Krakow in the Moonlight

Krakow town square at about 4:30 in the afternoon.....

Thanksgiving at the Wawel

Laurel, James and Claire on the walkway up to the Wawel Castle

We were fortunate to have family visiting us during Thanksgiving week. John’s niece, Laurel, who lives in London was here for the week along with her husband James and their darling daughter, Claire. (They even let us watch her for a day when they visited Auschwitz and we had great fun!) On Thanksgiving Day we toured the Wawel (VAH-vel), Krakow’s castle and a symbol of Polish royalty and independence. A castle has stood on this hill at the southern end of Krakow since the beginning of recorded history. Krakow was the capital city of Poland until 1596, but even after the government moved to Warsaw it was in the Wawel Cathedral that kings were crowned and buried. We had walked the Wawel Hill grounds during nicer weather, but had been saving the tour of the castle state rooms and cathedral. It turned out to be a perfect Thanksgiving Day activity with our visitors.

The interior of the castle with its leather-tooled walls and huge 16th century tapestries was amazing. Sorry I can’t show you any pictures, since cameras weren’t allowed. (Once again, we were able to walk right in when normally advance reservations are needed since the number of people going through at any one time is limited.)

The Wawel grounds in nicer weather.

The cathedral on Wawel hill started as a simple Romanesque church in the 12th century and successive rulers surrounded it with some 20 chapels, many with their own domes and architectural style. The result is a mixture of Gothic, Romanesque, Baroque, Renaissance and Neoclassical, evident both from the outside and when touring the chapel interior.

Some of the spires and domes of the Wawel Cathedral.

We finished off our Thanksgiving Day with a fish dinner at a nice restaurant close to Laurel and James’ hotel. (Our apartment doesn't have an oven, so I wasn't about to attempt cooking a Thanksgiving dinner at "home." The sports bar at the Sheraton hotel was serving what they billed as a Thanksgiving menu all week, but it we decided not to attempt the trip down there.) We have much to be thankful for and it was especially nice to have family here to share the day. It certainly made us a little less homesick than we might otherwise have been. (And having a year off will make cooking that big Thanksgiving dinner next year even more fun!)

Claire was a real treat! She was so good, even though she wasn't feeling well much of the time (she wasn't even afraid of that man with the grey beard)!

Zamosc:The End of Our Tour of Southeastern Poland

Zamosc Town Hall

Every time I try to pronounce this city name, Poles don’t understand what I’m saying and I have to write it down. When they say, “Oh…ZAM-ootshch” I think, yeah, like I said! But apparently I don’t get it close enough to recognize. I had first read about Zamosc in Mitchner’s book Poland last summer, where the town square was described as being similar to that of Siena, Italy. Having been to Siena with my book club, I thought it would be fun to check it out. The tour books confirmed that Zamosc is “one of the best-preserved Renaissance towns in Europe.” It was planned and built from scratch in the 1500s according to Italian concepts of the ideal town by Jan Zamoyski, one of the powerful Polish magnates. A program of restoration began in the 1970s and the town has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So we took a mini-bus to Zamosc – about 95 kilometers southeast of Lublin. (These mini-busses are great little entrepreneurial businesses. In every city we’ve been to, a fleet of vans has set up shop near the government-run bus station. They run very cheap, regular service to the most popular destinations. While some of them cram in a few too many seats and are more than willing to take stand-up passengers…and they do tend to drive a little fast…and the shocks aren’t all that good…they are a great mode of transportation for those of us who don’t want to venture driving on our own on the Polish roads.) Still cold and snowy, we found our way to the old town square - which was practically deserted, though the buildings are very beautiful. I’m sure in the summer when the square is filled with cafes it’s a delightful little day tour.

Zamosc Town Square

However, we quickly realized that on a cold day in November there wasn’t much to do or see and decided to return to Krakow. We found the Tourist Information Center on the square quite by accident (not being where it was listed on my tour book) as we were looking for a café, and fortunately it was open on a Saturday morning, even though we were the only tourists anywhere to be seen. The nice lady there said she didn’t speak English, but she did well enough to inform us that there was only one train and one bus scheduled to go from Zamosc to Krakow each day and that they had both already left. She checked the mini-bus schedule for us and found out there weren't any that go to Krakow on Saturdays (it would have been quite a long ride in a mini-bus anyway). We really didn’t want to spend the night here, so she kept checking various alternatives and finally came up with a bus to Jarislow (yar-EES-waf), a small town in the middle of nowhere, that left in 4 hours. With a 30-minute layover, she assured us we could walk the short distance to the Jarislow train station and purchase a ticket to Krakow that would get us home around 11 p.m. John was very skeptical.

Ruins of Zamosc' Old City Walls

Without any alternative, we set out on our snowy, foggy ride through the desolate countryside. We were glad our bus driver was very cautious, since the roads were winding and narrow with no shoulders (it gets dark at 3 p.m. here, which added to the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere). The landscape was gorgeous when we could see it in the lights of the bus with snow on every twig and branch of every tree and shrub – often with the tree branches meeting over the road. One tour book describes this area as “the least populated and least known part of Poland: a great swath of agricultural plains punctuated by remote, backwoods villages and a few market towns.” None of this helped with John’s sense that we would be stranded once reaching this place called Jarislow. However, we made it there on schedule, made the switch to the train in plenty of time, managed to get on the right train even without any signage anywhere in the station, and then settled in for the several-hour ride to Krakow. Returned to snow on the ground here as well. Winter has arrived. (Though we didn’t see much of it, turns out Jarislow is one of the oldest towns in the country and on the main road east to the Ukraine. It has a history as a trading town going back to the 12th century.)

Once back in the apartment, I read a little more about Zamosc: “Chiefly due to its off-the-beaten-track location, the town has neither assumed the prominence it deserves on the tourist trail, nor seen the sort of economic success that has revitalized Lublin. Early in the 19th century Zamosc had sunk so far that even the Zamoyskis themselves moved on!” But if we hadn’t made the trip, I would always have wondered what it was like. John says he doesn’t regret going either….we just have to do a little better job of contingency planning next time – and there’s nothing we can do about the weather, so we don’t want to let it stop us from seeing places we’ll probably never have a chance to visit again. (And, though the main square was beautiful, I didn't really see the resemblance to Siena.)

Majdanek

In the morning of our second day in Lublin, we took a bus to Majdanek, which is just a few kilometers from the center of town. Above is the entrance to Majdanek and its impressive monument by the entry gate. This former Nazi death camp is massive and well-preserved (it wasn’t destroyed after the war because the Soviets used it afterwards to house members of the Polish resistance before deporting them to Siberia). It is also extremely sobering because it is so close to the city of Lublin and very visible from the main road -- there could have been no doubt as to its existence during the 3-4 years of operation. It was built in 1941 as purely an extermination camp…there was no pretense at being a work or relocation camp. The questions about how these places could have existed keep coming up. It is very difficult to walk into the barracks and imagine what it would have been like as a ‘prisoner.' It’s almost impossible to take in the fact that an estimated 230,000 people were murdered here, of which 40% were Jews. The rest were anyone who opposed the regime or who were considered undesireable or who might pose a threat - such as intellectuals, writers and college professors. The list goes on….it could be you or me. And this camp is just one of so many. During its occupation by the Nazis in WWII, Poland's population was persecuted, terrorized and partially exterminated: 7 million Poles were killed, including 3 million Polish Jews. In three days in November 1943, the Nazis concluded their extermination of Lublin-area Jews by machine-gunning over 43,000 residents remaining in the town's Jewish district. The mausoleum at Majdanek contains the ashes of many of those murdered here. One of the barracks was filled with the shoes of former inmates…... The cold, biting air was a fitting atmosphere for our visit.

View through the memorial toward the mausoleum

Kazimierz Dolny

Kazimierz Dolny castle ruins


On our second day in Lublin, we took a mini-bus to Kazimierz Dolny, an “ancient and highly picturesque center” on the Wisla (Vistula) River, set between two hills and “possessing one of Poland’s finest architectural ensembles as well as quiet, rustic backstreets.” Not to be confused with the Kazimierz section of Krakow, this is a town in Eastern Poland billed as an artists’ colony, attractive because of the quality of light there…and wouldn’t you know it? When we arrived, the sky was blue (though the air still cold) and we saw the sun for the first time in days. I’m sure it’s much nicer for strolling in warm weather, but the buildings (many of them wood – unusual from what we’re used to in Poland, which are mostly brick, stone and plaster) were quite interesting.

Kazimierz Dolny rynek (town square)

We stopped at a café and I couldn’t resist buying the local snack: a very large challah-type loaf of bread elaborately- shaped in the form of a rooster! It’s a good thing, too, as it became the major portion of our sustenance on the train trip home the next day.


Back to Lublin for another wonderful night in our hotel. I even did the Turkish bath they had in their basement…I was the only one in it (thank goodness) and it was wonderful! I’d never had a Turkish bath before – it’s bathing by steam rather than submersion in water, and after a very cold day of touring it was just the ticket!

"Lubely" Lublin

We took a trip to southeastern Poland this week. We decided to go to Lublin because John had discovered in his genealogy research that a great Aunt and one of her sons had been killed at the Nazi concentration camp there. It took us 5 ½ hours by train to travel from Krakow to Lublin. When we arrived, the weather had turned very cold, windy and snowy. We (foolishly) walked from the train station to the old town area where we had booked a hotel. It wasn’t that far (about a mile – and we’re used to walking and didn’t have much luggage with us), but the wind was brutal. Thank goodness our hotel (the Grand Hotel Lublinianka) ended up being absolutely wonderful – even though we stayed in their “economy” room. (This meant it was on the 3rd floor in an attic-type room, which wasn't a problem since they had nice, modern elevators, and there were skylights rather than windows in the room. The beds and bedding were wonderful, the room itself was great…heated floor in the bathroom and heated towel rack…fine crystal wine glasses.) After checking in we walked to the old town and looked at the absolutely amazing buildings all around the square (called “mannerist” architecture in the tour books….the plaster on the outside is not just painted, but carved into decorations). The buildings are all original (not having been destroyed in the wars of the last few centuries) and have either been, or are in the process of being, restored. We saw a few that were in the early stages of restoration and what a production when they are so old! Much of the insides need to be gutted, but in such a way as to retain the structure and architecture. Even in the cold and snow, the town square was very impressive.

I couldn't decide which pictures to post, so I've included a number of the houses from the town square.

We ate dinner one night at a restaurant on the ground floor of this building.

We walked to the castle (which we dubbed the “white castle” both because it is white but also because it reminded us of the White Castle logo) which is close to the old town center and were able to get right into the chapel to see the amazing frescoes painted in 1418. Entrance to the chapel is closely controlled (only 25 people at a time and then closed for 10 minutes every hour to check humidity levels and ventilation) and the tour books recommend making advance reservations – guess there are some advantages to winter touring! By the time we finished touring the castle, the weather was so bad we just went back to the hotel. We had a lovely light dinner at the hotel (their restaurant is first class, but we weren’t dressed for it and we didn’t want a big dinner so we just went to the café), including a glass of a great Beaujolais Nouveau. (Though it made me a bit homesick: my brother Randy always brings a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau when he comes for Thanksgiving dinner.) We still weren’t sure whether we would stay another day because the weather was so bad.

The next morning we went to breakfast (included in the hotel price and an excellent spread of food, with the best coffee we’ve had since arriving in Poland – can you tell I liked this hotel???) and decided to stay another night in order to go visit Majdanek (the concentration camp) and some other area sights. It was a good decision.

The "white castle"

Jagiellonian University

Collegium Maius Courtyard

We toured the Collegium Maius, the oldest university building in Poland and the museum building for Jagiellonian University. The history dates back to the year 1400, when King Jagiello (according to King Jadwiga’s request – yes, she was Poland’s “king” because a queen was considered a spouse….Jagiello was her Lithuanian husband who became king too…it’s a little complicated, but led to the commonwealth of the two countries) purchased a corner house to re-open the Krakow Academy that had originally been founded in 1364 on the castle hill. The Jagiellonian University is considered the second oldest university in central Europe after Charles University in Prague and one of the oldest in Europe. This building and arcaded Gothic courtyard are beautiful; there’s a clock that does a whole “procession” in the courtyard on the hour and then plays the Polish national anthem afterwards.

The tour through the Collegium Maius includes a look at some astronomical instruments that were likely used by Nicolas Copernicus, a student at the university, other old scientific instruments (a brass astrolabe from 1054), and the oldest surviving globe to depict the Americas (although they are placed in the wrong hemisphere).

Ceiling of museum room

The “aula” (assembly hall), which is still used on occasion, carries the Latin inscription over its entry doorway: Plus Ratio Quam Vis – “Wisdom rather than Force” (or something close to that??).

One can rent the second floor dining room – wouldn’t that be something? After the tour we went to the basement café for a great cup of hot chocolate.

You and several of your closest friends can rent this dining room for a wonderful dinner!


I don’t think I mentioned our visit to the Czartoryski Museum earlier. An intimate little museum containing the collection of Izabella Czartoryska in the 18th century, housed in an interesting old building. Though her collection endured moves to Paris and ransacking by the Nazis, the highlights that remain include a rare da Vinci oil painting, Lady with an Ermine, 1482 (or 85), and Rembrandt’s Landscape with Good Samaritan, 1638. The da Vinci was painted before the Mona Lisa and, though the background has been heavily altered over time, it is in better condition - and some consider it more beautiful – than the Mona Lisa.