POLAND, Part 5: Krakow's Old Town

Rynek Glowny is Krakow's Old Town Market Square.
And it was less than a 5 minute walk from our hostel.  AWESOME.

We spent all of Wednesday, as well as a few evenings, exploring it's streets and revelling in it's charm.  It is an absolutely enormous square, the largest in all of Europe, and during WWII the German Governor General had his headquarters in Krakow.  That's why it was spared the destruction that the rest of the country experienced.

In the middle of the square (roughly the size of 12 football fields) is a long building called the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) with souvenir shops on the ground level, an art gallery upstairs and a cafe that extends onto the terrace.

Looking in:



Looking out:

More of the Sukiennice, by night and in the early morning hours...

The view from the cafe terrace, left to right:

This is what we were enjoying along with the view:

More sights from the square:





I love, love, LOVE wrought iron.  So it's no wonder that I have so many pictures of lamps, gates, and such.
Because I'm guessing you're not interested in 18 shots of that sort of thing, here are just two of my favorites.





I also adore red geraniums, and they were in abundance.   Give me a window that has been weathered and abused through the years and stick some geraniums and sheer white embroidered curtains with it and I can't help myself.  It calls to me and I simply must take a picture of it!  :-)

Another ornate facade:

Krakow's University:

Pete found the statue of Copernicus, and a little courtyard ajacent to the University, where there were a few sciency things.  Apparently all the wrought iron and geraniums weren't sufficient for him.  :-)

Pete, his brother, and mom took a road trip to Hungary in one of these cars when the boys were young teenagers.  Pete said that even then, when he and his brother sat in the front, their shoulders touched.

A milk bar is an establishment from the communist era.  It is basically a restaurant that serves simple, Polish staple dishes at rock bottom prices.  Ordinary folks, homeless, drunks, and tourists who want to step back into bygone days are the usual customers.  We happened to walk past this one at 7am after we had just finished breakfast.

We had discovered an open air farmer's market 2 blocks from our hostel, so each morning we walked there for some Turkish style coffee--you let the grounds settle to the bottom--along with some delicious Polish breakfast bread/pastries.  I hesitate to call them pastries, because they only have a hint of sweetness.  Some fruit, a little bit of soft cheese, and/or poppyseed paste.  (I didn't take a picture though.  Too busy licking my fingers.)

Another smaller square adjacent to the Main Market Square:

Cobblestone E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E

And finally, there is a tree-covered park that surrounds the entire Old Town.  A refreshing spot to escape the sun, ride bike, people watch, or take an evening stroll.

POLAND, Part 4: Arriving in Krakow & Day Trip to Oswiecim

Bright and early Monday morning we bid Aunt Tesia and Babcia Winkler "narazie" and caught the train to Krakow at 7am from downtown Bialystok. 

For those of you who have heard the story of when Pete escaped his home as the family was preparing to leave, and ended up by a fountain near the train tracks, approximately 1 mile away...WHEN HE WAS 3 YEARS OLD...you'll be interested to know that I now can actually visualize that scenario.  ;-)  And you can appreciate why I get alittle crazy sometimes...because our children seem to have inherited that wanderlust gene. 

Anyhow.  Where was I?  Right...the train ride to Krakow.

The morning was pleasantly cool, so it's fortunate that we had an early start.  When we finally reached our destination it was nearing 2pm and it was, um, not so cool anymore.  We were in a roomy compartment with plenty of leg room and a nice big window that we could lower the top half.  But, like everywhere else in Poland, aside from the priciest hotels or shopping establishments, there is no AC.  That's not usually an issue unless you are there at the height of summer when there is a heat wave. 

We wandered a bit absently in the train station until we figured out how to get to our hostel, which ended up being right around the corner from the station, just with a mall inbetween to confuse and disorient you.  :-)  Or was it seeing the Starbucks and Burger King signs...?

*Side note: Aside from the BK sign I just mentioned, I found it interesting that of the few fast food establishments we saw, Subway and KFC were by far the most common.

We stayed at the Greg and Tom Hostel on Ulica Pawia.  (That's Peacock Street if you were wondering.)
When making our reservations this spring we just missed getting a private double room by one day, so we reserved a whole 4 twin bedded dorm for a few zloty less and still had our privacy.  (Poland's currency is called zloty and the exchange rate about 3.2z's for every dollar.)

I was impressed with the hostel.  Online it had been ranked and awarded as one of the best hostel in Krakow, and even in Poland a number of times.  And we were pleased to find it very clean, organized, and quiet (aside from street noise because you kept your windows open constantly).  We shared a bathroom/laundry with 2 other rooms the size of ours, but because we were up at 5 or 5:30 each morning to get an early start, we never had to really wait to use the facilities.  And, there was a common kitchen immediately to the right of our room, so making coffee, watching bits of the Olympics, and storing items in the refrigerator was very convenient.

Here is the view outside our 4th floor room, from left to right.



Thankfully the heat wave seemed to break alittle by Monday night and Tuesday morning dawned cool and overcast.  It did clear and warm up to 90 that afternoon, but we had pleasant weather for our morning excursion to Oswiecim, the town where Auschwitz and Birkenau are located.  (Oswiecim is the Polish word and Auschwitz is the German word for the town.)



We even made a new friend!  Maria is a geography teacher (2 years from retirement) from Rio, BRAZIL, and we struck up a conversation as we caught our minibus that morning.  We stuck together throughout the day, as she was traveling alone and seemed grateful to have someone to talk to.  What a sweet lady!

We joined an English-speaking tour group that spent 2 hours in Auschwitz, going through several of the buildings, Block 11 (aka Death Block), learning about standing and starvations cells, etc.



Pete and I had visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. a number of years ago when we lived in Maryland, and I had taken my world history students there on field trips 3 subsequent years, so I didn't hear much information that was new.  Still, I really appreciated hearing it all again, and you cannot stand in those places without feeling their impact.  Especially once we arrived in Birkenau for the remaining 1 1/2 hours of our guided tour.

Birkenau is beyond words.  Immense doesn't seem to capture it... more like shattering.
These pictures seem to minimize it.  Just look at them and multiple by 10 what you see.
And then imagine it is wintertime, 0 degrees F, and your clothes are threadbare.

Here is an image I found online to give you an idea of where particular photos I have were taken.  (Take a moment to look at the scale in the bottom left corner.)



Standing at the 25 looking toward 28.

Still at the 25, looking at 20.



 At 25, looking toward 13.

If you've seen images of an unloading platform, lined with freight cars on both sides, this is likely where it was taken.

 

 One freight car typically had 100 people in it.

I learned that prisoners were gathered up from countries as far away as Spain and Greece, which sometimes took as long as 2 weeks by train.  Without food and water only a few survived the journey.

 Next to the 14.

 At number 13 now stands a memorial that includes this message, translated into more than a dozen languages.

 In Polish.

 Did you know that Poles were the first prisoners, starting as early as 1940?  The Jews were specifically targeted starting in 1942 when Hitler introduced the Final Solution.  Of all the European countries, Poland lost the most citizens in the war, namely because they had the largest population of Jews, but the Nazi's had also deemed the Poles an inferior nationality.

Unless I am mistaken, in 1941 my husband's grandmother was being marched through the street with her 1 month old infant (Pete's uncle, Jan).  She was able to sneak into someone's yard and hide in a shed, narrowly escaping being sent to the camps.  My husband's mother was born 4 years later in the spring of 1945, just as the war was ending.  Pete's grandfather helped with the Polish Resistance.  (I don't know much about my husband's dad's side of the family during the war.)

One of the crematoriums that the Nazi's blew up just before the war ended.  (On both sides of number 13 on the map.)

 Around number 19, one of the brick barracks.  The brick barracks were built first and mainly take up the left side of the camp.  The vast expanse of barracks on the right side of the camp are wooden and the most primitive.  (I didn't get a picture of any of those, nor the sanitation block.  Many of those were also burned by the Nazi's just before the war's end.)

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Tomorrow's post: POLAND, Part 5: Krakow's Old Town