Dartmouth 12 April 2007

Steam train from Paignton to Kingswear then ferry across to Dartmouth.

Benjamin learned "dinghy" as his word of the day. Mary wasn't late, much to Jenny's surprise. And no-one lost Colin's rucksack.

Picnic lunch in the park, ignoring signs to keep off the grass.

Krakow 7/8 April 2007

Restaurant for lunch didn't have Mark's choice of dessert (Apple Pie).

Evening concert in Krakow Historical Museum by Krzysztof and Szymon Klima (clarinets) and Jagielonian String Quartet (whose 1st violin forgot Brahms' Hungarian Dance No 5).

Sunday - walked through old town and Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter. Mark was given a skull cap to enter the Tempel Synagogue while a young man, who wasn't, then took off his baseball cap as a mark of respect.

Crossed Vistula River to wartime Jewish ghetto of Podgorze and walked through the former Deutsche Emailwaren Fabrik - the enamal factory run by Oskar Schindler, who saved over 1200 Jews there.

Mark turned away by Szara restaurant - unwilling to serve him lunch at all.

But apart from these minor epicurean problems the food was very good - not the expected staple fare of meat and stodgy vegetables but lots of different fish and variety of accompanying dishes.

Afternoon concert in Mirror Hall of the Grand Hotel - opera, operetta and musical numbers by Orpheus Ensemble and seriously scary diva Bozena Zawislak-Dolny.

Auschwitz-Birkenau 7 April 2007

The terrible thing is that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews and others in a process that was industrialized and commercialised so that it became, in the end, mundane.

This is what Hannah Arendt called "The Banality of Evil".

For more information go to:

http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl/html/eng/start/index.php

Krakow 6 April 2007

Flew Easyjet and caught train into centre of Krakow. There were surprisingly few people about for Good Friday.

The city is small - everything is walking distance from our hotel - The Grand Hotel, in which Margaret Thatcher and Paderewsky stayed.

Started from Rynek Glowny - the medieval market square - and St Mary's Church and walked round the old town to Wawel Hill with the Castle and Wawel Cathedral.

Ate at restaurant which didn't have Mark's first choice main dish (pike-perch).