After our orientation, where we met our guide Jana and the rest of the members of our tour, we set off into the city. It was everything I imagined. We walked over the Charles Bridge at sunset, ate traditional dumplings and drank Pilsner beer for dinner, listened to local musicians play Smetana, and then wandered over to the Lennon wall. I know it’s cliché, but it was magical. The next day during our tour of the castle, my sister and I got so excited when Jana started talking about the Defenestration of Prague (for more details about this obscure event here is a link) and then showed us the actual window through which the church members were tossed out. It was one of those events in history that we both thought was an exaggeration. But no, people actually threw other people out of a window to get them to shut up. Awesome. 

Our next stop for our free afternoon was the Museum of Communism. Can you tell yet that we love history? This was the best museum ever—it showed the real history of communism and the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia. Do not forget to check out the gift shop—they have a vast collection of hilarious postcards poking fun at the Soviets. My sister bought one of each.

Also in Prague, my sister and I put into action our love of climbing things. Towers, stairs to castles, church spires. Doesn’t matter. If it is tall, we will climb it. So we hit the Powder Tower first, and then just kept climbing.

Leaving Prague was hard, but we couldn’t wait to see what would come next. We met our bus driver Mitch and off we went through the Moravian countryside. This is where we had our first shot: Becherovka, a Czech liqueur.

Krakow

We arrived late in the afternoon at Hotel Polski, where we were enchanted by the view of St. Florian’s Gate right outside our second floor window. Krakow was one of my favorite places that we visited on this trip. The town center was smaller, less touristy and the presence of Jagiellonian University gave the city an energetic, student vibe. After seeing all the sites with our group, my sister and I and several others visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine, just a short bus ride out into the countryside. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but upon arrival I knew I was going to love it. At the entrance we formed a group and were joined by our leader “George”. Imagine a grey haired, 150 year old Boris Karloff as Dracula, and you’ll have a fairly accurate picture of George. This was going to be a lot of climbing, but down rather than up. As we descended the wooden steps, 1,000 feet down into the mine (there would be an elevator to take us back to the top, he assured us), the eeriness set in. It was creepy and weird, but quite an unusual experience. The focus of the tour were the religious carvings out of salt, with the crowning glory being an actual Cathedral—the largest underground cathedral in Europe. Everything carved out of salt. “Why?” we asked. George seemed non-plussed. “Why not? Is a mystery.” There was plenty of down time to visit the many gift shops. I have to say I bought some packages of bath salts and they were really lovely to soak in.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

On our way out of Krakow and heading to Hungary we made a stop at the infamous Nazi concentration camp. As you might expect it was somber and very sad. Having studied so much about it, I felt it was important to visit. But I was dreading it as well. After I exited I sat on a park bench and a black crow sat down beside me. We both waited, me for the rest of the group, him for some crumbs I’m sure. I thought because I knew so much about the Holocaust, and Auschwitz in particular, that I wouldn't become so emotional about visiting it. But I was overwhelmed. And that funny little crow just sat down beside me as if to say, "I understand, I'm here to help ease the pain." When we all got back on the bus the mood was somber and reflective. But as Mitch drove us past field after field of sunflowers in bloom, and Jana played some soothing Hungarian folk music, we all began to feel better. The Tatras Mountains were in the distance and soon we arrived at “The Ranch” on the border of Slovakia and Hungary. Time for shot number two: Tatras Tea. 

Eger

We spent the night in Eger, then started the 4th of July with a wine tasting. Actually, we started the festivities with our third shot: Grappa, or as our host reiterated, “medicine!" Many glasses of wine later, much dancing and a special 4th of July display of sparklers by Jana, we were all bonding. We discovered there were a total of eight teachers in the group and several others with ties to education. Was that why we were having such fun together? It was here we learned the Hungarian toast: egga-shegga-dray (my phonetic spelling), which my sister could never remember and kept saying, “hey-shake-a-leg!” Our bus ride to Budapest was one long Beatles sing-a-long.

Budapest

I think it was in Budapest that one of our beloved tour members was dubbed “Jana 2.0”. It wasn’t just because he was really tall (so we could always see him in a crowd), or because he was this super nice guy who was always handing out treats (which he did), but really, he just had his stuff together and always knew where our guide Jana, or local guide, was and what we should all be doing. My favorite site was the Szecheny Baths. Hot tubs on steroids. More bikinis and men’s speedos than you would ever see in the States. It was awesome. Our local guide, Monica, was really interesting and very forthcoming about the political situation in Hungary. One of the local gypsies had even cursed her, she told us, because of her honesty in advising us tourists. As we were leaving Budapest, I was telling Mitch and Jana how I kept mispronouncing “Kesenem”, the Hungarian word for “thank you”. They asked what had I been saying. “Keserem”, I replied. They burst into laughter. That’s a Czech phrase, they told me, that they like to use with Hungarians just to mess with them. It means, “thank you for the shit!” 

Plitviče Lakes National Park (Plitvička Jezera Nacionalni Park) 

This was a special stop. First, our stay there coincided with the final match of the soccer World Cup: Croatia vs. Russia. Croatia won, so that was exciting. Then our hike the next day on boardwalks through the many falls was so peaceful. We all went at our own pace and met up at the end. The bus ride on to Rovinj was beautiful, but also a clear reminder of the Homeland War. Many buildings had been bombed or were bullet riddled and were left just as they were, no repairs, empty, waiting for the return of their Serbian owners. 

Rovinj

By the time we reached Rovinj and our island getaway, the weather had turned quite warm and we were all ready for a dip in the cool waters of the Adriatic. We enjoyed some lovely seafood dinners—sea bream on one night, shrimp and sardines on another. Of course my sister and I found the tallest tower in town—the spire of the Church of St. Ofamia. We weren’t alone in our climb, or our outright fear, once we got to the first level and realized the stairway up was little more than narrow treads of wood, worn even narrower over time. What kept my sister and I going was a little boy at the top calling down to everyone, “HALLO!” When I answered him, “HALLO!” he laughed and kept calling to us. We went back and forth and finally when we reached the top, there he was. We both called “HALLO!” to each other, laughed and high-fived. After this harrowing climb up (and then back down!) we were in need of some medicine. Luckily that evening we went on a cruise to try to spot some dolphins. We saw a pod right away and then the captain brought out some grappa to pass around. Shot number four.

Ljubljana

Our first stop after leaving Croatia was the capital of Slovenia. Jana arranged a nice lunch of sausage on bread, frog legs and a traditional Slovenian cake. But there was a castle on a hill that needed to be climbed too. This was actually the steepest climb my sister and I had encountered on this trip. It was also quite muggy, but we managed to sweat our way to the top and got a beautiful view of the city. After all that hard work, gelato was in order. We left the city just as a rain shower opened up and cooled things off.

Lake Bled

The bus ride to Lake Bled was our last opportunity for “Shots on the Bus”. It was shot number five but I have no memory of what we had, because after Hungary we just all referred to it as medicine. This was also where we said goodbye to our beloved bus driver Mitch. He was anxious to return to his family but we were sad to see him leave. It meant we would be saying goodbye to each other very soon too. When we arrived at our hotel Jana pointed out a local curiosity situated right next door: “Gaddafi Mall”. Yes, named after Muammar Gaddafi. There was supposed to be a similar structure named “Tito Mall” in Tripoli, Libya, but unfortunately Tito died and Yugoslavia fell apart before the funds could be dispersed to build it. 

The next day, our only day of rain, we boarded the Pletna boats to ride out to the island in the middle of Lake Bled. Of course we needed to finish up all our various leftover medicine so there were more shots before and after the ride. My sister and I were excited for one last castle on a hill. It did not disappoint and neither did the cream cake we had heard so much about and were wanting to try. Our only mistake was agreeing to split one. Fortunately, at our farewell dinner later that night, there was plenty of cream cake for desert, no sharing. Wonderful food, more shots—blueberry grappa and honey mead—and a lot of tears during our last night together. We had such a wonderful time together, no one really wanted it to end.