Swiss Saxony, and on to Poland

We had planned on a day in Swiss Saxony, an area where the Elbe has carved a canyon of unusual sandstone formations, table mountains, a rock-climbing center. But the recent rains, flooding, road closures, and on and on, changed our plans, so we drove straight on (sort of), through a bit of the Czech Republic, then back into Germany, then into Poland, and across a good bit of southern Poland, one vast fertile but very flat plain, all the way to Auschwitz. Driving 3 or 4 hours across this plain, mostly farms, fields, and forests, I was struck by the lack of natural impediments, all the way to the Vistula, and how easy it has been, for millenia, for armies to march or roll across Poland.

Weird formations in Swiss Saxony; and a climber on the

right side of the left-most column

There he/she is

The Elbe, still in flood, below Bad Schandau