A Side Trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mine

On our final day in Krakow, we decided to take a trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Still a working mine to this day, it is also a museum that takes visitors 135 meters below the surface (via 800+ stairs!) to see numerous salt carvings. It was pretty cool! Way more interesting that castles or churches! Though to be fair, there is a chapel 135 meters down that even includes a statue of Pope John Paul II. The carvings were amazing, and it's even more amazing to think that they were all done by the miners!

Once back in Krakow, it was raining (of course) so we managed to find an Irish pub that was showing the Tour de France. It was a great way to get out of the rain! Overall, Krakow was a nice town, but if it had been sunny I'd have liked it a lot better.

A Side Trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau

While in Krakow, we made a trip to the museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau. While not an uplifting or fun vacation activity, it was definitely worthwhile. Everyone should go at some point in their lives. It was horrifying to see and hear what life was like for the people who were imprisoned there and the images still haunt me. I just can't believe anyone could be so cruel as to inflict that sort of torture on other human beings, and what truly astounds me is that similar atrocities still occur in parts of the world today, yet we do nothing to stop it.

Three Rainy Days in Krakow

After a full day in Warsaw, Theresa and I took the train over to Krakow. The train trip was an experience - since the Polish trains don't announce the stops. But thanks to our careful attention and a nice gentleman who confirmed that we indeed had arrived in Krakow, we managed to get off at the right stop!

Shortly after we arrived it started raining, and it rained for practically the entire time we were there - despite the hotel weather forecast in the elevator of "84 and sunny" for Friday. Try 65 and rain and hail. :-)


We spent the first day getting acquainted with the Old Town in Krakow and attended a Chopin concert in one of the local churches that evening put on by a local pianist along with a string quintet. They were fantastic! Though Theresa and I definitely brought the average age of the audience down a few notches....


After our concert, we tested out Krakow's Mexican food. Not bad!! Though the traditional rice and beans side dishes were replaced with cabbage salad. A little different. :-)

Lubie Warszawa!

I love Warsaw! It is beautiful, and is definitely my favorite spot so far on this trip, though Krakow and Gdansk are still to come. We are staying with Heather from FXCM, who has been the best hostess! She works at the U.S. Embassy, so she took us into work today to meet with the Community Liaison person who gave us maps of the city and outlined where we should go.

We started at 8:30am, first touring the University of Warsaw Botanical Gardens and the Lazienki park - which has a statue of Chopin and endless shady walking paths. Within the park we also toured the Palac Lazienkowski (Palace on the Water), which was originally a bath house that was converted into a palace in the 1700s. The park is also known for its peakcock residents - we saw (and heard) several.

Next, we strolled around the Old Town, had lunch, and visited the Ghetto Heroes Monument and the Warsaw Uprising Monument. We finished off the afternoon with a visit to the Marie Curie museum, to satisfy my science geek side.


I was impressed with amount of wide open courtyards in the center of Warsaw, as well as all the parks. It truly is a beautiful city, and unlike Switzerland, is not crawling with gobs of tourists. It was also interesting to see the contrast between the beautifully restored Old Town (Warsaw was obliterated in WWII) with nearby communist era buildings, which had drastically less charm.

We ended the day with a trip to the mall in search of Polish soccer jerseys for Theresa's family members (no luck yet) and happened into the health food store, where I picked up a few gluten free snacks. We returned to Heather's apartment for daiquiris, dinner, and a movie, enjoying the rare night IN on this trip. Overall, it was a fantastic day, and thankfully we have another day to spend in Warsaw toward the end of the trip.

A Quick Trip to Bern

On the way out of Switzerland, we decided to stop in Bern for lunch and a quick stroll to see one more town. While Bern was nice, we managed to cover the entire town in about 2 hours, including a trip to see the "Bear Pit" which we still don't quite get. Sort of Bear Zoo in the center of town. We strolled into one church, where Theresa immediately declared "Well this isn't a Catholic church." The way she said it was so funny, as if why would you go into it if its not Catholic? Turns out it was a Lutheran church, but still pretty nonetheless. Some of us are less discriminating than others! :-)



After spending our last few francs on ice cream and M&Ms in the Zurich airport for dinner, we headed to Warsaw - rather thankful to be done with Switzerland and looking forward to seeing another country that was bound to be different.

(Objects in picture are smaller than they appear. This is surely the most expensive bag of M&Ms I have ever bought.)

Victory at last!

Theresa and I finally found a great hiking trail with barely anybody on it! :-) (Remind me never to come to Europe in July again...) We took the train up to a mountain town called Murren, where we followed "The Flower Trail" for about and hour and a half or so, mostly uphill, through gourgeous alpine meadows. While the flowers seemed to be past their peak, the views of the Eiger and Jungfraujoch mountains were stunning. The trail was complete with benches along the way so that we could sit, have a snack, and just enjoy the view, and ended at a restaurant where we had drinks and some "hash browns with ham and melted cheese" that hit the spot!

The best part of the hike was at the end, right in front of the restuarant, where there was a path of varying types of rocks and stones that led to a water bath. The instructions were to take off your shoes and walk barefoot over the rocks to stimulate the nerve endings in your feet. The walk ended with a ice water bath, that you were to "walk through like a stork" and when you feel "prickly" you're done. Naturally, I made Turbo go first! :-) But after her rave reviews of how good her feet felt afterwards, I had to follow.

And now we are just chillin', watching the Tour, and listening to the rain outside.

I Summited My First Mountain!

Diego - quit reading. You'll be horrified.

Clearly Theresa and I should have done a little more research before embarking on our hiking today. We decided that since it was a spectacularly beautiful day with clear blue skies, we would first head up to Jungfraujoch - "The Top of Europe" to see the great views, and then do some hiking in the afternoon.

We knew that our Swiss Rail Pass would get us about half way up the mountain, but that at some point we'd have to purchase a train ticket to take us to the top. No big deal I thought - how much could that cost, $15-20? And how long could it take, 1/2 hr.?

Well about 2 and a 1/2 hours and 100 CH (roughly $100) later each, we reached the summit at 11,333 ft. -- along with about 11,000 or so of our closest friends. When the train ticket enforcer woman told me it would be 100 CH I thought, well, it better be a good view! Little did we know, that this was basically disneyland on top of the mountain. While there was a viewing platform with spectacular views, there was also an "ice palace" and "husky sledging" and skiing (yes, even in July) - all presumably for additional fees. There were at least 3 restaurants, including "Bollywood," an Indian restaurant -- at the top of the highest peak in Europe. Who'd have thought. Couldn't find one in all of Lugano - but on Jungfraujoch, no problem. The place was so mobbed with tourists that about 20 min was all either of us could stand and we caught the next train back down the mountain.

(These picutures cost 200 CH.)

We took the train 1/2 way down to a town called Kleine Scheidegg and then decided to hike the rest of the way to Grindelwald. It was about a 3 hr. hike - all downhill. Theresa and I would have given anything for some flat or uphill - the descents just kill the legs! We even confronted a few more stairs. Ugh. Arriving in Grindelwald was rather anticlimactic, there were exactly 2 bars/restaurants in town. We had a drink and enjoyed the view for about a 1/2 hour or so and then caught the next train back to Interlaken.

(We tried walking backwards down the hill to give our calf muscles a break.)

(And we wonder why I have trouble with navigation.)

We have one more day left in Switzerland and at this point are undecided on what we will do. Having just been swindled out of $200 between us, we're not feeling like spending the money on paragliding or river rafting, so we may just do another hike (if we can find a flat one). Or maybe find a boat with more speed than the last one.

Touring Lugano

Lugano is not quite what I expected. It is much larger and noisier than I expected and is a strange mix of historic buildings right next to 1960s era buildings. The lake itself is gorgeous however, as are the towering mountains that surround the lake.

We stayed at the Motel Vezia - a biker motel. That's biker as in motor biker. It was interesting! Definitely a throwback to the 1950s with an enormous cutout of Elvis, a juke box, and pictures of 1950's automobiles decorating the place. The reception staff was less than helpful. We asked the woman manning the desk when we arrived if she had any good recommendations for where we should go for dinner and she said "No."


On day 1, Theresa and I took the funicular to the top of Monte San Savatore, for spectacular views over the city. Lacking a sufficient breakfast however to sustain a hike to a neighboring town, we chose to ride the funicular back down, have lunch, and take the boat over the Morcote.

Morcote was a charming village, with lots of stairs. Most of the towns along the lake are built into the sides of mountains, making everything a vertical climb. After climbing the stairs to see a beautiful church, we found a lakeside lounge where we tested out the sangria. It wasn't bad, but was still no match for Diego's. :-)


On day 2, we rode another funicular, this one unfortunately packed with school children, to the top of Monte Bre. From there we "hiked" (read walked down TONS of stairs - enough to rival the Grand Staircase hike in the Blue Mountains in Australia) to the town of Gandria. We had no idea the hike would involve this many stairs. We managed them well considering we were only 4 days post Ironman. Unfortunately though - we are both paying for it today. After having lunch in Gandria, and even catching a glimpse of The Tour in a local cafe, we boated back to Lugano.


Once in Lugano we rented a speed boat! I made Turbo drive. She was nervous at first, but after about 15 min declared "Ok, I've graduated now, I need more speed!!!" Our little rental boat topped out at about 5 mph - hence the reason no boating license was required. We had fun cruising the lake on our own, and even managed to change into our swim suits on the boat, in the middle of the lake to get some sun. It was the highlight of the day.

Bonjourno di Lugano

Yesterday we said good bye to the German Swiss and Hello to the Italian Swiss. After sleeping in later than we had planned (refusing to set an alarm while on vacation) we spent the morning scrambling to pack up our bikes and deliver them to the Zurich airport for safe keeping while we travel around Switzerland. We were in such a hurry, we didn't eat breakfast, and only managed a few snacks at the train station for lunch.

This continues a trend that Theresa and I started in Australia - gorge yourself at one meal and then skip another so that you are starving, so that by the next meal you gorge yourself again. We really think its the secret to the Ironman race week taper! Anyway, we managed to catch our train to Lugano, and spent the evening walking around the town, having dinner (which turned out to be a less than stellar recommendation from a girl working in the tourist office) and then sat on a lake deck drinking wine.

Day 1 as a Tourist - A Trip to Lucerne

The day after the race, having had enough of Zurich, Theresa, Betty (Amy's mom) and I decided to take the train to Lucerne, just 45 min away. We walked around the town, had lunch, and saw the "Swiss Lion" sculpture, which Mark Twain was quoted as saying was the saddest sculpture in the world (or something to that effect). The sculpure is a tribute to fallen swiss soldiers during the French revolution (or something to that effect). Clearly I paid attention! Theresa and Betty enjoyed the once in a lifetime opportunity to walk faster than me. :-)

Later that evening, back in Zurich, we caught up with Amy, her dad, and her friends Allison and Sarah (from England) for Mexican food - Swiss style. The mararitas were good. Can't say as I would recommend the food though. I think the Norwegians do better Mexican.