We have gotten over the hump. The bulk of the driving (of which I'm doing none) is over. After Budapest we have 2 hours til Bratislava and then 3 hours to Prague the following day (Dad may have to drive from Prague to Krakow on his own, without my gps).
We started the day with my favorite potatos. Everyday the breakfast has been the same except the potatoes; sometimes wedges, sometimes fingerling but finally finally they had mini hash browns like the first morning. Have I mentioned how different a trip this is then I normally take abroad?(5 days on this style trip and I'm already comparing hotel breakfasts in American hotels, luckily I go back to normal and don't spoil all my hard work of keeping myself a rough and tough traveler). Rarely do I have a rental car, staying in American hotels 10 km outside the city center, or my father with me!
We started out the day trying to go to schindler's factory which was turned into a museum. We almost turned away, first because parking seemed near impossible and then the huge line, yet once we were handed free tickets we figured we'd stick around! The museum was great actually. A few exhibits were a bit worn and not very technologically advanced, but it made up for it in astethics. One room showed what 1940s krakow may have looked like with swastikas tiled on the ground and Nazi flags waving, another showed what the local work turned concentration camp could have looked like down to the uneven rocky ground mentioned in some of the primary sources, and a third showed what an office in "red" krakow may have looked. It was full of information and first hand testimony. It went over the history leading up to occupation in 1939 and finishing at the end of the war. It covered the krakow ghetto which was overlooked in the polin museum. The jews were not allowed to stay in Kazimierz, the already existing jewish ghetto of the middle ages, they were placed in a further suburb that contained 2000 people but needed to fit thousands more when the jews were relocated. The only thing this museum did not do really well was coverage of schindler. Most info about him were contained within two rooms. One which made it very clear that he started out as a spy and a man out for himself, wanting to get rich on the backs of others. The other had a mock of his office and an art installation that had dishpans (one of the products from his factory) making up the walls and on the inside his famous lists. I am really glad we twice did not turn around.
We then began our drive, 1.5 hours to get out of Poland, about 4 hours in Slovakia and the last hour or so in Hungary. We both could not stop remarking on the beauty of Slovakia (it could help that the first third we drove through a national park). The towns looked adorable, like they could have been out of a storybook. We only made 3 stops, all initiated by me since I insisted on getting up to my 3 liters of water for the day (which I have been shy of by quite a bit so far) as I believe it's the natural defence against headaches. We left around 1, and my phone told me we'd arrive at like 720. We pulled into our hotel (yep, the holiday inn) around 820. That includes 3 stops, one being for food. Not too bad overall!!
I'm now settling in nicely to my travel of luxury. Come to think of it, I should tell the bellhop it's not cold enough in here.
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