Svidnik, Slovakia

The town of Svidník is near where the battle of the Dukla Pass was fought in 1944. The countryside is dotted with tanks and artillery pieces, and even an Il-2 Sturmovik, left where they were disabled as a monument to the battle. They were all recently given fresh coats of paint and appear to be intact, although we learned that the tanks' engines were removed long ago to power local tractors. One of the tanks was left with its hatch welded open, so naturally, I had to have a look inside. That's me on the right, with cousin Zdenka in the foreground.

There was also a graveyard of the fallen Soviet soldiers, along with a huge memorial statue. During a walk in the nearby woods, we came upon a cleared swath and a sign reading "Warning: International Border!" I dashed across to pose for a photo, and thus was able to add Poland to the list of countries we visited.

We continued driving, and visited a couple of scenic small towns, the names of which escape me. (It seems unlikely that I'd be able to spell them correctly even if I did remember them.) We visited some medieval churches and strolled around the central squares of these small villages, then drove back to Poprad.

Poprad, Slovakia

On the way to Poprad by train, our luck with the weather ran out. Rain came down in sheets as we pulled into the station to be picked up by Hannah's parents, Pavel and Antonia. They had arrived a few days earlier on their own visit, and they drove us in their rental car to the apartment complex where many of Antonia's family live.

We went first to an apartment shared by Olga M. and Vlasta V. (Antonia's mother and sister, respectively) to find a family reunion in full swing. I was introduced around, as was Hannah, but where she could respond in reasonable Slovak, I could only smile and look dumb. It was an enjoyable evening nonetheless. I was given two shots of Slivovice, a homemade liquor that will probably be used as fuel when Slovakia gets a space program, and a fine local beer. With that, it was soon time for sleep.

We were shown to a nearby building and the apartment of Peter and Danka V. and their young daughters Andrea and Zuzka. Hannah and I were given one of the two rooms while the rest of the family crowded into the other. The apartments we saw were all very small and designed according to the same (Soviet) plan, with two rooms of about 3 by 4.5 meters at each end. These two outside rooms were used for sleeping or entertaining, while the middle of the apartment was further divided into a WC, bathing room, and kitchen as well as a hallway to connect the two outer rooms, all in a space of about the same size as the other rooms.

The next morning, after breakfast, Pavel, Antonia, Hannah and I went for a drive, and we brought Hannah's cousin Zdenka along so she could practice her English among us. We drove to the east of Poprad, through Svidník and some other, smaller towns.

Other day trips from Poprad brought us to the High Tatra mountains, the Bel'anská Jaskyña limestone caves, and downtown Poprad, where we saw storks. We also went out to the surrounding "suburbs" to visit the home of cousin Janík and his family. Janík is building the house himself, as that's the only way to get anything done in the post-Soviet era, and he's doing a good job of it.

Bratislava, Slovakia

We came in to Bratislava by train on our way to Poprad. We found that we had some time to spend in the city before leaving, so off we went, walking through the gritty, urban air from the train station to the hrad (castle) overlooking the Dunaj (Danube). The view alone was worth the walk. The hrad is now the Slovak National Historic Museum, and it's full of artifacts and exhibits on the national heritage; arts, crafts, coins, weapons, furniture, tools and other articles of daily life are housed in this museum.

From the castle, it's a short, although by no means direct, walk into the Staré Mesto (old walled city). The streets are cobblestone and extremely narrow, and the city appears to be unchanged over the centuries, except that the people and shops are all quite modern. We had lunch just outside the old city at a café on the sidewalk with a view of the passing crowds, then we walked back up the hill, past the presidential mansion, to the train station and headed for Poprad.

Vienna, Austria

We arrived in Vienna at night and headed straight for our accommodations, the Pension Kraml. After checking in, we headed back out to the Altstadt (Old Town) of Vienna. We had dinner (wienerschnitzel, bratwurst and beer) at a bistro, and then continued walking around, admiring the old buildings and beautiful churches, as well as some Roman ruins, uncovered and on open display in a traffic circle.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast at our hotel, we visited the Schönbrunn Schloss, not far from downtown. The Schloss (castle) was the Hapsburgs' summer place, and the extensive grounds were home to a variety of birds and animals, some of which (especially the squirrels) were very aggressive in soliciting handouts. Alas, we had nothing to give. We walked the grounds and admired the landscaping, then headed back into the city to see some more sights.

Back in downtown Vienna, we went by the Staatsoper (Opera House), but not inside. We then went into the Schmetterlinghaus (Butterfly House) for a brief visit (it was too humid inside to stay long), where we saw a variety of colorful and exotic butterflies. Lunch was at the famous Hotel Sacher, where the entrées are just a formality before dessert, the Sacher Torte.

The rest of the day we spent wandering, to the Neue Hofberg (where Hitler announced the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria in 1938), to some more Roman ruins (foundations of houses underneath an office building), to the Danube (not all that blue anymore), and to the Prater amusement park.

That evening, we treated ourselves to a concert. The program featured Mozart and Johann Strauss, so it was a Viennese "Greatest Hits" selection. The small ensemble (four violins, two cellos, flute, bass, & piano) was accompanied by a pair of singers for the operatic pieces or dancers for the ballets. The whole thing took place at the Palais de Liechtenstein, on a small stage that made the dancers' skills even more impressive.

That night's dinner was a real find. The menu for Siebenstern opens "Liebe bierfreunde!" ("Dear friends of beer!"), and from that we knew it was the restaurant for us. They brew their own beer, and the food was also quite good.

The next morning, we departed Vienna by train for Bratislava, Slovakia.

Munich, Germany

After clearing customs at the Munich airport, we shouldered our (enormous) backpacks and took a commuter train to the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station in downtown Munich. We put our packs in storage and set off on foot to explore the city. Lo and behold, almost the first thing we saw upon leaving the station was a McDonald's. The Golden Arches are everywhere.

We kept on walking, exploring the Marienplatz, a bustling pedestrian area full of shops, restaurants, and the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall). We took in the view from the Frauenkirche; that's the Neues Rathaus in the middle of the picture to the right, and the open area in front of it is Marienplatz. Too bad it was a rather hazy day; it's possible to see the Alps from the tower when the sky is clear.

We also visited the Michaelskirche and the tomb of Mad King Ludwig II (et al.) within before yielding to our hunger and seeking out lunch. We soon came to a sidewalk cafe/beer hall, and after a day and a night on airplanes, Bavarian sausages, pretzels and (most of all) beer were greatly appreciated.

I had been struggling all day with my German, as most of my vocabulary and nearly all my grammar had evaporated from disuse in the ten years since I'd last studied it. Fortunately, the restaurant had English menus (which saved us from ordering such delicacies as "soured calf's lung"), but after we'd already ordered, eaten and paid, Hannah discovered that our waiter spoke flawless Czech! After they had a short conversation, we walked back to the Hauptbahnhof to retrieve our packs and board our train to Vienna.

Dr. Hannah & Mr. Greg go to Europe

These posts are recycled from an earlier website written in 2000 about a trip we took in 1999. The dates have been matched as closely as I can reconstruct from our original travel journals.

When we returned from our two month journey through Europe we faced a dilemma: lots of people wanted to hear about our trip and see our photos, but since we'd shot a total of 28 rolls of film, we didn't want to subject anyone to that all at once. We've combined some of our photos with some observations from the journal we kept while traveling into this website. If you like, you can read through the whole site, or you can hop around to whatever bits interest you. Or you can skip to the end, pretending to have read the whole thing, and tell us by e-mail how much you loved it. Each country we visited has its own page, but we hopped around quite a bit, with a fair amount of backtracking. Just follow the links as they come up and you'll follow the route we took on our grand adventure. This style of presentation has another advantage: we can't tell when you're yawning.
In celebration of Hannah's completion of her Ph.D. in April, we decided to visit Europe. Since Hannah did not have to be at her new job until August, and I had just left my job in anticipation of our move to Toronto, we had plenty of free time to indulge our wanderlust. We knew that even two months would not be enough to see as much as we wanted to see, so we looked at this trip as an opportunity to sample some of the places to which we may return to explore in greater depth. We also had plenty of friends and relatives to meet and stay with scattered across Europe, and an extended tour gave us the opportunity to meet as many of them as possible.

To begin at the beginning, our expedition started from our former home in Pasadena, CA. We left for LAX in the morning and caught our first flight of the day to Dulles Airport, Washington D.C. Five hours later, we boarded our second flight. Fortunately, I had accumulated enough frequent flier miles to do this whole trip in Business Class, so all this time spent in airports and on airplanes wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. We arrived in Munich the next morning, and our epic vacation began...