Our last day in Krakow.  We made it home safe and sound.  Now the challenge of getting back into the groove of the grind. ;-)

 

Entrance to Auschwitz II/Birkenau.

 Tracks that led through the camp to the gas chambers.

 One of the housing units.  They were modeled after a horse barn.  Each pallet slept roughly 8 people.  When I entered this building, I experienced a very dark and oppressive feeling.

 Names and dates were etched into the walls and on some wooden posts.

Bombed out remains of the gas chambers.  Hitler had the chambers bombed to try to hide what they had been doing.

Entrance to Auschwitz.  The gate says Arbeit Macht Frei, work sets you free.

We're in Krakow!  Our accomodations are superb...the "management" took our hints to heart and gave us five star treatment...thanks Mike and Sunny!

Poland is known for its vodka, especially the Bison Grass variety (illegal in the US).  Apparently it contains warfarin, a drug under the trade name Coumadin, the most widely prescribed oral anticoagulant drug in North America. Gotta love our prescrition drug lobbyists.

Paula, Sunny and Jay at dinner (with our vodka drinks).

Jay and Mike at dinner.

Inside a Polish nightclub in Krakow.  Can you feel the communism?

We went on a bicycle tour of Krakow.  Mike had the coolest bike...full suspension.

The original entrance to Krakow when the city was surrounded by a two mile-long brick wall with 39 towers and 8 gates.  Their construction began in the late 13th century.  The city walls were as high as 30 feet tall and nearly 8 feet thick.  Alongside the city walls additional lower walls ran as well as a 24 feet deep, 66 feet wide moat.

The gate to Oskar Schindler's factory.  Scenes from the movie Schindler's List were filmed in front of this gate, but not inside the factory.

The only remaining part of the wall to the Jewish Ghetto.

 

We stopped for lunch...french bread pizzas.  They were really cheap...probably about $3 each.

How cute are they?  It was really warm on our bike tour and for some reason, the tour guide kept stopping in direct sun. 

This was a memorial for all of the missing Jews from WWII.  There are 65 chairs signifying the 65,000 missing Jews.  Also, in the background, you can see the reconstructed Nazi security gate.

Jay and Paula on the bike tour.

On the bike tour.

Mike and Sunny with Wawel Castle in the background.

This is a pedestrian and bicycle only bridge over the Vistula River.  Brides and grooms on their wedding day go to this bridge and put a lock onto the bridge with their names or initials on the lock and throw the key into the river.  There were also some areas on the bridge where you could see where locks had been removed.

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with fish tacos, quesadillas and sangria...¡muy delicioso!

We went on a Danube river boat cruise.  This is the Chain Bridge at dusk.

Elizabeth Bridge with Inner City Church behind it.

The Hungarian Parliament.

 Buda Castle

Going under the Chain Bridge.

Fisherman's Bastion.

Out to dinner at Tom George Italiano Etterem.  We had some delicious Cabernet Franc (made in Hungary) and a spicy salami and ham pizza.  Very, very good!  The ambiance was great too...check out their webpage.

http://www.tomgeorge.hu/

Arrival in Budapest.  Very hot...not such a great idea to have jeans on.  We had a 3 km walk from the train station to the hotel.  It was roughly 88 degrees.

Hungarian Parliament Building.  Sure beats the Legislative Building in Olympia.

We crossed the Chain Bridge from Buda into Pest.  The Danube was about the color of the Willamette (kind of like watered down chocolate milk).

Another classy, delicious gift waiting for us in our room from Starwood.  Sunny, I hope you're taking notes. :-)

View from our room.  We had balconies around two sides of the room.  Unfortunately, you'd have to be about four inches wide to get out the door to go onto them.  The hotel also advised us to keep the windows and doors closed to due a high bug population.  I call B.S. though...when walking around, we rarely saw any bugs.

The House of Terror is a museum with fascist and communist exhibits as well as a memorial to the victims of those regimes.  The building itself was the headquarters of these regimes with the prison cellar in the basement.  There were former cells for different purposes.  A "wet cell" where prisoners were forced to sit in water, a "foxhole cell" to force sitting in a crouched position, a "standing cell" forcing the prisoner to stand 24 hours a day and standard cells with wooden "beds" and concrete walls.  They also had interviews playing from former prisoners that were in the gulag and work camps. It was interesting, but depressing. 

View across the Danube to Castle Hill.

This is the first McDonalds behind the Iron Curtain.  It was very busy today, but apparently when it first opened the line would go around the block. 

The building on the right has been converted to a hotel, the one on the left has not and is still soot-caked. 

We stopped at Central Kavehaz for a cappucino and a snack.  This was called Dobos and was very good..layers of chocolate and cake topped with a thick layer of caramel similar to the top of creme brulee.

The Great Market Hall.  Kind of like Pike Place Market, but with sausage and paprika instead of fish and flowers.

Sunset at the infinity pool in Split/Podstrana.  Because it was a beach/resort, there were waaaaayyyy too many kids around.  We did go into the spa and sat in the whirlpool and steam room (where kids aren't allowed).  Summer, it was a lot like Banya, but more generic.  They also had these really cool tiled lounge chairs that were heated.

Jay on the trail at Plitvice Lakes. 

The water was very clear so you could always see fish along the shoreline.  They don't allow any motorized boats in the lakes so hopefully they'll stay that way.

View from above.  We hiked up to the most elevated lake.  They all feed into one another through a series of slaps (waterfalls).

While the lakes were very beautiful, I do feel that they were a little overrated.  I think we're just spoiled with all of the alpine lakes we've hiked to.  The color of the water was very close to Colchuck Lake in the Enchantments, but not quite as grandiose.

Nighttime in Zagreb.  When we first arrived here at the bus station a few days ago, we weren't too impressed with the city.  After exploring on foot, we changed our opinion.  There are so many beautiful buildings and outdoor bars and restaurants.  The problem is, is that graffiti artists (and I use artists lightly) have tagged nearly every building.  Only the museums and hotels seem to remove any of it.

A little anarchist tagging.