Euro trip !

[svandamme]

Thanks guys, keep em coming, great stuff!

[Rick Lee]

BTW, there's a museum near Dresden in Bautzen, which was the main prison for the DDR's political prisoners. I haven't been there, but it's on my list. The whole area between Dresden and Decin (CZ border) is amazing scenery. If you're anywhere near the former inner German border, definitely check out one of the Grenzland museums. They can be a PITA to find, but worth it.

[kevin993]

Border museums - Modlareuth!!! This may have been a Rick recommendation.





Rick is right - lots of other great stuff in the border area between Germany and CZ. Here's a shot of Hof, but there are lots of great little towns to explore.

[svandamme]

just noticed, that we'll be driving by Mittelwerk- Dora on the first day
and it's jsut 2 km from the autobahn, so not a real detour.. also , it's smack in the middle of the drive to Poland, so perfect for a break..


I went to visit Eperleques V2 site in Saint Omer last year, it's not far from where i live..
Mittelwerk is a similar location with high tech ruins of the 3rd Reich..


Mittelwerk/Dora

[Rick Lee]

I went to Mittelbau-Dora last May. It's actually a little farther off the A38 than it looks. You have to drive all the way through Nordhausen to get to it, but that's not a bad town to drive through either. It definitely has that old DDR vibe to it, if you know what I mean. The Greek place on the main street there is a good lunch spot.

Mittelbau-Dora isn't much to look at unless you take the tour of the tunnels. Bring a jacket. It will be chilly in there and it'll take longer to get through than you'll be able to stand without a jacket. IIRC, it's a steady 8-10 deg. C at all times.

As long as you're taking that hwy, there's some other good stuff about an hour east. Eisleben, birthplace of Martin Luther is one of the exits. Querfurt, IIRC, is the next exit and has a pretty cool castle. Obhausen is a tiny village you can drive through to get to Querfurt. It's my favorite place in the world and I stayed with a family there for a week during the summer before the Berlin Wall fell. Great people there.

Looks like Leipzig and Dresden are on that route too. So much to see there and such a shame to pass it all by. There's also a Stasi prison in Halle, which you'll be passing right by, called Rote Ochse. I was there in 2002 when they were renovating it to make it into a museum. Some of the workers there let me walk around the construction site and go see a few of the cells that had not been touched since back in the day. If you were ever in the DDR, it had such a unique smell everywhere and those prison cells still had it. It's like wet wood and cheap leather with some two stroke engine exhaust mixed in. Looks like Bautzen is also right off the hwy. past Dresden.

I really want to go to Wroclaw too, the old Breslau. My friend in Obhausen, since passed away, was from there back when it was Silesia, part of Germany. There's an amazing, totally unwritten history about the expulsion of Germans from those territories right after WWII.

[Rick Lee]

This is the tunnel entrace at Mittelbau-Dora.



Lots of old V1 or V2 (I forget) engines in there.


This was the final stop for most of the slave laborers there.


When you hear the tour guide explain how things worked there, I'd have much rather been killed immediately at an extermination camp than worked and starved to death at one of these places. IIRC, the avg. lifespan of a prisoner at Mittelbau-Dora was under 10 wks from the time of arrival. The conditions were horrendous.

Mrs. Lee in front of the Luther statue in Eisleben.

[Divedeep]

Originally Posted by svandamme

German museums closed on mondays? chit, that's inconvenient.

It is not a German thing... you see that elsewhere, too. As museums are opend during weekends, they just close for one day. Almost everywhere to be fair....

With regards to the Nazi history in Nuremberg: just old rocks that the old stadion is now used as an open air concert field and there is a DTM car race (the Noris race: http://www.norisring.de) every year.

Bamberg is certainly the nicer city compared to Nuremberg...

[tops911]

I live in Bamberg and would agree with Divedeep ;o)

[svandamme]

Sell to me Tops, tell me what i can come see or do in yer town!
I'm willing to take bribes !

[svandamme]

Oh, and be careful what you wish for, hide your womenz!

[Rikao4]

was stationed in Bamberg..
awesome little town..
heard you like Beer..
it has more breweries than ANYONE...
nice small town feel ( it did then)
try to find some 'Rauchbier" it was invented there..
well the monastery burned down and the smoke got into the vats..
it's a taste thing...
but the giggles it produces come fast..

Rika

[Divedeep]

If you decide to go north from Prague and do Dresden (also called as the German Venice and you know what happend to that city ni WWII) you could also make a stop in Leipzig. There you may find factories of smoe car manufacturers and the Sachsenring - a little race track for you 1 series...

Dunno though how to get from Leipzig back home to Beligium (nothing really exciting in between...)

[Rikao4]

Rika

[IXXI_carrera]

I realize you already plan a trip to Oświęcim (Germans call it Auschwitz). I was there many years ago with three Americans and a very good Polish friend. The tour lasted several hours. I think we spoke a total of ten words to each other the entire time. The entire place still felt like death was hanging over it. We saw two of the three camps originally part of complex. Some of the images still haunt me (room with the glasses, luggage, hair, etc.). Sobering, but worthwhile. The only thing my good friend could say afterward was, I can't believe this happened in my country. He was humbled/embarrassed.

Kraków is also a great place to spend some time. Interesting tradition involving the musician in the tower ... you'll find out.

Praha is amazing - prolly one of my favorite places I've been in Europe.

Enjoy and post some pics along the way!.

[craigster59]

In Bamberg, definitely go to Schlenkerla for rauchbier and Mahr's Brau for their beer. Just outside Bamberg is Hirschaid where Brauerai Kraus has great food and beer and now has accomadations. You won't be far from Franconian Switzerland either:
Franconian Switzerland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schlenkerla.....



Bamberg bier...




Brauerai Kraus..



I've also wanted to go to the "Bone Church" outside of Prauge ever since seeing it on "Long Way Round"..

[tops911]

Craigster59 is selling Bamberg better than I can, I've been here almost a year and over 5 months of it has been in the field (Graf and Hohenfels). And then it seems like this pesky thing called work keeps getting in the way.........My Soldiers always get in trouble at the Goose and the Irish Pub, I'm a little too old for that stuff, plus they're Joe hangouts so I stay away from them. I'll be headed to Afghanistan in a couple of months. I'm going to pay for this assignment, a couple of months after I get back from Afghanistan I'll be going to El Paso.....
The smoked beer is a must do, I had one out of the tap at the brewery and it was bacon flavored to me, I struggled to drink it all. I have my mom and sister visiting now and the down town was overwhelming there was just so much to look at. This is their first trip to Germany, so it's all pretty much overwhelming to them, LOL The weather has been great the last couple of days too.

[Rikao4]

thank you for your service Top...

in my day the 2/2/Cav was on one side..
us on the other side of the street..
have seen the Hawk & froze my butt off in Hohenfels also..
someone once painted the balls on the Bulldog out front of HQ..
my unit was 154 Mech. Inf..

Rika

[craigster59]

I was 82nd Engineer, which is no longer at Warner Kaserne. The Goose wasn't there when I was there, but MautKellar and Kings Inn was where i hung out along with some German friends in a band where we traveled around to the smaller towns. Beautiful area of Bavaria.

This was a bit before the wall came down, so a lot of our time was spent running out to Hof (on the Czech border) to run targets and calculate explosives and demolitions for roads and bridges (in the case of the Commies advancing). Spent a bit of time in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels also.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by tops911

Craigster59 is selling Bamberg better than I can, I've been here almost a year and over 5 months of it has been in the field (Graf and Hohenfels). And then it seems like this pesky thing called work keeps getting in the way.........My Soldiers always get in trouble at the Goose and the Irish Pub, I'm a little too old for that stuff, plus they're Joe hangouts so I stay away from them. I'll be headed to Afghanistan in a couple of months. I'm going to pay for this assignment, a couple of months after I get back from Afghanistan I'll be going to El Paso.....
The smoked beer is a must do, I had one out of the tap at the brewery and it was bacon flavored to me, I struggled to drink it all. I have my mom and sister visiting now and the down town was overwhelming there was just so much to look at. This is their first trip to Germany, so it's all pretty much overwhelming to them, LOL The weather has been great the last couple of days too.

Aw, i thought you were a German in Bamberg, anyway, Be safe in the 'Stan..

[svandamme]

Game on ! departing at 03h00 CET, 5 hours from now.
decided to take a different route going to Poland
Take the route via Koln, and then make a long pitstop at Wartburg Castle near Eisenach, it's smack in the middle of our drive to Auschwitz.



It's the castle where Luther went into hiding or something, translated the New Testament in German.



anyway, looks like a nice place to take a break and have lunch.

And we'll probably spend 2 days in Prague, but it's all very open ended.. we'll see what we do when we get there.