06/08/2010

This morning I got up early, having packed before I went out the night before, and checked out. Then got the tram into town and caught the Martin's tour I had reserved to Terezin. The tour was generally good: it seemed we were going to get a lot of time, but then it went really quickly. I thought we were going to see the memorials at both sites, whilst the tour of the small fortress was interesting and did pass these, there was no mention of them. It was pretty busy with lots of tours again, similiarily to Auschwitz. Though we did get to look at the muzuem in the Magdeburg barracks which include music, theatrical props/ costumes and art work created in the Ghetto. We were chauffeured around the small fortress by a local guide who explained the history of the prison, then went to only the museum in the large Ghetto: this was comprised of the Children from Terezin paintings (those that were left out of the display in the synagogue) and the children's names over the walls (mirroring the Pinku Synagogue memorial).

The upstairs of the museum held an educational exposition explaining the basic factual information about the Holocaust and then delving into detail about life specifically in Terezin. This was formed from a mixture of photographs and documents accompanied by information panels.

From Terezin I headed back into the market square, had some lunch, wandered about looking for souvenirs, but decided everything was extortionate considering what it was so headed back to the hostel. Again, within a few minutes of getting back and starting to upload photos I bumped into Scott, Nicky and Jacqui again, the boys went off to the market and us girls went to the hostel bar, to be joined by the guys later. Had a fun evening, another coach load of Aussies joined us in the bar garden too. At about 8pm Scott left for southern Czech Republic and then around 10pm Nicky and I had an adventure on the tram to get to the station for another sleeper, I somehow managed to get all my stuff nicely into my couchette, chat to my "train roomies" for about 20 minutes before realising what an absolute tit I had been and gone into the wrong carriage, my real carriage was a Czech family with a little girl and a young, Spanish couple- the guy whom had been working in Kensington in London recently. I'd been having fun chatting to the UK students in the compartment next door.