Slovakia, Lithuania, Poland, & Home - Oct. 27 - Nov. 4 2018

We spent a couple days relaxing at Thom's place, Penzion Europa, in Osturna, Slovakia.  He's planning a 2019 tour of Osturna and the region.   If you're interested, we can tell you it will be full of great scenery, great food, comfy accommodations and learning interesting facts.  (This is an unpaid endorsement. )  On Tuesday we headed north in Thom's snazzy new Skoda toward the Baltic region.  We spent a night in congested Warsaw.  The next day we drove to Kaunas, Lithuania, which is a lovely town with brick homes with steep roofs.  The time jumped an hour ahead, surprising us.  Anne thinks it will be one of the new destinations for many tourists with its many English speakers, cobbled stone streets, shops, old town square and historic buildings.  We planned to visit Latvia and Estonia, but the continual rain convinced us to return to the Penzion.  On the way home we stayed 20 minutes outside of Warsaw at the visited Hotel Mansor in Zabki, Poland, just outside Warsaw.  It is a new hotel built in a fine old manner.  The employees were so friendly.  We picked up Perun from the dog hotel in Krakow and returned home.  

Most of the week had clear sunny skies, and Thom took us on several day trips.  We took the tram up to the Vysoke Tatry, which is a beautiful sight.  We didn't take the next tram higher up because of the cloud cover.  On Tuesday we saw the Three Crowns, the Dunajec River and the red monastery.  The next day, Halloween, we went to beautiful medieval Levoca and saw the Spis Castle,a UNESCO site, built in the 12th century.  We lunched at W Spisskych Bratrikou restaurant, and enjoyed our duck and pork.  We enjoyed playing with some of their Halloween decorations.  It was unusual to see those decorations which are so common in the US.  We had an opportunity to see the lower and high Tatras when the sky was clear.  It's spectacular.  There was just a touch of snow on them.  On All Saints Day, Thom and I visited with our cousins Jan Vanecko, his sons Janko and Peter and daughter-in-law Doreneka.  Jan and I both choked back some tears and sobs when we greeted each other.  This was my first visit with them since my cousin Katarina's (Jan's wife) sudden unexpected death last year.  Sad times.  The next morning Thom took us to the bus stop for our 2-hour drive to Krakow's main train/bus station.

We enjoyed Krakow yesterday.  It was so lovely, a 'must see' for any traveler.  Anne rates this city as her favorite old city and prettiest market square with the Cloth Hall (Sukienicza) in all of Europe.  There were plenty of tourists, we heard many languages, we noticed so many young people.  We met Gus, a retired American traveler who came from Guatemala 45 years ago.  He's been traveling since February, and he expects to go home to Chicago in March.  His son is teaching in Saudi Arabia.  Gus visited Saudi Arabia, India, Jordan, Bangkok, all over the place.  Krakow was the first cold place he'd been in in months, and needed to go buy a jacket.  He speaks English, Spanish, some Polish, some Yiddish.  He said he gets lonely sometimes,  but he is outgoing and probably isn't lonely for long.  We wished him good travels.  What a journey!

Well our time is  up - we have an early flight from Krakow to Amsterdam to Detroit and will be home in about 18 hours.  We know we are very fortunate to travel as we do.  But we are already thinking about our travels next year.

Kaunas, Lithuania - Taking a walk in the evening after we arrived 

Strolling through the old town in the morning in Kaunas, Lithuania

Tatra Mountains - back at Thom's home in Osturna, Slovakia

Beautiful views

Cable car up to the first level of the Tatras (too cloudy to go to top when we were visiting)

Our cable car stop where we had lunch

Back at the Pension Europa in Osturna - a rainbow!

Three Crowns 

Dunajec River (where you can do rafting) with the 3 Crowns in the background

View of Spiss Castle (UNESCO site) on the hill

Halloween Lunch in Levoca, Slovakia

Halloween fun with Thom, our host

The restaurant was full of all kinds of props with which we had a good laugh!

In the old section of Levoca (UNESCO site)

Basilica of St. James on the left and City Hall on the right in Levoca

View of Osturna with St. Michael's church in the valley from Poland

Anne near the Barbicon (defensive wall for the Wawel Castle) in Krakow 

Wandering the streets in Krakow's Stare Miasto (Old City)

St. Mary's Church in the Market Square where the Bugler plays on the hour

View of Cloth Hall (Sukienicza) in Krakow's Stare Miasto (Old City)

View of Wawel Castle in Krakow on the Visla River

Pension Europa in Osturna, Slovakia - our temporary home with Thom, our host

 St, Michael's Church in the village of Osturna, just down the road from the Pension Europa

         
         

St. Andrew’s, Scotland to London, England - Oct. 15-19, 2018

Ruins of St. Andrew’s cathedral

Castle ruins at St. Andrew’s on the North Sea

Edinburgh Castle

View of Edinburgh from the Castle

Skinny Anne & Maddy having fun

Looking up at Edinburgh Castle

If you have never seen the movie, Greyfriar's Bobby - DO

2018 & Bobby's nose has lost it's color from people rubbing his nose for good luck

And here Anne is in 1997 when she first visited Bobby - we never saw anyone rubbing his nose!

Great cemetary

Rosslyn Chapel (Site from the Da Vinci Code)

Beautiful shades of stones with intricate carvings inside

We stopped in this town to see castle used in Harry Potter movies 

Castle of Hogwart fame

Streets of York

Yorkshire Cathedral

Anne Hathaway's home in Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare's wife)

William Shakespeare's birthplace

Pod on the London Eye

View from the London Eye

Maddy & Mary Lou, fellow traveler from Arizona

More views from the Eye

Sunset from the London Eye - a 30 minute ride

So long to our fellow Trafalgar Travelers & Peter Lewis, our Welch Tour Director

Farewell to the UK and Ireland!

Anne and I flew to Krakow from London Friday morning, and we're now with Thom and Perun in Osturna, Slovakia.  Here's what we did during our last week on the tour:

On Monday we made our way to St. Andrew's,  Scotland, which is the home of golf.  We visited the ruins of the Roman Catholic cathedral, where St. Andrew's remains were buried, and the castle (in ruins since 1656).  Catholicism was outlawed in the mid-16th century by the Scottish Reformation.  This is a university town, and Prince William and Kate attended school here. 

We cross the Firth of Forth entering grand Edinburgh, founded prior to 1100 AD, the capital of Scotland since 1350.  Peter took us on a small city tour at night, when we visit Greyfriar Bobby's memorial and the adjoining cemetery where his master is buried.  We learn that J K Rowling wrote here in this town and found names for her characters in this cemetery.  Peter told us haunted tales in this cemetery, and we rub Bobby's bronze nose as we leave.  On Tuesday we take a city tour with Bob Black in his kilt and learn Edinburgh is built on 7 hills (as are Rome, Prague, Moscow, Mecca, Jerusalem and others), and the impressive castle is built on an extinct volcano.  In 1513 the walled city was established.  We move on to Roslin, the town where Dolly the sheep was cloned, and Rosslyn Chapel, which you might know from The DaVinci Code.  The carving of the stone, begun in 1456, both inside and out is unbelievably detailed.

On Wednesday we see green fields as we drive south on the Cumberland Coastal Road.  In the city of Alnwick we see from a distance the castle which, with the help of some CGI, becomes Hogwart's School.  We visit the maze of delightful streets of York, where we see scaffolding high up on its Cathedral.  The saying is it will return to Catholicism when the work is completed on the building, so the scaffolding remains there.  That evening we drive to the elegant country home of Vivien and Jeremy Cassel for a delicious dinner and scrumptious dark chocolate truffles.  The Cassels are listed in The Peerage (The Peerage is a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles in the UK and elsewhere in a Europe) and there is a relationship to the Barclay family.  

We visit Stratford-on-Avon on Thursday, and we visit Shakespeare's birthplace and Anne Hathaway's (his wife) home.  We continue on to London,  and we ride on the huge London Eye to see the sun set with Mary Lou from Arizona.  We say goodbye to our fellow travelers.

We thank Peter Lewis and Trafalgar/Brendan Tours for all we've seen and learned during these three weeks.  Phil and Craig were excellent coach drivers, managing to get our bus through the tiny roads we traveled.  Now, on to more adventures...