Moving on to another city in another country! From Brno, Czechia to Warszawa (Warsaw), Poland, a very early morning train required us to get up before dawn! We stopped at a small Czech town, Česká Třebová, to change trains.

A beautiful fountain in front of the train station.

We then had an almost 7 hour ride on a full train to Warsaw! When we arrived at almost 3pm we had to find the public bus to get to our Airbnb near old town.

Our first impression of Warsaw! A clean city, a very busy train station and a very efficient public transportation system!

This tall building dominating the skyline near the train station is the Palace of Culture and Science, built in 1950 as a ‘gift’ from Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Because of this it has a divided status in the city, some love it, some hate it as per the “10 Facts You Didn’t Know about …”.

We found our bus and made it to our B&B, unpacked and headed out to check out our surroundings.

Meeting the locals!

We meandered our way towards old town and came to this huge square, filled with families and tourists, with entertainers everywhere!This is Castle Square, bounded on the right side by the red brick Royal Castle, previously the home of Poland’s monarchy, with the focal point in the square being Sigismunds Column, originally erected in 1644 to commemorate King Sigismund III Vasa. Both the original Column and the Castle were completely destroyed by the retreating Nazis in 1945 when they razed the entire city in retaliation for the (failed) Warsaw Uprising of the summer of 1944.

We penetrated deeper into the maze of old town and reached the Old Town Market Square.

The entire square was reconstructed from 1948 to 1953 due to its complete destruction by the Nazis in 1945. This entire row of town houses comprise the Muzeum Warzawy. The statue in the square is a famous landmark of the city, the Mermaid of Warsaw, found on the Warsaw coat of arms.

One way to get around the mostly carless narrow cobblestone streets!

As we headed back to our B&B we saw one more palace!

This is the “Tin Roof Palace” on the edge of old town. Actually the roof is copper with a rich patina! So much history, from its founding in the 13th century this city has been destroyed and rebuilt several times!

A day of religious and cultural exploration! We set out early enough to ensure the cathedral was open for viewing and climbing the bell tower.

The morning light illuminated the stained glass.

At the first level of the bell tower is a room displaying the treasures of the cathedral. This is part of the of the churches treasures, which were looted after several wars, and also sold off in times of destitute after the wars!

The view of the old town from one of the bell towers.

We continued on to the main square of old town where there was a farmers market in progress.

We got gelatos from the pink truck!

Down one street from the square we reached ‘Bishops Courtyard’, where scientific history was made in the 1860’s! The science of genetics began when Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk in Brno, conducted experiments with pea plants over several generations from 1856-1863 and  deduced that characteristics are inherited from parent plants as distinct units, one from each parent, and that these characteristics can be ‘dominant’ or ‘recessive’, sometimes skipping generations. His work was not recognized for its importance until after his death. In 1900 several other researchers expanded on his 3 “Laws of Inheritance” and further research eventually led to the discovery of DNA as the “units” inherited from the parents. Fast forward to 1975 and I’m in high school learning about Gregor Mendel and genetics and the subsequent research that identified the mechanism of inheritance as DNA. In 1978 I’m in a lab in college painstakingly counting anesthetized fruit flies, separating them by the color of their eyes and the curliness of their wings, breeding them and back-breeding them and again counting them, in order to determine their genetic make-up for my class final exam! The fruit fly is the first animal to have its genetic code fully mapped. Here I am standing in the courtyard where it all began! Unfortunately it was closed and under construction! But it was exciting non-the-less!

At least there was and information panel!

We moved on to other highlights in Brno!

The town hall, expanded and renovated over the centuries from medieval times!

The view from the Town Hall tower, with Spilberk Castle in the left distance.

Inside the Town Hall, the exterior stained glass is as beautiful as the more muted colors of the interior meeting room frescoes!

After a long day walking around town, up and down tower staircases, we headed back to our B&B.

Our view of the Cathedral all lit up for the night!

Late this afternoon we went for a walk and found the winding stairs and walkways up the hill to the Cathedral

This stairway has a fountain cascading down, for artistic effect I think.

We reached the top and walked all the way around the huge building, finally finding a spot to photograph it in its entirety!

It looks like it’s standing alone, but it is  surrounded by lower buildings.

We made it around to the front, to find out it was closed for the day already.

So we found another ‘church’ nearby, an Irish Pub!

We’ve found Irish Pubs everywhere we’ve been! Guinness is universal!

Heading down the hill, looking back, the cathedral is bathed in the afternoon sunlight.

A pavilion below the cathedral is dominated by a slender obelisk with gilded lions. I learned later this area is called the Denisovy Gardens and the obelisk was erected in 1818 to commemorate the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the total defeat and exile of Napoleon Bonaparte.,

We had a late morning train to catch so we had a slow morning, walking to the train station by 10 am to catch our train. We were off to Graz across the border into Austria. At Graz we transferred to a train heading to Vienna (Wein as the city is referred to in our Eurail map).

Austria, as we saw before when we passed through and stopped in Innsbruck, has beautiful scenery!

The newspapers provided to the passengers displayed very important international news!!!!

More mountain, farm and village scenery!

We didn’t transfer trains in Vienna, although it was a busy stop. We continued on across the border into the Czech Republic and to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague.

We disembarked at the impressive Brno hlavní nádraží (central station), a 20 minute walk to our apartment.

From the apartment, after we settled in a little, we walked back to the station to the largest grocery store and bought meal ingredients, returned and enjoyed a nice evening.

The view, from the small balcony of the apartment, of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul on Petrov hill.

A last look around the neighborhood of the lovely apartment we stayed at for only one night! A large billboard with a map of the area and information in several languages describing the environs of the Mrežnica river.

Another travel day, the last day with the car! We will drive to Zagreb and turn it in then catch a train, cross the border into Slovenia and disembark in Maribor.

Driving through the town of Duga Resa we got this glimpse of the river.

We successfully made it to Zagreb, turned in the car and caught the tram to the train station with enough time to enjoy a few beers before we boarded. The train took us over some of the same track that brought us to Zagreb from Ljubljana back on July 16th! About halfway before the train reached Ljubljana we disembarked and transferred to a train traveling north towards the border with Austria.

Our simple picnic lunch we brought with us onto the train! Hearty brown bread, pate in a squeeze tube, mustard in a squeeze tube and some grilled paprika pepper spread in a jar!

We reached the city of Maribor in Slovenia a short distance before the border and walked the 20 minutes to our apartment. It’s another one night stand so we didn’t do any exploring except to the closest grocery store for salad ingredients!