Germany continued...

It has been a while since we reported in and it's time to give you all an update. We were on our way to Bacharach when we finished the last entry and we had a lovely stay there. We visited Rheinfels castle, which Rick Steves calls Rhineland's greatest castle. It is high above the river and only a bit of renovation has been done, so the ground, stones and walkways that you tread have been there for hundreds of years (built in 1245). It was huge but the perimeter has been reduced over the years. The core is still there and that's what we climbed around on. In the town of Bacharach we stayed with Ursula Orth who has a 5 room gasthof (guest house). We got her biggest room with private bath, and breakfast, for 38 EU a night - about $57! It was up 3 flights of stairs without an elevator, but that was part of the adventure! We enjoyed the nearby town of Bingen and took a touristy little train ride, with English written explanations, all around it. Then on to Rothenburg, pronounced RO-ten-burg.

Rothenburg is an ancient city that is at the north end of the Bavarian part of Germany. It was a thriving city in the Middle Ages and had its most power and influence from 1150 to 1400. It is the quaint village that one thinks of when Bavaria comes to mind. Hopefully I'll upload one of the pictures I took there. We spent 2 nights in another 600 year old building and had plenty to do just wandering it's streets. The weather has been very cold. I bought a hat and gloves in Bingen and have really needed them ever since. Rothenburg was no exception! The first night after dinner we took the Nightwatchman's tour. It was about an hour of walking the streets with an appropriately costumed man who told us interesting information in a very entertaining way. There was a crowd of about 40 of us. One of the most fascinating stories was how an American general kept the city from being destroyed after Nazi soldiers had retreated to it at the end of WWII. He stepped in and changed bombing orders because his mother had visited the city as a young woman and loved it. She had pictures of the town on the wall as he was growing up. Thank goodness he did because it is a treasure!

After Rothenburg we went to Dresden. While we are sure that Dresden is a wonderful city, our feelings about it will be forever colored by the terrible time we had finding our hotel! We had directions written down but they were different than the actual roads. We tried to call the hotel but the person who answered had minimal English. It took 4 stops and several helpful Germans before a young man finally just led us to it on his motorcycle! The next day we did see beautiful Frauenkirche and the square in the old town. Then we left and headed north to Berlin.

Beginning in Dresden and continuing since, our activities as tourists have centered around World War II. Germany and Poland were enormously impacted by the war; huge areas of major cities were utterly destroyed, millions of people (most of 2 generations) were killed, and emotional scars have damaged national psyches. It is one thing to read about the war and even see movies about it, but it is quite another to visit the places themselves. We are now only two generations away from the war and only one since communism. Germans coming to terms with what their leaders (and soldiers) did during the war; Poles and East Germans trying to overcome their domination by the Soviet Union and communism after the war - these are the continuing themes and the reality of everyday life here today.

We took two walking tours, one each day, while we were in Berlin. The first one was "Infamous Third Reich Sites". It last 3 hours and took us to various Nazi buildings, Hitler's bunker, and a display called "Topography of Terror" which is an outside photographic exhibit about Nazi Germany, among other sites. The second day we visited a broader scope of Berlin's features, such as museums, churches, bridges etc, as well as some Nazi sites. In our group for this tour was a young college student from Israel. It was very interesting to hear his thoughts as we walked along.

Yesterday we drove out of Berlin and into Poland. We were surprised to see that Berlin is only 35 miles from the border. We knew that Poland would be poorer and less developed and so we were not surprised to see evidence of hard lives both in the countryside and here in Warsaw. Lots of new construction, especially in downtown Warsaw, but lots still to be done. Today we went to the old town area of Warsaw. It has been rebuilt to be like the way it was before the war but with many plaques and reminders of acts of bravery and self sacrifice by the people. We did not get to the site of the Jewish Ghetto; it was just too cold and damp to go there also. The Ghetto Uprising has been well documented by many books and films - to me, that is hallowed ground.

Tomorrow we drive to Krakow to stay for 3 nights. We'll have two whole days there and will visit Auschwitz/Birkenau one of the days. But I'll tell you about that next time.

Photos are: the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe in Berlin, Rheinfels castle, and Rothenburg.