Greg and Mandy's Travels

It’s all very civilised really. After a couple of hundreds of years, the Austro-Hungarian empire dissolved at the end of the first world war, and Woodrow Wilson and other political heavyweights decreed that Europe should be divided into autonomous regions that could be stable and self governing. Both the Czech people (who used to be ruled by Austria) and the Slovak people (who used to be ruled by Hungary) thought that this was a good deal, and put up their hands, but realised that they weren’t strong enough to go it alone, so they teamed up and Czechoslovakia was born.

They did quite well at it, and by the 1930’s they were the only functioning democracy in central Europe, with a GDP much larger than Russia to boot.…

The weather had returned to normal, and we headed off before breakfast to revisit many of the sights we were taken to yesterday, before the crushes arrived later in the morning.

Into the Old Town Square, through the lanes, and across the Charles Bridge where we could actually pause to take in the statues and the views this time. Through the Little Quarter and the huge park below the Castle, walking along next to the wall of the US Embassy. Counted 20 surveillance cameras, and that was only the ones pointed at us in the park from behind the 20’ barbed wire wall.…

Did you know that Good King Wenceslaus was a real person, and not just a mythical person in a Christmas Carol? Well, if you knew that, then probably everything else you thought you knew about him is wrong. Firstly, just to confuse you, he wasn’t actually a King but only a Duke, and as Phillip of Greece will undoubtedly tell you if he wasn’t calling you names, there is a huge difference.

And I bet you thought that ‘Good King Wenceslaus’ was a Christmas carol, but actually it’s a Saint Stephen’s Day Carol, published by John Mason Neale in 1853, some 950 years after Wenceslaus became the Duke of Bohemia, which today is largely the same as the Czech Republic.…

Had an enjoyable evening wandering around Krakow Old Town until our legs gave out on us – 16km in a day seems to be about our comfortable limit. Apparently there is a Melbourne – Sydney type of rivalry between Krakow and Warsaw. Both have been the capitals at various stages, with Warsaw winning out at the moment because it’s in the centre of the country, and less likely to be invaded by Germany or Russia, which seems to happen quite regularly. Seems that the cities paint themselves as either glitz or substance, and this evening it was the city of glitz.…

No jokes or funny stories today. We went to Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.

Auschwitz was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940. When the camp became too full, they started the extermination of prisoners from September 1941, initially by shooting. But that left too much evidence, and so they built the gas chambers. Then when Auschwitz couldn’t cope with the numbers arriving, they built Birkenau nearby. Birkenau held 90,000 prisoners, which is as many as can fit into the MCG on Grand Final day.

From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp’s gas chambers from all over German-occupied Europe.…

Didn’t know that much about Warsaw actually. My first memory was reading a Spike Milligan book where the running gag throughout was him having to listen to ‘The Bl*$dy Awful Warsaw Concerto’. I listened all day, but didn’t hear it once. Was rather disappointed, though to compensate, at one stage there were three buskers next to each other in the main castle square, all trying to outdo each other. Two flutes and one squeezebox, and not one of them in tune. At one stage Mandy thought that one was playing a song from Aladdin. I derived enormous satisfaction from not being able to recognise it.…

Felt much refreshed in the morning. Picked up the boxed lunch and hopped on the 4:30 shuttle to the airport, went through all the formalities, and took the light rail back out to Siberia.

The incoming flight was late so we were delayed about half an hour taking off. Hope it doesn’t hurt our connection. A large Turkish Airlines A330 this leg. Didn’t know much about Turkish Airlines but was pleasantly surprised. Best cabin service so far. Of course, being late we missed our takeoff slot, then when we go to Istanbul we had to get into a holding pattern to slot into the arrival stream.…

There’s some really good things about Darwin. It’s only 20 minutes to the airport, and there was only one flight leaving, so you could get dropped off at the door and join the line of, oh I don’t know, maybe 10 people to check in.

However, for every good there is a corresponding bad, so there is only one taxi company, and that company only has mini buses on the road at 3 in the morning, and they’ve just been ferrying everybody home from the nightclubs. They don’t have plastic covers on the seats, full height perspex screens, and doors that can only be opened from the outside for nothing.…