I’ve now overshared on our unfortunate events, but I need to share the good stuff too! So here is the “best of” listed by City/country area and my favorite highlight from that area.

Berlin and The Berlin Wall

We’ve heard this was a good city for families and I agree. It was an easy city to drive and we easily drove past tons of monuments and memorials.

It was our first stay in a hostel. I honestly can’t imagine ever traveling solo and sharing a room like that with complete strangers. I had a hard enough time with my own family! But it was an interesting experience. The hostel was a close enough walk to the Berlin Wall so we went there right after checking in.

The Berlin Wall was the highlight of Berlin for me. It’s one of the few historical moments-in-time (the collapse) that we have visited that happened in our lifetime. I believe I remember seeing it on the news as a kid.

It is so much larger and longer than I thought. The memorials and info about it were endless and impressive.

We walked along it for what felt like miles, seeing more and more of the wall, guard towers and other remains. Eventually, we stumbled upon a cute cookie store. We were drawn in by the fun signs (in English) and the allure of cookies. Turns out the draw was really because the owner is American 😂. What we didn’t even notice upon walking in is that we stepped over a small rocky border to cross into the building – that was part of the wall also. She explained the how her building was an old communist building that had since been remodeled, but there are still remnants from the wall and the previous regime.

Final highlight of Berlin was the Humboldt Box/museum. The muesum exists as a temporary forum while they rebuild the Berlin Castle, Stadtschloss, which was bombed twice in WWII then later demolished by the German government. The museum had the best hands-on fun for the kids and was FREE! It also had decent views of the city from its deck.

Poland and Auschwitz

Polish pottery debacle aside, Poland was a fantastic destination. First, we were the only guests in a giant castle near Wroclaw, then we had a super fun cabin in the mountains. We got to visit Boleslawiec, Wroclaw, Krakow and Zakopane, and briefly visited Auschwitz, which was my highlight of Poland.

Wroclaw has little metal gnome statues throughout the city and that thoroughly entertained the children as they ran around searching for them (win!).

It was also amazingly beautiful, super cheap, and afforded us fun and traditional polish food – pierogies, golabki, kielbasa!

When we left the Wroclaw area, we were headed to the mountains, but we stopped last minute to see Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was originally in our plans as we backtracked home, but we shifted last minute. This may or may not have been a good idea since they were sold out of entrance tickets. But we were able peer through the gates and see the main rail line in. It probably wasn’t enough for me, but I can’t imagine how hard it would’ve been to walk through.

I know sounds strange to be a “highlight” but it truly was and I am thankful to have been able to see it. I’ve watched countless documentaries and have read numerous books since we’ve been here and it really puts a ‘face’ to the images – definitely hard to really fathom the horrors that this land held.

Other Polish highlights – Krakow was beautiful even in terrible weather and the mountains near Zakopane have fun hiking trails that lead to a giant waterfall. It was trying for me and my bum feet, but I did it, all 3 miles. I just couldn’t walk in Prague the next day 😬.

Prague and the Special Effects museum

Prague is an amazingly beautiful city, though awfully crowded. Even with the crowds, it now ranks as one of our top favorites. The architecture is incredible and the number of churches and classical music concerts is never-ending. The girls and I even went to see Swan Lake, the ballet.

But our favorite part (or at least mine) was the Karel Zeman museum – a 20th century movie and special effects museum. The kids got to test out old school equipment and see how they made movies with perspective and creativity and without computers.

So fun!

Final stops

We returned through Germany with a quick stop in a cute city, Rotenburg on de Tauber, with its original city walls still intact AND still allowed to walk on. The city fed us traditional German schnitzel, pork knuckle and potato pancakes and introduced us to a new dessert – Schneeball (???). They were much, much prettier than they tasted 😂 and they were kind of difficult to eat.

But what would a super long roadtrip be without a stop for the kids? A stop in Little America, also known as Ramstein Air Force base. It’s always good to get a little America back in you after months and months of Europe. We needed you, swimming pool, PF Chang’s and Chili’s!