Krakow, Poland- September 2008
Carlyn and Cari's Web Page
Carlyn and Cari's Guest book
Venice in November
Spain with Lin and Monica
The Louvre and Monet's House and Garden, September 2009
Disneyland Paris- The end to my month long 50th birthday celebration
London Skyride- September 20, 2009
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Switzerland- July 2009
Carlyn's Birthweek 2009- Fun, Food and Henry VIII
Sailing Trip on the Solent of the English Channel, June 2009
Istanbul, Turkey- May 2009
Aberdeen with Jacky and Steve
The Loire Valley with Mom and Sheri
Budapest, April 2009
The German Christmas Markets with Joyce, December 2008
The Lord Mayor Show, November 8, 2008
Madrid and Andalucia, October 2008
Krakow, Poland- September 2008
Cari's Birthweek- Germany
Dinner at Muspatts Farm celebrating Carlyn's
Italy, June 2008
The Lake District- May 2008
York- May Day Holiday Weekend 2008
Cornwall and Wales- Page 1
Cornwall and Wales- Page 2
Hever Castle
Blemhein Palace
Hastings and Battle- 1066 Country
Brighton
German Christmas Market
Fall in Provence
Paris in a Day
Visitors at Parliament Square
Amsterdam and Kuekenhof
The South West "Jurassic" Coast
Cambridge
Christmas and Canterbury
Normandy
Austria
Prague, Czech Republic
Belgium break
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Blog
September 27 we flew out of London for a pilgrimage to Krakow, Poland. Carlyn's mother Joyce's parents were both 100% Polish from the Lublin area and Carlyn was excited to visit the home of 50% of her roots.
What a beautiful place. We toured the city, the Wieliczka Salt Mine, and Aushwitz-Berkenau. The latter was emotionally draining but such a learning experience.
We consumed Polish cuisine by the plateful and had to detoxify from the amount of lard which is used with no abandonment in all of their food. We ate our weight in pirogues (meat or cheese filled dumplings) as well as sampling all things Polish; herring, potato pancakes, potato dumplings, sauerkraut soup, cabbage rolls, Barszcz czerwony, a beetroot soup served clear with dumplings, and Żurek, a sour rye soup with potato and sausage . Accompanying these delights, Polish premium lagers, Zywiec and Tyskie, which pack a pretty good punch with a 5.7% alcohol content.
We waisted no time trying the local beer and cuisine having a fantastic lunch of pirogies and soups
Cloth Hall- The world's oldest shopping mall has been in business for 700 years. The present Renaissance edifice dates from 1555.
The Old Town historical district in Krakow’s heart is actually the medieval city established in 1257 by Prince Boleslav V, the ruler of Poland at the time. Its well preserved original grid of streets with the huge central Grand Square, Europe’s largest in the Middle Ages, seems the last stage in the perfection of medieval city planning. UNESCO entered the whole of Krakow's Old Town in the list of the world cultural heritage.
Medieval Krakow had round it two-mile-long walls with 39 towers and 8 gates. The main gate was the Brama Florianska gate, built about 1300 as a rectangular Gothic tower of wild stone, is 33.5 m tall. In the Middle Ages the Krakow furriers defended it. Krakow's Royal Road begins. Here entered kings and princes, foreign envoys and guests of distinction, coronation processions and other parades, to move up the Florianska Street to the central Grand Square (Rynek Glowny), and further down the Grodzka Street to the Wawel Royal Castle.
The bridge joining the Museum to the palace where we saw a collection of paintings beginning from the 13th century and including the “Lady with an Hermine” by Leonardo da Vinci and the “Landscape with the Good Samaritan” by Rembrandt van Rijk.
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul’s- 17th-century grandest Baroque church after Rome’s del Gesu. Its ornate white stone facade contains sculptures, a mighty dome and larger-than-life stone statues of 12 Apostles above the front fence.
Saturday morning we boarded a coach for a city tour of old town Krakow. We began our tour by visiting the Jewish District of Kazimierz to explore the area which used to be inhabited by one of the most diverse Jewish communities in Europe. Steven Spielberg's famous film, Schindler's List filmed in this square and shows the tragedy of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow.
Then a short drive took us up the Wawel Hill which is the embodiment of Poland's former monarchical glory. Its summit is the Royal Castle and a 14th-century cathedral which hosted almost all coronations and funerals of the Polish monarchy.Wawel (pronounced Vavel) Royal Castle- Home to three dynasties of Poland's monarchs. Its stately halls and exquisite chambers are filled with priceless art, best period furniture and rare ancient objects. The collection of the 16th-century monumental Flemish tapestries is matchless.
The Wawel Cathedral, Poland's national sanctuary with 1000-year-old history, was the coronation site of Polish monarchs. Eighteen chapels full of art treasures surround the Wawel Cathedral. The gold-plated dome of the Sigismund Chapel crowns the best example of Renaissance art and architecture with no match without Italy and few equals within.
Enjoying the sunshine by the Wawel Cathedral
Having descended the hill, we strolled along Kanonicza and Grodzka Streets to reach Collegium Maius (Great College), the oldest building of the Academia Cracoviensis.
Town Hall Tower Krakow has its own leaning tower. In fact, the 70-m-tall Town Hall Tower at the city’s central Grand Square leans just 55 cm. Yet the reason is unusual – a strong wind did it in 1703. The massive Gothic tower had been built of stone and brick by the end of the 13th century and got its first clock in 1524. The tower once adjoined Krakow's splendid 13th-century Gothic Town Hall that was pulled down in the 1820s.
Completing the tour we visited St Mary's Church, where the stunning medieval altar sculpted by Veit Stoss is located and a bugle call sounds towards the four corners of the world every hour on the hour.
After a quick lunch of sauerkraut soup we boarded another coach to the UNESO sight of The Wieliczka Salt Mine. This is a salt carved representation of the princess finding the salt after a dream. Salt was as precious as gold and Krakow became very wealthy with the mines.
Chapel of Saint Kinga, the largest among underground chapels in the Wieliczka Salt mine, is actually a sizable subterranean church carved in rock salt and embellished with salty sculptures and bas-reliefs.
visitors walk underground for about 2,000 m in the oldest part of the salt mine and see its subterranean museum, which takes three hours or so. Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most eagerly visited tourist sites in Poland. Its unique character and beauty was created by nature about 15 million years ago. During almost nine centuries of salt exploitation, Wieliczka Salt Mine developed into an extensive underground city with a therapeutic climate and steady temperature of 14ºC. As a cultural and geological phenomenon, it was visited already in the 15th century. Nowadays it is a complex labyrinth consisting of over 300 kilometers of galleries, about 3000 chambers and nine floors, the last of them at 327 meters underground
In 1978 Wieliczka Salt Mine was entered on the first UNESCO World List of Cultural and Natural Heritage.
Chlopskie Jadlo means peasants kitchen and is a traditional Polish restaurant. The food is well-cooked, simple and delicious, and the portions suitably hearty to match the authentic peasant decor. I tried a fried cheese with cranberries (amazing) for a starter and finished with goulash and potato pancakes for me while Carlyn enjoyed her cabbage rolls “just like Mom used to make”.
Plac Matejki (Matejko Square) central feature is the Monument of the Battle of Grunwald commemorating one of the greatest medieval battles in Europe fought in 1410 by 60,000 soilders. Victory for the Polish and Lithuanian army over the Teutonic Knights ended their dominates of Poland.
"Work will make you Free"- The sign at the entrance of Auschwitz Death Camp in Oswiecim Site of the Nazi notorious Auschwitz death camp is an hour’s drive from Krakow. Between June 1941 and January 1945 about one million men, women and children perished in the three Auschwitz concentration camps–i.e. Auschwitz proper, Birkenau and Monowitz–and their more than forty sub-camps.
Watch tower outside block 11- Block No. 11 is known as "the death block." It served several functions, of which the most important was that of central camp jail. Here, the SS placed male and female prisoners from all over the camp who were suspected by the camp Gestapo of belonging to the underground, planning escapes or mutinies, or maintaining contact with the outside world. Poles from outside the camp were also imprisoned here after being arrested for such offenses as offering aid to prisoners. They were subjected to brutal interrogation that usually ended in a sentence of death by being shot or hanged.
Wooden Barracks at Birkenau. Each wooden bunk slept an average of five individuals. At its peak the whole complex was a deadly prison to some 150,000 inmates that were being either murdered outright or starved and worked to death.
Brick chimneys are all that remain from the many wooden barracks used to house the “workers”. Auschwitz-Birkenau is the best known place of genocide in the world. Started as a concentration camp, it became the centre of extermination for 1.5 million people; Jews, Poles, Gypsies and many others.
Birkenau was created in 1941 as a satellite of the Auschwitz camp. The village of Brzezinka was evacuated for this purpose, and a handful of farm buildings were woven into the structure of the camp. This was even the case with the main gas chambers, which were located at the northern end of the site, where the railway tracks meet their end. Transits of prisoners were brought here from across Europe, and it was here that the 'Final Solution' was conducted at its most relentless level.
The Little Market (Maly Rynek), situated a block from the Main Market Square (Rynek Glowny) is one of the most picturesque places in Krakow. Lined with beautiful tenement houses of burghers this quiet and set back place was used in the Middle Ages as the meat market. In the 17th century the marked witnessed fights between Catholics and Protestatns, who inhabited opposite sides of Maly Rynek.
Taking advantage of some down time for coffee and beer
Enjoying non typical Polish food presentation at Wesele, a restaurant celebrating old Polish traditions. "Wesele" means "wedding" in Polish, and you'll certainly feel like you've been invited to a Polish wedding party here, where you can indulge in several courses of traditional Polish dishes, with flair. The rustic country-style interior recreates the atmosphere of an elegant Polish country manor house.
Our table at Wesele with a veiw of the Old Town Square
Located within the city walls, in 1364, the Krakow Academy was established; the first Polish university (today renamed Jagiellonian University).
The restaurants are so cute!
