Author Archives: Marce

Look down

If you haven’t been here for a while and are checking in to see what’s up, scroll beyond this post. We’re trying to catch up and we’re logging posts by date. We’re currently in Morocco but we hope to tell all the stories about our journey through Europe and Turkey. We’re determined to get it all down, and we’re kicking ourselves for falling so far behind. Sorry about that.

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Pipes and steps. Breathe.

We set aside the afternoon to visit the Evangelical Cathedral with its tall spire and unique tiled roof. Construction was begun in 1371 on the site of a Romanesque church, and was finally completed in 1520. It was originally Roman Catholic but like many churches we visited, converted to Evangelical after the Reformation.

For 300 years the church was the burial place for local VIPs. The practice was halted in the 18th century, the existing tombstones removed and embedded in the wall, making an unusual gallery of the dead. A QR code leads to details of each person.

The church houses two pipe organs, and we were fortunate that they were both being tuned and played while we were there.

Hats off to Father Xavier Dressler, record-holding organist. Forty-seven years is admirable.

There was a lot to see in the cathedral but Jack kept eyeing the tower steps.

Longtime readers know I suffer from what I consider a completely rational fear of heights. Nevertheless I almost always follow Jack on his missions to get to the top of wherever we are. In this case, I’ve got no problem with enclosed spiral staircases. You can’t see up and, more importantly, you can’t see down.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.” I didn’t give it a second thought. Spoiler alert: I should have.

After what seemed like we should have been at least halfway, the spiral steps ended and we crossed a scaffold bridge into the upper tower.

And this is where my palms started sweating. Looking up, I gasped at how much further we had to go. And looking down, well let’s just say I tried not to.

This is where my fear of heights becomes irrational. Intellectually I know this is perfectly safe, yet I had to talk myself up step by step.

I arrived at a small platform at the level of the bells where I took a breather along with a couple of young men who were also finding this climb a little more challenging than expected. We all hoped the bells wouldn’t chime just then.

Past the bells and up one more flight of narrow open steps and we were finally at the tippy top. And yes, the view was worth it. But my palms are sweating even now with the memory of looking down.

We were so fortunate to have a beautiful sunny blue-sky day and we spent a long time admiring the views from every side.

And then it was time to go down. Down is harder because, well, you have to look down. And that’s the part that scares me.

Going down those open stairways was the most frightened I’ve ever felt. The fear shocked me because I’m normally not a fearful person.

I was comforted knowing I wasn’t the only one who took a long breather between flights. And there were others who had to be talked up or down inch by inch. I instead had a personal photographer who documented my experience.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I got past those flights of open stairs and scampered down the spiral steps to the bottom.

As we left the tower it sounded like the organ tuner was putting the pipes through their paces. We found a seat in the vestibule and listened until my palms dried and my heart rate returned to normal.

I wrote before that we don’t know exactly where in Transylvania Jack’s grandmother was born. But as we listened I imagined that she may have sat in this church and heard this organ over a century ago.

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The rubber meets the road

As we drove closer to the Carpathian mountains Jack grew more and more concerned about the condition of our front tires. They passed inspection before we left the UK but Jack wants more tread before we start climbing mountains. He wants Michelin CrossClimate M&S tires and he will not be denied. Why we didn’t do this in a place where we speak the language I don’t know but the search was on for specific tires in a specific size somewhere nearby in Transylvania.

As luck would have it we found a Michelin dealer on our route. We walked in and showed them a screenshot of what we wanted. The man shook his head. They don’t have them. No surprise there.

“Can you get them? How long would it take?” I asked. We’re in a nice place. I figured we could wait a few days or a week.

He thought for a moment and shrugged.

“One hour?” he guessed.

Sold!

We settled into the customer lounge and before long Escape Velocity had two new front shoes. We both feel safer and Jack says she handles better, too.

We’ve looked forward to visiting Transylvania for a long time and now we’re finally here. We’re in Sibiu, the former Hermannstadt, settled by Saxons in the 12th century. The Saxons were the first wave of Germans to lay claim to these parts, long before the Donauschwaben were sent down the Danube in the 18th century. And just as Jack’s paternal grandfather was part of the Donauschwaben migration, his grandmother was what’s called a Transylvanian Saxon, descended from those early migrants from Saxony as well as Luxembourg, Belgium, and Lorainne. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what village she was from so we won’t be searching graveyards for her forefathers, but we’re happy just to explore the area she was born in.

Sibiu, as Hermannstadt, was once the capital of Transylvania and it’s grand and beautiful.

On this sunny day we enjoyed street performers and buskers as we explored the city.

There’s a lower town and an upper town. The upper town is the old city center with most of the historic buildings. The lower town holds colorful houses and remnants of the city walls and defensive towers.

The centerpiece of the upper town is the magnificent gothic Evangelical Cathedral of St. Mary, with its seven-level 73 meter tower, the second tallest in Romania. I think you can guess where we’re headed next.

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Bring out your dead, part II

We have long anticipated visiting the Romanian village that Jack’s family called home after their journey down the Danube in the 1770s, and from which his grandfather emigrated in the early 1900s. I had a list of ancestors who are buried there and we hope to find their graves.

We found the Catholic cemetery and parked at the gate on a brutally hot day. It was the beginning of an intense heat wave that would last for weeks and affect most of Europe.

This region, known as the Banat, was previously under Austro-Hungarian, then Hungarian rule before being awarded to Romania after World War I. Notice, however, that the inscription at the top of the gate is in German. The area was inhabited by ethnic Germans, including Jack’s family, for centuries.

The cemetery is in poor condition and difficult to walk around in places. As soon as we entered the gate we found stones with the family names we were seeking but not yet the specific ones.

We could only stay out in the heat for a half hour or so before taking shelter in the shade or back at the van.

While we were having lunch in our campervan a Roma woman walked toward the gate carrying a bucket. She stopped at our open door and put her hand out for money. We honestly didn’t have a farthing because we’d just left Hungary and hadn’t yet found an ATM for Romanian currency. We shook our heads and indicated “No.” She didn’t react and just moved on. Jack said her begging gestures seemed automatic and well-rehearsed. A few minutes later she came out of the cemetery and her bucket was now filled with water from the tap in the graveyard. She walked past us without a glance and crossed the street. Presumably she lives in a house with no running water.

We found a row of stones bearing the name Schütz, the original family surname. In the dialect spoken here it sounds like “Shits” which obviously doesn’t go over well in America. Jack’s grandfather was encouraged to change it to Schulz when he became a citizen in 1915. (I tried calling Jack “Schitzi” but it didn’t stick.)

We spent the better part of two days trying to read every stone in the cemetery. The stones are very deteriorated and the inscriptions are nearly impossible to make out. In places they were completely encased in ivy that we both tried to tear off so we could make out a name and date.

We aren’t sure if we found the specific people we were looking for because while we could usually make out a surname, we couldn’t be sure of the first name or the dates.

We are sure, however, that this plot of ground holds the remains of generations of Jack’s ancestors and their neighbors. I’ve read the parish records of this village. I feel like I know these people. Seeing their final resting place brought the history of the village to life.

We left Bogarosch and drove to Timisoara, the county seat, to visit the Banat Village Museum.

We parked in what little shade we could find with our campervan door open and a young man out for a run stopped to say hello. Noting our UK license plate he asked it we were British.

“American,” we told him, “in a UK van.”

Turns out he’s German and his parents are Donauschwaben and left Romania in the 1990s for Germany. The history of Germans here runs deep.

We were excited to visit the museum but with our usual luck it was closed, not just for the day but for an entire long weekend for a special event.

The guard at the gate took pity on us when we told him we’d come all the way from the US to visit and he let us in to see the historic houses.

These are original, although certainly repaired and restored, and they helped us visualize the life Jack’s ancestors lived.

The house below is from the 18th century, so would have been like the original homes in the Banat after the migration. I’m not sure that chimney is up to code.

This one from the 19th century is a step up from the crude timber house. As the village prospered their dwellings grew larger and more comfortable.

We enjoyed exploring the buildings and we appreciated the information plaques in English. It was a disappointment that we couldn’t enter the rest of the museum but we were grateful to the guard who let us in at least to this part.

We had one more stop to make before we left the Banat.

After Jack’s grandfather and his sisters emigrated to America, their parents, Jack’s great-grandparents, moved to a neighboring village, and presumably that’s where they died. I spent years trying to find where they were buried but never found a burial record. As a last resort we drove to the village and walked the graveyard. Since all the parish records are so complete and residents so well documented from birth, through marriage, to death and burial, I didn’t hold out much hope of finding them. But we had to try.

This graveyard is smaller and in worse shape than the first one but we did our best to read the graves before surrendering to the blistering heat.

This marks the end of the trail of Jack’s paternal ancestors. Well, not really, but we’ll take up the journey of another branch a little later. Now we just want to get somewhere cooler and see something of Romania that isn’t a graveyard.

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A Hungary quickie

Our wet Slovakian weather continued and glued us to the inside of the van waiting for sunshine.

Eventually Jack got bored and said we may as well be driving so we continued south through more Pennsylvania look-alike terrain.

As we approached the Hungarian border the sky suddenly brightened and so did we.

Where we can park the van makes a big difference in how we experience a city. In Budapest we found the perfect place on the edge of the city and near both the bus and the metro. In minutes we were at stop #1 on the self-guided audio tour I downloaded. This has been my approach here in Europe. If there’s a free walking tour we take that, or if there’s a free-to-download audio guide we do that.

We started with a walk through an enormous city park where we searched for statues of Bela Lugosi, George Washington and a tiny Dracula.

We appreciated the beautiful weather after the rain we’d had the last few days.

Budapest is huge and there’s more than you could possibly see in a year, let alone a day, but top of my list was the central market, a restored Neolithic hall where I could have spent a week and a lot of money. Markets are always my happy place.

Jack indulges my love of markets but he does occasionally need to be fueled with coffee and a pastry. We found this fun cafe with a choice of international brews. We didn’t do a taste test but we did rest our legs for the next stint.

Why is there a statue of TV detective Columbo in the middle of Budapest?

We wanted to visit the Holocaust Memorial Park but the area was closed for security reasons and we could only photograph the Emanuel Tree through the fence. Each leaf bears the name of a local Holocaust victim and I’m disappointed we didn’t get to see it close up.

Much of our visit to Budapest was about finding public art. We sought out this memorial to Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz who saved more than 60,000 Jews from the Nazis by creating safe houses and providing transit documents. He was awarded “Righteous Among the Nations” by the state of Israel.

“I go crazy when I suddenly have to decide who to save. Where is God?”
(retrieved from the diary of Carl Lutz)

Oh sure, we should be eating traditional Hungarian food, but when we find eggs Benedict, we have to go for it.

There were so many more places we wanted to visit in Budapest but our feet gave out before our desire to see them all. Down at the river we thought we might book a sunset cruise but it was right out of our budget. So we settled for a beer.

Prague, Krakow, Budapest. We’ve loved them all and they all deserve more than a quick visit. Some day maybe we’ll be back. But the calendar reminds us we have a long way to go and a dwindling number of Schengen days to get there.

We drove south and parked in a beautiful field. Tomorrow we head for the Romanian border.

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Never again

We cannot get by Auschwitz. We should not even try, as great as the temptation is, because Auschwitz belongs to us, is branded into our history, and – to our benefit! – has made possible an insight that could be summarized as, ‘Now we finally know ourselves.’

Gunter Grass

I don’t know what I can say about visiting Auschwitz — or any Nazi death camp — that hasn’t already been said. We went out of a sense of duty to bear witness and we knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Entrance is free but you must book a time slot. You can explore on your own or pay for a guided tour in one of 20 different languages. We chose the tour, and it was helpful to be escorted around the enormous grounds to specific buildings and displays. However, we didn’t learn more from the guide than we already knew about the Holocaust and the death camps. The true value of visiting is to experience firsthand the place we’ve seen so many times in newsreel footage and movies.

As we entered through the famous gate I felt a wave of fear and sadness and it stayed with me even after we walked outside hours later.

We were immediately struck by the rows of multistory brick buildings. The image we had of Auschwitz was of the low wooden barracks we’d seen on film in countless documentaries and feature films so the brick buildings surprised us. We learned they were originally built as army barracks and were repurposed and modified during construction of the camp.

We followed our guide from building to building. Some housed displays or photographs, some remain as they were as housing or for special purposes. We took very few photos of these often disturbing displays.

The infamous Block 10 was the site of Josef Mengele’s gruesome medical experiments.

I was glad to see these faces. Each was a person with a mother and father, a spouse, a brother, a sister, a child, not just one of six million. I wanted to read all their names, and I lagged behind our group, wanting to acknowledge every one of them. Seeing these expressions of hopelessness, fear, but also often strength, affected me almost more than any other part of our visit.

This is a reconstruction of the death wall, where thousands of prisoners were executed.

We walked and walked, into buildings, through displays, up and down staircases, then out again. The narrow pathways lined with barbed wire were as claustrophobic as the interiors.

We boarded buses for the short drive to Birkenau, the adjacent extermination camp, and this is where we recognized the long low barracks we’d seen so many times on film.

Who hasn’t seen this view? It gave us chills.

Most of the barracks had been destroyed but there are a few remaining to give you a clear picture of the living conditions.

We ended at the ruin of one of the gas chambers, destroyed by the Nazis when they evacuated the camp as the Russian army approached in January 1945. Our guide left us alone with our thoughts for a while.

It was a quiet bus ride back to the visitors center. Jack and I sat on a bench across from the entrance to rest and reflect before walking home.

On our way back to the van we saw where people have left the time slot and language stickers you wear on your tour. We added ours to the lot.

Here’s the part we both can’t fathom: Oświęcim was a thriving community since the Middle Ages, then was largely cleared and destroyed by the Nazis when they built the death camp and the I.G. Farben chemical factory. After the war, after 1.1 million people were murdered at the camps, after the world learned what horrors took place there, people moved back to Oświęcim. They built homes and schools and churches and shops and playgrounds on land that certainly harbors the ashes of victims. They live within meters of the site of incomprehensible atrocities. If you believe in ghosts, they are certainly here. And I can’t imagine calling this place home.

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Memorial week

I wrote previously about Jack’s paternal ancestors and their 18th century journey from Lorraine to Romania. My research uncovered one thin branch of that family tree originating in Czechia, right up against the border of Poland. It would be a shame to follow the main branch down the Danube without a side trip to these little villages as well. So we decided to continue East and as long as we’re here, we’ll make the pilgrimage to Auschwitz. We drove to the border.

It’s a joke between us that I claim many of the places we travel to look like Pennsylvania, the US state we both grew up in. Pennsylvania has rolling farmland, hardwood forests, old granite mountains, deep gorges, and green river valleys, so it’s not surprising to see similarities in a lot of places. If you’ve ever been to Pennsylvania, I think you’d agree this looks exactly like Pennsylvania.

We made three or four stops in the villages I’d marked on my map but just like in Lorraine, old graves are few and far between. I knew where Jack’s ancestors had lived and died but we couldn’t find them. We did find a few markers in German so we knew we were in the right place but either Jack’s ancestor didn’t have markers or they were long gone.

I loved this unusual World War I memorial.

The last village we visited was bisected by this very subtle Polish border. We couldn’t even find a graveyard there.

Disappointed and hungry, we stopped at a park for a bite to eat and to plan our next move. It was fun to watch the families enjoying the beach on a beautiful spring day.

This gentleman stood akimbo for the better part of an hour, showing his stuff. Sometimes he turned around and graced us with the posterior view. Eventually he mounted his bicycle and rode away, job done.

We crossed the border into Poland and found a parkup about an hour from Oświęcim, or Auschwitz.

Once again we were near a cemetery and we came across this plaque as we explored the neighborhood. It describes the Death March from Auschwitz in January 1945 and the prisoners who were murdered in this village.

If it’s difficult to read the inscription (click to enlarge) you can find information about the Death March from Auschwitz here.

The villagers buried the victims and erected a memorial which has evolved as the victims have been identified. Many are still only commemorated by the numbers recorded by the parish priest at the time of their burial. It’s a deeply sad place and I spent some time, as I always do at memorials, reading every name, and in this case, number.

Back at the van I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau website to schedule our visit and English language tour only to find that it was booked solid until the following week. So much for not planning ahead. I booked the next available day and we headed for Krakow. I’d love some pierogi.

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Czech it!

In addition to the challenge of limited time allowed in Europe, and the challenge of avoiding green zones in our old campervan, there’s yet another challenge: paying for toll roads where there are no toll booths. Lots of RV travelers advocate avoiding toll roads altogether because in some countries it can get quite expensive. While backroads are beautiful, sometimes we just want to get somewhere.

Most of the countries we’re visiting have replaced tolls booths with cameras to read either your vehicle registration or an account barcode. And every country has its own scheme for payment. Luckily you can buy a ‘vignette’ or toll tag for each country. This used to be an actual physical sticker but now you just pay online for a set amount of time and your vehicle registration is read and recognized by the cameras. If you don’t have a vignette and end up on a toll road, you can be sure that at some point — maybe months later — you’ll receive a citation in the mail for the toll and a fine for nonpayment.

Before we entered the Czech Republic we bought a vignette valid for 10 days at a cost of 13 Euros and covering any toll road across the country. Lots of travelers don’t like paying for a vignette but we consider it a temporary road tax and we’re happy to contribute to the maintenance of the highways wherever we go. I think the system is genius, and I wish the US would come up with something like this. The last time we were in the US I spent many hours and more dollars than I should have just to pay the toll on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They don’t make it easy. A one-day digital pass would make so much more sense.

Vignette secured, we made a last stop at a German supermarket where I took advantage of the wide selection of vegetarian and vegan products, including vegan braunschweiger.

Finally we crossed into the Czech Republic. I was here forty years ago when it was Czechoslovakia and as far as I can remember, it looks the same.

Our first stop was Plzeň, famous of course as the birthplace of the pale lager known as Pilsner. We enjoy the occasional Pilsner Urquel so of course we had to visit the brewery. We booked our tour for midafternoon and set off on a walk about the city.

Plzeň is Czechia’s fourth largest city, yet it’s human in scale and ringed by green space. We began by orienting ourselves with a walk around the park surrounding the old town.

Spejbl and Hurvínek – a monument in honor of the puppeteer Josef Skupa

One of our primary goals was a visit to the 19th century Great Synagogue. It’s the second largest in Europe and the fourth largest in the world. The interior is stunning, and despite the size the space feels intimate.

At the huge Republic Square we circled the gothic cathedral of St. Bartholomew but didn’t go in. We did find the gate decorated with angels where legend has it rubbing the head of a particular one brings good fortune. I never pass up an opportunity for luck.

These puppets caught our eye as we passed an art gallery.

At the appointed time we walked to the brewery for our tour. They’ve been making beer here since 1307 but in a method called top-fermented. In 1842 the Plzeň brewery recruited a Bavarian brewer who used local ingredients and a cool fermenting process to produce the first pale lager, what’s now called pilsner.

The tour is a well-orchestrated journey through the history of the brewery and the process of brewing this particular beverage.

A bus took us to the bottling plant, which I thought an odd place to start — at the end of the process — but it soon became clear that the stops were organized for dramatic effect rather than linear storytelling.

Our only beef with the tour was that the group was large and the spaces echo-y so we often struggled to hear the guide. Nevertheless, we enjoyed seeing the process, especially since for much of our work life we both spent a lot of time filming how things are made.

They saved the best for last, or course, the caves where the beer is fermented.

Then we all grabbed a glass and filed past one of the barrels for a sample of the not-quite-ready product.

On the way back to the van we saw a number of these critters as we crossed the bridge. We determined they are nutria, not something we see every day.

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The journey begins

The family we met in Bickenholtz told us about a museum in Ulm dedicated to the story of the Donauschwaben and of course we had to come.

Right out front is a replica of the riverboats the emigrants traveled on. We don’t know how long the journey took but it doesn’t look like a very comfortable means of travel.

Maria Theresa and her husband Francis ruled the empire and when they hatched the scheme to hold the lands previously occupied by the Ottomans, Maria Theresa suggested to Francis that he send peasants from his homeland Lorraine for the purpose. And that was the genesis of the Donauschwaben.

We learned through firsthand accounts that the promised houses and livestock rarely materialized and the new arrivals were left to fend for themselves in an undeveloped and infertile landscape.

Eventually they cleared the fields, and after some lean years of harsh weather and crop failures they made a home for themselves. The museum exhibited typical furnishings, clothing, crafts, and tools.

The photo below is from the general area and period Jack’s family lived in just before they left for America, one sibling after another in a perfect example of chain migration. Jack’s grandfather was the youngest and last in his family to arrive.

“For the dispossessed who left their villages in search of an opportunity to earn, there is still an alternative to the factory. Between 1899 and 1914, about 252,000 Danube Swabians, mainly from rural regions, made their way to America.

“They are mostly young people whose future is not materially secured by their parents’ inheritance or by a gainful profession. They hope to prosper in the land of unlimited possibilities and thus to be able to build an existence in their old homeland after returning.”

Most of the emigrants to America prospered, finding work in the industrial Midwest.

Things got worse for the families who stayed. As ethnic Germans they were considered enemies during the World Wars, and many eventually had their property seized or were sent to labor camps or deported.

We spent a long time in the museum, then walked around the town. It’s a very typical west German city and we tried to imagine what it must have looked like when Jack’s ancestors were here 250 years ago.

Down by the river there’s a wall of plaques commemorating some of the regions, specific villages, and even countries where the people of the Donauschwaben diaspora ended up. I can’t emphasize enough how rare it is to have this clear a picture of the history of Jack’s paternal ancestors. Americans are so often a mishmash of heritage and ethnicity. Having a discreet and well-documented ancestral line is a gift. We were both moved by their story.

And then it was on to the Autobahn as we follow the Danube, more or less.

And check this out: miles and miles of solar panels. We’ve never seen so many!

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On to Germany

We found a peaceful parkup along the Rhine River which marks the border between France and Germany.

At least it was peaceful until these guys showed up. We assume it was a training march, and those packs look heavy!

I guess this is a good time to explain why it seems we’re racing through Europe. Many European countries have banded together and agreed to remove controls between their borders and allow free movement within what’s now called the Schengen zone, named after the village in Luxembourg where the original agreement was signed. That’s why there’s no longer passport control between, say, France and Germany. That’s a good thing. But the challenging part is that for non-Europeans like us, instead of getting a visa for each country and traveling from one to the next as you wish, a visitor is only allowed to stay in the entire zone for 90 days out of 180 days. There are now 29 countries in the agreement so that means we’re limited to 90 days in what amounts to most of Europe.

When we entered France, the clock started on our Schengen time and it won’t stop until we get to Türkiye, which is out of Schengen. So you can see why we have to keep moving. There’s a lot of ground to cover.

We have another challenge, and that’s the age of our van. Most European countries are serious about addressing global warming by reducing emissions. There are lots of cities or parts of cities where an old diesel-powered girl like Escape Velocity is not welcome. If we should inadvertently enter a low emission zone we could face some stiff fines.

And that’s why we took a circuitous route to our next destination, avoiding the green zones around Strasbourg, France, and Ulm, Germany. We didn’t mind so much, as this led us through the Black Forest on a beautiful sunny day.

We arrived at the banks of the Danube River at a point just before it becomes navigable. It’s from very near this spot that Jack’s ancestors began their long journey down river. I’ve always admired the forebears who made the decision to leave everything and travel to a place unknown in hopes of a better life. It took guts. It still does.

“Please don’t jump in the canal.” One wonders what shenanigans prompted the posting of this sign.

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