Poland

Following the France road trip, I had Kevin staying in town with me for the week.  We took advantage of his time in Geneva by getting some fondue (much more enjoyable in the winter), went to the Montreux Jazz Fest, and then on to Poland.

This was my second time at the Montreux Jazz Fest (MJF) as I went last year when visiting Geneva before my permanent move.  MJF is a 2 week concert series on a city on the other side of the lake with a variety of music types; the headliners in the current year were Muse, Van Morrison, and Neil Young.  The venues are smaller and right along the lake so it's a fun environment as there's a gorgeous lake walk between the concert halls and to the Freddy Mercury tribute statue.  The bands that we saw were mainly folk rock and the 3 bands we all saw were all quite good (one of the openers was amazing).  Only downfall of the night was we took off early and given there's only a few trains back after 10p so we didn't get back until about 3a.

For the weekend, we flew to Kraków, Poland and met up with my friend Lisa who was working in London from Chicago.  Given we were in Poland, we spent our first meal sampling Pierogis and generally living like royalty.  Food and drinks are quite inexpensive; the most expensive restaurants were generally 25USD including drinks.

For sightseeing, we spent a day at the Wieliczka salt mines; these were used until 1996 and there are over 150 miles of caverns beneath the city.  Within the caverns, the miners had sculpted grandiose rooms including chapels where they hold weddings; it was quite impressive.

The following day, we spent the morning seeing Auschwitz; this was by no means an enjoyable site, but somewhere we felt we had to see while in Poland.  It's mind blowing to see these sites and how large they really were.....