Brief Trip Report - Central Europe and Northern Italy

How did you get from Split to Hvar that it was troublesome?

How many nights total from Rome up and over and back in to Florence?

thanks for sharing

We took the ferry. It wasn't any trouble, I just didn't think there was anything special about Hvar.
We landed in Rome, spent two nights there, and one night on our return, 6 weeks later.

You had quite a trip. Eight countries and over 20 cities. Wow.

"Auschwitz/Birkenau: Not what I was expecting"

What were you expecting?

I would love to go to some of the places that you described and go back to some others.

Interesting report and glad that you wrote it.

I echo Phil's post and would also be interested in hearing more about your experience visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Mistakes made

1. Buying a 40 zloty bottle of Head & Shoulders shampoo in Krakow. Double or more the cost of what it's at home
2. Buying what we thought was popcorn chicken at a KFC in Prague only to use the bathrooms. Chicken cost 190 korunas, had 6 pieces and we still had to pay for the bathrooms
3. Buying a plain black tea at Starbucks in Prague for $150 korunas
4. Buying a 10 pack carnet ticket in Milan for transit, only to find it came on one ticket, meant for one person only. We only needed 4 rides each. Really wish I had checked that one before.
5. Not really my mistake, but one of my trains disappeared from the schedule in Italy and I only stumbled on it by accident 2 days before travelling. Ended up buying new ones that sold out an hour after purchase.

Warren

Auschwitz/Birkenau: Not what I was expecting"

I had visited Dachau a number of years ago, and was emotionally tired afterwards. There were numerous pictures showing the atrocities, coupled with the buildings housing showers/ovens. I was taken aback from the vastness of it and I was expecting the same at Auschwitz, but on a larger scale.

I was surprised to see multi level brick buildings at Auschwitz. I didn't know that it used to be an old army barrack and wasn't expecting it. From high school textbooks and media, I had envisioned old wooden structures but that turned out to be Birkenau. I was also expecting to see more pictures of the horrors, but these were limited. The tour consisted of visiting a few rooms in a few buildings, hearing stories but not "seeing" them.

Birkenau was a different story. This was more what I had seen in the books, but it was almost totally destroyed by the Nazi's before liberation, so not much remains there. Paraphrasing our tour guide, the wooden structures have been restored so many times that they are almost considered replica's now. One gas chamber remained, but it was mostly under rubble. The rest is large, with chimneys standing.

I guess I was expecting the camps to be more "horrific" and gut wrenching, but for me, it just wasn't there. Our tour guide said that there are two groups of people, one that would like to see the camps destroyed and turned into a green space, and others want to preserve the history. I wonder if that's why it felt muted to me, a kind of common ground between the two. I wanted to be thrown into life at the camps, understanding the horrors, feeling the pain, reliving the agony, and I never felt that.

Interesting. Thanks for elaborating, Warren. I also went to Dachau many years ago and still get a physical reaction (anxiety?) when thinking about it.

Hi Warren

I think it is sad that Auschwitz/Birkenau was not more like it was back when they were death camps. And I wish there were pictures of the horrors.

I do not remember the exact words but it goes something like "if we do not remember the past, we will be doomed to repeat it in the future"

I fear that this may be part of the Holocaust Denial. If we turn Auschwitz into a beautiful park, then maybe it is one more green space and following generations can truly forget and never know the truth of what happened.

Thanks for the report. It is always interesting to read impressions about both places I have been and places I have yet to visit.