Hello everybody,
Today is the 36th day of my trip. I have visited 14 different countries. The weather was remarkably good. A little warmer than I would have liked the first couple weeks in the Mediterranean but almost no rain and the sun was shining 90% of the time. I wrapped things up in Warsaw today with a tour of the city. The first place we visited was Lazienki Park (Royal Bath's Park). Here we saw the Chopin Statue. There are free piano concerts around the statue every Sunday night in summer. The last one for this year is next Sunday.
It is quite a large park. It was designed in the 17th century for the then King of Poland. Below is his summer palace in the park.
We had a nice walk in the park. It was a beautiful day as usual. A few of the leafs are just beginning to turn color here.
Our next stop was at the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Monument. There were over 400,000 Jewish people living in this city at the beginning of WWII. A wall was built around this small area in Warsaw where they were all forced to live. They were dying at a rate of about 40,000 per year. But that wasn't fast enough for the Nazis, so they then started shipping them off to Auschwitz. Today there are only 2000 Jewish people left living in this city of 2.5 million people.
Next we visited Old Town. It's not really old. Nothing there is older than 60 years old. This city was completely destroyed during the war. The only buildings left standing were the ones the Nazis were using for their headquarters. This area of Warsaw was rebuilt to look like it did before the war.
Our last stop was at the Warsaw Uprising Memorial.
I now have 24 hours to kill. The tour ended at 1:00 and my plane doesn't leave until 2:00 tomorrow afternoon. I think I will just enjoy my beautiful hotel. I can literally see the entire city from my room. I have a corner room on the 31st floor. The view is endless.
Tomorrow afternoon begins my 17 hour journey home. I have a ninety minute flight out of here to Frankfurt, Germany. The 15th and last country of the trip. I will only be in Germany for two hours. It's then a nine hour flight to Chicago on a Lufthansa 747.
I have a three hour layover in Chicago and won't get back to Indy until after midnight Wednesday morning.
Thanks for reading my reports. I don't know where or when my next trip will be. Due to upcoming medical procedures I don't have anything in the works. This is probably the first time in over a decade that I have no trip to look forward to. Kind of depressing. Hopefully it will be a short hiatus.
Until next time,
Tim
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