In mid-May 2024 we traveled to Europe for an extensive trip encompassing visiting friends and family, cycling in the Altmühltal with Mecklenburger Radtours, and family history research with cousin Wolfgang Weissler in Poland and Czechia.
To skip the narrative and just look at (too many) photos, click here. For a lot of food photos, click here. Click any photo below to see a larger version.
Munich
Our trip started in Munich, staying with friends Hans and Lisa Prugger in Pullach for a few days before going on to our bicycle tour. It was a great chance to catch up with them and try to get over some of our jet lag (more challenging the older we get). Hans is 94 and Lisa 84, but both are very active, she makes sure they both keep moving. She said to remember we’re not old, just getting older. 😀 As in the past we enjoyed staying up in the “youth hostel” on the top floor, with the sloped roof and view of Elektro Schmidt.
While there we had a short visit with Katja Reid-Trauschke (cousin Bettina’s daughter) and her baby son Theo as well, before they themselves left on a weekend trip. Katja passed along to us some silver that had belonged to Adolf and Auguste Weissler, as well as some pieces that may have belonged to Rosalie Weissler (Adolf’s mother), for us to give to niece Rachel when she’s ready.
We also had a fun last evening in Pullach with Hans and Lisa’s son Florian joining us all for dinner. It had been many years since we had seen him, great to catch up.
Too soon we had to leave and make our way to Rothenburg o/d Tauber to start our bike tour. We hugged Hans goodbye at the house, and Lisa took us to a tram stop, the usual S-Bahn route not available due to construction on the weekend. She said she had to leave before she started crying and we were close to losing it as well. Such very dear people.
Altmühltal Cycling
Our self-guided cycling tour started in Rothenburg o/d Tauber, a charming town we had visited previously (before our first Mecklenburger Radtour trip in 2015). We walked from the train station and found our hotel. Cousin Wolfgang Weissler, with whom we would travel in Poland and Czechia, drove out to meet us and discuss our trip strategy (see Family History). We also checked out our rental e-bikes – built like tanks and weighing about 50 lbs each.
The next day we were off on our 5 days of cycling, during which we would average about 30-35 miles per day, with plenty of opportunities to enjoy the scenery. From Rothenburg we cycled to/through Herrieden, Treuchtlingen, Eichstätt, Beilngries, Riedenburg, Kelheim, and finally Regensburg.
The bike tour on the Altmühltal cycle path takes you through a charming landscape with bizarre rocks, narrow valleys and extensive forest and meadow landscapes. Medieval and baroque buildings will cast their spell on you and line your way from Rothenburg to Regensburg. – Mecklenburger Radtour
We were, again, self guided and not in a group, but we kept seeing several people again each day on the path, at our hotel, a museum, or at a restaurant, including a very cheerful fellow named Werner and his wife.
Early in the tour we cycled past the Altmühlsee on a warm sunny day, and lots of people were out enjoying the day by the lake with their kids. The geology of the Altmühltal was quite interesting and we enjoyed the rock formations, including the Twelve Apostles outside Solnhofen. A highlight was the Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum in Solnhofen, with its displays of Archaeopteryx. Fields of red poppies were everywhere (see photo at top of page) and most intense outside Kelheim. While the weather forecasts threatened rain, only once did it rain hard enough for us to seek shelter; within 10 minutes it cleared enough for us to continue.
We had vouchers from Mecklenburger Radtour for the crystal museum in Riedenburg, but had forgotten to print them out before leaving home. The entry fee was modest so our last cycling day before heading out, we paid and went anyway. A small museum with beautiful gem and crystal exhibits, including a massive display of rose quartz from a mine in Arkansas!
We finished in Regensburg, not too far from where the Altmühl and Danube rivers come together in Kelheim. All told we cycled 172 miles in 5 days. We also realized our Garmin devices were very poor for the trip navigation, despite having downloaded the courses; Liza’s older device was terrible at the navigation (we were actually seriously off their intended course the first day, but the paths are so well signed one can’t actually get lost), and Robert’s would not load the courses at all. We were far better off starting the second day using the Komoot app on the phone suggested by the tour company.
Following the bike tour, we moved on to Prague, Głubczyce, and Chorzów for family history research – see Family History.
Zakopane, Kraków, Wrocław, and Berlin
Leaving Chorzów and our rental car, we went on to Zakopane by train. At the foot of the Tatras Mountains in southern Poland, Zakopane is an utterly charming ski resort. Many of the buildings are turn-of-the-20th-century wooden chalets, symbols of Zakopane-style architecture. To us they resemble the stave church architecture in Norway. We enjoyed dinner near the hotel with live music – quartet with violin, viola, accordion, and string bass – quite fun.
The weather forecast showed rain the next day or two, so the next morning right after breakfast we took the funicular to the top of Gubałówka (ski area) for the views before the weather closed in. We hedged our bets by buying round trip tickets, but as the weather held we did the hike back down. A 300m (~1000 ft) descent that was rocky and uneven but gave us great views, especially of the passing funicular cars every 10 minutes or so. A few sprinkles but no serious rain until we were back close to the hotel.
Food shoutout: Oscypek. Restaurants in Zakopane advertising they have it, and only from May to September. Lucky us!
We left Zakopane in the rain the next day (was going to call Uber to get to the train station, but the hotel called a taxi for us), and we arrived in Krakow in a light rain. Luckily it was a short walk to the hotel, on the edge of the Old Town, with much of it through a huge shopping mall. We had dinner at a nearby Galician restaurant where we split a (huge) roasted meat platter for two…really good for 3 or 4!
Great weather greeted us the next morning, so we walked over to the old Jewish neighborhood of Kazimierz, taking in some of the Old Town in the way. Our primary target was the New Jewish Cemetery (“new” meaning established in 1800), where Robert located a relative we sought, Sara Weissler Steinberg who died in 1895 (more in Family History). A visit to the Galicia Jewish Museum followed, with an excellent photographic exhibit showing today’s remnants of yesterday’s Judaism in the area around Kraków. We then stopped into the Old Jewish Cemetery and adjacent Remu’h Synagogue; no Weissler ancestors there, but plenty of interesting, elaborate headstones in a no-longer-surprising overgrown setting.
The following day was a lazy day, despite a lot of walking. Liza wanted to see the Wawel Cathedral but instead of opening at 9:00, this day it wasn’t until 12:30, and by the numbers of people milling around looked like it would be a zoo. So we strolled back to the Rynek Główny, fended of an earnest fellow who wanted us to accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior, and returned to the hotel after “second breakfast” to do more research in advance of arriving in Wrocław and Berlin. We returned to Kazimierz for dinner, the Klezmer music we’d hoped to hear wasn’t starting until after 8, so we ate at another place instead, Restaurcja Baster, and drew it out enough to try to hear the music…to no avail. On the bright side the accordion player nearby was playing many songs we recognized from seeing one of our favorite musical groups at home, Black Market Trust (gypsy jazz etc.) in Tucson. A lovely last evening in Kraków before moving on to Wrocław.
We arrived in Wrocław the next afternoon, and after checking into the grand old Hotel Piast near the train station, took the tram into the Rynek. There we visited a free exhibition on Jews of Breslau and their Objects at the Op Enheim Foundation (https://openheim.org/en/wydarzenia/odkladajac-rzeczy-na-miejsce/#). We had heard of this exhibit from Stephen Falk, the JRI-Poland.org “town volunteer” for Wrocław, and also someone Robert had first talked with about 25 years ago regarding some shared family history. It was a very interesting exhibit with a focus on several families in pre-war Breslau during Nazi persecution. The Rynek afterwards in the late afternoon was pretty lively, with a street fair of sorts with food and drink vendors. Any thoughts we might have had that Wrocław might be less interesting than Kraków were quickly dispelled…the Rynek was large, ringed with lovely pastel buildings, just gorgeous in the afternoon light.
The next day we took the tram out to the Old Jewish Cemetery, to search for Friederike Weissler née Wischnitz (see Family History). We then took the tram back to near the Rynek for lunch and rolling pin shopping. 🙂
Only mild drama with the tram. Liza had put 20zł in an app in Kraków for the tram system, because it said it would work in Wrocław as well. Except it didn’t, kept trying to text me a confirmation code that I never received, and eventually I was locked out. So I lost 12zł, a whole $3. Yesterday we bought paper tickets at the tram stop near the hotel, but messed up by not validating them on the tram (in the app they were good as soon as you bought them). Wrocław transit police, if you read this you missed an opportunity to fine us! We used the paper tickets properly validated to get to the cemetery, and used card payment on the tram to get back.
We wanted to end our two weeks in Poland with a nice dinner, and Robert suggested either Uzbek (place called Samarqand), or Georgian (U Gruzina). We opted for Georgian and found it in a charming string of lively small restaurants underneath the elevated railroad tracks close by. Definitely an area to revisit next time we are here!
Our final morning in Wrocław we planned a quick trip to the Cosel Friedhof, taking the 22 tram there. (As it was European Union election day, all transportation was free!) The visit was a success with Robert finding one more daughter of Moses Weissler (see Family History). We were then off to Berlin in the afternoon. In thy finest tradition of old school European travel, we spent every last złoty at the train station on Coke Zero and chocolate.
Arriving in Berlin in the late afternoon, after sorting out how to buy tram tickets (our Eurail pass was good on the S-bahn but not the tram), we checked into our Hotel Kastanienhof in Prenzlauer Berg, and went on search of refreshment. It was fun to hop the tram a few stops to go to the Prater Biergarten, then check out the food options along the Kastanienallee. The neighborhood is as funky as ever, and quite a lot of new eateries (no doubt Covid had something to do with that), including a lot of vegan options.
The next day was spent traipsing through two last cemeteries, Weissensee and Schönhauser Allee. The first quite successful, the second not so much, but all in all a very good day (see Family History).
Our final full day in Berlin we had the pleasure of visiting with Prof. Armin Höland and his wife Ingeborg at their charming flat on Rotdornstr. We first met Armin in 2019 when we went to Halle for a legal conference he organized about Adolf Weissler and the German notary service. What we thought might be an hour or two visit stretched to eight hours of conversation, touching upon family history, his current research on Ulrich Weissler and the Kindertransport, and our own backgrounds. Such hospitality! Of course with coffee and a wonderful table of bread, cheese, etc. We had a little laugh when Robert put salt in his coffee by accident but that was soon corrected. 😀 He also gave us a book that was just published about Friedrich Weissler, and one of his books. All in all a very gemütlich way to end our trip.
The next day we were up early to get to the (new) Berlin airport for a short hop to Frankfurt then on to Los Angeles. The transport to the airport was complicated by a state visit by Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, such that S-Bahns and regional trains were either running late or cancelled altogether. Robert’s plan of getting away from the center and east to Alexanderplatz seemed like the best bet, getting the S9 from there to the airport…until it dumped us at Altglienicke…”Umsteige bitte” … as the train we were on was going back to Spandau. The next train then didn’t come, another showed up and looked like it wasn’t going anywhere (most people got on, but we weren’t about to without knowing where it was going). After 10 minutes they decided it was going to the airport and the signs updated. So we made it, still with plenty of time, but I think our new joke for getting lost/delayed will be we’re going to Altglienicke!
Again, to look at (too many) photos, click here.
Additional Thoughts
Most of our hotels, including even Motel One in Prague, had no safe in the room. Slightly concerning…which worries you more, having the car broken into (we had been warned about car theft issues in Poland) or the room broken into? We therefore kept on us at all times the important things – passport, phone, credit cards, money.
In Czechia and Poland we tended not to get any room service unless we put the sign on the door requesting it. Motel One we hung a sign on the door declining room service most of the days.
The idea of a Eurail pass is appealing, but never again, it is a thing of the past. On our itinerary we would have spent about the same $ had we bought individual tickets, and would have automatically had seat assignments. With the pass we had to add each day’s journey to the pass, then separately attempt to buy seat reservations. While we could use the German DB Navigator app to look up trains, we could not get all seats with it, including being unable to book from Wrocław to Berlin, or to/from Zakopane. We gave up and bought separate tickets to Berlin, and used the Czech train site to get seats on the Zakopane (Poland) trains! Bottom line…no more rail passes for us.
Even in May, “shoulder season”, seat reservations were in most cases necessary. Some trains said “not required” but as most people had reserved, it could still be difficult to find an open seat.
TV in Poland carried a lot of soccer matches. The most unusual one for us was a paralympic match with amputees playing with crutches.
Rental cars were reasonable, but still it is always a little stressful driving in another country. (At least no hedgerows or curbs, and we weren’t on the left…) Our plan of using a different credit card (due to the security deposit holds), simply buying their insurance, and buying the tank or half tank of gas, saved us some angst. The Hyundai we had in Ostrava wasn’t bad; the Kia Ceed in Katowice was terrible.
For the Record…
Hotels
- Hotel Gerberhaus, Rothenburg o/d Tauber
- Gasthaus Limbacher, Herrieden
- Gasthof Zum Goldenen Lamm, Treuchtlingen
- Hotel Adler, Eichstätt
- Gasthof Schwan, Riedenburg
- Hotel Münchener Hof, Regensburg
- Motel One Prague-Florintinium, Prague
- Dworak Peszkow, Głubczyce
- Hotel Diament Arsenal Palace, Chorzów
- Hotel Sabała, Zakopane
- Hotel Polski Pod Białym Orłem, Krakow
- Hotel Piast Wrocław Centrum, Wrocław
- Hotel Kastanienhof, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
Restaurants
- Gasthof Limbacher, Herrieden
- Herrieden
- Gasthof Zum Goldenen Lamm, Treuchtlingen
- Gasthof Schwan, Riedenburg
- Hacker Pschorr, Regensburg
- Kokolvna, Prague
- Sklep Na Poříčí, Prague
- Kartel, Chorzów
- Todojutra, Chorzów
- Karczma U Fiakra, Zakopane
- Pstrąg Górski, Zakopane
- Galicyjska Restaurcja, Kraków
- Taste Poland, Kraków – ul. Florianska – Zapiekanka sandwich
- Pijarska 17 (in Hotel Polski Pod Białym Orłem), Kraków [named for an ermine, subject of a Da Vinci painting in a Kraków museum]
- Dobra Pączkarnia, Kraków (bakery)
- Restaurcja Baster, Kraków-Kazimierz
- Stary Młyn Pierogarnia, Wrocław
- U Gruzina [Georgian], Wrocław
- K’Ups Gemüsekebap, Berlin
- Espressomania Coffee Roastery, Berlin
- Pizza Pane, Berlin
- Vedang Green Burger, Berlin
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