That Time I Did a 28-Day European Bus Tour — Part 12 (Mauthausen and Prague)
This article will cover Days 22–23 of the tour
Welcome back. Here is a link to Part 11 of my story, in case you haven’t read it:
Once again, we have a day of travelling ahead of us. Looking at Google Maps, it’s about two and a half hours of driving from the village of Kirchdorf to the Mauthausen concentration camp (both in Austria) then it’s at least three hours from there to Prague.
Once again, I don’t remember much about the journey but we would have reached Mauthausen in mid-morning. This was not meant to be a fun part of the trip. It was meant to be educational. I remember the tour guide saying that “You don’t have to come into the camp if you don’t want to.” But if I recall, we all did. And we spent a while there being given a guided tour of the place.
The stories were told were… not nice, but I won’t go into them in detail. It’s like when I went to the American War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City or the Killing Fields in Cambodia (on another trip I did in 2014). You go to these places to learn, not to have fun.
It made me think about my Polish step-great-grandfather (i.e. my great-grandmother’s second husband), who was in one of these concentration camps in WWII. I don’t know which camp he was in. But I do know that the Germans killed some of his family and he had a lifelong hatred of Germans because of it. I don’t support racism but I can sort of understand that.
I have been told that the Germans (especially the older ones) don’t like talking about all this very much. I can’t say that I blame them for that. It’s not a part of history that any reasonable person would be proud of.
Anyway… so when we were done, we got back on the bus and headed off to Prague, which we reached a few hours later. I can’t remember if they had lunch on the side of the road (catered by the Topdeck staff) or if we stopped somewhere for lunch. They did mix it up a bit.
Just for context, in the tour package, breakfast was included every day and some lunches and dinners were included. And sometimes we fended for ourselves. I would say that this arrangement worked. We definitely didn’t go hungry in any case. My experience of tours (having done two in Europe and one in Southeast Asia) is that they typically have this sort of arrangement (and you can probably get a Western-style breakfast just about anywhere in the world that caters to Western tourists).
So we eventually arrived in Prague. We may have had a quick tour of the city before checking in to the hostel. Then I think we had dinner there. And I can’t quite remember what happened for the rest of the evening (maybe we did a quick tour of the city?) but we would have the entire next day to check out Prague. Which is exactly what we did.
On Day 23, I woke up, had breakfast and thought about what I was going to do today. I can’t remember the details but I remember being on my own because everyone else seemed to be doing their own thing. That’s fine. Often I was that person who tagged along with other people. I don’t remember anyone complaining about that (not that I noticed anyway).
So I packed my bag (I probably took a bag with me to carry my stuff, it’s what I usually do) and left the hostel. If I recall, I walked down to the tram tracks and took the tram into the city. And I went and explored the city.
I don’t remember the exact chain of events but (looking at the photos I took) I:
- Did a lot of walking around the city.
- Had some Czech dumplings for lunch.
- Went to see Prague Castle. No, I didn’t go inside. It was a little like visiting Buckingham Palace but not as touristy as that. I think they even had their own Changing of the Guards.
- Did a river cruise, which was nice.
- Randomly came across some street performer who was doing some stunts with fire sticks. Something that never happens to me at home.
- Had some more Czech dumplings for dinner.
- Took the tram back to the hostel.
I can’t remember if I had a map at all but I’m surprised that I didn’t end up getting lost. I remember being impressed with myself for that. Maybe my sense of direction isn’t all that bad after all.
Did I do anything else that evening? I really don’t remember. But here are some pictures I took that day:
And that’s it for Day 23.
Then on Day 24, I got up, did my usual routine and we left for Germany. We would be going to Dresden and then onto Berlin.
To be continued…
