Poland
Our first stop in Poland was the town of Pszczyna where we enjoyed a group lunch at Va Banque Restaurant. Then we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the concentration and extermination camps of the Third Reich, where we were given a guided tour. Birkenau, a short distance from Auschwitz, covered about 425 acres and originally contained over 300 buildings, of which 67 have survived.
|
Our visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau was a sobering but memorable experience, one that will always remain with us. Although it represents a dark chapter in history, it is also a monument to the strength of the human spirit amid extreme cruelty and suffering.
We arrived in Kraków, where we checked into the charming Hotel Maltański, and then walked to dinner at Restauracja Farina, where we had a traditional Polish dinner. The Hotel Maltański was one of our favorites on this trip and was right across the street from the Planty, a greenbelt surrounding the Old Town where the city walls and moat once stood, and close to the Town Square.
We arrived in Kraków, where we checked into the charming Hotel Maltański, and then walked to dinner at Restauracja Farina, where we had a traditional Polish dinner. The Hotel Maltański was one of our favorites on this trip and was right across the street from the Planty, a greenbelt surrounding the Old Town where the city walls and moat once stood, and close to the Town Square.
The following morning, after we all posed for a group photo in the hotel's bathrobes, we took a walking tour of Kraków, that included Wawel Castle and Cathedral. Kraków is a beautiful city and was the capital of Poland 400 years ago. There are over 100 churches in Krakow and we had the chance to see several on our walking tour, including the one where Pope John Paul II served as Archbishop.
|
After the walking tour we ate lunch at a Bar Mleczny (milk bar), a cafeteria-style restaurant subsidized since the communist era, where we paid 9 zloty each (about $3.00). The menu board was all in Polish so we consulted our phrasebook. Steve had pierogi (dumplings filled with cheese) and Sandi had golabki (stuffed cabbage)...yum!
|
In the afternoon we went on a walking tour of Kazimierz, the old Jewish district. We learned about the history of the Jewish people in Kraków, visited a synagogue, and saw a movie about the deportation of the Jews to Warsaw, created from film clips taken by the Gestapo that were discovered after World War II was over. It was very moving.
|
Another haunting sight was the cemetery in Kazimierz. During the war, Nazis ran their tanks over the graves, destroying many of the tombstones. After the war, because so many of the tombstones were ruined beyond reconstructing, the Jews created a memorial and several walls in the cemetery that are "mosaics" constructed from the fragments of broken gravestones.
The next morning was free and we walked around the Town Square to do some shopping, including buying some amber jewelry. We gathered at St. Mary's Basilica as a bugler played the hejnal from the highest tower. According to legend, a trumpeter was shot in the throat while sounding the alarm before Mongols attacked the city in the 13th century, which is why the anthem traditionally ends before its completion. Then we had lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant, Polskie
Smaki, near the Town Square.
We visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine in the afternoon, a mine that has been producing salt since the 11th century. The tour descended over 800 steps, ending 443 feet below the surface, but the most interesting features were the large underground caverns full of intricate sculptures carved out of salt. Created by the miners in their spare time, some of them are two hundred years old. There are several huge underground cathedrals;
we toured three of them. One of them had sculpted panels all the
way around the perimeter depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The Wieliczka Salt Mine is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In the evening we had kabobs for dinner in the Town Square. Then we walked to Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter, to hear some klezmer music. It was the last night of the International Jewish Culture Festival, held in Krakow annually. There was a huge concert in the street and thousands of people were there. It was a vibrant place for our last night in Kraków.
|