Kandersteg, Oeschinensee, Bonn, Vevey and back to Zurich

Monday 8/6/2018:
A drive from Emmetten to Interlaken, stop for lunch, and to load up on Laderach (best chocolate ever), and we arrived at our lovely hotel in Kandersteg, a bucolic Swiss Alps town in a valley surrounded by mountains.  On our first full day in town, we took the cable car up to Oeschinen Lake, a beautiful Alpine lake surrounded by cliffs and waterfalls.

And lots of cows with bells

We rented a rowboat and did a grand tour of the waterfalls.

Ducks on a log

The next day, another cable car and more magnificent views at Sunbiel ...

Herd of white goats, with full udders, on the top of Sunbiel

The next day, (Thurs 8/9) we headed over to Bonn.  Actually we stayed in Fribourg, which is about 1/2 hr. commuter train from Bonn.  A lot cheaper.. but has its drawbacks.  The first of which most of the restaurants there were closed for summer vacation (from last week of July to last week of August).
The good news is that the heat wave had broken by the time we got down from Kandersteg, so our non-A/C room was just fine.   This hotel tends to be booked by Chinese tour busses, which arrive in the afternoon, and depart in the morning.  The main issue there is their Internet service can't handle the peak load, and it crashes and burns... so I was off-grid for most of the time we stayed there.
So... we schmeid around Bonn for a day, then did a day-trip to Vevey, which is a lovely town on Lake Geneva.  Then next day, we went back to Zurich to

1. resupply the Chocolate (Laderach) 
2. Catch our train back to Munich

Lake Lucerne, and Pilatus mountain

On Friday 8/3 we drove through Lucerne to our hotel in Emmetten, a small town overlooking Lake Lucerne. 

Sunset from our hotel restaurant overlooking Lake Lucerne

The hotel, like most in Switzerland, has no A/C, so our room is sweltering as daytime temps top 90°.  The only ventilation is the balcony door.  No screens.. .so the mosquitos come in.   A less than ideal situation.  There are essentially 2 things to do here :

1. Take a cable car up one of the mountains that overlook the lake
2. Go jump in the lake to cool off

We did some of each.  The high point (literally) of our stay here was the excursion to Mount Pilatus on Saturday.
There are 2 ways (other than hiking) to ascend to the top:

1. Cog Railway up the eastern face.  It's was built in 1890, and is still the steepest cog railway in the world, with a peak gradient of 48°.  It still uses the original track, although the cars were upgraded in the 1930's when the line was electrified.   This is how we went up and down.
2. A cable car from near Lucern ascends the North face.

In the cog railway ascending to the top of Pilatus

The views from the top of the mountain are nothing less than spectacular.  There are lots of hiking trails and even playgrounds for children.  We did what we do best... walked around and then had an excellent lunch at Hotel Pilatus-Kulm. 

Cog railway base station

It was nice and cool up top, with some breeze, but stinking hot at the base... so we found an area along Lake Lucern that we could swim from (with very slippery concrete at the water's edge), and spent the rest of the day there.
On Sunday morning, we took the gondola from Emmetten to Stockhütte.  At first we were going to go up to Niederbauen, where the hang gliders launch from, but the line was too long, so we went for the less youthful option.  The hang gliders land about 300m from our hotel:

After lunch and a short hike around the top of the mountain, we returned to the swimming hole we had found the day before, and spent the rest of the day there.

Zurich - Hot Chocolate and Cool Water

Monday   7/30
The bad news:
Europe has been in the grips of a record-setting heat wave... both in length ( began around 6/25 and is still going as of 8/5), and severity.  Parts of Spain have hit 45°C (113°F).  Here in Switzerland, very few buildings have A/C, since summers are typically mild.  Enter Global Warming... Highs were above 90°F every day since we arrived in Switzerland.  That's the bad news. 

The good news:
Zurich has many public beaches.  Some are free, some have a nominal fee... so most of our days in Zurich were spent swimming in cool water.   Also, there were several Laderach chocolate stores a short walk from our apartment... that's the chocolate part.

This past school year I was the AFS liaison for Alessandra from the Zurich area.  She attended Woodside High in Redwood City,  joined the cheerleaders, and had a fabulous time in the Bay Area.  She arrived back home in late June, and starts school next week... so I invited her to come into town (they live about 20 min away by train) to join us for a beach day at Strandbad Mythenquai on Tuesday.   We spent pretty much the whole day there relaxing, cooling off in the water and talking... then, after all that swimming, we went to old town for a very late lunch / early dinner.

Wed, Aug 1 is Swiss National day and is typically celebrated similarly to July 4 in the US.   We were invited to spend the day with Alessandra's family in Lenzburg.  Lunch was served under a lovely arbor in the back yard covered in grape vines.   Alessandra's extendedfamily was there, including 2 cousins, her aunt, and grandmother. 

Alessandra in the back yard arbor

Alessandra's dad presses the grapes and they make a strong liquor from it, which we, of course, sampled.  Before leaving, Roland, Alessandra's dad gave us some recommendations of what regions in Switzerland to visit... which is largely what we based the rest of our time in Switzerland on.

Aug 1 was also our 25th wedding anniversary.  You could say we did nothing special.. although I would argue that everything we did that day was special.

On Thur we tried Flussbad Au-Höngg, another swimming hole, which is up the  Limmat river, which flows north from Zurichsee.  River.    The park / bathing area is just downstream from a dam.  There's a grassy area with shade trees, changing rooms, showers.  And it's free, and a short trolley ride from downtown.  

Summer in Dubrovnik

On Wed 7/25 we spent most of the day travelling to Dubrovnik.  Apparently Durbrovnik became a wildly popular destination after Game of Thrones became a wildly popular HBO series (we never watched it...) Game of Thrones was filmed on location here.  Now there are Game of Thrones tours, souvenir shops, etc.    After a 4 hour drive that included passage through Bosnia and Herzegovina (that's one country with a compound name) with 2 passport checkpoints, we finally arrived at the Dubrovnik airport to ditch the car and take an Uber back to Old Town Dubrovnik.  No cars are allowed inside the city walls, so we were dropped off outside the Pile gate and walked down to the fountain where our AirBnb hostess met us and walked us about 50m down to the apartment.

Our main outing on Thursday was to the cable car, which takes you up the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik.   A high-priced lunch at the restaurant on the top, and our day was complete enough.

The next day, we took a ferry to Cavtat (promounced "savtat") to have lunch with Jack and Nane, who have a flat overlooking the water there.  There were a lot of huge yachts in the harbor there.  I think this area of Croatia is where the high rollers spend time.  Some of these yachts were so big that they had speedboats on the deck... kind of like an RV towing a smaller car to go around town in.
Jack is quite an accomplished artist, and showed us an apartment full of his creations.

We also paid a visit to the Dubrovnik synagogue.  It's modest, with a small Jewish museum on the lower floor.   Dubrovnik synagogue currently has only 30 members.  See https://www.dubrovnikcity.com/dubrovnik/attractions/synagogue.htm for the history.

Dubrovnik old synagogue

On Saturday, we did the "wall walk" around the top of the Dubrovnik   It was pretty strenuous (lots of steps) and very hot in the morning before a breeze kicked in.

View from the top of the old city wall - ocean side...

Must have dessert

The "Jewish Fountain" .  The first thing you see as you enter the Pile Gate into the Old Town

Sunday was beach day.  We escaped the crowds in Dubrovnik old town and took a bus north to the Lapad area of town.  Most of the beaches up there are associated with hotels.  I chose the Dubrovnik President Hotel, which has a lovely beach.  All beaches here must be accessible to the public.  In return for having a hotel on the beach, the hotel must allow non-guests to use the beach and other facilities for no charge.  They can make money by renting you an umbrella or lounge chair, and selling food / drink, but you are not obligated to buy any of that.  You can come, swim, shower, etc.
The water was cool and clear, and the beach was busy, but no overcrowded like the beaches near the old town.

On Monday, we hit the road again to fly to Zurich.

Krka National Park / Šibenik

7/23 :  Rented car at Zadar airport to drive to Šibenik.  Ostensibly a 1 hour drive, but it took us over
2 hrs including a very interesting stop for lunch in the tiny town of Sopot.

Sopot restaurant "menu" consists of a tour of the "kitchen" which is 3 fire pit rooms for roasting meat

Spongiola resort, our hotel in Šibenik, is on Krapanj island, which I was not aware of when we drove to Šibenik... so Google Maps navigated us to a pier across from the island.  Took a while to locate Eddie, a young guy about my age, who guided us to the resort's parking lot, about 1km away, then drove us back in the big red van to the private ferry to the resort ... about a 5 minute ride across the water.   Our suite was lovely.  2 beds, 2 baths.  Much more than we needed.  Krapanj island is a small island, with not much going on.  A very peaceful place to stay. 
On Tuesday morning we drove to Krka National Park, about 1/2 hr away from where the car was parked.

Skradinski buk waterfall in Krka national park

If we visit Croatia again.. it will be in the off season (probably mid-Sept) and we will devote at least 2 days to explore more of the park.  While the water at the falls was clear and refreshing, there were hoards of people.  Lunch was excellent, fresh grilled trout (caught in the Krka river) at a lovely restaurant below the falls.

Zadar - more crowds, good Italian food

Drove on 7/18 to Zadar.  Our apartment is in the old city, where everyone else is.  1000's of tourists packed into about 1 sq mile.  It's the height of the high season here.

Last night (Thurs) we went down to the Sea Organ, which is a series of pipes which play "music" whose intensity and pitch depend on the wave patterns hitting the wall that which contains the under-ocean chambers that fill up with water, driving the air through the pipes to make sounds like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZj5ID_9TvQ

And, of course, everyone comes to listen to the "music" and watch the sunset.

On Friday, we rented bicycles and biked up to a beach about 5km north of the old city.  Beaches here are generally rocky.  No sand.  The best you can do is pebbles, but where we were was mainly rocks.  It's best to use the rubber shoes that are sold pretty much everywhere as flip flops just slip on the rocks and fall off or fall apart.  The good news is that the water at every beach we've been to in Croatia is crystal clear, and has lots of fish you can see from the docks.  Once you make your way into the water the temperature is perfect and it's a great way to cool off.

Walrus on the rocks

On Saturday, we took an all-day boat tour to Sakura beach which is on Dugi otok (Croatian for "Long Island").   This is a pebble beach with some shade trees and a couple of places to get drinks / food.  The boat ride takes 90 min each way, and then a 10 minute walk up a hill to get to where the bus picks up, then a 10 minute ride across the island to a dirt road to walk down to the beach.  While this is a relatively inexpensive way to get to this remote place, it's not the easiest way.  The rich people go there by speedboat, drop anchor and swim in.

On Sunday, we rented bikes again ( from Dominic... he delivers ) and took a ferry to Preko, a town on Ugljan island, with the ambition to bike down to a pizza place .  Didn't quite make it... turned around after 7km and took next ferry back to Zadar.

Plitvice - Waterfalls and crowds

Plitvice is about a 2.5 hr drive south-south west of Zagreb, on the way to Zadar.  It's a large national park, on the order of Yosemite in scale, but with lots more water.

Lots of little fish everywhere in crystal clear water

We stayed at the Guest House Rustico.  A bucolic setting.  Really clean and quiet!

Zagreb - World Cup Fever

Wed.  7/11
Don't take the train from Budapest to Zagreb.  We arrived at the train station in Budapest at 6:10 AM for our 6:35AM train.  Found out that the train to Zagreb was going to depart from a different station, so we were to take some other train 1 stop to get there.   OK.. We get to that station, and there's no announcement, no instructions, and no conductor who would tell us what track to go to to get to Zagreb.  Then... all of the sudden, people start running (down one set of stairs, then up another... schlepping luggage) to get the train.   Then, we're about 3/4 of the way to Zagreb, and we're told we have to get off the train and wait at this run-down deserted station for another train which would take us the rest of the way.   Again no announcement... etc.
We finally arrived in Zagreb around 3:30 PM, about 3 hours late.   'nuff said.

Meanwhile I'm feeling terrible.  Fever is still there and nothing stays in... not even water.   By Friday I decided to seek medical help.  After some calling around, we went to the pharmacy where I bought imodium (and Alexandra bought shoes) on our arrival day figuring that the pharmacist, who spoke English, would tell us where to go.   We ended up at their equivalent of urgent care / emergency room.  It turns out that emergency room care is free for Croatian citizens, so most everyone goes there for most everything. 

We got excellent care.  I saw a doctor within 15 minutes of arrival (try that in the US) .   They then took a blood sample and started IV fluids.   I was there for a total of 9 hours.  Total cost $130.  Imagine what that would cost in the US (probably $8 to $10K)

That night, Zagreb defeated England in the World Cup and the town began going crazy!. 
On Saturday, we ventured out and wandered around the main town square.   There were lots of drunken Croatians celebrating Zagreb's making it to the finals. 
On Sunday, we went up to the square again for lunch at Capuciner, which is opposite the Cathedral of Zagreb. 

Things were about to get really crazy, as Ban Josip Jelacic (central square) was filling up with fans ready to cheer their team on from a distance. 

Ban Josip Jelacic on his high horse with Croatian Colors draped over

There were so many people coming up for the 5:00 PM game that they shut trolley service down within about a 1km radius, so people had to walk from the central station to get up to the square.  It reminded me of New Year's Eve at Times Square, only drunker.

Budapest

Arrived by plane in mid-morning on July 4.  We had a few hours to kill, as check-in is around 1:00, so, after taking the bus to town, we stashed our luggage at Keleti Pályaudvar (train station) and grabbed lunch, then took a trolley to our apartment.  The place is on Akácfa Utca (Utca means street), next to a tatoo parlor.  Looks pretty run-down, and the entry to the building smells like pee and garbage, but up on the 4th floor where we were staying it was clean and new.   The street itself is a center of Budapest night life.  Every night there were lines of young people waiting to get into some of the hippest bars in town.  Around 6AM there were still a few drunken stragglers on the street, along with broken glass and some trash, but before noon the city had run their street sweeping crew through and the place was back to normal.

On our first night in town, we did what we do best... schmied around .  Turns out the street also has lots of restaurants and quieter bars.  Almost every bar had big TV's on the sidewalk for the World Cup.  It's a very big thing here.  Whilst in search of ice cream stumbled on a food-truck court which had a chimney cake vendor

It's essentially dough wrapped on rolling-pin sized stick that is rotated over hot coals until golden brown, then rolled in something.... cinnamon sugar, cocoa and sugar, ground nuts... whatever.  Some versions spread nutella on the inside or other gooey stuff. Right down the street from us is an extreme example:
https://www.facebook.com/meatyschimneyteria

The next day we toured the Great Synagogue of Budapest  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doh%C3%A1ny_Street_Synagogue)

Dohány Street synagogue (The Great Synagogue)  

It's certainly the most elaborate synagogue I've ever been in.  For the history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doh%C3%A1ny_Street_Synagogue.

The Bima in the main sanctuary

Hungary was allied with Nazi Germany, and went along with much of their anti-semetic policies including forcing Jews into overcrowded and ill-supplied ghettos where many died from disease and malnutrition.  When the "deportations" began, Hungary's government refused to comply, so the Nazis invaded Hungary and took over the government, which resulted in about 300,000 Hungarian Jews being sent to the gas chambers.  The Gypsy population suffered much the same fate.   In the courtyard are 2 memorals to the holocaust.

Memorial in Synagogue courtyard to Budapest Jews who were killed by the Nazis 

Memorial to those that died on Nazi death marches

Tree of Life memorial in rear courtyard.  Each leaf contains an individual's birth and date death.  I saw 2 "Klein" leaves.

 Lunch on the walk back to the apartment at http://www.tolto.net/

After all of that... we had lunch... Homemade wild boar sausage (not Kosher)

On Friday, we tried the Rudas thermal baths.  Unfortunately, the thermal baths were "men only" on that day, so we ended up attempting to use the pool... which is basically an overpriced lap pool.  Nothing to write home about.  But I did end up with swimmers ear, and a couple of days later ended up with an interesting tour of Budapest's for-profit medical system.

On Saturday (7/7) we set out for a bike tour of Budapest.  It covered all the highlights:

Heroe's square

View from Castle Hill

Went out for a beer with Mate, an AFS exchange student from Budapest this year going to high school in SF.   It was good to see him again.

Monday was spent at a clinic on the Buda side having excess ear wax removed.  Nice to be able to hear again.  About $168 out of pocket.

On Tuesday, we went to Széchenyi Thermal Baths, the mother of the many thermal baths in Budapest.

Add caption

We also went to the Budapest "Great Market" and made the mistake of having lunch at one of the stands upstairs.  It was hot, crowded and apparently chock full of Salmonella.   Lesson learned:  Don't eat luke-warm steam table food.   I would pay for this one for the next week.

Poland

Landed in Warsaw on Thursday 6/28.  When we got to our hotel (Sofitel Victoria) this was going on in the Pilsudski Square across the street

Pilsudski Square with cops and soldiers parading

In addition, there were about 15 antique Rolls Royce's on exhibit in front of the hotel.

A beautiful 1911 Rolls belonging to a really nice guy from Michigan.   

Out for a stroll on the Krakowskie Przedmiescie, I ran into this poster.

Hoover did a lot for the Poles from 1918 until the Nazi invasion

For more, see:  http://www.ushistory.org/more/hoover.htm  .   Hoover gets a bad rep in the US for having the misfortune to preside over the stock market crash of '29 and the start of the great depression, but he did a lot of good things.

The next morning, we toured both Pawiak, an SS prison where Polish political prisoners were tortured and executed, and then the mother of all Jewish museums, Polin,  the history of the Jews in Poland.  Polish anti-semitism didn't start and end with the Nazis, there were strains running through the middle ages with Pogroms throughout the 1800's and early 20th century.   As late as 1968, officials in the Soviet-controlled Polish government were able to whip up anti-semitism, resulting in the emigration of 3000 Polish Jews to Israel.    The museum is built on the site of the Warsaw ghetto.  It's an amazing exhibition that traces Jewish life in Poland from the first century up to contemporary times, including extensive coverage of the Warsaw ghetto, the uprising, deportation and the mass murder of most of Poland's 3,000,000 Jews by the Nazis.

Krakow (7/1-7/4)

We stayed in a lovely apartment in the Jewish quarter (Kazamierz district) which is in the Rubenstein building, named after Helene Rubenstein, a Krakow girl who made good by starting a cosmetics business.  There are 7 old synagogues in Krakow, three of them are active.  Our guide claims that there were about 1,000 Jews who remaimed in Krakow after the war (there were about 50,000 who were murdered by the Nazis), and now some are returning, so there are now 3,000.
There seems to be some corroboration of this on the web... even though antisemitism is on the rise.  See:  https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-krakow-jews-celebrate-their-communitys-revival-amid-rising-xenophobia/
The first thing we did was to visit Rynek Główny, the large town square in the old part of Krakow.

St. Mary's Basilica  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Basilica,_Krak%C3%B3w

Horse carriage tours around the square

On 7/2 we took one of the golf-cart tours around Krakow, which included Schindler's factory.  This is a museum that occupies the site of Arthur Schindler's factory that was the basis of  Spielberg's movie, Schindler's List.

On Tuesday, 7/2, we toured Auschwitz/Birkenau, the site of the murder of over 1 million people.  Mostly Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, Polish political prisoners, and Russian POW's.

Luggage from the Jewish victims

Among the chilling exhibits in the Auschwitz museum were the mounds of human hair that the Nazis used to make cloth after they cut off their prisoners' hair after "selection" .  The Auschwitz camp was where Zyclon-B (cyanide gas) was first used for mass murder.  The original gas chamber is still intact.  The Nazi's inflicted collective punishment on any work group from the camp where a prisoner attempted to escape, or where the work output was insufficient.  Preserved in the camp's museum were various cells which the Nazis used for punishment including starvation cells and suffocation cells, where prisoners were sent for slow death.
In addition there was a courtyard where prisoners were punished by hanging from hooks by their hands which were tied behind their backs, and also executed by hanging or firing squad.  These punishments were typically carried out in front of large numbers of other prisoners as a form of terror.

Birkenau was the Nazi's scaled up version of Auschwitz, about 2 km away from the Auschwitz gate.  It had 4 gas chambers / crematoria and covers a tremendous area.  Conditions were even harsher.  For the 10% who were selected for work (not immediately sent to the gas chambers on arrival), the life expectancy was less than 3 months, and death was either from exhaustion, exposure, disease (from overcrowding and a lack of sanitation), starvation, or execution, which occurred when work output was insufficient in the eyes of the SS.

Ruins of 1 of the 4 crematoria at Birkenau

The scale of the Birkenau death camp is beyond description

Original boxcar used to transport victims to Auschwitz.  80 to 90 victims. Many died from hypothermia or dehydration en route. The journey often took several days. 

Birkenau was largely destroyed by the Nazis in an attempt to obliterate evidence in the face of the rapid advance of the Red Army in the winter of 1945.   The Nazis then led 60,000 on a 63km death march to another camp during which 15,000 died en route.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_marches_(Holocaust)#Auschwitz_to_Loslau

Logistics note:   We booked a tour from Krakow.  The total time was about 6 hours, which includes about 3 hours of total transit time.  That left 3 hours to visit the sites.  The pace was way too fast, and allowed no time for reflection, or to even read the information in the exhibits.  Auschwitz receives about 2M visitors / year, and is very busy in the tourist season.   The museum has limited hours for individual visitors, so we booked a tour.
Anyone considering a visit to Auschwitz might want to consider doing it in the off-season (after Sept. and before May) and either going on your own (you can get a bus or train to Oswiecim from Krakow... the journey takes about 1:20), or hiring a private guide.    Allow at least 4 to 5 hours at the site.  Birkenau is massive and open.  There is a lot of walking, even just to get to the back of the camp where the gas chambers and memorial are.