The Dragon
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Krakow,
Southern Poland,
Poland
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Well,
We made it to Krakow without incident. Legend has it that Krak poisoned a dragon and was given the area now known as Krakow for saving the people - OK, this is just my attempt to explain the title of the entry. There was far less English spoken here, but the city was beautiful and the people quite nice (for instance, on one of our forays to the center of the city, we missed our bus stop, and a woman motioned for us to ring the bell and pointed in the correct direction for us to walk).
We visited Wawel Castle (nice, but we're already castled out), and delighted another group of tourists as Grey and Zack busted some moves while street performers played background music. We went to the Jewish section of town (Kazimierz, and then to Podgorze, the ghetto during the occupation in WWII) and saw the factory run by Oskar Schindler (of movie fame). The kids weren't fascinated by either of these locations, perhaps because they were already anticipating our visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau, or perhaps because it was too early in the morning.
Until this point of the trip, the weather had been really nice, but the moment we got inside the camp gates, the sky grew dark, the winds picked up, and thundered clapped in the distance. While the tour guide was captivating, the visuals were a bit much for us - piles of hair, prosthetic body parts, eyeglasses, uniforms, the cells, the barbed wire and guard houses everywhere, the railroads going right through the camp and the town, and then going into barracks and watch towers at Birkenau (during a howling storm) were very disturbing, and left each of us wondering how this could have happened without anyone stopping it??? The stories relayed to us were frightening and even though I'd read about them beforehand, I was struck by the systematic destruction of other people - it was disgusting and rather depressing; the barracks for as far as you could see, the barrenness surrounding the camp, and the sight of gas chambers were just sad. The kids seemed depressed as we left, and the images that they'd seen in movies became very real. I don't see anyone making a return visit, but it was a necessary stop since we were here and because it's a reminder of a horrible time/event about which they have been told, or have read, for years.
A very quiet bus ride back to the hotel was followed by a night on the town - a very good move for everyone's spirits and stomachs! We rode the public bus, went to the main square (Rynek Glowny) and watched street performers blow up a fire truck (you had to be there, but Andy might have pictures), do an opera, perform "cirque du soleil-type" tricks, and hold a concert (with break dancers and GWBush sayings on a loud speaker?) on the far end of the square - opposite the outdoor restaurant that satisfied our empty stomachs. Our Jersey boys dinners are a lot of fun, as we just sit there talking and laughing for hours. We escaped the city center just before a huge thunderstorm approached, and dumped some rain and sharp claps of thunder on those left behind - we ran to the bus stop (about 1/2 mile distance to catch a certain ride, and thanks to the fleet feet of Quinn and Jack, we made it, and that saved us from the storm). Safely back in the hotel, we sat in the lobby for a little while before the boys headed off to watch Hot Rod, which they'd downloaded the night before.
There was so much going on, and the city was so nice that we hated to leave after such a short time. The food from the street vendors was awesome as well - you'll probably notice that we eat a lot! The boys have been fantastic and I think that they are having a good time with each other and the people they are meeting.
