I think that this is the part of the world where all the fairy tales were written, it's a land of knights, castles, towers & dragons, you can almost picture a beautiful princess imprisoned in any number of inescapable places. However poor Poland certainly hasn't had a fairy tale existence, it's been a history of struggle & you have to admire the fortitude of the people, for a good hundred years Poland was even wiped off the map of Europe & even after regaining their sovereignty it's been one devastating war after another & now with their border to Ukraine things are in another state of uncertainty & concern. Our first stop was Kracow with its largest market place in Europe, castle & churches a lovely precursor to our afternoon visit to Auschwitz & Birkenau, which was pretty sobering to say the least. It felt quite ghoulish to be even going there but our lovely young guide was quite emotional even while giving us information & she said it was so important for people to come to the site & pay tribute to the millions who died & also to help make sure that nothing like this could ever happen again. Next day it was off to the Schindler Factory museum where the movie portrayed Schindler as a hero for having saved so many Jewish people, the Poles are undecided whether he did it for humanitarian reasons or whether he was really just protecting his own interests, must say I prefer the Hollywood version! It was a really interesting visit which gave a great insight into the hardships the population endured. From Kracow we headed north to Torun, a beautiful little town full of street statues in amongst the dozen churches on every corner & famous for its yummy gingerbread. From there it was off to Gdansk with a stop at yet another huge castle, this time the largest castle in Europe, originally home to the Teutonic Knights so we got another huge history lesson there. Absolutely loved Gdansk, it was almost completely levelled during world war 2 but has been faithfully restored to its former glory. Gdansk has a huge port in which the Germans entered prior to the start of world war 2 & shelled the city which led to a battle that was the start of the occupation of Poland by the Nazi regime. We got the impression from all of our tour guides that the feeling amongst the Poles is that they were completely betrayed by Britain who, although there were treaties in place, never came to their aid until months later when they entered the war. The population suffered terribly during this time & to top it off they were liberated by the Russians who then imposed their form of government (communism) so in effect real freedom was denied them for another 40 years. Our hotel was in the old city & it's absolutely beautiful, with rows of tall, narrow houses in streets leading to the canal. The place was really humming with people, buskers, pianists playing grand pianos on terraces, all manner of things going on, what an atmosphere!! The following day was a significant date in the life of the Solidarity Movement which started in Gdansk & eventually lead to the downfall of communism throughout Eastern Europe & the end of the Berlin Wall. Right, now I hope you've digested all that history, we've found it just such an amazing place to visit & can't help but share it with you all. Warsaw is a huge, thriving city with a mix of old & new architecture, some elegant new skyscrapers set amongst the plain communist built buildings, now these have been painted in bright colours to give them life. Himmler ordered the city levelled during the war, they were trying to obliterate any vestige of Polish culture so the only buildings that remain are those that were occupied by Germans themselves. Had more sad stories of the war which I won't bother going into for fear of depressing you all, suffice to say that their country has probably suffered more than any other in recent history. Thank goodness we live in our beautiful NZ! We had a meal in the old city last night, indescribable places, spending the last of our szloty on more cheap beer for Mot, he hasn't struck a bad one yet. Off to Lithuania now, here's hoping for a happier history but I don't suppose that's likely as they were part of USSR until the recent past. All our love xxx