June 26-27:  OSWIECIM, POLAND.  We camped at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer near AUSCHWITZ, and met with Sister Mary prior to our visit to the Museum/Camp.  Her main interest has been education and the study of Judaism.  She lived in Israel for five years teaching and studying.  We also met a reporter from the Dallas Morning News who is in the process of writing an article and we had interesting conversations with him.

We toured AUSCHWITZ and BIRKENAU.  http://pl.auschwitz.org.pl/h/   There were actually three concentration/death camps in this area.  Over one million people were put to death at these camps with the vast majority being Jews from throughout Europe.  In addition, Polish resistance, Russian soldiers, and Roma (gypsy) were killed or imprisoned here.  Birkenau itself held over 90,000 people in various compounds had 300 prison barracks, and four gas chambers.  The two days spent were powerful and sobering, therefore only one photo.

June 28:  Near LOWICZ, POLAND.  We stopped in Czestochowa and saw the Jasna Gora Monastery and the Black Madonna.  For six centuries the Poles have seen this icon as a miracle worker for the devoted. 

We were amazed as we were driving with the amount of construction and workers involved in the development of the road system in Poland.

June 29-30:  WARSAW, POLAND.  The Old Town area had been bombed out during WWII and was beautifully rebuilt.  The new President was being inaugurated while we were there and a huge music festival was to take place at various outdoor locations through the city.  We walked across the river to the Praga area, which had not been bombed.  With a city of 1.7 million people the transit system was great with buses, trams, and an underground.

July 1 (Friday):  near DRUSKININKAI, LITHUANIA.  We drove to southern Lithuania, along the Russian border, and stayed at a campsite on a lake.  Being July 4 weekend, the timing could not have been better than to spend part of it at a lake area.

July 2:  SIGULDA, LATVIA.  We drove a long day in the rain in order to get closer to our northern destination.  When we left this morning, we drove to the Russian border because it’s the closest we may ever be to Russia! 

In northern Lithuania, we stopped at the Hill of Crosses (Kryziu Kalnas).  It is a two-hump hillock with thousands of crosses.  Crosses were first planted here in the 1400’s.  The Soviets bulldozed them down but people kept putting up crosses to express their national and spiritual independence. 

July 3-4:  TALLINN, ESTONIA.  We stopped at the New Castle in Sigulda and they were having a live Sunday morning concert so we stayed to listen.  We then drove to the north end of Estonia to Tallinn.  Along the way, we drove through a lot of forest and along the Baltic Sea.  We camped at a marina and it was nice to see boats and water near us again.  It was light at midnight and the sun rose by 4 a.m. July 4. 

We spent the day walking around Tallinn.  It was very nice in that they blend the old and the new buildings, except in the actual Old Town.  It felt very cosmopolitan compared to recent cities we have been in.