Blog - Slovakia and Poland

Added on Friday, 2017-09-08 18:09 CEST in category Traveling
A few months back we were invited by Paul and Natasha to attend their wedding in Istanbul, and although we would've loved to be there, visiting Istanbul did not seem like the best idea given our newborn daughter hadn't had any vaccinations yet…

My wife's best friend did go, and instead of going ourselves we thought it'd be nice for her to come over to us afterwards so we could travel a bit together. And so we were off!

Since we are still in Prague waiting to go back home, and plane tickets from Istanbul to Slovakia were cheap, we decided to visit Slovakia and Poland. But before we got there, a bit of:

Czechia

On our way to Slovakia we visited the science center in Brno:


Brno itself was also quite beautiful, but also very hilly. We visited the city center, and the Capuchin Crypt with lots of dead bodies:

CathedralCapuchin cryptA birdie :)

The next day visited Lednice castle:

Lednice castle cathedralLednice castle garden Lednice castle bathroomLednice castle staircase

Slovakia

Slovakia didn't strike us as particularly interesting culturewise or architecturally, but the nature well made up for that. Also, the spas are quite good :) So when we picked up our friend the next day we went for a hike and drive through the beautiful Tatra mountains, after which we took a cable car ride up:

ViewRiver Hay baleLake Cable car ride selfieFind the baby
(Find the baby.)

Mountain topLake view

Poland

In Poland we first visited Krakow, which we soon came to appreciate for its delicious chocolate :) The central square was also quite nice:

Central squareChocolate tower CathedralStatueOld church

The rest of our stay in Poland was a lot sadder, however, as we visited both Schindler's factory and Auschwitz concentration camp, where we heard about the horrors that took place there during the Nazi regime.

Schindler's factory (nazi flag)Schindler's factory (pans) Auschwitz (arbeit macht frei)Auschwitz (drawing) Auschwitz (ration)Auschwitz (bunk beds)
Left: one-day ration. Right: 5-6 people per shelf.

Auschwitz-Birkenau (entrance)Auschwitz-Birkenau (commemmoration stone)

Happy we've been spared anything even remotely close to these horrors, but also thankful that through the presence of these museums mankind will not forget about them, we headed back home.