Getting It Back Together

Well, we finished the trip and I was either too busy or did not have good internet connections, so did not post daily while on the trip. I am going to start posting again, and will try to provide a daily account of the trip. Here goes......

Thursday, June 3 - Leipzig, Neichen
After WWII, one of my dad's cousins here in the US received a series of letters from cousins in Leipzig, Germany (written in German). I now have copies of those letters. Leipzig was at that time part of the communist German Democratic Republic. Times were difficult then and the letters reflected that, asking if the US cousins could please send coffee, eyeglass lenses, shoe soles, etc, all items they could not obtain in Leipzig.




On Thursday, before leaving Leipzig, we walked around the train station to find Ehrensteinstrasse 22, where our Kunze cousins lived at that time. Today, the neighborhood appears prosperous and well maintained.

After the walk, we picked up our bags and hiked to the Avis car rental shop to pick up a car and head to the country. We had a nice drive through the village of Oelschuetz, where the Winklers lived before coming to the US. Just 2 kilometers south of there we found a Pension (B & B) in Neichen at a family home. It was typical for the area, a courtyard with houses on two sides, several generations of the family living in one location. They also had a huge garden. The price was right, 20 euro per night for the room and 10 euro per person per day for breakfast. That is about $50 per day for room and a HUGE breakfast.

That night we drove to the Grimma, a larger town in the area with restaurants and ate at K House in the older part of the city. Fred had Salmon with potatoes and I had Schnitzel with fried potatoes and mushrooms - wonderful! We finished with a specialty of the house, an ice cream sundae with eier liqueur - yes, it is made with eggs, and the dessert was wonderful as well. So far, we have not lost ANY weight, despite walking miles per day. Till next time!

By Train from Dresden to Leipzig

Today we had breakfast in Dresden, packed, then rode the bus to the train station and purchased tickets from Dresden to Leipzig. We were able to get a good discount on the tickets because it was the middle of the week, the middle of the day, AND we were willing to take the "slow" train, 16 stops in 90 minutes. It was a pleasant ride through the countryside on a rainy but beautiful day. I found a schedule at the station that listed all of the stops, so was able to follow our trip on the map.

We went through Kuhren, the county seat of the area where our Winklers lived before coming to America in the mid 1800s. We also passed through Wurzen, another town linked to our Winklers.

We arrived in Leipzig and found the train station (Bahnhof) information desk. They were able to direct us to the city of Leipzig tourist information office just across the street from the station.

At the tourist information office, we found and booked a room in a reasonably priced hotel very near the train station. By that time, it was after 1:00 pm, so we walked to the hotel and were able to check in. At all of the locations except the Dresden train station, we met people with good English language skills, so had no problems there.

Once in Leipzig, we took a stroll through the Alt Stadt or old section of the central city. Our first stop was the Nikolai Kirche, dating from the 14th centruy. Between 1982 and 1989, during soviet occupation of the area, up to 2000 people of various religions gathered weekly in this church to pray for peace. One Monday in October 1989, 10,000 people gathered outside the church with candles lit to work toward a peaceful revolution.

After the Nikolai Kirche, we went to the Thomas Kirche, where J. S. Bach was cantor for 27 years between 1723 and 1750 and is now buried. After the church, we visited the nearby Bach museum, an interactive experience where we viewed various hand written scores and other memorabilia related to Bach. The museum maintains an archive of Bach related materials.

Leipzig has been known for centuries as a center for commercial expos, book printing and binding, universities, and music. It was not bombed as much during WWII as Dresden, and today we saw very little evidence of nearly 40 years of eastern occupation, at least in the Alt Stadt. Business appears to be booming, resulting in a lively town center.

We ate dinner at the Cafe Apoteke, Fred had stroganoff and I had veal goulash with potatoes, all of which was yummy.

A stroll back to the hotel with a diversion to the mall in the train station for necessaries shopping and we are in tor the night.

HOW TO: When traveling in a country where you do not speak the language, use online train schedules to do your research before going to the train station, then write down your destination, possible times, etc, on a piece of paper or take a map so you can show the rail service agent where you want to go. Whenever possible, pick up the train schedule at the station showoing all of the stops so you don't have to guess where and when to get off the train. Trains only stop for a minute or two at most stations, so refer to your schedule, then just before your stop, gather your belongings and head for an exit so you are ready to detrain. Allow someone else to exit first or watch at a prior stop so you know how to open the train door. On most trains, using the restroom while the train is stopped in a station is forbidden. If you tend to get motion sickness, try to ride facing forward.

Dresden, Germany

I have missed writing about some of the prep for this journey, but I wanted to use this venue to document our trip. I will include a How To section at the end of most posts to help you with yoiur planning.

We had a short night Saturday, only a few hours sleep before leaving early Sunday morning to get to Charlotte, NC for the overseas flight. We both had trouble getting everything we need for these 3 weeks into our backpacks. Fred was still finishing up work and community tasks and I was saving and printing maps, guidebooks, and genealogy "stuff" until the last minute. We left home about 10:00 pm and slept at the Comfort Inn, Platte City from 2 until 5 am, not enough sleep and not recommended. We did the Park and fly from that hotel, which will actually save us on parking.
The 3 flights went well: KC to Charlotte NC, Charlotte to Frankfort (overnight), Frankfort to Dresden. There is a seven hour time difference between Frankfort and Kansas, so the "overnight" flight actually started about 5:00 pm ET and ended at 6:00 am Frankfort time, but it was about 8 hours long. We ate dinner on the plane, then slept some.

We arrived at the Dresden airport about 11:00 am on Monday and got good info from an english speaker at the airport information desk. We bought all day transportation passes there, then took the train downtown to our hotel. I had found and reserved a small hotel called Fischhaus Alberthafen on the internet, a guest house and seafood restaurant located on a working river harbor. We checked in, then ate good seafood lunch there.

I planned two nights here, for two reasons: To allow time to get rested from the travel and time change and to ensure we could get on schedule if there were any travel delays. I think the strategy worked well. We were exhausted on Monday, so ate a good lunch, took a walk, then had a late afternoon snack, got to bed early and woke up early Tuesday feeling good.

Our walk gave us a feel for the city and kept us upright on our first day in this time zone. The temptation is always to take a nap that first day, but we get acclimated better when we stay awake until early evening the first day. There was a minor mishap. I took out my trusty old camera and the lens cover was not opening properly - this has happened before and the result is photos with black diagonal bars across them. So, then we had a goal, find a camera store and purchase a new camera. We stopped at a shop selling local wood carvings and crafts and asked. A young man working there directed us across the street to a shopping mall. Behind an old facade was a huge new mall with stores of all kinds. We bought water at an Aldi, then got directions to a photo shop were we got a camera.

After a snack, we walked to the river Elbe that runs through Dresden, then along the river back to our hotel. The river is an important part of the city environment, there are paddle wheel steamers, restaurant boats, and cafes that overlook the river. On the way home, we also walked past the Saxon state government buildings, which are modern and impressive architecture. The old part of Dresden was almost totally destroyed in February of 1945, in one night 75% of the old city was bombed and burned. The old architectural treasures, the opera, the Zwinger museum and art gallery, the royal palace, the cathedral and the Frauenkirche were all destroyed and have been carefully rebuilt of old stone. These now stand beside post WWII soviet buildings and new, modern shopping malls.

Enough for today, time to get breakfast and get started on this day here in Dresden!

How to: To find the hotel in Dresden I googled Pension, Gasthaus, and hotel Dresden (Pension and Gasthaus are German equivalents of small hotels). I also googled the same for Saxony, the German state we are visiting. These are some of the links I used: http://www.saechsisches-burgenland.de/ , http://www.leipziger-land.city-map.de/ , http://www.bedandbreakfast.de/ , http://www.fischhaus-alberthafen.de/

Back from France and Back into Poland Trip

We have just returned from a 2 week work/exploring trip to France. True to form, I was depressed on the way home as I did not have my next trip finalized. Sunday we bought our tickets for Poland and eastern Germany! I have been using http://www.kayak.com/ to monitor ticket prices and had been a bit dismayed at the prices.

Saturday I got notice that some of the German cities had dropped in price, while Poznan has been increasing. Sunday we bought tickets from the midwest to Dresden, Germany for $927 each, the lowest prices I have seen in a couple of months.

With Kayak, I was watching all possible cities, from Milan to Hamburg, and from Stettin to Warsaw. Kayak monitors multiple travel sites, including Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, CheapTickets, etc. Once I saw the lower price, I went directly to http://www.usairways.com/ to book the flight and got it for the same price as reported by one of the above travel sites.

Today I adjusted the itinerary to reflect the flight into and out of Dresden. The flight goes through Charlotte and Frankfurt on the way to Dresden, which is near my dad's Winkler ancestral home in Oelschuetz, Germany.

Lots still to be done on this trip. Now that we are back in the country, I will try to update you more regularly. Till next time! Auf wiedersehen!