Hi

Just a quick update to you all.

Left London in the early hours of Wed morning and flew to Prague. All was going well until I tried to organise transport from the airport into the city (made difficult due to the fact that my knowledge of the Slavic languages is somewhat limited, although many ppl speak English anyway). Eventually I bought a transport ticket and got on the bus and then onto the tram where I was consequently fined 500czk (much more than the 20czk I paid for the ticket) because I hadn't validated the ticket!!! Apparently you are supposed to take the ticket and get it stamped with the date after you have purchased it!!! So was caught out on that one (fortunately 500czk is much less than 500 dollars, about 20euro). Ended up having an enjoyable day wandering the streets of Prague and particularily loved Charles Bridge which was packed with people, markets, artists and entertainers.

The next day I joined up with my Eastern Trekker group who are an excellent bunch and we headed toward Olomouc in Czech stopping to see the church of human bones along the way! Very impressive, will post pics once back in London.

From Olomouc we drove into Poland and stopped at Auschwitz. This was one of the most real, haunting, sad and interesting things I have ever done. The place is absolutely massive. They have also set up a museum on one of the sites and it has many collections of the prisioners belongings. There were piles of combs, suitcases, prosthetic limbs, shoes and even 2 tonnes of human hair (this being only a very small amount that was left behind, most was used to make blankets and nets etc during the war. The sheer amount of each of these items made the whole thing very real and emphasised the scale of the atrocities that occured.

From there we drove to Krakow and have spent today looking around the city. It is fantastic. The best city I have been to thus far. It has a great vibe, the people are friendly, fun city square with lots of entertainment and markets and bars and restaurants, plus so much fascinating history.

So I'm having an excellent last few days of my trip before I head home Sunday the 12th.

So I shall see you all soon.

xx Jo