TravelStream™ news feed for member charity_cycle on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/charity_cycle en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:27:32 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/charity_cycle/1084299360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/charity_cycle/1084299360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/charity_cycle/1084299360/tpod.html Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:27:32 -0500 EU Charity Cycle. I invite you to share my journey through the ten new EU countries and help a trio of charities.

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Oswiecim, Poland

Auschwitz is a name I think most people are familiar with, and even if they are not sure exactly where it is, they know what it represents. Located about 60km west of Krakow in southern Poland, it and the much larger Birkinau a few km away, were the scene of one of man kinds darkest hours. One and a half million people were systematically murdered here, 90% of them Jews. I now firmly believe that everyone should visit these camps and see for themselves.Cycling towards Oswiecim I crossed several railway tracks, I thought about the wagon loads of people deported to Auschwitz. Oswiecim is the original Polish name for the area, the Nazis called it Auschwitz. I arrived about teatime on Sunday 9th May. Opposite the car park for the museum I saw signs for a campsite. Following them led me to the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer. The large lawn doubles as a campsite. The sun shone as I pitched my tent.the Auschwitz Museum is only a 20 minute walk from the Centre and I went there early next morning. I signed up for the 11am English speaking tour. As it was now only 10am I bought the excellent little guide book and went into the camp. I had been told that the tour did not visit the blocks which house the exhibitions maintained by the governments of the various countries whose citizens died here. I spent almost the whole hour in the Polish block. For me it was extremely educational as I have never studied much history let alone history of WWII.It seems that Nazi Germany and Russia had signed a deal to carve up Poland between them. When the German army invaded the Poles fought the best they could in a hopeless defense of their country. They only saw defeat as temporary and their armed forces reorganised abroad, first in France, then Britain and fought as a Polish army throughout the war. According to one notice, it was Polish intelligence who broke the Enigma code.Included in the tour is the 20 minute black and white documentary shown in the little cinema. Much of the footage was shot in the first days after the Soviet army liberated the camp. It shows dazed and bewildered, emaciated prisoners wondering what was going on. The film is very disturbing to watch. Some people coughed and shuffled in their seats during it and I saw a few people wiping their eye.After the film you exit directly into the daylight, it takes a moment to adjust. the walking tour starts from the information area. When I saw the number of people waiting for the guide I was a little disappointed and thought it would be a bit of a disaster. However at 11.30 a guide appeared and called us to the exit. As people went through we were counted into groups of 15 or so and each assigned a guide. It was very professional.Our guide was Yvonne, mid forties?, smartly dressed, and with a friendly but serious face that told us immediately that this was no ordinary tourist attraction.Auschwitz is one of those places where you really don't know how to behave. there was not much talking within the group and everyone listened intently as Yvonne told us the story of Auschwitz-Birkinau.Infront of the main gates we paused and she told us that the camp was originally a Polish army barracks which fell to the German army. In 1940 it became a detention centre for Poliah political prisoners, but over time the Nazis began to deport Soviet POWs, Gypsies, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Germans and Jews to the camp from all over Europe.When the SS wanted a concentration camp this site was chosen as it was remote and had good rail links.ABove the gate a sign reads "Arbeit macht frei", "Freedom through Work". The cruel cynicism of this is underlined by the fact that the camp commander greeted new arrivals with the promise that the only way out was through the chimney of the crematorium. EAch day the prisoners were marched through the gates to work. An Orchestra played music as they passed, it helped them march in time and made them easier to count.The site was made a museum in 1947 by the Polish Government and is now on UNESCOs World Heritage List.There was a lot of activity around the camp, numerous tour groups were being shown around, and many people chose to explore on their own. The groups ranged from schoolchildren to students to quite old people. I wondered if any of the men had fought during the Second World War. This is one place I think mass tourism is a good thing, people need to learn about this and it gives a feel for how the place looked when up to 20,000 people were detained here. Enclosed by a double fence of vicious electrified barbed wire and watched over by SS guards in wooden watch towers.Yvonne led us through "roll call square' where prisoners were made to stand for hours on end in all weathers, burning sunshine, freezing snow, often in bare feet and always in the thin prison uniforms. The slightest movement was brutally punished.The museum has various exhibitions about the camp in some of the red brick blocks that make up the camp.The Nazis..... The museum tries to convey the immense scale of what happened, but in such a way that the victims can be seen as humans and not a statistic. The corridors are lined with the photographs of prisoners taken as they were registered by the camp officials. Their name, profession, date of birth, date of entry and date of death is shown. Most died within three months due to a cruel combination of starvation rations, extremely hard work and executions, both of individuals and groups.. Eventually the Nazis stopped taking photographs because it was too expensive!!There are displays of thousands of everyday items that people brought with them, they had been told that they were going to be resettled, toothbrushes, combs, kitchen utensils, spectacles. In one area 2 tonnes of the 7 tonnes of hair found in the camp on liberation is on display. It is all a uniform colour, the gas destroys the pigment. The hair was apparently used to make cloth. Yvonne said several times that the Nazis wasted nothing. I think she should have added except people.In virtual silence we followed as she showed us the conditions in which people slept, on straw covered floors, on thin straw mattresses, in triple bunks, 5 to a bunk. The woefully inadequate washrooms where it was "impossible to catch a drop of water". Disease was a serious problem.This was only our introduction to the camp. Block 11 was known as the block of Death. Inside Gestapo police courts met and in a couple of hours would hand out hundreds of death sentences for immediate action. We filed past the cells in the basement where prisoners were crowded into tiny spaces. Up to 40 in a 4m x 4m cell. Even more cruel were the punishment cells were 5 prisoners were stuffed into a brick cell a yard square. It was entered by crawling through a gap at the bottom. The only ventilation was a 5cm x 5cm hole. Prisoners couldn't sit or lie down, slept and often couldn't breathe, resulting in death by suffocation. Those still alive in the morning were send out to work and returned in the evening.It was in a cell in this basement that Fr Mazimillian Kolbe died after volunteering to take the place of a condemned man. The man who he saved lived into his nineties.This same basement was also the location of the first experimental mass murder by gas, 600 Russian prisoners. The precursor to the huge gas chambers at Birkenau.The "Wall of Death" was located in a sealed of courtyard between blocks 10 and 11. Thousands of prisoners were shot and tortured here.Birkenau is about 3km from Auschwitz and we went there by shuttle bus. Auschwitz was too small for the Nazi's purposes so they cleared a village, demolished it and built Birkenau, 25 time the size of Auschwitz. Hundreds of acres devoted to killing people on an industrial scale.We entered via the gate beside the railway track. After seeing the dehumanising sanitary conditions, toilets, sleeping and washing, we walked up to the platform where the trains arrived. By the time they arrived here many people had spent a week to ten days sealed into a railway wagon.. On the platform a doctor separated the passengers by pointing left or right, like the Roman emperors deciding a mans fate by a twist of his thumb. The old, infirm, and children were directed straight to the gas chambers, the healthy to the work camp where they would be worked to death. The gas chambers are now in ruins as the Nazis tried to destroy the evidence of what they had done.The camp stretches for hundreds of metres on either side of the railway. One side still has many barracks, the other had wooden barracks which were dismantled after the war. Only the brick chimney stacks remain. the prisoners were rarely given fuel for heating.Our tour ended by the International Monument to the victims, thought to be about 1.5 million. No on knows the exact figure as so many were sent straight from the train to their death. The tour is a s shocking as it is educational, strong on facts and figures. However it had raised many questions in my mind, did the prisoners never fight back? What where the circumstances that lead to such genocide, ok a madman can dream up the idea, but to get a system of thousands of people involved? When did the rest of the world know about the concentration camps? AS I said I have never studied history and many people out there have probably tried to answer these questions before.After the tour I spent an hour exploring a few parts of Birkinau that we did not visit as a group. I wandered past the sewage works and up to the shower block where prisoners for the workcamp and there clothes were disinfected. All the while sang in the trees of the forest, woodpeckers drummed and fieldfares feed on the grass. No doubt as they did 60 years ago when people were forced into the ruined gas chambers nearby.Next morning I returned early to the museum at Auschwitz. I wanted to get a better look at some of the exhibits and info when there were fewer people around, and to see more of the national exhibitions which the tour does not include.I found the answers to a few of my simpler questions at least. Upstairs in block 11 there is an exhibition about the camp resistance. They saw much of their role as the recording of crimes committed by the SS and who did what. Through contacts with the Plish resistance they smuggled info to the free world. They also helped plan escapes. the escapees carried first hand reports to the allies.On the walls are photocopies of reports about the camps printed during the war, the Polish Fornightly review had a report in 1941, there is a Report by the US administration in 1944 and in the same year a report in the Los Angeles Times. So the world did know.There was also a prisoner rebellion at one stage in which a crematorium was destroyed.the Nazis robbed, brutalized, murdered, and desecrated people. They tried to dehumanise them. It would be easy to believe they succeeded. They didn't! Resistence to the Nazis included underground recitals of poetry and music, artists worked when they could and the strong helped the weak. You have the case of Fr Kolbe sacrificing his life to save someone else. By far the best of the national exhibits is the Hungarian one. It is innovative, combining film footage use of computers, excellent lighting and beautifully designed glass information stands. It pulls no punches as it describes how in 1944 over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were deported and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkinau. That is well after the Allies knew about the camps. I also learned a little about the ghetoising of Jews in Budapest. I had intended to spent Tuesday afternoon in the city of Oswiciem itself. I think it is a little sad that so many visitors arrive and I'd say most never see the town let alone stay there. However a violent thunderstorm of rainforest proportions put paid to that. Torrential rain and marble sized hail stones.I did pass though it on Wednesday morning as I headed for Krakow. What can I say, its an ordinary town with an extraordinary past. Earlier as I left the Centre for Prayer and Dialogue I asked the receptionist what people thought of the history of the area and what they said to the children when they asked why so many people came here. She replied that many people asked her how could she live near such a place, (thats not what I asked). She said people were used to it, it was "normal". She couldn't remember what she had been told at school.At the church in Oswiecim I saw a statue of Fr Kolbe outside. I stopped for a look. I noticed the decorated bronze doors and went for a look. One door showed Fr Kolbe radiant above a scene of prisoners and their Nazi guards, including fierce dogs. The people clearly do not try and hide what happened here. Auschwitz certainly made an impression on me, you'd never guess would you. I certainly intend to learn more about the whole thing when I get home. I know that the immediacy of what I saw here will fade as I travel on. However I hope I never forget it, somehow I don't think that will be possible.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/charity_cycle/1085692080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/charity_cycle/1085692080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/charity_cycle/1085692080/tpod.html Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:25:25 -0500 EU Charity Cycle. I invite you to share my journey through the ten new EU countries and help a trio of charities.

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Vilnius, Lithuania

After two nights in Warsaw, my shortest stay in any capital city so far, I carried the bike down the stairs again and was soon on the road to Vilnius. Warsaw is a very interesting city and deserves more time, but I want to get further north. I left on Friday and made it to Zambrow, 150km away. As i cycle along I often pass other cyclists, young and old, going about their daily business, shopping, commuting, going home from school, going to the bar. About 10km before Ostrow Mazowiecka on the way to Zambrow, I passed a middle aged man, the road bordered either side by pine forest. As I continued I head the squeaking of his bike getting closer again. Looking over my shoulder I saw him pull up alongside me and start pointing at the panniers and chatting in Polish. He was wearing smart trousers, a heavy woollen jumper and a baseball cap, grey hair peeking out beneath it.He talked a while, and I replied in English, sign language on this road was out of the question. We cycled in a little convoy into town where he looked at my map and pointed me the right way. A big friendly wave and I was off. It was nice to cycle in company for a while. The other reason Ostrow Mazowiecka is memorable for me is that just before rejoining the main road on the far side of town I saw a pair of corncrakes in a field. The grass was still quite short. I have often heard, but never seen corncrakes before.In Zambrov I found a little bar/hotel. As I was entering an old man was passing, he came over to chat. He spoke a little French and said he learned it from French soldiers he fought with, he may have fought with them in the second world war, he looked old enough anyway. The girl at the bar spoke no English so he translated into French for me. Then he went on his way.I had dinner in the bar, pierogis. Imagine small Cornish pasties which are boiled rather than baked, so the pastry is still a little doughy. They are cheap and filling and this bar made the best ones I've tasted so far. A couple of groups of men were grouped around two tables. Vodka was ordered by the bottle for the tables and before 10pm they had all left. They may have been truck drivers stopped for the night. The only woman in the bar was the barmaid.To get to Augustow I chose a small road through the Narodowy National Park. After sharing the road with trucks for so long it was such a pleasure to enjoy the peace and quiet. As I passed a little wetland I paused to watch terns picking food the water surface. Deeper into the park I was completely surrounded by forest. Mile after mile of wet forest, the trees standing in large pools of water. In mid-afternoon I went a little way into the forest to cook up some noodles. I ate the noodles the mosquitos ate me. I had to move every few seconds to get peace to eat.Augustow is a fairly large town surrounded by the forest that covers much of NE Poland . The forest the lakes make Augustow a tourist destination. It feels like a tourist destination with a large square and outdoor cafes.I crossed the border into Lithuania on Monday. The Polish police nodded at me through the window and I was meet at the Lithuanian border by a soldier and a police man in a high peeked Russian style cap. They examined the photo in my passport closely and appeared to consult each other as to whether it was really me or not before waving me through. The road to Vilnius was quiet, scenic and relatively good condition. The first person I had contact with in Vilnius was a man who walked up to me as I checked my map at a junction. I assume he was asking for money and strangely was holding a building brick in the palm of his hand. Not threatening me, but as if it was a valued object. I shook my head and rolled on a few metres. Vilnius is said to have been founded by Gediminas in 1323 . The first recorded mention of Lithuania dates to almost 1000 years ago. The government recently passed a law to get t he royalPlacee in the city centre rebuilt in time for the millennium celebrations in 2009. The information board outside the building site states that the people are proud to explore their heritage now that they are free to do so.The town is compact and picturesque with out being overwhelmingly grand. It is laid back and friendly. There is obvious poverty around, for example as I explored the city Isaww some lovely old wooden houses, residents smoking on the steps , but the buildings were in a very poor state of repair. However there most of the cars appear to be new. I continue northwards to Riga tomorrow, 300km, about three days away. Shortly after leaving Vilnius I will cross the 55 degree line of latitude, its a bit symbolic as that puts me at the same latitude as Derry. The EU charity cycle will end in Tallinn, Estonia which is only 600km from here. I reckon about 10 days more as there are a few places I want to visit en route.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226007000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226007000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226007000/tpod.html Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:32:41 -0500 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Tarifa, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

I took a bit of a roundabout route today to end up back in the room next to the one I stayed in last night.I had planned to get to Malage today but it dididn´t quite work out.Got the 9am boat to Tanger, the boat almost flies it is so fast. Then about a 65km cycle keeping the coast to my left and the sun to my right as I headed for Ceuta. I was expecting a bit of climbing alright, but it turned out to be a day in the mountains. The huge peak across the strait I could see as I approached Tarifa is 842m high. I didn´t realise the road goes almost to the top of it. Spectacular views all round. The Moroccans are really friendly. No hassle anywhere. A smiling policeman even waved through a red light in Tanger.Stopped for a bite to eat in Fnidq and getting back into Ceuta was organised chaos. Arrived in time for the 6pm ferry to Algeciras. Back in Algeciras I decided the simplest thing was to get the short bus trip back to Tarifa and stay in a place I know is good (and OK cheap as well). A single room for E20 is pretty good.Seemed a better idea than arriving in Malaga at 11pm to look for somewhere and I didn´t want to stay in Algeciras.So there you have it total of 77km to get back where I started from. Great day though, glad I went to Morocco now.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226134680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226134680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226134680/tpod.html Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:06:27 -0500 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Ceuta, Spain and Canary Islands

Just to expand map a little.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226015760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226015760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226015760/tpod.html Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:57:45 -0500 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Tangier, Morocco

This entry just to make map look better!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226134380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226134380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1226134380/tpod.html Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:56:08 -0500 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Málaga, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

I took it easy for the last leg of the trip and took the bus from Tarifa to Malaga. The road between Algeciras and Malaga as I remember it from my last trip here is a nightmare to cycle on. I get home next week so I´ll get loads of photos etc up then.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225912380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225912380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225912380/tpod.html Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:19:32 -0500 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Tarifa, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

I changed the plan again today. Allowed myself a wee lie in and got up at 8.30 am. Ended up on the 10am bus to Vejer which left me 55km to cycle to Tarifa. Another lovely day on the bike. A bit of an exciting feeling when I realised that the hills I could see ahead of me where in Morocco and not in Spain.Tarifa looks like a bit of a water sports heaven. I could see loads of Kite surfers and windsurfers as I arrived in town. The wind was certainly strong enough, but fortunately mostly behind me.I aim to get the ferry to Tangers at 9am tomorrow and hopefully return via Ceuta to Algeciras. No problem though if I have to spend a night in Morocco. I don´t have to be in work till next Monday!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225833180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225833180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225833180/tpod.html Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:17:40 -0500 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Cadiz, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

Finally moved on from Seville. A hard place to leave.Today was another train, cycle, boat day. Had a really surreal conversation on the trainchatting to and old country woman who sat down next to me and the bike. She had the hardest to understand accent I´ve ever heard.Train to Lebrija. Cycle to La puerta and boat to Cadiz. Yet another lovely city. Plan for tomorrow is to get an early bus to Tarife. Boat to Tangiers and cycle to Ceuta, hopefully in time to catch the last boat to Algeciras or Malaga.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225557960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225557960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225557960/tpod.html Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:48:39 -0400 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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Guadalcanal, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

update
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225212240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225212240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/charity_cycle/9/1225212240/tpod.html Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:45:05 -0400 Cycling Spain October 2008 - Este bici tiene como destino: Malagá.

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La Coronada, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands

update
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