The summer of 2012: Prague, Salzburg and Vienna

Planning has begun in earnest. We have our airline tickets. We leave Portland on July 29th on a flight to Amsterdam. From there we catch a flight to Prague in the Czech Republic. We arrive the following day at something like 1 in the afternoon. My first thought is that it is a shame that the Czech Republic and Slovakia spit in to separate countries. Czechoslovakia was the neatest named country in the world. Now they are both just, well… blah. My second thought is that this will be Richard any my first trip to the other side of the Iron Curtain. For those of you too young or too history deprived to know, the Iron Curtain was this amazing barrier that the Soviet Union built across the continent of Europe. The curtain rods were amazing as the Iron Curtain itself was astonishingly heavy. Short of the Great Wall of China, it was one of the most amazing feats of limitation ever created by man. Oh, but we are building damn near as sweet of a barrier along our border with Mexico. But, I digress.

We will spend four nights in Prague. We have one day trip planned, to Terezín. Some of you may know it better as Theresienstadt. It was a "gathering" area for the Jews of Czechoslovakia used by the Germans. (That translates to "ghetto".) Although not a death camp, the vast majority who entered Theresienstadt died. If I had a bucket list, visiting a concentration camp would be on it. And while Terezín doesn’t quite fit the bill, but unless I can someday get to Auschwitz, I’ll let it count.

From Prague we go to Salzburg, Austria for three nights. You will be all stunned to hear that Salzburg has a theatre festival going on while we are there. It is such an amazing coincidence. I was shocked when Richard told me. I’ve heard that there are five things not to like about Salzburg. Three of them have escaped my memory. But I do recall: it is so expensive it makes Vienna look dirt cheap and whatever you do in Salzburg, you will do with 500,000 of your best friends, so get used to being crushed.

From Salzburg, we go to Vienna for six nights. We have rented an apartment on the edge of gay Vienna. I think that is appropriate. We are planning two side trips from Vienna; one to Bratislava in Slovakia, and one to Sopron in Hungary. They pad the old passport.

Then we head back to Prague for two nights before returning home.