Chosen Fugue

5 Days, 3 Cities, 2 Confused

Although the temperature has not gotten past 15 C (59 F), spring is coming, tourists invading (including us), accommodations getting limited. Time to stop the spontaneity and cram three cities into a 5 day work week. Kind of like the 1969 movie “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium”. As a result Wroclaw, Łódź and Toruń were a blur, This also could be because they were all postcard perfect and we were kind of punchy from never ending tragedies on this tour.
It was like driving through the San Fernando Valley and trying to distinguish Valley Village from North Hollywood from Van Nuys except instead of a car we were on a Flix bus or the very efficient and inexpensive Polish trains. (as always, pics look better viewed on the blog, not email, click on in the corner.)

Wroclaw (pronounced Vorshlaf)

So much travel blog love for Wroclaw; it’s picturesque old town and little dwarf statures thematically sprinkled throughout the town (like a reading dwarf near a library).

We had a lot of expectations but few plans before we arrived late in the day. We immediately walked through the renown beautiful old town, well deserved accolades.

In planning our next day, Nick made his Crazy Tourist/Atlas Obscura list and Patricia culled from Rick Steves and Trip Advisor and then we realized that prior to WW2, Wroclaw had been Breslau, the 7th largest city in GERMANY, and another city heavily bombed in the final months of the war, another city with between 50-80% of the buildings significantly damaged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Breslau Most of the beautiful old town rebuilt? You could have and you did fool us. it was a lovely, typical European town with a splendid old town square, a pretty river (the Oder River) running through it.

As always, distinct buildings.

Hotel Monopol built in 1892, a lot of famous guests, the front portico was added so Hitler could speak there. Not damaged in the war.

Centennial hall built between 1911-1913 to celebrate the German defeat of Napoleon (remember this WAS Germany), The Iglica or needle was added by the communist Polish government in 1948 to be a very big monument to the Regained Territories and to overshadow the German built big building.

Wroclaw is also a university town, with university buildings sprinkled throughout the city- some new and some old (this was partially rebuilt, paid for by Germany).

Maybe our favorite thing in Wroclaw was this group of statues by Jerzy Kalina. It has many names- Passages, Transition or the Anonymus Citizens. It memorializes all the people who went missing during martial law from 1981-1983 when the communist Polish government was cracking down. Installed in 2005, it depicts people who disappeared or in fear, went underground and then the reemergence of citizens when martial law was lifted.

For some reason, we thought there would not be a bunch of tragedy tourists sites here, but then we realized it was Breslau and we were in Poland so of course there were. https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/01/07/they-do-make-you-stumble/

There were about 6 houses with stolpersteine, a few were too far out of town for us to see

Łódź (pronounce it Woodge)

Took the train (pic of the Wroclaw station) to spend 24 hours in Łódź where we stayed in a lovely aparthotel with breakfast! Wow we felt like tourists. No matter how modest, European hotel breakfasts are always better than US.

Łódź is well built for a short visit. We arrived at the train station at the bottom of Piotrkowska street (pronounced Ventura Boulevard) and we walked straight up 3.5 km- a perfect snapshot of the city.

Beginning of the street was pretty run down and this was an interesting start. Again, something we knew noting about, a horrible massacre (all are) during WW2 by Ukrainians against Poles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia Since memory lasts long we could understand a bit more why it was hard and controversial for Poland to accept so many Ukrainians with the Russian invasion.

This was a very different Polish city mainly because it was a nothing place until the 1800s when textile factories came in and the city took off.

This was another city with competitive building https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/04/27/viva-la-riga/

As expected, we got some Chopin and John Paul II

Unexpected, we got a lot of murals

The murals were clustered around a few streets that are it’s Silverlake/Brooklyn area

As this was Poland, there was Jewish ghetto formed in 1940, which was at the edge of town, established in the poorer part of the city. This was a very unique ghetto as it kinda was a combo ghetto-labor camp with 91 factories to supply the German military, and over 200,000 people passing through it, either workers or on their way to Nazi extermination camps. It was very large, very productive, very creepy.
A lot of info on this website http://www.lodz-ghetto.com

It is always so weird to see signs like this especially when it is right between the mall and the park

Despite the years, the ghetto streets felt icky, maybe because the buildings looked almost unchanged. We walked through only a tiny part, stopping into the German chain supermarket, Netto, which was in the ghetto. These pictures were just inside the entrance, based on how people were dressed, they look like pictures from the ghetto. Maybe not, but felt disturbing never-the-less.

At the end of Piotrkowska street, just before the ghetto sign, was a HUGE shopping/entertainment area (pronounced The Grove) built in an old textile factory.

We ended our stay with a stop at the one stolpersteine site in Łódż. which apparently was very controversial to place, as unfortunately are many. Just stolpersteine for one family, even though before the war Jews made up 34% of the population in 1939.

Placed for his mother and sister by Leon Weintraub.. As a teenager, he went through a number of camps and after the war, became a doctor but had to leave Poland and emigrate to Sweden in 1969 when he lost his university position due to antisemitic laws (really, again.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Weintraub

Toruń (pronounced toe-roon)

Wroclaw had its dwarfs, Łódż, had its textiles, Toruń has its gingerbread, a specialty since 1380.

We did not like the gingerbread; it was heavy on the bread, light on the ginger. Toruń felt like a tourist town; two pretty squares full of gingerbread bakeries and souvenir stores connected by a street full of more gingerbread and souvenir stores with a sprinkling of cafes and pierogi restaurants .

But it actually was a little more than gingerbread and pierogis. It was the birthplace of Nicolas Copernicus.

It also had a picturesque river (the Vistula River), with a viewing platform mural nicely describing what we were seeing.

It also had it’s own leaning tower

It also had a small memorial park which instead of ethnic separation, honored pretty much everyone who died in all the wars; Poles, Jews, Roma, etc. A rare display of unity.

Toruń, like Krakow, was not destroyed in WW2 so most of what we saw was actually original, it is pretty interesting comparing the rebuilt cities to ones in their original state.

City gate, yes that car just drove through it

Another captivating city to end a beautiful blur of week, “if it’s Tuesday, where are we?”

Beauty and the Beast

We stumbled into Krakow and walked into a fairy tale illustration.

We arrived on a national 3 day Holiday Weekend, “Majowka”. May 1st is May Day aka Labor Day, May 2nd is Flag Day and May 3rd is Constitution Day.

The city was in a festive mood; Planty Park, the greenbelt encircling the city was full of flowers, people walking, babies in strollers and dogs on leashes. (PS-pics show up better viewing on the blog not the email)

Jagiellonian University, Poland’s oldest university, it’s lovely buildings along the Planty

The beautiful old town was alive with parades, singing, free hot dogs, ice cream booths (tons of ice cream) and Polish flags for everyone.

Poland clearly loves Pope John Paul II, but Krakow, in particular, really loves John Paul his roots are there; he was born in a nearby city, lived in Krakow as a child, studied for the priesthood in Krakow and was a priest at St Florian in Krakow (the pic at the top of the blog). The church near this John Paul statue, The Basilica of St Francis was one of the craziest churches we have seen, uniquely beautiful, pics here https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/art-nouveau-church-st-francis-basilica

There are 11 Pope John Paul II statues in Krakow

In contrast to Warsaw, and most of Poland, Krakow was largely unscathed during WW2 , at least the buildings, as it served as the administrative center of the Nazi General Government. The inhabitants however suffered significant damage. As with most cities, Jewish residents were herded into a walled ghetto then either starved to death, annihilated on the spot or after being shipped to nearby concentration camps, in this case Auschwitz.

It was a bit touristy around the two synagogues, but it wasn’t too hokey, just thematic restaurants

The traditionally Jewish area of Krakow remained intact, the ghetto was created just across the river from Kazimerz.

Kazimerz. is just behind the beautiful white Monastery church, the ghetto was in the area just beyond the Ferris Wheel.

As in Warsaw, we wondered about what happened to the non-Jews living where the ghetto was built (not as big of an issue in Warsaw as the ghetto was in the Jewish neighborhoods, somewhat) but then we realized the Germans didn’t care about displacing Poles either.

The ghetto memorial was a bunch of empty chairs of different sizes symbolizing absence. The square was near the railroad tracks to Auschwitz.

Ghetto wall. It was pointed out that these were made to look like tombstones.

To bring the vibe even further down we visited the Schindler factory, the actual factory that inspired the book/movie Schindler’s List. Very popular, judging by the lines we saw on two different days. To us, it seemed that in it’s efforts to be engaging, it was a bit chaotic, a lot of information about Krakow during the Occupation but sorrily lacking a lot of context about the heroics of Oscar Schindler. But any info is good info. It didn’t help that we chaotically hurried through it to get to our next stop that day, Auschwitz.

It is ridiculous to critique holocaust sites, especially concentration camps, but Auschwitz did not have the impact for us as other related places. We were hit harder by Dachau, The White Rose museum https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/08/06/munich/, Treblinka, Jewish Historical Museum https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/05/10/time-warp-in-warsaw/ and stumbling over stolpersteine throughout Europe https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/01/07/they-do-make-you-stumble/. It didn’t help that we got there 4 hours earlier than our scheduled time hoping we could go to the bookstore, or to Auschwitz 2-Birkenau as some travel sights indicated you can walk around there before your scheduled time at the Auschwitz 1 portion (the museum). So, it gave us hours to observe the buses and buses of tourists, the plethora of vending machines (with ham sandwiches) and the precision efficiency of the site. Our wait did give us a chance to see what ended up being the most compelling part of the visit; in a lounge area next to some vending machines (so many coffee machines) , restrooms and restaurants was an exhibit of 650 portraits painted from the entry photos of prisoners. These were Artur Kapurski’s doctoral work. He views this as a continuing, long term project.

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/ecce-homo-the-person-and-the-face-portraits-of-auschwitz-prisoners-interpreted-by-artur-kapturski,1810.html

Once we entered Auschwitz 1, the museum portion, the under produced signage and odd sterility did not help. We chose to go during the short window at the end of the day when you could go without a guide (for a variety of reasons) and perhaps that also impacted our impression, although after passing a number of guided groups, it probably did not.

Auschwitz 1 was originally Polish army barracks so the exterior was rather pretty. Each building had exhibits, some were just posters about different countries during the war and the people who were brought here. Others were presented as proof of the crimes- prison cells, execution yard, personal effects of the prisoners (suitcases, pots and pans, shoes, and yes, hair)

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the iconic gate where the trains came and selection occurred

The immensity of the area, the expanse was sickening

We often think about how the order in which we see cities, museums, etc influences our impressions. So perhaps it was that, we have seen a lot of related sights on this round of tragedy touring. Of course we appreciate that we could go there and that there were tons of people here and that it is one of the most visited sites in Europe, this is so important now when they are so many people who have no clue that the holocaust happened.

We returned to Krakow in the evening, to a beautifully lit up city. The contrast confounding.

Our next excursion was to the outskirts of town to Nowa Huta, a planned Communist community built in 1949 for 250,000 workers at a nearby iron works facility. Despite our enthusiasm for Soviet style buildings, it was disappointingly bland, not even a stylized Soviet bland.

Next was the Wieliczka Salt mines, a bit older attraction. Salt was once an extremely uncommon and valuable commodity. So, its production and harvesting led to great wealth. Monks started gathering salt here in 1044, with more organized production beginning in 1400. It ceased salt production in 1996 switching to tourism, which seems to be just as profitable judging by the crowds, lines, costs and hype.

Our 2 hour tour through this underground Disneyland covered only 1% of the actual size of the mine. We walked roughly 2/12 miles through tunnels and gigantic mined out rooms, past underground lakes, gift shops and of course concession stands.

Walls were painted white to reflect light, walked through a lot of tunnels and down a lot of stairs

This being Poland, there was also a complete Catholic church and yes you can have a wedding there. All of this over 100 meters underground!!

EVERYTHING is salt, even the chandeliers. Those aren’t bricks, the walls are just carved to look like brick. The tour guide kept telling people they could lick the walls. We abstained.

There were salt statues of Polish heroes such as Nicholas Copernicus, Pope John Paul II and Chopin, although, after just a week in Poland, we kind of expected these guys as they are everywhere.

you can see the lines in the walls from the miners pick axes

We did not expect to see Goethe but he was there too because once, he visited the mines as did President Clinton, but he did not get a statue. There were also some pretty good diorama;

Depicts the folk tale about how Princess Kinga gave Poland the gift of salt

plus religious art.

Despite the Pirates of the Caribbean kind of hokey-ness, it was amazing to see the immensity of this man-made subterranean “city” and the effort to construct it over hundreds of years, an engineering marvel but somehow the sum did not add up to the parts. A bit of a Loehmann’s moment, amazingly done, though, like Loehmann’s in it’s prime.https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/04/08/montenegro-highs-and-loehs/

In our week in Krakow, we never tired of walking across the bridge and seeing the old town and castle along the Vistula river.

A lot of the tourist info refers to Krakow as the “heart of Poland”. Perhaps that is because Krakow was the royal seat, and Polish kings (and dragons) are buried in Wawel castle. Perhaps it’s because parts of the city are almost unchanged after hundreds of years. We could have added so many more pictures, described so many more beautiful things from our week here. (and a lot more dragon pics as these little guys were sprinkled through town).

In contrast, there was Auschwitz, the ghetto and a city forest that once was another concentration camp https://plaszow.org/en/history-of-the-camp (those ruined buildings were part of the movie set for Schindler’s List). Krakow kind of embodies Poland, exemplifies the Beauty of what man can make and the Beast that man can be with the Nazi and Soviet occupations

Time Warp in Warsaw

We’ve been reading a book series called On the Calculation of Volume by Danish writer Solvey Balle. Four of the 6 books are available in English (7 books planned). It’s a variation on the Groundhog’s Day theme of a repeated day. In her case, the day is November 18th. It began while she was on a business trip in Paris. She can travel, return home and talk to people like her husband. But, no matter how many times she describes what happened, even if they believe her, once the day turns to the next, they forget what she has explained. She initially tries to make sense of the circumstances then eventually decides to travel throughout Europe, sleeping in empty houses. Regardless of where she is and what she does, the next day is always the same, November 18th.

Sometimes in our travels it can feel like we are stuck on a loop. Our daily routine is the same no matter what city we are in; breakfast (usually the same), then we wander or walk to tourist sites, museums. We stop at a minimum of 3 markets trying to figure out our second and final meal of the day, “linner”. We usually return to our lodging about 2 pm, make linner, eat off Ikea plates (no matter where we are, they have them), read about what we saw that day, research for the next day, then read the US morning news, sports (Nick) and then back to reading a book. Repeat.

We wander through cities, mostly unnoticed, and wonder. Wonder why mankind is on a loop as well. Everywhere we go, war with the resulting tragedy is on a loop. Nowhere has this been so visible as Warsaw, Poland, a crowded and vast ghost town. In Warsaw we wandered and wondered, endlessly.

After an 8 hour Flix bus ride from Druskininkai, Lithuania https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/05/06/baltic-balagon/ we made it from the bus station to our lodging and to quote Patricia’s Nanie, it was in Kishinev (translation from Yiddish-out in nowhere), well, actually it was in Warsaw but 3+ miles from the bus station and 4+ miles from central Warsaw. With the help of our constant companion, Google Maps, we followed a nutso route as the sun was going down through parks, soviet style apartment complexes (one after another) and a few streets, finally coming up on our Aparthotel in darkness. (As always, the pictures show up better in the blog not email, click the link to the blog)

Lovely planters filled with bulbs throughout the city

Separate pedestrian and bike paths everywhere

The next day we walked more than a half marathon, 13 1/2 miles. The city felt very well planned, with buses, trams and trains. Tons of parks, big and small everywhere. We could walk the roughly 5 miles from our hinterland home to the crowded center almost exclusively through green space.

Warsaw itself was almost completely razed by the Germans. First during the 1939 siege when 10% of buildings were destroyed. As the war was ending, with the Soviets days away from liberating the city, the final 85% of buildings were destroyed by the Germans in retaliation for the Warsaw Uprising. Seemingly, every block in Warsaw, and we walked them all, had a plaque, a monument, or a statue commemorating some historical catastrophe, this being Poland it was usually related to WWII, but not always.

So, pretty much almost everything in Warsaw is more or less new, built after 1945. From the skyscrapers

to the Soviet style buildings- stark concrete blocks and ones that look a bit off, like maybe they are old and classic but not really.

It is really weird when you go to the lovely old town which really isn’t old. Post war Warsaw chose to rebuild the old town as an exact replica, like a movie set. It’s beautiful, but knowing the buildings are midcentury moderns and not medieval adds to the odd vibes of loss and emptiness. A ghost town.

As per UNESCO, it was rebuilt from 1945-1951 replicating buildings from the 14th and 18th centuries, recreating the late-medieval network of streets, squares, and the main market square, as well as the circuit of city walls

They used old city documents and paintings by Canaletto made in the 1770s as a guide to replicate the old town https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/22/story-cities-warsaw-rebuilt-18th-century-paintings

The loss was not just the buildings, 200,000 Poles and 400,000 Jews killed. A ghost town. Any Pole associated with the Polish intelligencia (doctors, writers, professors) or the Polish independence movement were either murdered or imprisoned and used for slave labor. Since the fall of communism in 1989, new museums have opened telling the story of the Polish resistance; the Warsaw Uprising https://www.1944.pl/en , https://dulag121.pl/?lang=en. Many monuments and tributes to the Pole’s experiences during Nazi occupation were scattered through the city.

It is a challenge to mark and memorialize the approximately 400,000 Jews who lived in Warsaw before the war, how do you mark the absence of these people? The 400 synagogues and houses of worship destroyed (only one left)? The schools? The community? The primary memorials were related to the ghetto. The construction of the walled ghetto began on Yom Kippur, October 1940. The ghetto lasted until May 1943 when it was destroyed after the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. About 300,000 died by gassing or bullets, 92,000 died of starvation and related diseases and 56, 000 died when the ghetto was burned down.

For us, the most impactful memorial was the small Jewish Historical Museum housed in the old Judaic library building from 1928. https://www.jhi.pl/en/about-the-institute/history The museum tells one story, the story of a group of people living in the ghetto who collected essays, diaries, drawings, wall posters, and other materials from people of all ages describing life in the Ghetto. https://www.jhi.pl/en/exhibitions/what-weve-been-unable-to-shout-out-to-the-world-permanent-exhibition,105

As the ghetto was being liquidated, they buried 10 metal boxes and two metal milk cans full of this trove. Two of the three burial sites were found. Only three of the 36 members of this group, called the Oneg Shabbat, survived. Some of the original documents are displayed.This museum shattered us in ways that others have not. https://www.jhi.pl/en/oneg-shabbat/biographies

The 83rd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was about a week before we were there.

Across from this memorial, sits the massive POLIN museum, which tells the broader story of Jews in Poland. It opened in 2013. (history of Jews in Poland) . Walking from one site to another, we could experience how large the ghetto was (1.3 sq miles/850 acres). The last ghetto site we walked to was where the Jews from the ghetto were sent to Treblinka concentration camp, an hour’s train ride away.

From July 22, 1942, and September 21, 1942, over 265,000 Jews were sent from the Ghetto to Treblinka

These rocks near the site’s entrance were inscribed with the names of countries where Jews were brought from to Treblinka

Treblinka was destroyed by the Nazis as the war was winding down; both in response to an attempted rebellion by the prisoners and to hide the evidence of what they did. But there was some residual evidence with the chilling remains of Camp 2, the labor camp. The remaining footprints of the buildings, educational signs, maps of the layout of the camp, and signs with quotes from survivors combined with the isolation and vastness of the area effectively and viscerally illustrated the horror.

A huge quarry where the prisoners worked digging gravel

Camp 1 the extermination camp, was filled with symbolic rock shards, some with names of towns where people were brought to Treblinka. There was little else to provide evidence or information of what happened there.

Despite the presence of this new, bustling city, we could not forget what had been, what was underneath. The famous rallying phrase etched in stone at Treblinka “never again” felt pretty hollow, we kept thinking “and yet again”. Why?

Baltic Balagon

After our emotional visit to Vilnius we elected to have a spa day. Not that we have ever had a spa day. Regardless, we headed to Druskininkai a well known spa resort on the Nemunas River in southern Lithuania renown for its mineral waters. (pictures show up better on the blog, click on the link in the email)

People have been coming here for therapeutic relief from as far away as Moscow since the 1700’s when Polish Kings sought out its healing powers. Now, it is even more popular as in the nearby winter ski slopes, it has added one of Europe’s largest indoor skiing slopes. We walked past multiple fancy spa/hotel resorts, and even people carrying skis.

However, we neither skied nor spa’d. Other than our hotel and the market, we didn’t enter any buildings. Instead we enjoyed the spring day.

All over the world, nothing says resort town more than flamingo boats

Flowers and trees were blooming. There were king sizes beds of daffodils with piped in music by a famous local composer and artist who died in the early 1900’s, M.K. Ciurlionis.

His music was also playing at the singing fountain. Both the fountain and the daffodil field combined music with a light show at night.

Our afternoon walk through the daffodils extended into the surrounding forest and hills.

But, this being Lithuania we did stumble onto a memorial for Lithuanians killed by Soviets and a destroyed Jewish cemetery.

Memorial to the Forest Brothers partisans who fought against the soviets from 1944-1953

Kind of epitomized our Balkan trip; areas of beauty and serenity shattered by historic events of human cruelty. Not even a spa town could wash this away.
This wrapped up our Baltic tour, the trifecta visit to the three Baltic Capitals and a spa day in Druskininkai.

As the individual blog posts show, each of these cities felt very, very different. https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/04/19/fallinn-for-tallinn/ https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/04/27/viva-la-riga/ https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/04/19/fallinn-for-tallinn/ Nick liked the tranquility of Tallinn. Patricia was a bit more drawn to Vilnius, but that was more to vintage Vilna from the books she read during adolescence, rather than today’s Vilnius.

Our lodging in each city was also very different from each other.

But there were also plenty of similarities.

1. Kohuke. We embraced these chocolate covered curd bars. Making sure to taste a variety of flavors and brands At least 2-3 per day.

2. Quiet buses. Very quiet even when full of teenagers.

3. Clean streets. No trash.

4. Pedestrian friendly. A lot of walking paths and sidewalks. Cars stopped before you even entered the crosswalk (a challenge for Nick). . Besides Nick, hardly anyone jaywalks, and they wait at the light (another challenge for Nick). Separate bike lanes along pedestrian lanes which was great because there were so many bicycle food deliveries.

5. Soviet occupation. We felt pretty ignorant about the post WW2 period. Once the Nazi’s left, the Russians just kept up the momentum; deporting, exiling, jailing anyone who did not stay in line. Russian citizens were moved from Central Russia to establish an ethnically Russian population in Estonian Latvia and Lithuania. These cultures were rewritten as Russian; their languages essentially banned. These tactics were used not only in the Baltics but in all of Russian occupied territories and now, again in Ukraine. It is understandable why the Ukrainian flag was flying everywhere.

The Soviets also tried to re-write WW2. According to them, the only real victims of WW2 were the Soviets, yes, some Jews were killed, but the Soviets were the real victims. As indicated by one of the placards at the site of the Paneriai Massacre, a 1948 monument by and for Holocaust survivors was demolished by the Soviets who then built their own; telling a different story. Current Baltic governments are trying to correct this. We appreciated statements seen on these placards when referring to the Soviet narrative; “this is inaccurate”.

6. Nazi devastation. It is unavoidable. In travel prep, we looked up cities we would be passing through, from Tallinn to Druskininkai. Along with the usual citations like best food, there was usually a citation noting “forest massacre”, “ghetto”, “concentration camp”. Prior to 1939, this area was where Jews lived, had lived for hundreds of years. So they were killed here. Estonia had Nazi concentration camps (really, who knew?) 11,000 Jews and Roma killed there. In the Riga ghetto, 30,000 Rigan Jews +20,000 German Jews; most, plus an unknown number of Roma, were killed in forest massacres in the Riga suburbs- 25,000 in Rumbula and 46,000 in Biķernieki.

The foundation and some walls is all that is left of he Riga Synagogue. This was pretty much the only significant indication of the existence of ghetto. Not much else was marked or noted.

Next to the synagogue is the monument honoring Janis Lipke, a Lithuanian. From 1941-44, Janis with his wife Johanna, provide support to Jews in the ghetto and rescued about 50 Jews from the ghetto; that is 1/5 of the 200 survivors from Latvia.

And then Vilnius, which was the center of world Yiddish culture. From Vilnius, we took a train just 11 kilometers away to the forest in Paneriai (also called Ponary) the site where 100,000 Jews, Poles, Roma, Lithuanian partisans and yes, also Soviet prisoners, were shot and burned. Memorials to each of these groups were scattered between the killing and burn pits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponary_massacre

After being there, it didn’t take much imagination to envision what the forests must have been like during the second world war. Mass killings, soldiers and partisans fighting, and civilians (mainly Jews) trying to escape, usually unsuccessfully. There were countless memorials; it became hard to travel past the forests and only see trees.

While the systematic industry of killing Jews was a unique horror, the political parallels to now are very obvious. Predators calling themselves the victims; altering historic facts to fit a racist ideology; dehumanizing groups of people; deporting/imprisoning/killing innocent people, separating children from their parents.. This is what people did and keep doing. It is still happening.

We bring this up at the end of our Baltic summaries, not at the start, because we wanted to consider these countries, these cities as what they are now. Not to leave the wrong impression; we thought the places we went remarkable. The bad aftertaste was primarily due to the occupation by outsiders. But sometimes history makes it hard to see the now because of the then.

A Serious Vilnius

Vilnius, Lithuania; Wilno to Poles who called it home until after WW2, Vilna in Yiddish. Dubbed the Jerusalem of North by Napoleon. Nicknamed Babylon in the 16th-18th due to its multi-ethnic demographic. It was not until independence in 1990, that for the first time in modern history Lithuanians became a majority at 63%. of the population.

Maybe this historic mishmash contributed to our mixed feelings about Vilnius. Endearing though was a weird collection of quirky sites. First and foremost, right after arriving-

A giant Tony Soprano at a restaurant along the train tracks at the rail station

(PS- pics show up better on the blog, which you can click on in the email)

In addition to Charles Bukowski on the fence, Vilnius has Literatai Street a street decorated with plaques and pieces dedicated to authors, who have some connection (many tenuous like they visited) to Vilnius. The street has historic ties to literature, the poet Adomas Mickevičius lived there (19th C) and printing houses and bookshops operated there (20th C).

There was the Williamsburg/Silverlake/Berkeley hipster area- Uzupis, “Uz” a self-proclaimed independent republic.

And Nick was even able to experience Lithuanian recycling!

If this was not enough, there were the traditional sights like churches, tons of churches which was surprising since during the soviet period many were destroyed or repurposed into warehouses, factories, museums or government buildings.

Ukraine flag colored ribbons on the tree outside

Very nice big park

In the 1200s, Lithuania was a powerhouse and included parts of Russia, Prussia and Poland. Then began the classic European revolving door of leaders, and Vilnius was part of Poland up until 1918. So as with other Baltic states, there were also many monuments promoting Lithuanian culture, memorializing those killed during the soviet occupation and celebrating independence.

Writers and academics who fought for Lithuanian independence

Before WW2, Jews made up about 42% of the population. Vilna was the center of secular Yiddish culture- theater, literature, music and politics. The YIVO and Bund were born here (see links below). Lithuania suffered the full brunt of Germany’s racism, 95% of the over 250,000 Jews there died.

The Nazis established the Vilna ghetto in 1941, divided into the large and small ghettos.

The historically poor, vibrant Jewish quarter was the site of the little ghetto, now a lot of restaurants and upscale shops. A handful of murals of people depicting Jewish life were painted in 2019 using old photographs plus (another diminutive) statue, a milk-man, kind of Tevya-esque from Fiddler on the Roof. For some reason we did not really take pictures here, but here is a good link to some https://litvakshtetls.com/ekskursijosvilniuje/virtual-tours/#jp-carousel-2241

The large ghetto extended into a different area of town which may have been a bit more prosperous and secular area than where the smaller ghetto was located.

https://manoteises.lt/atminimo-akmenys/english/

We did have some trouble finding some of the Jewish sites on our list, things did not always seem to be well marked, or maybe it was us. Perhaps if we had hit all of the sites on our lists or had a guide, we may have felt the memory of this integral part of Vilnius’s history more strongly. Regardless, the Yiddish world flourished in Vilna and then perished, mainly in the Ponary/Paneriai forest, just a few miles from Vilnius. Site of over 100,000 murders (mainly Jews from Vilnius, as well as Romas, Soviet POW’s and Poles).

We did go out to the site of the Ponary/Paneriai Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponary_massacre

So, despite the quirky areas, lovely parks, churches and buildings; Vilnius felt like it was missing a center, like a bagel. It left an undertone of sadness, a more visceral, uncomfortable sadness very different than the historical sadness we felt in the other Baltic capitals. So, we had trouble fully enjoying our visit, or to quote Tony Soprano “The things I take pleasure in, I can’t do.”

Links:

Stolpersteine: https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/01/07/they-do-make-you-stumble/

YIVO: https://www.yivo.org/About-YIVO, https://yivo.org/Book-Smugglers-Publication

Bund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Jewish_Labour_Bund

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/07/molly-crabapple-new-book-jewish-socialism

Viva La Riga

Riga was a surprising delight mainly because of the streets upon streets of Art Nouveau buildings and Riga’s propensity to go big. Towards the end of the 1800’s, Riga was Russia’s third largest city (Russia captured Riga in 1721). From 1897-1914, Riga’s population increased by over 80%. With this influx of people and money the townspeople invested in artistic buildings and urban planning, which was fashionable at the time. The result was over 800 very ornate buildings, each one crazier than its neighbor, a town of architectural one-upmanship. Kind of like Las Vegas casinos but with taste, incredibly awe inspiring. Fortunately, despite, two world wars and a 50 year Soviet rule, the majority of Riga’s Art Nouveau buildings still stand. (PS pics will look better read on the blog, not email)

Unfortunately, Riga’s old town positioned along the Daugava River, near where it empties into the Baltic Sea did not escape the war damage due to the port’s strategic position.

The riverside old town is now mostly full of bars, restaurants and tourist shops

While damage was to only about 10% of old town, the most iconic buildings were destroyed including the famous House of Blackheads. The 15th century house was initially built by the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, a brotherhood of (pimply?) unmarried male merchants, ship owners and foreigners. Once Latvia regained independence in 1991, the House of Blackheads was completely rebuilt and re-opened in 1999.

House of the Blackheads, great name for a dermatology office

The Three Brothers, oldest buildings in the Old Town. A band just stood in front until a tour group walked out, then they played.

The old town also had a small but moving museum highlighting the Nazi and Soviet occupations. The Soviet occupation of Latvia mimicked what was experienced in Estonia; the Nazis started the destruction, the Soviets continued it; eradicating the culture, integrating Latvian history into Soviet history, then deporting, imprisoning or murdering anyone who disagreed.

We appreciated that this was in the middle of old town, in a covered outdoor area, always open and free

Like Estonia, Riga moved most of the Soviet era statues out of the city, many were destroyed and some were reworked to emphasize a different message. But like Las Vegas, Riga thinks big, and they did save one big Soviet relic which was the only one we could locate; Sam, the monument to Soviet space animal astronauts. Very big Sam appears to be an ape with excellent posture and wearing an appropriately Las Vegas Elvis style spacesuit.

when the city looked to unload Sam, someone moved him out to the outskirts to a business park

Another big statue, another big story.

The “Freedom” statue was created to honor soldiers killed in the war for Latvia’s independence (1918-1920) with the three stars representing historical regions of Latvia. After WW2 and Latvia returning to Soviet occupation, Russia wanted to tear it down since they did not allow any reference to Latvian independence. So instead of demolishing it, they changed the story (sound familiar?). The three stars now represent the three Baltic republics held high by Mother Russia and was touted as a sign of gratitude towards Stalin for liberating these countries.

The Soviets also really wanted everyone to think that the Latvians really liked having them there, so they built this massive building for the Latvians to give to Stalin, it was easily the biggest building in Latvia for years. It still distinctly stands out in the city skyline – it’s called Stalin’s Birthday Cake. (However, he died before construction was completed.)

Another Las Vegas style big is Big Christopher. He could be tacky enough for Las Vegas.

Big Christopher is either a folktale character of a big guy that carried a baby across the River Daugava, or St. Christopher carrying baby Jesus if you prefer the non-secular version. Or he could be a casino greeter.

Across the river is yet another example of how Riga goes big. The National Library.

All European cities have a covered market, Riga’s were big; 3 converted Nazi-built aircraft hangers.

The Great (big) Cemetery, established in 1773, is now more of a hint of cemetery in a park. The Nazis destroyed the grave sites and then the Soviets just continued the destruction using tombstones for building material. It eventually evolved into a park with residual tombstones and crypts. It was remarkably beautiful.

We did our usual, and stayed center adjacent rather than center, in a big, classic Soviet-style apartment block. Like we have found in so many ex-communist countries, the apartments inside the building were in better condition than the outside.

In addition to finding much better value staying on the edge, it also requires us to walk through the city and get to know neighborhoods beyond the touristic center, neighborhoods we would not have encountered staying only in the tourist center. Seeing a bit more how people live in Riga now, and then. https://chosenfugue.xyz/2019/01/07/they-do-make-you-stumble/

One consistent thing we saw, throughout Riga, similar to Tallinn, Ukraine flags on virtually every block, large building or just on their own.

Fallinn for Tallinn

(pictures better viewed on the blog not the email)

Travel, obviously, takes you somewhere you haven’t been. It forces you to figure out how to get somewhere, where to stay, how to shop and how to work those weird tumbler washing machines with instructions in another language. New experiences, doing routines differently.

Much of the joy of travel comes from surprise; seeing , tasting, feeling something you have not before. But, as we travel more, some of the newness loses it’s freshness, In Europe, every city has a square, a cathedral which is somehow the biggest/tallest/voluminous Gothic/Baroque/Medieval cathedral in all of Europe, a walled old town with cutesy-touristy- windy streets. There’s always a fortress, castle or church (or all 3) at the highest point plus somewhere a Roman ruin. Always a Roman ruin. And all of these are truly magnificent, interesting and we love them, but it can become repetitive.

On this round of travel, our travel complacency was upended starting with Sarajevo, https://chosenfugue.xyz/2026/03/27/history-repeats-itself/ and now amplified in Tallinn, Estonia. Off the plane, and it immediately felt unique, refreshing. What was different? There was this ineffable calm. The air had a mellowness, a gestalt we haven’t felt elsewhere.

We walked from the Tallinn airport 3 km to the old town where we stayed. Through pedestrian tunnels under the freeway, along a main thoroughfare, an old Soviet military cemetery, residential and commercial areas. Everywhere there were sidewalks, many places there were sidewalks AND bike paths.

Minimal billboards throughout the city, always nice.

We just kept snapping pictures of buildings. Old and new, each had very distinct personalities. This was not a cookie-cutter European city.

The old town was not just for tourists, sure, there were plenty of souvenir stores, but there were regular shops, government buildings and consulates.

Block long Ukraine protest signs in front of the Russian Consulate

They even were able to calm the dementors.

While we were presented with our usual challenges of eating, we were able to find all that we needed (pea soup substitute for Nick’s mushy peas), experience new tastes (Sejlanka-sour soup) and a new favorite food (kohuke).

Not only were the buildings distinct, so was the terrain. Very flat. We bussed out to the Viru Bog trail to walk a plank path through a 3 mile stretch of a bog and a forest. Even got to see some bog frogs.

Estonia shares its entire eastern border with Russia and Russia has sought to master Estonia over the centuries. Historically, Sweden ruled until the mid 1500’s followed by Russia. Estonia gained independence with the end of WWI and the fall of the Russian Tzar. The new Estonia sought neutrality during WW2 but Hitler ignored that, signed a pact to give Estonia to Russia in 1939, but when Russia entered the war, Estonia became a battleground between Germany and Russia, with Russia attacking both Estonians and Germans. At the end of WW2, Estonia was given to the Russians.

The continued anger and disgust with Russia was apparent at the Maarjamae Memorial. We reached it after a long walk through the city.

Walked through Kadrioru Park-a Japanese garden with Estonian twist, since many of the original plants needed to be replaced

The Baltic sea with the Helsinki Ferry. Very shallow here and very low salinity, low enough that the swan family was happy to be there. Did not smell like an ocean.

In Lauluväljak Park – The Tallinn Song Festival Grounds

At Maarjamae is the memorial for he Victims of Communism, the many Estonians who were imprisoned, exiled to Siberia, deported or killed during the years of Soviet occupation, 1940-1991. https://estonianworld.com/life/25-march-victims-soviet-deportations-remembered-estonia/

Who were those Estonians who were deported, imprisoned or killed ? Anyone who fought for or encouraged Estonian independence, anyone who promoted Estonian culture; that included military, politicians, writers, artists, intellectuals and their spouses and their children (a lot of children).

Another area with informational plaques telling the sad sad story of Soviet occupation

A park full of soviet statues removed from locations throughout Estonia, again with information on who and where. Fascinating.

So, yet again another “new” country formed after 1989, trying to recapture its identity after decades of Soviet attempts to cross-out Estonian culture and replace it with Russian.

Freedom Square. The Ukraine flag is everywhere, often flying in tandem with the Estonian. They truly understand the suffering and oppression of the Ukrainians at the hands of the Russian government.

So maybe that feeling in the air is a huge sigh, a release from occupation.

Scandinavian and Baltic people are known for their stoicism and quiet reserved manner. We were on a local bus for an hour and it was silent (even though it was filled with teenagers just out of school) with the bus driver calmly waiting for you to sit down before driving off.

Scandinavian and Baltic people are also always scoring high for personal happiness. And, somehow that came across just walking around. An unpretentious chill vibe throughout. Refreshingly weird. We loved it.

Montenegro: Highs and Loehs

(if you get this via email, the pictures might work better on the blog and the blog has the big featured picture. Just click “read on blog” in the top right corner)

Bosnia-Herzegovina*, Albania*, Croatia*, Bulgaria*, Romania*, Czech Republic, Hungary* and now Montenegro. Each of these former communist countries are fascinating and some of the most beautiful places we have been. Each of these countries also have long convoluted histories, some were well established countries that now are transitioning to new forms of government; dictatorship to democracy (well Hungary might not be transitioning well) others are now actually new countries.

We have now been to three of the Balkan countries that previously existed as a united country, Yugoslavia (name means “south slavs”). When the Yugoslav dictator, Tito, died in 1980, and communism collapsed in 1989, the center did not hold and Yugoslavia eventually broke into 7 different countries; Slovenia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. The birth of these countries was not easy; rising ethnic nationalization, long simmering racism and endemic religious differences led to religious and territorial war, The Balkan Wars, from 1991-95. Loose alliances formed based on religious majorities in these religiously mixed countries; Roman Catholic predominates in Croatia and Slovenia, Islam in Bosnia&Herzegovina and Kosovo, and Eastern Orthodox in Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. As a result of the ethnic violence of the Balkan Wars, some of these countries became more homogeneous.

We traveled (Flix bus) south from Sarajevo to the Montenegro coast via Dubrovnik, Croatia. Some of this spectacular landscape we saw on an earlier trip to Croatia/Bosnia* but this time we covered more Bosnia.

We were really surprised at how mountainous this area is, again displaying our geographic ignorance, -these are the Dinaric Alps with multiple peaks from 6,000 to almost 9,000 feet.

Montenegro is a new and poor country that like Albania, is trying to establish it’s tourism industry as Croatia successfully has. It definitely has the draw with just a crazy beautiful coast, but with its narrow mountainous roads and mountains that crash into the sea, beach, space is limited. Not that this is stopping building.

We focused our 10 day Montenegro stay on the coast in Budva, on the Adriatic Sea and in Kotor at the crux of the Bay of Kotor. Budva was basic. It felt like a typical working city on the coast, with some more upscale neighbors. A long promenade with Bečići sandy beaches and massive resorts/condos at one end and the walled old town at the other.

so many cafe/bar/playground combinations

The old town was fine but after a few years of traveling, we have seen others that were far more striking.

Our favorite site in Budva might have been the combination bus station-restaurant-zoo a block from our apartment (bunnies, tortoises, peacocks/hens, swans, ducks, pigeons)

We did enjoy our apartment which was nestled in a residential area and each afternoon we could hear kids playing after school which along with the look of the apartment buildings, brought us back to the 1990s.

Kotor was definitely more scenic with its dramatic limestone fjord-like cliffs dropping into the water.

Kotor’s old town was larger and a bit more interesting than Budva’s.

one side of the wall around the old town

There is a trail up to the church ruins on the hill

The old town was very popular and on our walk through old town we dodged selfies from the crowds who spilled off the massive cruise ship and flooded the cobblestone streets.

A bus trip up the bay took us to Perast (on very narrow roads) resulting in a 20 minute lap around the pretty tiny town (it was all old town) before catching the bus back.

It is just beginning to get crowded, must be packed in the summer

Montenegro’s inland rugged mountainous landscape is dramatic and while we planned on going to the national parks, lingering winter weather prevented this. But we did get to bus through no-shoulder-big-drop-narrow roads along the Lovcen National Park on our way to Cetinje and Lake Skadar (no, we did not do the zip line).

More so than Budva and Kotor, Cetinje, the original royal seat, felt a bit more uniquely Montenegrin.

Our big day trip was to Lake Skadar a massive lake that forms the border with Albania. We had read so many positive reviews about the lake and the train- a 17 minute ride through staggering beauty. The only trouble was that we were inside staggeringly dark tunnels for the first 10 minutes, the staggering beauty must have been on the outside of the tunnel. The last 7 minutes were fine.

this might have been the most scenic part of the train ride

We planned on taking a walk around the lake, it is a National Park, followed by our 2 hour boat tour. We also were eager for some bird watching after our great boat experience at the mouth of the Danube in Romania (link below). But, there was only a small little road above the lake that went about 1/2 a mile

of course a narrow road with no shoulder to walk on

and again, due to our seasonal timing there were few birds. The lake itself was underwhelming as well but again, due to timing, the huge lily pads were not in bloom.

A bar in the summertime on the lake-coffee in the morning, beer in the afternoon

The bigger excitement was at the train station where some stray dogs befriended Nick, then more than befriended Nick with a lot of loving nipping and jumping so he had to hide in the abandoned train station for an hour as we waited for our return train to Kotor.

In trying to put some context around our trip to Montenegro, we thought about Loehmann’s, the iconic discount clothing store. The one in Northridge in the San Fernando Valley was a frequent destination for Patricia and our daughters. For years, Nick was shown the bargain purchases from Loehmann’s Back Room and heard about who else was in the dressing room, to him, they always sounded like celebrities (Raquel’s grandma?). So, when Nick (who hates to shop, as evidenced by his static wardrobe) finally went (was convinced to go?) his inaugural (and only) Loehmann’s visit response was “This is it?” He was so surprised- nothing fancy, no velvet couches, no red carpet or searchlights, just a basic somewhat rundown store (really no different than Marshalls) that maybe had seen better days (nope, that is how it was). Ever since, any time our expectations are met with “meh”, it is now a “Loehmann’s moment”. Montenegro was kinda a Loehmann’s moment.

We had heard and read incredible things about Montenegro, and yes there were Back Room level highs from the stunning scenery of Kotor Bay but we just were not finding the right fit. We also struggled on our one restaurant experience and our frequent market shopping, there’s only so many things you can put on a corn thin, and Montenegro lacked 1/2 of them.

Montenegro is very young country, only gaining its independence from Serbia in 2006, it’s finding its own style. Regardless of fit and expectations, like Loehmann’s we still loved it.

History repeats itself

Sometimes in our travels we are just emotionally overwhelmed by a place. Sometimes it is staggering beauty, other times it is the history; cities whose names represent the worse of humans, places where religious differences are used for hatred and killing people. Cities such as Munich, Jerusalem, Belfast and now Sarajevo have evoked these emotions. Sarajevo seems unique as it has a long history of coexistence between different groups of people, that history has been upended by recent history; the trigger point of World War I, ethnic massacres in World War II and genocide in the 1990s.

Sarajevo’s geography is a timeline. Starting at the eastern edge, where the Miljacka river curves and enters the city.

On the right,the striped building is city hall built in 1896 . It was the National Library. Set on fire during the Siege of Sarajevo in August 1992. Over 2 million books/periodicals burned. The famous Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript from 1350,one of the oldest of its kind was there but had been hidden away at the outset of the war. Rebuilt (2014)and replicated as it was.

Ottoman Sarajevo was a city that was proud of it’s acceptance of others, seeing someone different than yourself as a neighbor. Rather refreshing right now.

Within a 200m diameter radius the 16th C Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, an Eastern Orthodox church both built in 1500 (and maybe before) and synagogue built by Sephardic Jews expelled by Spain in 1492

Sebilj Fountain providing water to residents since 1753, reconstructed in 1891, iconic Ottoman symbol of the city.

With the fall of the Ottoman empire, Austria-Hungary was gifted much of Bosnia; occupation began in 1878 than annexation (1900). The local population was not consulted or pleased. To celebrate the opening of the national museum, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the empire, came to Sarajevo, and was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb revolutionary, Gavrillo Prencip, WW I followed.

These men are standing on the spot where Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot in front of the Latin Bridge. Tourists are over at the museum where the shot was fired.

Central market where two separate bombardments during the Seige of Saraevo, February 1994 with 68 killed and 144 wounded and in August 1995 with 43 killed 75 wounded. The second attack led to the NATO air strikes that ended the seige.

Our apartment was across from the Merkale market. The buildings here are the stereotypic European Succession reflecting the massive modernization and building spree after occupation by Austria-Hungary. This is the outside of our very, very lovely modern and clean apartment. Typical in these post-communist countries that the exterior -jointly owned- gets little attention.

It’s always interesting to go to contemporary art museums in smaller countries, seeing artists that rarely are shown elsewhere. We had our own private tour with a great guide.

Keep going west along the river and you enter the new city; parks, high rises, shopping centers and a few soviet style apartment blocks and the Olympic stadium (hosted 1984 Winter Olympics).

Although the style of the buildings kept changing, the one thing that was constant were the bullet holes peppered on so many buildings (you can see them in many of the pictures posted). These remain from the siege. (pictures below from an exhibit at the History of Bosnia-Herzegovina Museum).

Siege/After Siege from an exhibit at the History museum

We keep referring to the siege which was kind of a cloud over the trip. The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 5 1992 to February 29 1996 triggered by the establishment of the multi-ethnic country of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 after the fall of Yugoslavia. Instead of a mixed country, Bosnian Serbs (usually referred to as Chetniks) wanted to create a Bosnian Serb state of Republika Srpska that would include Bosniak majority areas- including Sarajevo-just without the Bosniaks. The Chetniks blockaded Sarajevo. For 1,425 days, Sarajevo was isolated; limited water, scarce food, intermittent electricity and constant bombardment from snipers in the hills surrounding the town. Hills that before April 1992 were neighborhoods, now, neighborhoods were commandeered by the Chetniks and anyone who was not a Serb was kicked out of their homes or killed.

Sarajevo sits at the base of a bowl shaped river valley; allowing the prolonged siege and isolation of the city by the Serbian forces. Due to the mountainous topography of Bosnia-Herzegovina, similar sieges occurred in other Bosnian valley cities such as Gorazde, Srebrenica, Mostar and Tuzla.

Look back at most of the pictures and you can see how close the surrounding hills are to the center of the city. We walked up to the old Jewish cemetery, the second largest in Europe after Prague. It was a little disturbing how it was in such disrepair (a new and poor country rightly has other needs), but what was far more disturbing was this was used as a sniper nest to bombarb the city. (irony or tragedy that the holocaust memorial to the right was shot up in the middle of a genocide?)

View of the city from the Jewish cemetery

The short documentary film Miss Sarajevo was made during the siege, worth watching (click it). Snippets of the film are included in the video for the U2 song of the same name https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdczQ2LsY0I The Bosnia-Herzegovina History museum presented life during the seige; describing how they got water (risking their lives to do so), got food (many died lining up for food), held concerts and tried to live. Most of the collection were items donated from people who lived it.

One of the most compelling pieces was about Nermin Divović, a 7 year old Sarajevan killed by a sniper on November 18, 1994,. A knitted sweater for each year.

The final sweater was the one he was wearing when he was shot.

As Sarajevo was tortured, the Chetniks were massacring Moslims throughout Bosnia. Gallery 11/7/95 is a memorial gallery dedicated to documenting the ethnic cleansing of Bosniak Moslim towns along the Bosnian-Serbian border, including the Srebrenica massacre https://galerija110795.ba/exhibitions/permanent-exhibition-srebrenica/.

You can watch the film shown at the gallery here https://tariksamarah.com/srebrenica-video/.

Up more hills to just outside of the Olympic stadium, rows and rows of graves of people who died in the siege.

History repeats itself. So many correlations with current events in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and now Iran.

Makeshift memorial to the children killed in the US airstrike on an elementary school in Tehran March 2026

Stolperstein in Sarajevo, memorials to those murdered in the Holocaust

A Sarajevo “rose” , red resin poured into mortar holes from bombs where at least three people were killed. There are 200 roses in the city.

The problem about going to a place with so much history, so much tragedy, is not taking the time to experience it’s present. Sarajevo is a vibrant, growing, struggling city. Worth a visit. These books (and Wikipedia) helped us understand:

Available in the Libby (library app): How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić and Safe Area Goradze by Joe Sacco (graphic novel)

Southeast England, 2

We’ve been living (short term) in a lot of houses with our 57 pet sits so we have seen a lot of different houses. Plus our 8 houses. Then add in all of the apartments we have stayed in or rented between sits, in our almost full time traveling over 9 years. So, our life has kind of been perpetual House Hunters. We are always asking ourselves could we live here; in Greenwood-Seattle; Split, Croatia; Lewes, England; etc? Could we live in this house? Sometimes we find really clever or beautiful features that would definitely go into our next aspirational house like the really great European windows that open both up and out.

More often, we are ready to redecorate our temporary home. Would you have put white carpet on a floor with so much mud outside? Wouldn’t the couch look better on that wall? There was actually an Austrian-German movie (The Edukators) about group of young people who would break into houses and rearrange the furniture as an act of rebellion. So, thusly inspired we have recently entertained fantasies of rearranging or painting a room while the owners are gone, but that would most likely destroy our run of 100% 5 star sitter reviews.

With these thoughts in mine, we went to Charleston House. The main impetus to pet sitting in the Brighton/Lewes area was due to the sisters; the Stephen sisters, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Monks House, Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s house https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/monks-house and Charleston House https://www.charleston.org.uk/event/house-visit/, the home of artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell; the catalysts of the Bloomsbury group of artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_Group

Charleston House was tucked away, reached from the bus stop by walking along a long driveway passed grassy, pheasant-filled fields. You approach through a lovely garden .

In light of Virginia Woolf’s death, it was kinda of disturbing to see this sculpture in the garden. The Levitating Lady was made by Vanessa’s son (Virginia’s nephew) Quentin Bell. He said it was inspired by magic tricks. This is the back.

While Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell (and her 3 children- 2 with her husband, 1 with Duncan) were the “permanent” residents, Vanessa’s husband (Clive Bell ), Robert Fry, Lytton Stratchey, David Garnett (Duncan’s partner) and John Maynard Keyes were the “semi-permanent” residents. Duncan was the last remaining, he died in 1978. The house is as it was when they lived there.

Their goals with the house were to blur boundaries between life and art, elevate the cheap furniture that they bought and improve the existing falling apart house- much like our goals for each house we have moved to. The wallpaper, rugs and most of the fabrics, (including on chairs and lampshades) were either from their travels (fabrics) but usually designed by Duncan, Roger or Vanessa. Almost every surface painted by Duncan and Vanessa. Guests were encouraged to join in. At the time (they moved in 1916), their use of a very specific color palate (strong colors, pinks, coco browns) and bold patterns was as shocking as their lifestyle.

Dining room with a portrait of Stratchey

A lot of bedrooms.

Vanessa and Duncan painted together and designed a studio which they added on to the rented house. This was done while they were renting, another way they were inspirational to us; they acted on their fantasy of redecorating someone else’s house.

Charleston House was vibrantly eclectic. It was like walking through a house designed and decorated by naughty and precociously talented 5 year olds, every surface that could be painted on was, even cups and plates. It just felt very free- which is how they lived.

Monk’s House, doesn’t open until April, but that didn’t stop us from walking 4 miles from Lewes through the South Downs, along the muddy banks of the River Ouse to go see it. The River Ouse is infamous as the river where Virginia Woolf drowned herself.

We slogged through the muddy road along the banks of the river, just before we made the turn from the river towards the path to Monk’s House a woman magically appeared from over the berm of the river bank and immediately began talking to us about her tooth pain, which lead to her obsessive rumination over her tooth, which lead to loss of her job, which lead to deep depression. She walked with us down the same final fateful road taken by Woolf continually returning to her bad tooth which wasn’t properly treated after it was extracted and how her life has spiraled downward including hospitalization, medication and diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It was truly sad and spooky. Her name was Annabelle (Virginia Woolf’s sister was Vanessa Bell), and later we looked up and read that Virginia Woolf was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, hospitalized, and had significant dental problems that were linked to her struggles with physical and mental health. Too weird, feeling like we had run into the ghost of Virginia Woolf on our journey.

We walked through the tiny village of Rodmell, passed Monk’s house and then we opted to take the bus back to Lewes avoiding more mud and misery.

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