Solipsism Gradient

Early tomorrow we go onto the ship (Costa Victoria). I’ll have sparse or no Internet connection there, so updates will be few and far between; sorry about that. More anon.

We’re back in Berlin and the Poland trip is over, after visiting Malbork (Marienburg), staying overnight at Toru? (Thorn), and today finishing with the cathedrals in Gniezno (Gnesen) and Pozna? (Posen).

Overall the Poland trip was great. More later; we’ll have one day to rest up and on Sunday early we leave for Kiel, where our cruise will begin on the same day. Stay tuned…

Now in Gda?sk (Danzig). The last few days were in the very impressive Masurian countryside, with rolling hills and thicker woods – I like it better than the usual flat Polish landscape. We also visited Hitler’s Wolfsschanze headquarters in Poland.

We’ll stay here another day, then it’s off to Marienburg and back to Berlin on Friday.

Had a full (and tiring day) in Warszawa… the city is 95% reconstructed, many modern buildings, and some surprisingly well reconstructed old buildings. For instance, the royal palace was restored from original drawings and paintings, and using the same materials too.

Tomorrow early we’re off to Mr?gowo (Sensburg) and will do some side trips into the Masurian countryside.

Writing now from Poland. There’s lots of stuff to see and visit, and the tours programmed with our bus trip are often quite long; first time in 4 days I get the chance to write something.

So far, we’ve stayed at Wroc?aw (Breslau), Opole and now Kraków. In-between there were tours to historical places like Legnickie Pole (Wahlstatt), Krzy?owa (Kreisau) and Auschwitz.

I’m taking pictures faster than I can sort through them, hopefully we’ll get a breather sometime soon so I can upload some…

Berlin is an amazing city; so much to see. Also seems to be plate glass capital of the world – everything is stainless steel and plate glass – took some pictures of the new architecture.

Tomorrow it’s off to Poland; we’ll be briefly back in Berlin on the 27th. Not sure how connectivity will be in the meantime, but I’ll try to at least check email regularly. Stay tuned.

So, after a tiring and uneventful train trip, we’re safely established in a small hotel in Königs Wusterhausen, near Berlin. We’ll be staying here until Sunday, and then it’s off to Poland. More as soon as I get some rest…

I see I got seriously behind… so many nice places to see, and not always a good connection in the hotels. Ah well.

Anyway, the garden exposition in Bingen was excellent, though it was very hot. Spent the night in Mainz, then went north to visit Kloster Eberbach, a very old building complex. South again to visit Worms on the next day.

We’re now at a nice little hotel in Schriesheim, where I have relatives. Yesterday we went down to Heidelberg which is a simply amazing city. Tomorrow it’s off to Stuttgart to return our car and then by train to Berlin, from where I’ll hopefully be able to post some pictures. Stay tuned.