Dachau

On the last day of my month-long adventure in Europe, I decided to really end it on a happy note and visit the concentration camp located in Dachau.

Open in 1933, it was the very first concentration camp and it would be used as a model for all those that followed.  Started originally as a prison for political prisoners, the camp was never considered a death camp like those in Treblinka or Auschwitz.  That being said, some 32,000 people were murdered in the camp over its 12 year existence.  The complex also included a gas chamber.  Although it was never used for mass killing, it is recorded that it was used to execute a few groups of prisoners for "experiments".  It was one of the awful feelings walking through that chamber.

Originally built to house 6,000 people, by the time American troops liberated the camp in the spring of 1945 it was housing over 50,000.  Only about 32,000 would live to see the Americans arrive.  Today most of the complex is still standing except for the 69 barracks' of which 2 have been rebuilt.  The foundations still remain though.

The gate that leads to the camp reads in German "work will set you free", a grim message to the over 200,000 people that passed through its arches at some point over the period of 12 years.

The entire camp complex has been turned into a museum and memorial center with dedication to the horrors that took place on its grounds.

Neuschwanstein Castle

One of my side-trips while in Munich consisted of a two hour train ride to the town of Fussen in southern Bavaria.  Located just a few miles north of the Austrian border, it straddles the divide where the Alps rise out of the Bavaria plain.  Fussen in and of itself is a nice small German town but its real importance is that is the gateway to the Neuschwanstein Castle which sits on a clifftop a few miles away.  Despite being a remote area of Germany, I was amazed at the number of tourists, especially Asian tour groups, that were at the castle.  The 19th century castle is quite amazing and was the inspiration of Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

To try and get the best picture of the castle, I decided to hike up the mountains that surround it.  Unfortunately while reaching the summit, a driving rainstorm blew in not only soaking me but also pinning me down as the fog and clouds were too thick to see the path down.  After about an hour of trying to stay dry under my tiny umbrella the rain stopped, clouds parted and left me with an amazing view of the castle which I missed entirely on the way up due to the thick clouds.

Munich

Although I spent 3 days and two nights in Munich, my actual exploration of the city was very limited.  It really only consisted of half of day after I arrived by train from Berlin due to the excursions I took the following two days.  I did get to see a fair amount of the old city but unfortunately a lot of the main sites were under reconstruction so although impressive in size were not much to look at.  However a trip to the outskirts of the city was highlighted by a visit to the Nymphenburg Palace.  The palace is in a very different style, much more simplistic than other royal residences in Europe but its gardens and interlocking canals that surround the palace make it quite beautiful.

Berlin

After Prague, I traveled by train (again) to Berlin.  I could tell immediately that my hostel was in what was East Berlin as it was located at the intersection of Pariser Kommune and Karl Marx Allee.  The city is relatively modern due to the massive destruction during the Second World War but is full of history.  The centerpiece of world conflict during the 20th century, Berlin was first the capital of the Nazi empire and then divided by the conquering forces after its fall in 1945.  The Reichstag, the parliament building shown below, became a symbol of the end of the war in Europe when Red Army soldiers stormed the building and displayed the soviet flag above the city which would soon dominate the Eastern half.

Another interesting stop on my journey was at the Topography of Terror museum which houses history of the rise of the Third Reich and the acts conducted by the SS (branch of the govt that controlled the gestapo, the concentration camps and the Waffen-SS military and execution units) during the Holocaust.  Situated on the spot where the SS headquarters once stood, it is a very fitting location.  A few blocks from the museum is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  The park is entirely covered by coffin shaped slabs of concrete varying in height from one to fifteen feet.

The other half of history that dominated Berlin for over 40 years was the division of the city, and country, between the Americans and Soviets.  The Berlin Wall, a symbol of hate first constructed in 1961, divided the city between East and West.  I visited what remains of the famous border crossing, Checkpoint Charlie, and visited the museum located there.  

Although most of the wall was destroyed in the years after the fall, certain sections of the wall are still preserved.  On the north side of the city, a short section of the wall, including one of the guard towers is blocked off and preserved to show what the border zones looked like during the height of the Cold War (although to avoid confusion the picture is my own).

The largest section the wall (1.3 kilometers) that remains today is located on the East side about a five minute walk from the hostel I stayed at.  It has been turned into an open air art gallery with paintings done right on the wall.  

Please click on the above photo to get a more detailed view.  However, it is still very small in comparison to what is stored on my computer.  An example section is shown below.

I spent 3 hours at the gallery and documented the entire 1.3 kilometers in 382 pictures.  The above photo is a compilation of 32 pictures all spliced together.  Hopefully given the time and the effort, I will be able to recreate the entire gallery.

Prague

Unlike the rain I experienced in Vienna, the weather I had in Prague was beautiful.  I highly recommend visiting Prague if you get the chance, it is a wonderful city with a medieval feel due the lack of bombing during World War II (other than a single American raid during 1945).  The biggest highlight of the city is Prague Castle which dominates the landscape as it sits on a hill overlooking the Danube River.

 Inside the castle complex is St. Vitus Cathedral where I was lucky enough to witness the inside as the sun set revealing a beautiful display of light through the stained glass.

Nearby is the Strahov Monastery which, like many other of its kind, brews great beer.  The landscape photo of Prague shown below was taken from the Monastery.

Although the city did not receive the extensive bombing during World War II like many of the other German-occupied capitals it was not spared the fighting during 1945 as the German Wehrmacht collapsed under the force of the Red Army.  In the culmination of the "Prague Offensive", the city was the location of fighting from May 6th to May 11th 1945.  This occurred 9 days after the fall of Berlin and almost 3 days after VE day, marking it as the last major German resistance during the Second World War.  In the course of the fighting, the Pinkas Synagogue was almost entirely destroyed.  After the war, the synagogue was rebuilt as a Holocaust memorial and the inside is covered in the names of the almost 80,000 Czech and Slovak Jews who died during the genocide.  Nearly every available wall space is covered in the names of those that died.  It is very moving to see it and then realize how small of a fraction that is of the total number of people that were killed during the Nazi reign.

After that sobering experience, I found a poster on the street which I found very amusing so I had to include it in my post.

Vienna

Another flurry of blog posts to come shortly.  Vienna and Prague were so busy that I failed to get a chance to post anything about them and then in Berlin the wifi was not working.  So currently I am in Munich but I will try to recap in the next few posts the past week or so of my travels starting with Vienna.

I arrived in Vienna on the 31st of June.  Unfortunately, both days I had in the city were full of down-pouring rain.  On the other hand, with a multitude of museums, I found myself mostly dry during my time in Vienna.  The first day was spent traveling around the center of the city, exploring the museums in the former imperial Hofburg residence and the many churches including St. Stephen's Cathedral shown below.

I spent most of the second day visiting the Schonbrunn Palace, the seat of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.  It reminded me a lot of Versailles in both the palace and its surrounding complex of gardens.

 

Budapest

On Thursday, I spent a very hot day traveling 8 hours on a train from Sarajevo to Budapest.  Unfortunately the train's air conditioning in the car that I was in, and only in that car, was not working.  Arriving in Hungary's capital sweating and stinking, I managed to find my hostel during the failing light.  Almost immediately I met 2 Frenchman, a Brit, a few Spaniards and a fellow American (the first I have seen or met since Venice) who I would spend the next to nights exploring the nightlife in Budapest (which is very good).  The following day I explored the city making a notable stop at the "Terror House".  This complex was taken over and used as the headquarters for the Nazi's in Hungary.  Subsequently, with the fall of the Third Reich in 1945, the building was converted into the headquarters of the Soviet intelligence, interrogation and torture in its satellite communist state.  The building now houses a museum dedicated to telling the horrors inflicted on the Hungarian people under the two subsequent occupations.  The following photo was taken of the monument that stands outside this unassuming building on one of the main streets in Budapest.

On Saturday, I spent most of the day (and the night) taking photographs from the two hills that overlook the city of Budapest.  On top of one sits the citadel fortress and the other the Royal Castle that seated the Hungarian half of the throne in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (shown below).

And some pictures of the city during sunset and twilight respectively.

One of the main sites in the city is the Chain Bridge which connects the city of Buda and city of Pest across the Danube River.  During World War II, the bridge was destroyed and was also badly damaged during the 1956 Revolution against the Soviets making it a symbol of the city's suffering under occupation.

Today, I traveled from Budapest to Vienna.  Thankfully it was much shorter (3 hours) and also had working air conditioning   I will do a post on that tomorrow before I leave.

Belgrade

Yesterday, I spent most of the day riding in a train from Sarajevo to Belgrade. By the end of the eight hour journey I had traveled through 3 countries and added 7 stamps to my passport.  The train was very nice as I shared a compartment with a couple from Australia/New Zealand and a local man from Bosnia who back at the turn of the millennium represented all of Bosnia in worldwide karate competitions (very cool guy).  I arrived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, in the evening and with exception of not being able to find my hostel had an enjoyable night highlighted by a visit to the Cathedral of St. Sava.  Unlike Mostar or Sarajevo, the major religious presence in the city is dominated by the Eastern Orthodox church.  St. Sava is the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in the world.

Pictured below is the inside of another of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Today was spent exploring the city itself.  Belgrade is very large and very modern city that reminds me a little bit of Vienna.  For example, a picture of Republic Square in the heart of the old city.

One of the other major sites in Belgrade is the Kalemegdan fortress complex that sits on the intersection of the Sava and Danube rivers overlooking the rest of the city and surrounding areas.  The whole complex is an enormous series of walls, ramparts, ditches and fortifications.

Sarajevo

This morning I took the local train from Mostar to Sarajevo which is said to be one of the most scenic rides in all of Europe and it lived up to its expectations.  The trip weaved along mountian cliffs that fell hundreds of feet down into amazingly blue lakes.  The rest of the day was spent exploring the city of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Throughout the past century, Sarajevo has been the center of ethnic, cultural and political tensions.  In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated my Gavrilo Princip, about a block from the hostel I am currently staying at, thus sending the globe spiraling into the First World War.

During the Yugoslav Civil War in the 1990's Sarajevo was held under siege by Serbian forces from April 1992 to February 1996, making it the longest siege since the 1700's.  Some remnants of the war can still be seen but it has recovered much more quickly than Mostar.  The city was historically heavily influenced by a strong Muslim and Ottoman presence.  The old Ottoman Quarter, where my hostel is located, is one of the few areas of the city that did not lose its historic presence during the Soviet era or the civil war.  

The modern center of the city, which was largely destroyed during the war is not much to view.  The surrounding hills on the other hand, still retain some of the city's former beauty.

Tomorrow, I will be heading out of the city and traveling by train all day to Belgrade, Serbia.

Mostar

Today was spent mostly on a 8 hour bus ride traveling from Kotor, Montenegro to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.  It was a pretty ride along the coastline and through the mountains.  The old section of the city is very scenic but the majority of the rest of the city is still recovering from the war.  Many buildings are still bombed out almost 16 years after the end of the fighting.

Mostar is a very unique city due to its tumultuous history in the last 20 years.    During the Yugoslav Wars from 1991 to 1995, Mostar served as one of the central areas of intense fighting between three different armies.  One side of the city was held by the Bosnian Army, the other side by the Croatian Army and the hills surrounding the city based the Serbian Army.  During the course of the war, the historic centerpiece of Mostar, the Stari Most bridge, was destroyed.  Following the conflict, the bridge was rebuilt of over the course of 7 years and now stands exactly as it was built in the 1600's.

 
And a closer view...

No rest for the weary though, tomorrow morning I will be catching a train to Sarajevo to explore the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Another post to come then.

Kotor

After a 6 hour bus ride (due to traffic on very narrow winding roads), I arrived in the small town of Kotor, Montenegro. The small port is located directly on the Bay of Kotor, the deepest fjord in the Mediterranean.

The ride, although long, was filled with stunning views as the bus weaved along the bay with cliffs plummeting into the water.  Sitting above the city is an old fortress built into the side of a cliff.  Although quite a ways above the city, the views were definitely worth the hike.

So that brings us back to my current location in my trip.  I will be leaving Kotor tomorrow afternoon by bus to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina via Dubrovnik.  If all goes well I will arrive in the city late in the evening.

Dubrovnik

After a 6 hour train ride from Remini to Bari, followed by an overnight voyage on a ferry across the Adriatic Sea, I arrived at the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik.  The coastline of Croatia is rugged with mountains falling directly into the sea.  Dubrovnik is situated at the base of these many peaks.  The old part of town, entirely surrounded by walls and fortifications, was built directly on the water.

Most of the first day was spent enjoying the old city and walking the walls surrounding it.  It was interesting to learn that the outer walls of the bastions were over 12 meters thick yet the inner walls were only 12 cm.  This was designed in case the commander of the fortifications ever tried to mutiny, the ramparts could be brought down easily from the inside.

As evening fell, I took the cable car up to the top of the mountain that overlooked the city.  The sunset was beautiful over the coastline.

I then waited for darkness to fall in order to take some shots of the old city lit up at night.

The next day I spent relaxing on the beach.  The beaches in Croatia are typically not sandy but rather a mixture of fine small rocks.  Regardless, the water was beautiful and very warm.  The next morning I proceeded to make my way to the bus station in order to catch a bus to Kotor, Montenegro.

San Marino

After spending the weekend in Venice, I made a stop in the small country of San Marino via Remini, Italy.  Covering a mere 24 square miles and with a population of just over 31,000, San Marino is one of the smallest countries in the world.  It is equivalent to the size of Monaco and is about 43 times smaller than Rhode Island.  One of the unique aspects of this country (other than its incredibly small size) is that it is situated on a mountaintop plateau with a string of fortifications built into the cliffs for defense.

When I first arrived at San Marino, I knew it was my kind of place because almost every shop sold either guns or grappa.  That on top of the amazing views from the cliff top towers made San Marino well worth the day trip visit.

Following my adventure into the peaks of this small mountain nation, I embarked on a 24-hour journey down the coast of Italy and eventually across the Adriatic Sea to Croatia.

Venice

Due to the lack of Wifi since leaving Venice, I have not been able to post anything new in quite some time.  I am currently in Kotor, Montenegro and will add a number of posts on where I have been since then starting where I left off with Venice.  I arrived in Venice on Friday, July 15 and stayed over for 3 nights and 4 days.  The city is unlike any other place I have been since there are no cars (only boats) to get around.

And the canals are so cool that I had to include another picture.

My stay in Venice also coincided with the festival of Redentore.  This holiday dates back to the end of the plague in 1576.  The Doge, the political authority in Venice, ordered the construction of a large church on the island of Giudecca to give thanks for the end of the Black Death.  Once completed, the Doge walked across a bridge of boats to the church every year.  Today the festival is celebrated by amazing fireworks show over the city that lasts over an hour.  Towards the end of the night (and the beginning of the morning), tradition has it that everyone travels to the island of Lido to sit on the beach and watch the sun rise.

During the festival I met up with the Harvard Study Abroad program in Venice which included about 50 students.  They had a party on a rooftop on Giudecca with an excellent view of the fireworks.  The firework show was one of the most stunning and amazing things I have ever witnessed.  After this we went to a number of different parties before making our way to Lido for the sunrise.  The remaining two days were spent visiting the rest of the sites around Venice before catching a train out to Remini, Italy.