@Longer Version: 1991 Trip

(August 9 to October 25)

Since Pan Am World Airways has gone out of business and no US Airline has replaced them, Lufthansa is the only one flying non-stop from Los Angeles to Frankfurt. Economy Class tickets with no restrictions were not at all economical, but they did upgrade us to Business Class at no extra cost. That cost of better living for just a few hours is more than we want to pay on our own, but it is more comfortable. Emmy’s complaint? The armrests between the seats couldn’t be lifted so she could use some of my space for sleeping.

This year our trip started later than expected, and since we didn’t plan to stay long, we rented (first time) an RV for two months. We picked it up on the exact day Gorbachev was thrown out of office, the first time. If a war broke out in Moscow, someone would order the 250,000 Soviet Soldiers in Eastern Germany to come home, and we didn’t intend to be in their way! We could just imagine what the former East German and the Polish countryside, the stores, gas stations, streets and highways, would look like, during and soon after the “invasion in reverse” by an Army with little or no food, gasoline, or money.

For a few days we stayed in Western Germany, and in just the edge of Eastern Germany, but when Gorbachev seemed to be back in control, we zig-zagged along the western, then the northern part of former East Germany. In Bad Doberan we visited with Vera, a friend of Cousin Toni’s we met when she had visited in Mettlach. As we drove in this part of the country, older buildings looked much like they did in the West, except maintenance and renovation obviously stopped 50 years ago.

We crossed the border to visit Szczecin, Poland where Emmy’s stepmother was born years ago, when it was still called Stettin, Germany. Szczecin appears to be one of the poorer larger cities we have seen in this part of the world.

We spent five nights in Berlin, visiting and re-visiting what had been East and West, and is now just Berlin. It was exciting to walk through the Brandenburg Gate that we were just able to see from a distance in the past. With the tacit permission of the police, we used a hammer to break off two ten-inch pieces of the Berlin Wall. It was obvious that while life may be better now than it had been, there is still much to do.

The grocery store where, in 1980, toy-size carts with few food items were lined up at cash registers, now full-size carts were filled to the brim with a grand variety of food. Of special attention were the hundreds of chickens turning on the bar-b-que, with two clerks waiting on the line of customers. Somehow it doesn’t seem so bad to wait in line for a lot of food, but it did seem a shame to see them wait in line for a little bit of nothing in 1980.

We spent three seconds at the customs station on the same bridge where we spent three hours in 1985, and crossed into Poland. This time Linda’s former college professor was at home, so we visited the new home he is building, and visited with the family we met in Poznan in 1985. Many letters have gone back and forth between Poznan and California since that visit. We then drove north across Poland to Gdansk, to visit with Henryk and Irena. In 1985 when we met them in the campsite in Warsaw, the odds against mutual visits were at least 10,000,000 to 1, but since then they have spent a night in our home in California, and here we are in Gdansk.

Attendance at the flea market, held at Warsaw’s outdoor Stadium, is like being at a major league football game. Not as a spectator, but as a player! Such pushing and shoving! A day later we continued to Kraków. The last time we were here, we felt the city was very depressing, but not this time. Since the Polish Government has changed, everything else seems to have evolved for the better. In 1985 the roadside fruit and vegetable stands contained a few pieces of poor quality produce, but now farm wagons are loaded with an excellent harvest. We found the carved-of-salt-cathedral in the salt mine at Wieliczka to be very interesting, then we drove into Czechoslovakia, and on to fabulous Prague.

Some people say Prague is the most beautiful city in Europe. While we might not go that far, it’s difficult to find a “one-view” that would surpass the sight of the river and the Charles Bridge, with the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral high above Marla Strana (Lesser town), across the river. At an archaeological dig next to the Cathedral, they were finding both small items of interest, and items of small interest. After a full day of sightseeing, Emmy would have given anything not to walk that “last mile” from the streetcar to the RV, and later, since the ambulances weren’t running a regular schedule, Emmy stayed in the RV while I just had to visit Prague after dark.

After a couple of days, we returned to former East Germany, to the most exceptional city of Dresden. Some of the famous old buildings have been rebuilt, but Palaces, Cathedrals, and other structures await exact rebuilding from piles of rubble still remaining from WW II.

A few more days were spent seeing Martin Luther’s Wittenberg, Leipzig, Halle, and a wrong turn while looking for the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, found us in the midst of a large Soviet Army Base. We believe the very helpful Ukrainian from Kiev was just as disappointed and frustrated as we were, not to be able to communicate beyond the names of our home towns.

The remains of our totally uncalled for paranoia disappeared as we crossed the now imaginary border between the former East and West Germany. We enjoyed Bamberg again, and in Ebrach we found the most beautiful Abbey Church (or Cathedral) that can be imagined.

At one point we crossed the Main River on about the smallest ferry we have seen, revisited the “most outstanding” city gate at Marktbreit, and after the umpteenth visit to fairy-tale Rothenburg and Dinkelsbühl, we stopped again to see the magnificent pink-stone Romanesque Cathedral at Speyer. This is where the “protesters” were first called Protestant.

A few days at Mettlach was followed by a drive across Luxembourg on our way to Paris, again. We must always visit Paris! On our return from Paris we saw some of the construction underway for the new Disneyland. With Hugo, Maria, and Monika as passengers, we again crossed Luxembourg, stopped to see the Cathedrals in Rheims, the little stone village of Senlis, and to Monika’s home in Montivilliers.

After the two of us revisited our favorite towns of Honfleur, Bayeux, Fougéres, Dinan, Mont St. Michel, and a dozen others in this part of Normandy, we took Hugo and Maria to Belgium to see Brugge, Ghent, and Brussels. Across Luxembourg, again, and back to Mettlach, again. We unloaded our “camper stuff” into a closet at Toni’s, again, returned the rented vehicle, and flew home after as interesting 78 days as can be imagined!! Again!