Saturday, 1 August: We had to be up at 5:30 a.m. and have our suitcases out by six. Our continental breakfast was delivered to the room at six, too. It was very good. We ran into Katie and the Kimmins brothers on the elevator at 6:40. Katie accompanied us to the airport where we said good-bye.

Again British Airways was right on time. The flight for London left promptly at 9:20 a.m., and the flight from there to Washington pulled away at 12:50 p.m.. We landed at Dulles shortly before four. We cleared immigration and customs in record time because our suitcases were the first ones on the conveyor. Joseph met us and took us to Culpeper, and from there we drove home. As always, no matter how great the trip, it was good to be home.

General Observations

All in all, this was probably the best trip we'd ever taken. The tour was well planned and organized, our tour director was outstanding, the others in the tour group were friendly and considerate, and the places we visited were exceptionally interesting. We would not hesitate to take another tour with Grand Circle Travel. All but a few of our group appeared to be our age or older, but even those with obvious physical problems seemed to have no problem keeping up. We took over 200 photographs, more than on any previous trip.

We found all the countries interesting, but were surprised by a couple of things. First, there was the ethnic purity of all four countries we visited. None had a total of more than 2% to 4% minorities, that is people who were not Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, or Magyars, respectively. This was accomplished partially by the way the borders were redrawn after both World Wars, but also by driving out other nationalities, particularly Germans, after World War II.

Then there was the odd situation with the Jews. Eastern Europe has lost almost all its Jews, but in inverse proportion to their pre-war numbers.. Poland, which had the most Jews (30% of its population) now has the least, no more than a few hundred. (None of our Polish guides seemed to know for sure.) Hungary, which had the fewest Jews (about 500,000 or 4.5% of its pre-war population), now has the most, about 90,000. Poland especially, but also the Czech Republic to a lesser extent, seems to be making a great effort to preserve and promote its Jewish heritage, perhaps because there are no Jews left to keep it alive. Hungary, on the other hand, seems to feel no special need to promote Jewish heritage, probably because it still has a sizeable Jewish community to do so. The Czech Republic is somewhere in between.

Page   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16