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Wildlife Safari
This weekend we met up with one of Kenzies friends from school (also named Kenzie) to visit the Wildlife Safari park in Winston, OR. The girls had a great time together driving through the park, and we got some cute pictures of them.
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Las Vegas with Friends
This weekend we went to Las Vegas to meet up with friends. Kenzie has a GREAT TIME playing with Noel, hanging out at the pool, and seeing a Vegas show. Jodi finally did the zip line over Freemont Street. We also hit up Red Rock and did some hiking to see petroglyphs.
Last Stop – Rhine River Valley
Our last stop before leaving for Frankfurt and the flight home was the Rhine River. We did something really unique, and spent the night in a 12th-century medieval castle!
This was a really cool experience. The Schonburg castle was built in the sits up on the hill overlooking the town of Oberwesel on the Rhine. As a guest, you have free run of the castle and the castle gardens. The views were incredible, and our room was OVER THE TOP. It was in the very top of the castle turret, with a tiny balcony just big enough for two to step out and look down into the river valley. I’ve posted way to many pictures of this, but it was really something special.
Finding amazing little experiences like this is what I love so much about traveling!
Next Stop Rothenburg!
Our next stop as Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It was a couple of hours by train from Munich, and not far out of our way as we headed to the Rhine River Valley.
This place was so cool! It’s in the heart of the German “Romantic Road” which includes lots of medieval castles and history. Rothenburg is a very well preserved classic medieval old town, all secured within the city wall and just a few guarded gates to enter the city. The castle was built in 1070 a.d., and then the town grew from there. The city streets were exactly what you picture when you think of old Germany.
Today there are lots of little shops, restaurants, and bed and breakfasts, but they’re all in original buildings. We stayed at a small family owned hotel that was built in the 1400s and had just a couple of rooms. One of the highlights was the town wall that had a walkway that’s open to the public and was a neat way to see the city. You are walking 3 stories above the town, looking out at the city on one side and through small slits in the stone used to shoot arrows at attackers on the other.
Munich, Germany
After a full day and night in Prague, it was an early morning train for Munich, Germany.
It was about 5 hours through beautiful scenery in rural Czechia and Germany and we arrived in Munich just before noon. We grabbed a quick lunch at the train station (German sausages), checked our luggage at the train station lockers, and then took a 40 minutes train ride to Dachau concentration camp just outside of Munich.
Dachau was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis. It was interesting to see how different it looked and even “felt” thank Auschwitz which we’d seen a few days before.
By evening we were back in Munich and wandered around the city a bit checking out the markets. We also stopped at one of the beer halls that Munich was famous for and it didn’t disappoint. Live music, huge beer steins, lederhosen, and lots of dancing!
Prague, Czechia
From Poland, we had to make our way to Frankfurt, Germany for our flight out the next week. So to get around Europe, we decided to just do backpacks and get a Eurorail pass. The first leg of our journey was an overnight sleeper train to Prague in the Czech Republic. Prague it’s a beautiful place and one of the cities in Europe that were relatively untouched by the bombing in World War Two. So it’s mostly original and not newly rebuilt like many other cities.
Auschwitz
Although we had plans in several different countries, one of the main goals of our trip was to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
Seeing this in person was an incredible experience and something that is hard to wrap your mind around. No amount of reading books or watching documentaries can come close to preparing you for seeing this in person. Witnessing what day to day life was like here, and seeing first hand how so many people were executed was beyond moving.
The site also displayed some of the personal effects that were discovered when the camp was liberated. There were huge rooms with items stacked high including suitcases, shoes, and children’s clothes. All representing people who had passed through and been killed at the camp. One particularly moving exhibit over 2 tons of human hair shaved from the heads of prisoners just before they were gassed. Apparently, the Nazis used this hair to make shoes for U-Boat crews.
This is a place I wish everyone could experience. It was moving beyond description.
First Stop, Krakow Poland
Our starting point was Krakow, Poland. We planned a day here to see the sights and adjust to the time zone, and I’m so glad that we did. This was a great city with a beautiful historic old town area awesome food. We did a Segway tour to get the layout of things and then wandered around the old town square and side streets.
Krakow was also an interesting start to some World War Two history that we were interested in seeing. It was occupied by the Nazis and was the location of Oskar Schindler’s factory (“Schindlers List”). We visited the factory which is now a very well done museum telling the story of Nazi occupation and the lives of the Jews who worked for Schindler and were eventually saved by him. We also walked through the Jewish ghetto (if you ever saw Schindlers List, this was the neighborhood where the Jews were taken from their homes and sent to concentration camps). And many were killed here in these streets before they ever made it to a camp.
Spring Break Europe
This year for spring break Jodi and I went to Europe and since some of the things we wanted to see were not kid-friendly (like the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps), Kenzie stayed with Grandmas for the week in California and went camping and paddle boarding!
We started in Poland and then by train worked our way west through the Czech Republic and Germany. But first we had to get to Krakow which meant Portland-Los Angeles-Stockholm-Munich, and then Krakow. It took almost 30 hours to get there, but since we had a long layover in Stockholm we made the most of it by heading to the city and getting some Sweedish Meatballs…
