May 25-May 28, 2007
We left Friday night for Krakow, Poland. Heather picked me up from work with the car packed and what was supposed to be a 5 1/2 hour drive turned out to be much quicker. There are no highways from Budapest to Krkaow, so we expected to be behind a number of trucks on the two lane roads. Fortunately for my skillful driving, we were able to avoid most of that, and pass those that did get in our way. We made it to just outside of Krakow in a little over four hours. We found a hotel on the side of the road where we spent the night. I had to call a Polish collegue from work to translate the room rates and order us some food, but other than that it was pretty easy this first night, particularly versus expectations.We woke up early, ate breakfast and drove the last few minutes into Krakow. We quickly found the castle complex (Wawel Hill) where the royal palace and cathedral sit above the city and overlooking the Vistula river. This was the Polish royal residence for 500 years until the capital was moved to Warsaw. The nazis overtook it and used it for their local headquarters during World War II. We toured the grounds, including the 14th Century Cathedral, which was home to Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, better known to the world as Pope John Paul II. I walked Katie up to the top of the bell tower (Sigismund Tower), which houses 4 large bells, including the largest in the country.
From the castle complex we made the short walk to the old town square, Europe's largest medievel market square (Rynek Glowny). In the middle of the square is a large indoor marketplace with stalls selling a variety of crafts, most of which seemed to relate to the Pope. On another end of the market square is St. Mary's, a 13th century Gothic church. Every hour at the top of the bell tower of this church is a re-enactment of the bell tower's trumpeteer who plays a broken-off solo, re-enacting the demise of the 13th century trumpeteer who was shot in the throat with an arrow mid-solo while warning the town of a Tatar invasion.
We walked back to the car and decided to drive over to the Jewish quarter where Oskar
Schindler's factory used to be located. Unofrtunately, after driving around for a while, we gave up trying to locate it and headed to Oświęcim, a town about 45 minutes West of 
Krakow, better known by the German name, Auschwitz. We were planning on taking separate tours, first Heather, then me, while one of us waited in the car with the girls. Fortunately for us Ashley fell asleep just a few minutes before we arrived at the concentration camp and we were able to make the tour together while Ashley continued to nap in the stroller. We had an 
interesting walk around the camp. One of us would go inside a building (no strollers allowed inside) and view the exhibits while the other waited outside with Ashley and Katie. Depending on the exhibit we would allow Katie to go in a few of the buildings, where the visuals were not as disturbing. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the buildings either, but reality is one wouldn't really want to anyway. It's unfathomable to think about what went on there 60 years ago.From Auschwitz we started out driving towards Boleslawiek, Poland, a small city in western Poland that manufactures polish pottery. Heather was smart enough to think that perhaps the factories would not be open on Saturday evening or Sunday, for that matter, so we had to quickly come up with something to do for a day, until they opened back up on Monday morning. Looking at the map we realized that
we were "just" 2 
hours from Berlin, so we decided to head up there, spend the night, and then spend Sunday in Berlin before driving to Boleslawiek. We made it very quickly to Berlin, drove all around the city looking for a place to stay (with the holiday weekend and the German cup finals this was not an easy task). We finally called Starwood and made a reservation at the Westin Grand Berlin, which was actually perfect 
because it resides right downtown just minutes walk from the Brandenburg Gate and the Museum mile. We began the night with all four of us in a queen size bed but once the girls were asleep we laid the hotel bathrobes on the 
floor for the girls to sleep on (the hotel had nothing extra and we didn't ask) with their own blankies. Katie lasted that way for the night, Ashley only a few hours. We woke up and I went out and found a bakery for some breakfast that I brought back to 
the hotel. We got ready for church and went to Sacrament Meeting at the Berlin Tiergarten Ward. After church we walked downtown "past" the museums and made our way to the Brandenburg Gate. We passed a number of street perfomers, including a couple of old school US and Soviet guards. I purchased an "original" East/West Berlin visa for 1 Euro, allowing entry into East Berlin. Katie and Ashley got visa 
stamps on their hands allowing entry and also got a picture of the 
"silver man" pulling her braids (these silver men pop up all around town squares all over Europe, quite amusing actually). The roads were completely blocked off of all traffic, so it was fun to walk around and witness some of the recent history of this city. We visited some of the remnants of the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie. Again, very crazy to think what went on not so many years ago.From Berlin we drove to Potsdam, where we visited San Souci, King Friedrich II's royal palace, meaning "without care". We were not able to go in (tours were sold out for the day) but we walked the grounds for a while, again with
Ashley asleep in the stroller, so very peacefully. Supposedly this was ment to rival Versailles, and although very ornate, neither the palace nor the grounds come close. Evenstill, it was nice to see. Funny how Versailles is the benchmark for comparison of all castles and castle grounds. The other interesting aspect of Potsdam and San Souci is that this is where the Potsdam conference was held, where in 1945 Churchill (replaced by Clement Atlee mid-conference), Truman, and Stalin divided up Germany after the war (even though most had already been agreed upon earlier that year at Yalta). Makes one wonder how different history would be pending an alternative outcome of this division.
We drove back to Boleslawiek Sunday night, spent the night in a local hotel (where Katie and Ashley watched a movie on the ipod), and spent the next morning shopping for Polish pottery. Heather was in heaven for a few hours, while Katie, Ashley, and I just hung out mostly in the car and drove Heather from store to store. She came home with a number of different items from baking dishes to soap holders. Right as we were leaving the city to make the eight hour drive home our ipod dock burned out the fuse, leaving us alone to entertain the girls (not easy). Suprisingly, the girls were wonderful even without the ipod, and except for Katie having to stop every 30 minutes to go to the bathroom, it was a relatively uneventful and easy drive back to Budapest.
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