by Cassie, December 7th, 2009 | No Comments
Monday, October 26, 2009
Distance: 34 km
Today turned out to be more of an adventure than we expected! When we left Bratislava, the clocks were pushed ahead one hour, so it got dark at about 5pm now. We made it to Gyor by noon, and we spent a couple hours exploring Gyor. It was neat city with a large pedestrian area in the city center.
Gyor City Hall
We also got our favorite food for lunch: kebab!
We love kebab!
By the time we got groceries and checked the Internet, it was mid-afternoon when we left Gyor. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but it was a nightmare to get out of Gyor. It took us longer to get out of Gyor than it did to get out of Vienna! There were no bike route signs, and our map was not detailed enough to find our way out of the city easily. The other problem was that once you left the city center, there was a lot of traffic, and we also rode through a big industrial area. We felt awful from breathing in the exhaust from the cars and the pollution from the factories. We were really ready to get out of Gyor, and we managed to find our way out of the city. By the time we got out of the city, it was already 4pm, and there were no places to stay for another 20km. We passed by a sign for a pension in the first town outside of Gyor, and we stopped there. However, they didn’t have any rooms available. We didn’t want to continue riding to get to the next place to stay since it would be getting dark soon, and we would have to ride along a busy road. We also didn’t want to go through the hassle of riding back into Gyor. Instead, we decided to camp in the woods we passed along the bike path. We actually found a great spot! The woods next to the bike path were actually a tree farm, and the trees were planted in rows spaced to fit our tent perfectly. Also, the ground was really level for putting up the tent. Fortunately, our tent was camouflaged to blend in with the woods. Jonathan went to the bike path to see if he could see the tent from the path, and he couldn’t see it. The night went really well, and we weren’t not bothered at all by someone kicking us out. We got up at first light in the morning and packed up, and no one knew we were even there. 🙂
Camping in the woods!
Can you see our tent in the woods from the bike path? We're well camouflaged. 🙂
by Cassie, December 6th, 2009 | No Comments
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Distance: 55km
Today, we woke up to a beautiful, sunny day! I actually was wearing my sunglasses all day long! As we were getting ready to leave the hostel, we met Ken Roberts from England, and he is doing a 4-year bike tour around the world. He biked along the length of the Danube bike tour like us, so it was fun to hear about his experiences. Check out Ken’s blog to follow his adventures as he bikes around the world.
The ride out of Bratislava was really nice. We rode along a dedicated bike path the entire way, and the bike path was full of people out enjoying the beautiful day. As we approached the border between Slovakia and Hungary, we turned off the main, busy road to a secondary road. We were able to cross the border without a problem, and there was just a beat-up sign announcing we were entering Hungary.
Border crossing between Slovakia and Hungary
At the border, we met Steve from the University of Arizona who was also out for a bike ride. He was the first American we had met while biking! He was studying in Bratislava for a semester as an exchange program. We talked to him about studying in Bratislava, and it was much different from our experience at Grinnell. He said masters students don’t show up for the first couple weeks of class. Some people only go to class a few times a semester, and they still manage to pass. He had been at school for a couple months, and there had been a few lectures, no assignments, and no tests. He said it’s a great way to have lots of time to travel and see the country! We bypassed the main border checkpoint by turning off the main road, and Steve suggested we check out the abandoned border checkpoint. We decided to check it out, and it was crazy! It was strange that they didn’t board up the windows when the checkpoint was shutdown. All the windows were broken, and people had gone in and completely trashed the place. It was strange walking inside the building because some things had been left there since the closing of the checkpoint. They still had a calendar up in one of the offices, and there were old documents that were scattered all over the floor.
Abandoned border checkpoint between Slovakian and Hungary
Smashed windows inside border checkpoint
Trashed room at border checkpoint
We had a wonderful day riding through the Hungarian countryside. They had harvested the fields, and they had pyramids of straw bales stacked in the field. The funniest part of the day was getting ice cream from an ice cream truck. The truck was playing music like an ice cream truck, and it stopped on the side of the road for us. However, when we reached it, it looked more like a frozen food delivery truck than an ice cream truck. But, they opened up the back of the truck, and it had a big, picture menu with all their items, which included ice cream. 🙂 This was an adventure for us because this was our first day in Hungary, and we didn’t know any Hungarian. Also, Hungary was part of the EU, but they had not switched to the euro yet. So, we also were dealing with a new currency and had to pay in Hungarian forints. The men in the ice cream truck didn’t speak English, but they did speak German. We managed to get ice cream and pay for it in forints. This was my first time getting ice cream from an ice cream truck, so it was really funny that it was in rural Hungary. 🙂
Hungary was a whole different experience for us. It was clear that Eastern Europe was not as economically advanced as Western Europe. As we were riding, we passed several wagons that were being pulled by mules, and we only saw tractors when we were riding through the countryside in Western Europe.
When we reached Lipot, it was such a nice day that we tried to camp at the campground. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season, so we got a room for the night instead. There were also thermal baths at the place we stayed for the night, so we spent the evening relaxing in the baths. The thermal baths were really nice after weeks on the bikes. 🙂
by Cassie, December 3rd, 2009 | No Comments
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Distance: 26km
In contrast to yesterday’s nice weather, today was a cold, gray, wet day. Last night, the sky was so clear that I was surprised to wake up to the sound of rain on the tent. Jonathan had a pretty miserable night because his Thermarest was punctured last night when he sat on the pot holder that was lying on it. He patched his Thermarest, but it still leaked air. It was cold last night, so he didn’t have much insulation between him and the cold, hard ground. This morning, Jonathan tried re-patching the Thermarest. However, after he re-patched it, it was still leaking air. It was really frustrating, and we wouldn’t be able to camp again if his Thermarest was busted. Then, Jonathan realized that the Thermarest had been punctured through to the other side. He only patched one side, so air was still leaking out the other side. However, we had used up all the patches for the Thermarest. But, we still had lots of bike patches, and he was able to patch the Thermarest with them. His Thermarest seemed to be fixed, so we would still be able to camp. 🙂
We got a late start with Jonathan fixing his Thermarest. Petronell-Carnuntum had a large archaeological park with Roman Ruins, but we didn’t have time to check them out. Instead, we rode by the Roman Heidentor (Heathen’s Gate) on the way out of town. It was not actually a gate, but one of the four entrances to a victory monument for Caesar Constantine II around 354-361 AD.
Heidentor at Carnuntum
We had a wet, cold ride to Bratislava. We experienced the most defined border crossing of the trip between Austria and Slovakia. There was a large border checkpoint, but it was no longer in use since Slovakia joined the European Union.
Border checkpoint between Austria and Slovakia
Originally, we were planning on continuing on to Hungary today, but it was such a miserable day that we decided to stop for the night in Bratislava. We found a great hostel near the city center. The hostel was run by Hostelling International, but it was much different from the Hosteling International places in Germany and Austria. The hostel was located in an old building with lots of character, and it was conveniently located. We got a large double room with high ceilings, and it even had a balcony!
Our awesome room with a balcony!
We were really glad that we decided to stop in Bratislava. The old city was really neat, and it was closed off to cars! It was fun to walk around, and there were a lot of other tourists. I didn’t think that Bratislava was big tourist destination, but it may be a tourist stop because of its proximity to Vienna. We got roasted chestnuts from a stand in one of the squares. I had never had roasted chestnuts before, and they were really good.
Bratislava old city
The old city of Bratislava was really neat, but the rest of the city was not so nice. Once we left the city center, we encountered the dull, gray, ugly Soviet apartment buildings. Slovakia was the first Eastern European country we visited, and it was a whole different experience from Western Europe.
Abandoned Soviet apartment building
However, in the midst of all these dull, concrete apartment buildings, we found a beautiful, blue church. I think it was my favorite church we visited on the trip. The design of the building was very unusual, and it reminded me of the buildings that Hundertwasser designed.
We also went to the observation tower on the New Bridge. It is called the UFO because of its shape. It looked similar to the Space Needle in Seattle. We had a great view of the city from the tower. It was so windy at the top of the tower that I felt like I was going to be blown over!
UFO on New Bridge
View of Bratislava from UFO
Petrzalka was the city across the river from Bratislava, and there were Soviet apartment buildings as far as you could see. A guy we met told us that Petrzalka had one the highest concentrations of Soviet apartment buildings in Eastern Europe.
Petrzalka
I was worried about going to Slovakia when we didn’t speak any Slovakian. We were only going to be in Slovakia for a day, so it didn’t make sense to try to learn the language. Fortunately, it was not a problem at all! Everyone spoke English really well, and a lot of the signs were in English, too.
by Cassie, December 3rd, 2009 | No Comments
Friday, October 23, 2009
Distance: 53km
Today was the first nice day we had in a long time. When we left Vienna, the sun was shining! We rode out of Vienna through Prater Park. When we had walked around Prater Park last night, we only explored a small part of the enormous park. It took a long time to ride through the huge park!
Riding through Prater Park
Just as we got out of Vienna, I got a flat tire. When I took the tire off, I found a big shard of metal that had pierced through the tire. There was a big gash in the inner tube that was really easy to spot. This was only our second flat tire of the trip caused by a puncture, so our Kevlar tires did a good job of preventing flat tires.
We rode along the Danube once we left Vienna. Since it was a nice day, there were people hanging out at the park by the river. I saw an old man that appeared to be sun bathing in the nude, but I did not want to check to be certain. 🙂 We left the river to ride through a chemical plant with big tanks, but after we passed the chemical plant, we ran into road construction that completely blocked the road. We had an adventure riding on gravel roads to get around the construction. We were so close the first time we made it back to the main bike route, but the road was still blocked off for the construction. But, we finally made it back to the bike route! The bike route went through the Danube National Park, and it was really pretty riding through the forest along the river. The bike path was absolutely straight, and it reminded us of driving down I-88 in Illinois on the way to Chicago. 🙂
Absolutely straight bike path!
When we arrived in Hainburg, it was so nice outside that we decided to take a detour and go to Petronell-Carnuntum where there was a campground. We had not been able to camp for about two weeks, so it was exciting to have weather nice enough to camp! We had some trouble finding the campground. We went to where the campground was marked on the map, but all that was there was a big field. We were about to ride into town to stay at a guesthouse when we saw a sign for the campground. We found the campground, and we realized that it was not marked correctly on the map. The campground was together with a restaurant and indoor tennis courts, which was an interesting combination. 🙂
Tennis and Camping - a fun combination!
by Cassie, November 27th, 2009 | No Comments
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
We spent the morning at the Habsburg’s summer palace. It started off as a “simple” hunting palace, but Maria Theresa had it completely redone in the rococo style to rival the palace in Versailles. They had the most complicated system for touring the palace. They had four different tours with different prices. The 20 room tour was 9.50 euros, but you could see an additional 10 rooms for only 12.50 euros and so on. Once we had selected the number of rooms we wanted to tour, we also could only enter the palace at the specific time stamped on the ticket. Fortunately, we were there during the off season, so we only had to wait a few minutes before we could tour the palace. We did the tour of the imperial apartments, and they were incredibly fancy. The Habsburgs spent a lot of money on the palace. The walls and ceilings were covered in gold leaf. Each room had a ornately decorated ceramic stove for heating. The stoves were refueled by servants from behind, so all the walls had passageways behind them for servants to keep the rooms heated. It was interesting to see Franz Joseph’s rooms. He prided himself on his simple lifestyle and his strict discipline towards serving the empire. His rooms were plainly decorated with only a simple bed and desk. However, it seemed contradictory that he was still living in an enormous, fancy palace.
The summer palace also was surrounded by a large set of gardens, so we walked around in the gardens for a while. While we were walking around, the sky started to clear up, and the sun actually came out! It was sunny for the rest of the day, and the temperature reached double digits for the first time in days: 12 degrees Celsius. It was the nicest day in a long time.
We climbed the tower of the St. Stephans Cathedral. The top of the tower was like the Belfort tower in Bruge. We were not allowed to walk around the outside of the tower, and we could only look through the small windows on each side of the tower. Nevertheless, the view from the tower was neat. Vienna was a big place! The city went on as far as we could see from the tower.
After climbing the tower, we got ice cream for the first time in days. We celebrated the warmer weather with three scoops of ice cream. 🙂 We wandered around the city for the rest of the day. We stopped by the large fountain by the Belevedere Palace, and while we were there, we saw two balloons similar to our trash bag balloons released from the statue by the fountain. Their design was similar to ours, but they used tissue paper instead of a trash bag. They seemed to have a different type of fuel, too. One of the balloons went really far until we could no longer see it. The other balloon didn’t do as well, and it got stuck in the tree and burned the tree a little bit. We were surprised that these people released these balloons in the middle of big city considering they are a fire hazard if they get caught in something. When we did our trash bag balloon, we kept control of it with a kite string.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Yesterday, the weather had been nice, but today it was rainy and cold. It was a good day to spend inside of museums. We went to the Hofburg palace to tour the imperial apartments. First, we had to figure out which of the many doors went to the imperial apartments in the enormous palace complex. We finally found the entrance to the museum. 🙂 The museum began with the Habsburg silver collection, which consisted of room after room of tableware. The Habsburgs had an obscene amount of tableware. When they traveled, they brought their tableware with them since they wouldn’t have sufficient tableware where they were going. They had big carrying cases for the tableware. The most interesting part of the silver collection was the exhibition of the foot washing ceremony. Before Lent, the emperor would wash the feet of 12 poor old men, and the empress would wash the feet of 12 poor old women. The symbolism of the ceremony was that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Each person was also given 30 silver pieces, the same amount Judas received for betraying Jesus.
The next section of the museum was dedicated to Empress Elizabeth, or “Sissi”. It detailed her life from her carefree days growing up as a Duchess in Bavaria to her life as empress of Austria and her assassination. Apparently, Sissi was very shy and timid, and she was not well-suited for the duties of a being a public figure. She resented her lack of freedom, and she disliked all the attention she received. She mostly left the politics to Emperor Franz Joseph, but she did intervene when Hungary was struggling for independence from the empire. She was influential in convincing Franz Joseph to sign the agreement creating the dual monarch of Austria-Hungary. This was a substantial change in Franz Joseph’s policy towards Hungary. The Hungarian rebellion was brutally repressed, and Franz Joseph had paintings of the defeat of the Hungarian armies in his meeting room in the summer palace.
Once Sissi’s only son committed suicide, she started wearing only black and became completely withdrawn from court life. She became more melancholy and depressed and talked about the end of her life. She was assassinated by Italian anarchist while she was traveling. She was only stabbed once in the heart by a small file. After being stabbed, she actually boarded the boat that she had been waiting for before she was stabbed. The boat left shore with Sissi on it, and it only returned to shore later when they realized that she had been stabbed. She died shortly afterwards.
Hofburg palace
Vienna was the home of an amazing artist/architect named Hundertwasser. We went by the Hundertwasser Haus built by him, and it was one of the coolest buildings I have seen. Hundertwasser disliked straight lines, and he said, “Straight lines are godless.” His buildings were full of curvy lines. Hundertwasser was very opinionated, and he believed in getting back to nature in the way we live. The Hundertwasser Haus had trees growing from the windowsills. We also went to the Hundertwasser museum, and the curvy floors were the coolest part about the museum. Hundertwasser said that straight floors are for engineers, not people, and it wasn’t natural for people to walk on straight floors since nothing like that occurs in nature. He had an awesome futuristic architectural design for a city where all the houses were halfway underground with green roofs you could walk on. There was also a stream running through the city that you could paddle a boat down. It seemed like a wonderful place to live.
Hundertwasser Haus
Awesome curvy floors at Hunderwasser museum
No visit to Vienna was complete without a ride on the Giant Ferris Wheel at Prater Park. We thought it would be neat to go on the ferris wheel at night to see the lights of the city, but Vienna does not have a lot of city lights that you can see from the ferris wheel. However, it was neat to see the lights of the Prater Park amusement park rides. Prater Park used to be the Emperor’s hunting grounds, but the Emperor turned over the hunting grounds to the citizens of the city. It has been a popular place for people of Vienna to relax and have fun ever since then. However, everything at the Prater Park was overpriced. We were thirsty and got a completely overpriced Coke at the gift shop. They had Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and it was 7 euro for a pint, which is about $10.50!
Prater Giant Ferris Wheel
View of amusement park roller coaster from ferris wheel
View from ferris wheel
We had a long walk from the ferris wheel back to the hostel. Biking shoes are not comfortable for long days of walking. The soles of biking shoes are stiff for comfort during biking, but they do not provide any cushioning for walking. My feet were so sore from walking around Vienna for two days, and I was ready to get back on my bike so I wouldn’t have to walk around in my bike shoes. 🙂
by Cassie, November 27th, 2009 | No Comments
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Distance: 50km
Today was another cold gray day. It was colder than yesterday, and it rained on us for most of the morning. We stopped in Tulln because it was supposed to have a neat city center. It seemed like a neat place, but the entire city center was a big construction site. It was not the picturesque detour we were expecting. However, it finally stopped raining past Tulln, and that was a welcome change. We were able to stop along the path and cook lunch for ourselves for the first time in days.
Riding into Vienna was an adventure! I knew Vienna was a big city, but it was bigger than I imagined. Vienna was full of fancy building! The Habsburgs had a lot of money, and it showed in the seat of the empire. Fortunately, there was a bike path along the Ringstrasse that goes around the center of the city, so that was easiest way to bike into the city. We went to the tourist information center and got a city map, and we were able to find our way to the hostel. We found the hostel without much trouble at all. The hostel actually had a double room available for three nights for us! While we were registering for the room, we had a scare with the bikes. We left our bikes leaned up against the wall of the hostel since we could watch them from inside the hostel. A man walked by and stopped to take a look at the bikes. He looked like he was seriously considering stealing the bikes. Since Jonathan was registering, I was responsible for watching the bikes. I went outside to stand by the bikes, and the man hurried away. Fortunately, the hostel had a safe place for us to park the bikes, so we didn’t have to worry about them getting stolen. The hostel staff was really nice, and the place was more welcoming and less institutional than the Hostelling International hostels where we had stayed in Germany and Austria. The hostel had a kitchen where guests could cook, and they also had computers available for checking Internet. The computer were also running Ubuntu Linux! We were excited to be staying the same place for three nights. Bike touring was a lot of fun, but it wore me out to constantly be on the move and stay at different place every night.
by Cassie, November 27th, 2009 | No Comments
Monday, October 19, 2009
Distance: 41km
Today, the morning started out with promise with a clear and sunny sky. However, soon the sky clouded over, and it was cold and gray the rest of the day. We walked to the Red Gate in Spitz in the morning. We entered the Wachau wine-growing valley yesterday, so Spitz was in the middle of the vineyards. We had a great view of the vineyards, Spitz, and the river from the Red Gate.
View from Spitz Red Gate
We also got groceries in the morning in Spitz. As we were walking to the grocery store, a maniac driver leaving the gas station drove straight towards us before turning away at the last minute. He had a smile on his face the whole time, so he thought it was funny. I did not like Austrian drivers at all, and in my opinion, they were as bad as the Belgian drivers. Sometimes, the bike route went along roads that were supposed to be low traffic, but there were actually quite a few cars. The cars did not slow down or move over for bike riders. On one stretch of road, we moved over the side of the road every time a car went by because we were afraid of getting run over.
Fortunately, the ride today was along bike paths and quiet roads, so we didn’t have to deal with cars so much. It was really pretty riding to the Wachau valley vineyards. We pulled over and tried a few of the grapes, and they were really tasty. It was also neat to see the people picking the grapes in the vineyards.
Riding through vineyards
We left the Wachau valley when we reached the city of Krems. When we checked the Internet in Krems, both PrintWhatYouLike and GrinnellGallery were down, so we had to spend time getting them running again. PrintWhatYouLike ran out of space on the server, and MySQL crashed on GrinnellGallery. Fortunately, we were able to get both sites up again. However, we were forced to do this at the most expensive Internet place. It was 10 cents per minute to use the Internet on a old computer still running IE6. It cost us 6 euros for an hour of Internet, but it was important to get everything up and running again.
Riding through Wessenkirchen
It was late by the time we left Krems, so we had to crank out the miles. We stopped in Zwentendorf, and we stayed at another nice pension.
by Cassie, November 27th, 2009 | No Comments
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Distance: 48km
We were surprised to see the sun trying to peak through the clouds this morning. We were optimistic that today might be a better day for the weather. We enjoyed the ride along the river in the nice, dry weather. However, when we took a short break outside Melk, it started raining on us. Just when we thought the weather was getting better, it had to rain again. Fortunately, the rain blew over relatively quickly, so we didn’t get soaking wet.
Melk was known for its beautiful Benedictine abbey. St. Benedict left Rome because he was disillusioned with the corruption of the Catholic church. However, the abbey was ornately decorated with lots of gold, and the abbey had many expensive treasures that had been donated. It seemed to be a contradiction with his reason for founding a new order of the church. My favorite part of the abbey was the beautiful library with lots of old books, and it had also had lovely frescoes on the ceiling. The abbey was also built on the top of a hill, so it had a great view of the Danube river and the town of Melk.
Melk Benedictine Abbey
View of Melk from abbey
Melk abbey library
Melk abbey chapel
Melk abbey ceiling fresco
Fortunately, as we rode out of Melk, the weather cleared up, and we actually saw the sun! The scenery after Melk was very neat. The mountains became more impressive, and they were more impressive than the mountains we saw when we rode out of Passau. It was late by the time we left Melk, so we only rode a little further. It still was too cold for camping, so we found a nice pension to stay for the night in Spitz.
by Cassie, November 27th, 2009 | No Comments
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Distance: 69km
Today was a miserable day for riding. It was still really cold, and it rained on us the entire day. However, we saw on the news this morning that the weather was going to warm up! By Monday, it would still be colder than average, but it was supposed to be sunny! We hadn’t seen the sun in days. We hoped that we had gotten through the worst of the nasty weather, and the weather would get better after today.
Biking in the rain
Despite the weather, we biked a long way today. We tried to stop in Wallsee for lunch, but everything was closed when we arrived. We arrived a few minutes before noon, and everything closed at noon. I was cold and wet, so I was looking forward to sitting down in a warm, dry place. We tried to find a sheltered place to cook some lunch, but we couldn’t find anything. We arrived in the next town, and everything was closed there, too. We finally decided to into a guesthouse restaurant, and it was really nice to sit in a dry place and eat warm food. Jonathan ordered the turkey schnitzel. I ordered the vegetable schnitzel, but when I ordered it, the waitress didn’t realize that they had such a thing on the menu and checked with the kitchen to make sure it was correct. But, she came back and said it was fine. The vegetable schnitzel was really good. It was like a breaded potato and vegetable patty.
We felt much better after drying off and getting a warm meal. The next part of the ride was really neat. Mountains began rising up for both sides of the river. This section of the river at Struden had dangerous narrows. A large rock caused dangerous eddies to form making it very difficult to navigate. Now, there is a canal that allows the ships to avoid the sharp, dangerous bend in the river.
We stopped for the night in Ybbs and looked for a place to stay. When we went into the first guesthouse, we asked if they had rooms available, and the woman rudely told us there were no rooms and gave the impression that we were not welcome there. However, at the next guesthouse, the man was really nice to us, and they even had a garage where we could put our bikes for the night. It was nice to stop for the night and change out of my wet clothes. 😉
by Cassie, November 27th, 2009 | No Comments
Friday, October 16, 2009
Distance: 20km
This morning we went shopping for gloves. Both of us forgot to bring gloves, and it was definitely too cold to bike without gloves. We went to the Woolworth and picked up a cheap pair of gloves. It was really cold while we were riding today, and it was snowing as we left Linz. I was really glad I had gloves.
We planned to stop at the concentration camp at Mauthausen, and as we arrived at the concentration camp, we saw the Alps at last! It was exciting, but it was a strange place to see the Alps for the first time.
Alps!
We didn’t realize how large the concentration camp was. It was the main concentration camp for the area. We ended up spending the rest of the day walking around the concentration. The weather was sufficiently dreary for visiting such a place. The concentration camp was interesting, but it was also depressing to visit a place where such horrific acts against humanity took place. It was especially overwhelming to go into the gas chamber where so many people were killed and look at the crematoriums that were used of disposing of the bodies. Towards the end of the war, the crematoriums were not sufficient for disposing of the bodies, so they had to dig mass grave sites. The concentration camp was foreboding with high stone walls enclosing the camp. They also had barb wire along walls that had 370 volts of electricity running through it. Many people committed suicide by electrocuting themselves on the wire. Many others tried to escape the concentration camp, but if they were caught, they were publicly executed in front of all the other prisoners. The concentration camp was a horrific place to visit, but I hope it will motivate people to prevent such a horror from happening again. We saw a racist political sign in Linz that said, “Tradition or invasion” implying that Eastern Europeans were not welcome in Austria. I was tempted to put a Hitler mustache on the man in the poster, and another person had drawn a Hitler mustache when we walked by the poster again.
Mauthausen concentration camp main gate
Mauthausen concentration camp gas chamber
It was still too cold to camp, so we stayed at another nice, warm pension tonight. The family running the place had a really sweet Lab that we played with for a while.
