Next stop Slovakia...Day trip to Vienna Austria

After the stressful, emotional and anger filled destinations in Poland we headed out from our last stop in Poland...Krakow. We were glad to escape the tearful, haunting memories of all three Nazi Death Camps we were fortunate enough to finally see with our own eyes and our own physical presence. We had ridden right around Poland from the western region beginning with Lodz to the center in Warsaw, south east to Parczew, then turning west again to Lublin. A long run south west to Krakow and our Polish journey was completed. The weather in Poland began with heavy unrelenting rains, cold winds with occasional bursts of sun to dry us off.

After Warsaw however the weather improved and bright sun and warmer conditions met us in all the Death Camps...Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz. We were thankful for small mercies like this which did not help our emotional distress, but helped us move to our next destination in relative comfort.

As I left Krakow behind my helmet filled with tears once again despite relatively nice weather conditions on our way south west out of Poland. This euphoric situation turned once again as we were within 50kms of the Czech Republic border. The clouds darkened the skies and there it came again...blistering rain. The weather was so nice in the morning as we left Krakow we had not donned our rain gear. It was warm and the riding conditions to this point had been brilliant. We were taken aback by the sudden abrupt change. We pulled over at what appeared to be a bus stop which had a small covered area where people waited for their bus. We began fitting our rain gear and I looked over at Sol and his bike in front of me and saw it literally just fall over on to its side. Sol had unwittingly unbalanced his luggage on the bike to retrieve his rain suit and a gust of wind completed the picture as it slowly fell over.

We were soon on the road again hoping to move away from the heavy rain cloud zone and the skies finally dried after we crossed the Czech border. The traffic was a nightmare as large scale road repair works were under way there only to slow us down further. It was about two hours till we were in Slovakia heading due south towards our destination, Bratislava. We would meet up with Sol's good friend Peter and Peter's partner Maria with whom we would be spending several days and nights for some rest and recovery. When we finally met Peter after becoming lost in Bratislava it was like we were in the hands of a rescuing angel. The love and companionship from both Peter and Maria was immeasurable. Familiar, friendly faces just like family greeted us after our ordeals so far in an unforgiving and often harrowing Europe. It was like coming home to Australia to see family and friends. We were very much at home with our wonderful hosts. Diners on the Danube, long walks around their neighborhood, sightseeing around their area and a wonderful drive into Vienna, Austria which was less than 30kms from Bratislava.

Vienna the old was so impressive and as it turned out when Peter parked his car in Vienna just outside the old city, we walked directly within 100 meters to "Juden Platz"...The Jewish Quarter of the old city.