European Road Trip

The most ambitious trip I’d planned to that point. Flew Condor to Frankfurt, picked up a car, and drove south.

Dachau was heavy. I sat in the car in the parking lot afterward and sobbed. It wouldn’t be the last time a concentration camp broke me open — Auschwitz would come eleven years later. But Dachau was the first, and it hit differently than I expected.

The drive continued through Austria to St. Gallen, Switzerland, then a four-hour cruise on Lake Zurich. Strasbourg, Heidelberg, the Crowne Plaza overlooking the old city. Prague was next — the ICON Hotel on Wenceslas Square. I left Prague calling it my second-favorite city in the world, behind Sydney.

Berlin got multiple days and multiple hotels. The Holocaust Memorial, Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag, the Dali Exhibition at Potsdamer Platz. Then a train through Dresden, a stop in Doolin, Ireland, and a WOW Air flight home through Reykjavik.