We have arrived in Rheinbach, my old home turf

Hi all, well we have finally arrived in Rheinbach and my family are all well. My sister Anja and Beate organised a brunch for me with 15 of my old school mates chatting the day away ... I loved it. Still not able to do much about photos (typing this in a pub where we have somehow got a hotspot psssst) but anyway this will let you know we are all going okay.
Mike and I are both exhausted and only realised once we arrived and 'chilled' ... so the next few days will be taken up with small trips only and lots of catching up and talking.
I am starting to feel homesick and miss you Julian and Noah, so thank goodness it is not long til we come home but here are a few messages to all of you:
thanks for your comments! good luck in Berlin Gaily! Nikkster ... I think of you lots especially around your discovery of the books - I am doing a lot of letting go too.

Another Berliner ...

Hi there, the second day at Maccas for a cup of coffee ... hmmmm ...
We are on the Kurfuerstendamm anyway, which makes the experience almost as classy as the Maccas in Paris, on the Champs Elysees.
The internet access is great, and we love getting messages from home - thanks Gina and Nikki. We did a spot of shopping yesterday and had a Curry Wurst.
Our hotel is lovely and central and we were really lucky to just stumble onto it. It is another old building which we have favoured right through Poland and East Germany.
We are waiting for the City Tour bus - we intend to go to a few of the Must-See sights and just hop off here and there. Enjoying the relaxing pace.
Lots of love from the Euro travellers.

We've arrived in Berlin ...

Hi there at home ... keep the comments going - we love to hear from you.
After 15 days and about nine or ten different hotels, pensions or BBs we have arrived in Berlin. We are really enjoying ourselves. We're pretty lucky with the weather too, the rain has stopped and it is a pleasant temperature.
Since I last blogged, we were able to hire a car and tour the Maerkisches Oderland, an area in the former East Germany, for a couple of days. We found that to be quite amazing for a range of reasons to be explored in detail when we get home!!
Gosh, am i taking lots of photos. So glad I took the big camera.
We have been in touch with Luisa and are catching up for dinner with her, and her family Thursday night. Tomorrow we are doing the city tour, jewish museum, brandenburg gate yadda yadda, most of the sights of Berlin anyway, tomorrow. we have sussed out a convenient hop on hop off bus.
On Friday we fly to Koeln Bonn, Anja will pick us up (hooray). We are both looking forward to 14 days in one spot - and especially to see my family .....
I am looking forward to ordering a meal and understanding the menu tonight, and Mike is going to sample the local beers on tap. A good thing at the end of each day ...
Julian and Noah hope you are going well, we are missing you.

A latest Polish travel update

We are going well. Thanks for the comments.
Internet access is becoming a bit difficult, and I probably won't upload any more pictures until we are in Germany on Friday September 10th.
We are currently staying in a 'Pension' in Mikolajki which is right on the Mazurian Lakes in Northern Poland. In fact, our 'pension/hotel' sits on a lakeshore. It is beautiful here and we are very relaxed just poking around looking at people and places.
We finally managed to hire a car and the dealer said to us ' Two days only ??? In this countryside you can lose yourself for two weeks easily!!! '
Mike and I have managed to keep our marriage steady on the Polish roads, which are reputedly and really ... crazy. We did have a little tiff today and then drove past a sign for the town called 'Snopki' and that cracked us up again.
We have decided we really like the Polish people in general, they take a little warming up to, but they are generally kind and unpretentious. As a tourist, they look after you well. Things are just very simple and unstylish (how else could I put it?) but this also means that this country is still undiscovered by the crowds and developers.
We love the wide open spaces and the little farm villages with their bright red roofs in the middle of this 'hurt your eyes' green!! The lakes are crystal clear and all pubs serve local fresh water fish as their speciality. This means there is pike, cod and salmon on the menus.
Tomorrow we will return the car to Olsztyn, take the train to Gdansk where we will stay for 2 nights before heading off to Berlin and then Bonn/Cologne.
So Julian, Noah, Nikki and everyone else reading this blog - there will be no news until we are at Omi's on September 10th.

We still have an Australian sense of humour ...

On our search for a supermarket we weren't going to take the escalators or lifts - they sounded dreadful!

Fast food can kind of sound disgusting ...

Or plain cute ....

Or outright confusing ....

Five hours in Warszawa

Spinach Pierogi and they were great - I had almost given up on this Polish National dish. Thinking it was too rich and bland. But here they were light, filled with spinach topped with caramelised onions - yum.

The Rynek in Warszwa is World Heritage listed. This is pretty amazing seeing it is only about 60 years old. It was 90% destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt with the bricks of other bombed Polish towns (including Ratibor).

A Warszawa 'Banksy"?

another view of the Rynek in the pouring rain!

Well, to put it bluntly we did not much like Warszaw. It rained cats and dogs and we dragged our suitcases around for four hours looking at this and that ... but then we decided to get back on the train and go on to Olsztyn in Northern Poland. It ended up being a very tiring but excellent move.

A night out in Krakow

The market square all lit up.

The inside of one of the villas where they do Chopin concerts - a Krakow tourist option No 1. No Beate, we did not go to see the Salines (what are they?). We liked the music, especially after the complimentary glass of champagne ... but it's nothing like your music Noah!!

We climbed up the Wawel Cathedral Tower and this is what we saw - wow! We also wanted to go and check out the Kazimierz District, where Schindler's list was filmed and his factory is located. But we ran out of time.

We loved Krakow so much we stayed another night

Ah the lonely planet guide; what would we be without it? Then I had to take a photo of the one and only decent coffee I have had here and even that one would be scoffed at in Australia. Generally there a no cafes (definitely a market gap) but if you find one it is like the throw of the dice whether the coffee on offer is drinkable or not. And we are no longer picky!
In the mornings Polish people serve kawa, and that is a very thin instant coffee with a challenging colour (sort of greyish once milk is added). But we overlook this easily as the breakfast food is fabulous.

This is the market in inner Krakow. Arts, crafts, souvenirs etc.

So here is the sun shining on us - worth a photo. We have had rain almost every day. Not that that worries us ...

A Krakow side street, where you can see the cobble stones which are making our feet so sore (after four hours of walking at least).

We love Krakow

The Royal Castle courtyard where the Jupiter chakra is said to be located.

the Wawel Castle and Cathedral, where many Polish kings are buried in crypts.

Krakow street cafe.

Good luck with the hotel, a lovely vibe, a beautiful city largely spared during WW2 and of course a little Chopin and shopping (pardon the pun) on the side.

Goodbye Hotel Polonia (good tip Gisela)

The cellar dining room in which we have breakfast every morning.

The hotel Polonia in the evening sunshine ... our room was on the second floor, above the balcony. We are now off to Krakow on the bus ...

How Ratibor looked before WW2

I took these photos of some photos in an exhibition at the tourism information stand. They are photos of the Rynek before it was bombed/burnt. A lot of the bricks that came from buildings destroyed by the Russians went to Warsaw to rebuild the city there ... it was up to 90% destroyed.

Our last evening in Ratibor and the sun comes out to play!!

The houses on the Rynek are bathed in yellow light ... a nice good bye after days of drizzle.

The pidgeons on the house eaves are loving the sun too.

As one does one gets funny ideas about taking photos ...

Mike is still talking about this meal as being his favourite so far ... Rouladen, red cabbage and dumplings... the german connection.