our SERVAS hosts, we have had a most enjoyable stay in Poland, getting to know some lovely people and seeing the country and culture through the eyes and hearts of the people.  Thank you SERVAS!

All is Well with the Worrall Travel R's

Days 56-58, August 7-8, 2014 Opole, Poland

Day 56, August 7 

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

While we were viising Auschwitz, we stayed in an AirBnb outside of Katowice.  Our host was an lovely young woman who lived in an flat above her grandparents home.  Magda has recently returned from studies and work abroad (England and South America) in theater and making movies for the last ten years, to her native Poland where she is now involved in some projects that she hopes will create a livelyjood closer to home.

We had a wonderful relaxing evening and breakfast with Magda and her family before leaving for a SERVAS home visit just outside of Opole.  Unlike most of our destinations, we had no sightseeing agenda.  Our agenda was simply to stay and meet a family.  Our SERVAS family included a mom, dad, and two sons ages 11 and 13.  Lucilla is an accomplished artist and teaches English through art, Pawel is a sales representative for road-line making equipment.  Because both of our hosts work during the week, their children served as our guides an daytime hosts.  They did a great job.  

Russ and I introduced the boys to geocaching as a way to see the area.  We started our tour of the area late morning, and made one short stop to visit Lucilla in her art workshop in Opole.  Our geo map indicated 80 caches in the immediate and surrounding area of Opole.  The boys were so excited about geocaching that after the first one was discovered, they were eager to find more.  So our entire day became a geocaching marathon... 10 in all and we hiked several miles throughout the city to find them.  What fun we all had!  It is certainly the most geocaches we have found in one day.  We also ate Polish pancakes for lunch, ate cookies, and ice cream.

In the early evening, Lucilla joined us at the Philharmonic Music School for a chamber piano concert by graduate students.  It was a short 1 hour program filled with gifted young people perforrming Bach, Berkowitz, and Chopin.  Afterwards we took a night walk through Opole, "Eastern European Venice", and the park and an outdoor cafe which the boys and we had visited earlier in the day for some refreshments.  Lucilla had contacted another SERVAS host to join us.  Anna had invited us to stay with here after we already had our arrangements made with Lucilla and her family, but we wanted to the opportunity to say hello and Lucilla made the arrangements to meet her and nine month old baby Mija.  

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but still had some quiet time with Lucilla and Pawel for a glass of wine and music, while the boys practically crawled up the stairs to go to bed.  I think we wore them out.

Day 57. August 8, 2014

We enjoyed a liesurely morning with garden breakfast with the whole family.  This visit was much too short, and we hated to leave, but now have some scheduled commitments for the next week, so we needed to be on our way.  With fond memories and promises to keep in touch, we are now on the road to Wroclaw, where we will spend three more nights with 2 more SERVAS families before leaving for Czech Republic by bus on Monday.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in Poland

Day 55 - Auschwitz Evil

Gas chamber
For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

Auschwitz is not something one really wants to see, but it something one needs to see in order to remind ourselves of how we must work to educate and cultivate the best characteristics of human kind (empathy, understanding, generosity, tolerance, respect, dignity...) and suppress those negative characteritics we possess (fanaticism, violence, hate, greed, prejudice, revenge, deceit...), so that evil of this magnitude can be prevented or deterred from happening again.

Five thousand people a day were being murdered in Auschwitz in the gas chambers and then incinerated. Heinous and sickening.

It is beyond our comprehension how Hitler could infect his sociopathy on a nation and create the evil empire of hate and murder that he did.

Worrall Travel R's are saddened today in Poland

Day 54, August 4, 2014 - Wieliczka Salt Mine

First a correction to Day 52 - Left out and important zero.  There were approximately 300,000-400,000 densly packed Jews in 3.3 square kilometers.  Not 30,000.  250-300,000 were killed.  

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

It is late in the afternoon on August 4.  Russ and I are sitting in a little bar/cafe in the old Jewish sector of Krakow.  The afternoon storm is right overhead, so we are taking a time out for some coffee and apple pie with ice cream as we catch up on email, trip planning, and blogging.

We took a tour of the salt mine this morning.  The tour was wonderful and the mine caverns with history, sculptures, cathedral, chapels, lakes, cinema, multi media, and underground markets are amazingly big and beautiful.  No longer an operating mine, the mine still employs three hundred miners to convert sections into tourist attractions.  Sorry, since I can only post one photo when I email in my blogs, I will post some photos of the mine and old town Krakow at a later date.  Check the actual blog for the photos.

Tomorrow is another sober day, as we will be going to Auschwitz, and Katowice, Poland.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's still waiting for the rain to subside in Krakow

Day 53, Travel to Krakow, August 3, 2014

  

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

We awoke on Sunday morning, August 3, to a beautiful day.  After packing, and sharing breakfast with Hanna and Jacek, we bid them a heartfelt farewell and thank you for their hospitality.  We enjoyed our stay with them in the rural suburbs and the rebuilt old town of Warsaw.  In the photo above, all the buildings in the town square have been painstakingly rebuilt after the War to resemble that which one stood.

The ride through the countryside was filled with rolling hills, forests, and harvesting of grasses and grains. By the time we reached Krakow late in the afternoon, the sky darkened with heavy rain clouds.  We stopped at a grocery and made it to our AirBnB before the thunder, lightning, and rain became a torrent.  In a few hours the afternoon storm had passed.  

We went down to the kitchen and fixed ourselves some ham and cheese sandwiches with fresh tomatoes for dinner.  Tomorrow we are off to the World Heritage designated salt mines just out of Krakow in Wiekiczyka.

All is Well with the Worrall Travel R's

Day 52, August 2, 2014 - Jewish Ghettos of Warsaw

It has been a couple of sobering days here in Warsaw.

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

In 1943, the Jewish Resistance rose up against the German occupation of Poland. The Germans required the Polish Jews to wall themselves off with a two meter high brick wall In 1940. Jews from other parts were brought into the walled ghetto which served as a concentration camp until the Jews were shipped off to gas chambers, There were approximately 300,000-400,000 densly packed Jews in 3.3 square kilometers.   Food was scarce and the people were hungry and dying from typhoid.

It is my understanding, that the uprising resulted in a self-induced suicide as the resistance had little to fight with but figured they had nothing to lose and they could at least die with dignity (250-300,000) met their deaths, here. Today in Warsaw, there are few remnants and artifacts of the Jewish ghettoes. We could hve wondered through the streets not even knowing that we were once in the walled off sector.

Fortunately, we had made contact with a SERVAS day host, Ewa, retired economist and public servant. She guided us through the ghettos, showing us places where monuments, markers, and new buildings now stood where the ghettos used to exist. Ewa, is not Jewish, but had considerable historical knowledge. She also shared her own family's personal Polish tragedy during the German Nazi regime, where her father was a POW at the end of the war and escaped to ultimately be reunited with his wife, His wife Ewa's mother as a young wife was basically thrown by the Nazis into the streets with a three month old baby when here husband was taken as a POW.

She wandered looking for food and shelter to no avail. The baby, died. Eva's mother relates stories of how the civilian Poles were massacred and buildings set on fire by the Nazis. Women and children jumped from the burning buildings to their deaths. Apartment buildings on contoured hills in the old ghetto area have been built on the ashes 0f the original buildings. It is too poignant reminder of the death and destruction that war brings. All very tragic.

After our walking tour of Warsaw, we took the metro back to our home stay SERVAS hostsHanna and Jacek. We stopped at a nearby store and picked up enough ice cream to share with them and their extended family. We sat in the backyard on a warm summer evening enjoying our last evening together. Tomorrow we leave for Krakow.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's

Day 51 -August 1, 2014, Remembrance Day 1944, Warsaw

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 when the Polish Resistance Home Army of Warsaw tried to rise up against the German occupation and were brutally cut down. Timed to coincide with and urged on by the advancing Russians on the opposite side of the river, the Poles were led to believe that the Russians would assist them with the battle. Stalin however decided to hold off and let the Germans do the dirty work by not giving any assistance. The battle raged for 61 days and 150-200,000 Poles, mostly unarmed citizens were torn from their homes, executed in mass, and buildings burned. By January 1945, 85% of the city had been destroyed. '

This 1944 uprising came a year after the Jewish resistance of 1943 against the Germans. Since 1940, the Jewish Sector of the city known as the Ghetto had been walled off to contain and control the Jews. Eventually over 30,000 Warsaw Jews were loaded into cattle cars to die in extermination camps.

Early in the day we visited the Chopin Museum, then later strolled through the old city of
Warsaw. Girl and Boy Scouts were uniformed from all over Poland handing out information about the 5:00 pm commemoration. We made our way to the central square. Church bells began to chime along with loud sirens. Flares were burned and smoke hovered over the silent citizens who had come to remember this horrible day and for the people who had lost their lives.
It was quite moving and absolutely unfathomable how we as humans treat one another. Unfortunately, we seemed destined to keep hating and destroying those who are different from the "in" group.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's, happy to be here today and empathizing with Poles for their tragic losses

Days 50, Warsaw, Poland

Day 50, July 31, 2014

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

It was poring rain as we left Riga, Latvia.  As we climbed into the sky, lightening flashed around us and the ride was bumpy, but fairly short, only a couple of hours.  We arrived in Warsaw around 3:00.  By the time we picked up our rental car, bought a few groceries (wine, cheese,and grapes to share with our hosts) and drove out of the city towards our SERVAS host destination about 26 kilometers southeast of the airport, it was just after five.  When we arrived at our address, there was a green iron gate closing the driveway separating the street from a long wooded driveway, with no house in sight.

There were some Polish words on the gate which we did not understand and could not translate without a WiFi connection, nor could we call as we did not have a phone.  I thought the words could have been a beware of dog sign.  As we knew our hosts were expecting us about this time, Russ honked the car horn a couple of times,  Two large dogs rounded the corner from the end of the driveway and bounded toward the gate barking.  Well we got the dogs' attention.  We waited for awhile hoping the barking dogs would bring forth some people, but it didn't.

Even though the dogs were barking, they weren't snarling and even though they were big, one a golden lab and the other a strawberry blond shaggy sheep dog that resembled a Starwars Wookie, they looked benign.  Russ examined the gate and discovered it was not electric and with a little effort it could be slid open.  Despite my vocal reluctance to move inside the gate, Russ slid it open far enough to insert himself, and I stayed in the car outside the gate in case the dogs decided to eat him.  The dogs continued to bark, but followed after him as he turned right onto a pathway and disappeared a short distance from the gate.

Soon from the far end of the drive a man and woman started to walk towards the gate and car.  Russ intersected them at the path, and I could see that introductions were being made.
Later I found out there was a small cottage on the pathway from which Jaycek's contracting business operates.  The staff contacted the house.  The other thing I found out was the sign on the gate did not say Beware of Dogs, it said Open the sliding gate....hahaha!

Anyway, we made it inside the compound and met our lovely hosts, Jacek, engineer/contactor and Hanna, retired psychologist, also post war baby boomers who grew up in the flattened war-torn Warsaw during the Soviet times.  They had much to share with us and we were eager to learn about their lives.  Today they live in a rural area with property that is large enough for three homes including one in which their daughter, husband, and three grandchildren live.

 Hanna immediately made sure we had something to eat.  We arrived between their dinner (around) three and their (supper) between 7:00 and 8:00.  She had prepared some wonderful cold salmon with dill and eggplant, tomato salad and hot cauliflower with creamy herb sauce.  It was delicious and much appreciated.  After dinner, we continued our  conversations seeing some of the local sites (rivers, parks, saltaire park where people enjoy the humid salt mist sprayed on pine boughs).

Our bedroom turned out to be a spacious attic apartment above the cottage that Russ first found when we arrived.  We had everything we needed and it was a very pleasant retreat.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's in Warsaw, Poland