We left the stellplatze at Bad Muskau at around 9 am, after programming Lori to take us to Stadion Olimpijski in Wroclaw, Poland. Before we left we got our passports out in preparation for crossing the border. The night before we saw cars coming from Poland being checked thoroughly and we had visions of that happening to us. However, we merely crossed the bridge and kept driving....border brossing at all. After 18 km we expected to be on a smooth four lane divided highway. Well, it was four lane and it was divided but it was far from smooth. In fact it was bumpy for about 100 km. We passed lots of farmland and many industrial areas. There is a noticable difference between Poland and Germany. In Germany, all the highways were well maintained, even the secondary highways. In Poland the freeway is like a secondary road in Canada. However, there was some construction and signs that the highways are being improved.
Driving through the city of Wroclaw (the third largest city in Poland was unique in that there were no lines on the roads and it appeared that it was "the most agressive gets through first." There were trams on tracks, buses, small cars and big cars on cobblestone streets that were being used as two lanes. We didn't get honked at once...and even though I felt like Gracie's wheels were occassionally on the tram tracks, we made it to our destination without getting lost. Lori's voice (GPS) is a welcome sound when she says, "you have reached your destination."
My two or three Polish words were enough to get us registered and parked. After lunch we decided to head into Zentrum...the centre of town...the old square. Our trip on the tram was uneventful, except that if you are sitting in the last train, it feels like you are on a tilt-a-whirl ride...fun. The Church of St. Elizabeth, built in the 13th century was so full of history. There are frescos from that century as well as many very old statues and carvings. During World War II is was a place for all soldiers to seek refuge. As we sat in the pews, we observed many local people coming and going.
A photographic exhibit of the years from Communist rule to the success of the Solidarity movement was powerful. There were actual pictures of the many strikes that were in protest of Communist martial law in the 1980' and Lech Walesa's eventual success in being elected as president in 1990.
Before head back on Tram #9 we had coffee and a yummy piece of chocolate cake at the Coffee Heaven shop. A stop at an Intenet Cafe allowed me to upload yesterday's notes and a few pictures. In the morning we will leave early...to avoid all the traffic...for Oswiecim (Auschwitz).
Distance traveled today: 204 km in 3 hours (30 minutes were scary)
September 16
We figured that an early start would help avoid the heavy traffice we encountered coming into the city yesterday. We were ready to leave at 7 am but when I started Gracie up she "yelled" at me...a low level, continuous buzzing sound. At first we thought that one of the doors must be ajar. Michelle slammed all of them and I turned the ignition key...Gracie still complained. We then decided to open the engine hood and take a look...hmmm....now, where is the lever that opens the hood? Trying to decipher the German manual, feeling around for knobs and buttons, got me nowhere. All of a sudden Michelle said, "Your buddy over there is awke!" (I had struck up a conversation with Jan the day before, albiet he spoke three words of English and I spoke very little German) I approached him with a "Guten morten" and then somehow managed to get him to come over to our site and give us a hand. He found the "klapper" to open the hood but there was nothing wrong under the bonnet. A turn of a few knobs on the signal arm and miraculously, Grace stopped yelling. And so, with a million "danke, danke and one auf wiedershen" we left the camp site. By the way it turned cold yesterday and we awoke to an air temperature of about 6 degrees.
Leaving Wroclaw was not quite as bad as it was coming it but it still felt very awkward to be sharing the road with trams on tracks. We did a high five when we reached the main highway and joined the thruway traffic. The speed limit is 130 on the thruways (don't know the Polish name for the highways) but we stayed at around 90 to 100 which was very comfortable. We found a station on the radio (talking in Polish, music: American pop music...always American pop music with very few stations playing music in Polish...it was the same in Germany) and with Lori programmed to take us to Oswiecm, Michelle turned up the heat and I turned on the wipers.
We arrived at Oswiecm at around 1 pm. We parked Gracie and found the entrance to Auschwitz. At the ticket booth we met two Canadian girls who had worked in Ireland for a year and were traveling around Europe before heading back to Canada.
I don't think I can find the words to describe Auschwitz-Birkenau....a site where over 1.6 million human beings were murdered. To stand in a courtyard where tens of thousands were shot (in families, the youngest was always shot first), to look through a peep hole at a 'shower' where poisonous gas came out instead of water, to stare at a crematorium where their bodies were burned, to gaze over the field where ashes were piled, to look at the mountains of luggage, shoes and even women's hair is to somehow come just a little closer to the souls who were brutally murdered here, which was the goal of our excellent tour guide. Each year I tried to teach my students something about the Holocaust and was glad to see school groups here (all over 14...those younger than 14 are not allowed to see this place).
It was very cold and rainy during our tour...somehow fitting for us to be uncomfortable here.
At our overnight parking site at the tourist information centre we found a restaurant. After pizza and coke we returned to a very cold Gracie, had some hot tea and went to bed, vowing to buy a heater! The forecast says cold for the next couple of days, but warming up at the end of the week.
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