Two countries, three trains, two trams, and two buses later and I’ve arrived at my final destination on this tour: Budapest.

From the tiny town of Tatranska Lomnica, I made my way to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It’s not the best place for photos, though there are several palaces that are camera worthy, and the main square, which is surrounded by embassies, is a nice place to start your shopping.

Bratislava is fairly cosmopolitan, though. There are plenty of international businesses, like Ernst and Young (Private). It’s also home to the stock exchange, the BSSE.

And, like Krakow, there’s a lot of construction going on. As I told you last time, growth has not been checked so you’ve got unusual buildings thrown up side by side with historical sites. Take a look at the panoramic photo of the city.

Lots of concrete…

And cranes.

The city has quite a ways to go, though, but it’s getting a lot of influence from its surrounding countries. Bratislava is a mere three hours from Vienna, and is right on the border with the Czech Republic, too. It’s also 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Budapest, which is by far the largest city on my trip.

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The trip was long and draining from Teplice mad Metuji to Krakow. I was stuffed on a bus winding through picturesque little towns for six hours.

Yes, the vegetable gardens outside of every home are cute and quaint, but six hours was more than enough. I have to say, though, the farmland on this trip was really beautiful. We’re talking about corn, sprouts, and even sunflowers growing in neat patches that stretched far and wide.

The green was even more rewarding in the drizzling, misty grey sky.

Our first stop in Poland was the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. Quite a sobering site, and I will freely admit that I cried seeing the 80,000 shoes piled in rooms, and the two tons of human hair that would have been used to make textiles.

It is something everyone should see at least once in their lives.

But I was really interested to learn that after the camp was liberated, some of the materials - like wood and stone - were taken by the local population moving back into the area whose villages were destroyed when the Germans swept through.

At least, they took the material from the buildings the Nazis didn’t get a chance to burn.

It would seem that the Poles (who were actually the first persecuted by the Nazis at Auschwitz) are good at rebuilding.

As I walked around Krakow today, I couldn’t get away from construction. Everything is being updated or reconstructed, from old churches to new tramways. Everything is loud and noisy and parts of sidewalks are closed to pedestrians.

To me, this is good to see. Over the past several years, Poland has been reducing its unemployment rate.

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I’ve made my way from Cesky Krumlov to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Prague is like a beehive. There are so many people here, and lots of them are native, but even more are tourists.

I spent this afternoon on a four-hour tour of the city with a local woman named Helena. We saw the city castle, which is the biggest in the Republic, and - of course - bigger by one square meter than the castle at Cesky Krumlov.

Besides the great pictures I’ve taken, and the short video of the crowd standing before the Astrological Clock waiting for the next hour to strike, this city has taken me by surprise.

It’s hip and young, and yet attracts tourists from every walk of life. From young backpackers to Japanese businessmen in suits parading Prague Square… they are coming from everywhere. This is exciting to me, and no doubt to the folks watching the Czech economy.

I passed some American tourists who casually noticed the Czech-made car, the Skoda. I mentioned to them that the Republic, and the whole region is home to every major auto manufacturer - GM, Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, etc, etc.

That’s the side of Eastern Europe that lots of folks don’t know about.

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