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Quick visits to Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Italy

15/9/2010

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Lichtenstein
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Switzerland, near Lake Constance
Firstly I should point out that there are entries waiting to be posted for Austria and subsequently Italy.

Meanwhile, the journey continues here from Germany, where we left Isny in the late morning and headed into Austria on a very small mountain road, crossing German and then Austrian valleys before crossing into Switzerland near Lake Constance. Whilst Switzerland remains separate from the European Union, crossing the borders in this region were still no different to crossing a state border in Australia. Maybe a few police looking half interested and a wave of the hand but otherwise, border control is obviously effected through other methods.

We drove from near the lake, South, up the Rhine Valley, dominated by rocky mountains and alpine valleys.

We detoured into Lichtenstein where we found that things seemed like Switzerland (or Austria or Germany). The castles were quite spectacular and despite the quaint size of the two towns we stopped in, there did seem to be a lot of high end stores.

Once back into Switzerland we tunneled our way South toward the San Bernadino pass, not quite the gateway to Italy but certainly a geographic divide between German and Italian Switzerland. At over 2000 metres the pass had snow on the peaks around it. Whilst this is apparently a great driving road, we were on the faster route that is predominately tunnels and overpasses so all smooth driving for us.

As seems to be the case everyday that we are driving, we arrived into Italy late in the day from Switzerland. We had thought about heading to the Lake Como area but decided to go to another Lake to the West, the direction of travel for us in the morning.

The scenery remained like Switzerland with large mountain ranges and ridges overshadowing our journey, although Italy seemed to have greater haze. It was hotter so possibly this explains it. In fact it was now as we would imagine the Mediterranean climate to be.

Not far into Italy (in this part of Europe the divide between Italy and Switzerland is not obvious) we came across tourist villages alongside Lake Maggiore. It was quite impressive, with some house perched above the roads on cliffs, the only entrance available a single elevator shaft from next to the road, where the owner’s cars were parked in a garage cut into the cliff!

There were lots of fancy cars (not necessarily exotic though as Italy is home to some of the most exotic car manufacturers!), people sailing and water skiing, and all of this along a VERY narrow ribbon of road. Time for a stop.

We didn’t like our chances of getting one nights accommodation but following signs, Julia checked a Hotel right on the waterfront, just to get a feel for prices and availability. Before we knew it we were swimming in the pool, dining on the terrace above the lake and enjoying a great Italian summers evening.
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San Bernadino pass area, Switzerland
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Lake Maggiore, Italy. Our little playground for a night!
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Germany

10/9/2010

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A German Cow, in Isny, southern Germany
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The Reichstag, meeting place of the German parliament. It went unused for 60 years and was refurbished with the inclusion of a large domed cupola for viewing the city
We left Sachsenhausen to find Berlin and its Reichstag, as well as Brandenburg Gate. To be honest, with no guide book and trying to see so much, we didn’t have a great knowledge of Berlin…... So with some fear, we drove aimlessly toward the city centre and hoped for the best.

As it turned out, we came across a large set of old towering gates, West of the city centre. We were able to park near them easily so we jumped out and wandered around, getting lots of photos under the assumption that this was the Brandenburg Gates………..um, wrong! They were impressive and whilst we still haven’t found a name for them, we do have lots of pictures……..

We continued on, at this stage unsure of what we had seen and what we hadn’t, and then found the Brandenburg Gates. So that cleared up our last little excursion – a little bit, anyway – and conveniently we discovered that the Gates sit very close to several other big attractions, including the Reichstag building. So park the car and lets get walking.

We wandered along the Spree River, next to Museum Island where 5 museums are beautifully encased in modern architectural wonders. We also walked around the Reichstag building and imagined a city divided by a giant wall, separating families and friends for over 30 years.

By now it was past peak hour traffic time so we thought we might head South of Berlin to stop for the night, getting us along the way for our next destination, Switzerland.

Before we knew it we had enjoyed a nice German meal in a road side diner and as the rain came down, I felt good enough to keep driving. Eventually we stopped and slept in the car (!!) and then side tracked in the morning to a little village near the Austrian border for some breakfast and a walk around.

I don’t think there could have been a more perfect way for us to spend our last few hours in Germany. By now we had entered into Germany 4 times yet had barely seen any of it’s daily life. So the small village of Isny provided at least a small snapshot of that for us. At the foot of the Alps and basically at the corner of Austria, Switzerland and Germany, Isny is a very old town with ancient walls, cobblestoned streets and a friendly café lifestyle.
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Brandenburg Gate, looking East. The original city gates to Berlin, over 200 years old.
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The wall behind is 700 years old, built to defend the town from feudal wars in the region
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Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Germany, and Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camps, Poland

8/9/2010

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'Work brings Freedom' - Sachsenhausen main gate
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Main gate, Sachsenhausen, above which sits the SS HQ, specially designed to dominate the entire camp from all perspectives
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Whilst we visited these camps more than two weeks apart it seemed appropriate to enter them in the blog together and more importantly separate from the country entries for Germany and Poland.

Sachsenhausen was a concentration camp – in simple terms a place for the Nazi regime to “concentrate” all of the people that they saw as undesirable. The aim was to then use the inmates for work details or as time went on, relocate them. In the most part the concentration camps were poorly administered by often sadistic Nazi’s on frightening power trips. Sadly, the result was starvation, disease and exhaustion that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Europeans, inmates due to their political, religious or cultural beliefs. There were also thousands of Russian prisoners of war who were treated by the Nazi regime as being less than human.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was an Extermination camp. People were brought from all over Europe to the South of Poland, where they were divided into those who could work and those who would die, the majority fell into the latter category.

As the girls had read about Anne Frank so recently, Bergen-Belsin seemed an appropriate concentration camp to visit. The German couple we had met in Sonderburg suggested that as we were going towards Berlin, we would find it easier to visit the camp at Sachsenhausen.

So getting away late again, this time due to the incredible breakfast – honest, we headed towards Berlin. The motorways were less crowded and given our late start, we were happy to arrive at Sachsenhausen by 3.30pm. We quickly realised this was a good choice in regard to visiting a concentration camp (if there can be any “good” relating to that phrase?). It was incredibly educational for us.

Sachsenhausen wasn’t the first concentration camp established but it was considered the “model” camp on which subsequent camps were designed. It was next door to the Headquarters of the Camp Agency, from where all German Concentration and Extermination camps were managed.

Built in 1936 whilst the Olympic Games were being held just down the road in Berlin, the labour came from early concentration camp inmates, mostly political opponents of the Nazi Regime, as well as homosexuals and other citizens deemed undesirable by the regime. Sachsenhausen was a frightening look at the Western world of not long ago.

 Sachsenhausen has the dubious honour of being the camp that developed the most efficient form of execution for the murder of Russian prisoners of war, although this was eventually superceded by the horrors of the gas chambers.

Whilst it was over two weeks since we visited Sachsenhausen, arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau it was difficult to not think about paying our respects at the front gate and continuing on – the enormity of the horrors carried out in these camps is overwhelming. However we had teamed up with Julia’s sister Tracy and her boyfriend Troy to have a weekend in Poland so a visit to Auschwitz seemed essential. It had been one of our “want to visit” places from before we left Australia.

It is a very different camp to Sachsenhausen. Indeed it is 3 main camps with tens of satellite camps, each with different purposes. There was a large labour force housed between the camps to work in the local factories producing munitions and accessories for the German war effort.

Sadly, the notoriety achieved by Auschwitz was due to the gas chambers. It is estimated that between 1 and 1.3 million people were put to death (murdered) at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. The calculating, measured and meticulous efforts taken by the Nazi’s to achieve this is staggering. The rail lines here at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II – Birkenau have a truly sinister air. The conditions on the trains were terrible, but the prospects for those who got off at Auschwitz were much worse.

Unlike Sachsenhausen, some of the gas chambers and crematoriums remain as they were in 1945. The engineering and logistics that went into the wanton disposal of human life is frightening.

We found both sites to be incredibly educational, very thought provoking and respectful memorials. Sadly there cannot be a fitting memorial for so much loss of life though the complete loss of humanity.
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The notorious rail line entering Auschwitz II-Birkenau
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Main Square, Auschwitz I. The scene of daily roll-calls, public humiliations and hangings.
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Five Countries in One Day

30/8/2010

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Bard's Cottage Commonwealth War Cemetary, Belgium
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Ypres Cathedral
Somehow, we found ourselves back in the South East of England, this time at Ramsgate, ready to take a ferry to Belgium. Not just any ferry either, the cheapest ferry crossing I could find, at only 59 pounds! Maybe that was how we came to be in Ramsgate at 11.00pm at night?

The crossing was nice and the ferry had a sleeping lounge with business class type seats. Somehow though I wasn’t expecting two hours sleep to get me through the day…….

Whilst not exactly carefully planned, I worked out that with clever driving, careful navigation and the planets being aligned, we could actually turn our cheap ass crossing into a well timed visit of Commonwealth memorials at Ypres – dawn is always a good time to think of the sacrifices made by those who went before us.

We dis-embarked on time at about 4.30am and headed South East. To be honest, I had no idea how central Belgium was to the fighting along the Western Front. So many of the towns we visited in Belgium in our one day dash westward were names that were very familiar to me – but I must guiltily admit to having always assumed they were in France, inclusive of WW2 sites.

So starting at Ypres, after two U-turns and some confusion in the breaking dawn, we spent the day soaking up memorials to the fallen and to Liberation.

First stop was Bards Cottage cemetery, a Commonwealth War Graves site. It is one of many in the area and at dawn was typically moving – a reminder of how crazy the first World War was and how well Western Europe remembers the fallen.

In Ypres town centre we were amazed at the beauty of the town cathedral and then spent some time as the Sun rose, reading through the names of the fallen that are listed at Menin Gate. I can’t imagine what went through the minds of Australian soldiers – 2 years on the Western front, 10,000 miles from home, fighting for a free world at an age when they should have been leaving school, finding a suitor and starting a family (or maybe they should have been on their “gap year”?).

We left Ypres and drove westward towards Luxembourg. On the border is a Belgian town called Bastogne and I could recall it from military literature I had read in my youth. We battled the impatient peak hour flow of traffic on motorways and decided on taking the secondary routes, as much for my sanity as for the views! Each town we passed through was increasingly more scenic and when we arrived at Bastogne in the late morning, we were impressed with our chosen destination. Every town square should have a large choice of café’s and restaurants, a tourist information centre, a car park and of course, a Sherman Tank!

After lunch we headed into Luxembourg. Lots of pretty villages in mountain valleys and memorials to the allied soldiers who liberated the country. We found the cheapest fuel in this part of the world could be had in Luxembourg and that a day or a week could easily be spent in the little villages surrounded by mountains.

By now we had basically been traveling for 24 hours, having left Yorkshire the afternoon before. Our aim was to get to the Arnhem area of The Netherlands so that we could train in to Amsterdam the next day. To do this we had two options: back through Belgium and North into Holland by motorway or cross into Germany through back roads and wind our way North to motorways further into Holland. By going through Germany we would have driven through 5 countries by the time we got to The Netherlands, all in one day. That little achievement and the fact that Belgium motorways had not been very pleasant earlier in the day helped us decide.

We had afternoon tea in a beautiful town square, posted some cards from Luxembourg and headed off, crossing several rivers and mountains and then coming into Germany.

Despite having a fairly recent Michelin road atlas, not every road turned out to be as we expected – an hour into Germany and we were on motorways. Obviously Autobahns are famous throughout the world but this motorway was only signposted for 130km/h so pretty normal for Europe.

Apparently though, in Germany, it is pretty normal to ignore the speed limit and go as fast as your German or Swedish car will go – but it certainly helps to keep you awake after a long day.

We covered distance easily, despite a couple of traffic jams. We passed into The Netherlands and headed North. Julia had an idea that we should stay closer to Amsterdam so we headed that way. She navigated us through some really ugly satellite suburbs as we got closer, much to my delight after a long day, but then discovered the beautiful town of Hilversum, just 15 minutes train ride from Amsterdam. After 6 laps of the town we eventually found where the Hotels were and we were in for the night, ready to see Amsterdam the next day.
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Menin Gate, Ypres
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Bastogne town square, complete with Sherman Tank and Willy's Jeep
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Welcome to Luxembourg, please have a nice day
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Irsental, Germany. Next stop, The Netherlands
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