Poland - VERY COool
Trip Start
May 24, 2005
1
20
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Krakow,
Poland
Monday, August 1, 2005
Krakow could fall under the 'another old town with a castle in it' category defined by a travel-weary Canadian we met in Budapest. But what a town with a castle! The Old Section is a maze of cobbled streets, sliced by tram lines. The town centre is the largest medieval square in Europe, and even though it was full of tourists flashing cameras at the major attractions, spilling out onto the cafe terraces, or trotting around in horse and carriages, it was surprisingly peaceful. The castle complex, sitting as it does on a mound looking out over the river, would make a Gorgeous university - and we spent a few minutes picking out the rooms we'd have wanted in the ivy-clad buildings before going in search of the secret 'chakra stone'. We did find it eventually, or rather the iron door behind which it rests, but that, apparently, was as far as we were ever going to get (being lowly Tourists and not Archeology or Anthropology students). Baah Humbug.
What else did we do in Krakow? Well, when we weren't sleeping, we were mostly to be found eating in the veggie restaurants - Krakow is the European Capital of Veggie cuisine (or should be...mmmm. tibetan steamed dumplings and falafel kebabs. MMMMmmmmm) or in a dark wood-panelled, hot-chocolate and cake-serving warren of a bookshop, or jolting along the cobbled streets on 1930s bikes. In summer it all felt immensely 'cosy' so we've Every intention of coming back to see Krakow covered in snow...
We also made a tour of the national art museum (not much cop unless you go in for imperial crockery and 18th Century ladies' neck ruffles) and the stained glass factory (and absolute gem, where the entire production process is explained by a guide - usually one of the artists. Our guide was delighted to pick up and play around with precious pieces of hundred-year old glass being used to make a huge window for a Polish cathedral). Not bad for an old town with castle...
Beyond Krakow, we went to the famous Wieliczka Salt mines, about an hour out of the city. Having passed on the mines at Turda in Romania (who fancies going underground at a place called 'excrement'?) we were keen to lick the walls of this subterranean Unesco wonder. It all started very auspiciously when our guide, at the bottom of the 380-odd steps, whipped off her white miner's helmet, letting her blonde hair fall over her shoulders. Taking a deep breath she welcomed us with " Hello, my name is Ivana and it is my pleassure to be your guide..." Helen could have sworn she purred when she said it.
The mines are amazing. Dark grey salt, hacked and smoothed out into hundreds of egg-shaped rooms decorated with sculptures of Polish heroes (including, of course, Pope John Paul II who visited as a kid), scenes from the bible and the obligatory dwarves. The highlight was probably the immense underground church where three miners had carved 3-d wall paintings of bible-scenes, chiselled a tile-effect flooring and decorated the whole with salt-crystal chandeliers. We were so taken aback, we even forgot to stick our tongues out and ingest a portion of our 10 kg visitors' allowance.
The other visit, that everyone should make even though it is not an easy one, is to Aushwitz (or, in the Polish, Oswiecim). After the disastrous Terror House exhibition in Budapest, there was the concern that it would have been turned into a hideous theme park, but we were assured that the camps had been sensitively preserved and that the museum caught the right...the right what? That it tells you what you need to know.
And it does. From the train station, it is easy to get completely lost and convince yourself you are miles out of your way. Just a few sorry-looking crumbling soviet-style apartment blocks, served by one-storey drab concrete shops lining a road dripping with recent rain. We fell in behind an American family who seemed to know the way and eventually crossed over a miserable-looking grassy patch that might have stood for a football pitch, and headed for the coach park that signalled the entrance.
The camp has been preserved much as it was - row upon muddy row of brick barracks. Many of the barracks hold sparing exhibitions, allowing time for reflection. The glass case that struck us both the most looked from afar like a mound of hair. Closer to, it looked like a heap of thin, rusting, twisted metal. Closer still, we saw it for what it was - a mass of glasses, lense-less and hideous. So many, so many.
"Warsaw is a dump" said one of our dorm companions (or something to that effect). And most people seemed to agree with him. So it wasn't with any great sense of excitement that we hit the town in an attempt to fill the several hours' wait for the night bus to Lithuania.
As a by the by - how did we find ourselves booked onto the night bus to Vilnius when what we had always planned was to take the night train through Belarus? Suffice to say that two things were set against us - A.) We were applying - in Poland - for a transit visa through Belarus slap bang in the middle of a political storm between the two countries and B.) The Belarussian embassy in Warsaw has to be the most unfriendly in the World (they shouted at Eoghan and put the phone down on Helen). And that's a VERY long story cut short!!
So...Warsaw it was. Funnily enough, we stumbled upon a rather beautiful street leading up to a very pretty old town (there we go again) with winding streets (ahhh, heard that one before) and more antique shops than you can shake a stick at. There was even a pop concert being arranged in the square as we trundled round, munching on our falafel kebabs. MMMmm. We congratulated the woman at the Warsaw tourist office who smiled in gratitude and relief "thank you, most people say Warsaw is ugly".
Who cares if (as we later found out) the entire thing is a modern replica of the WWII bombed-out old city? It is very lovely and did us 'quite nicely thank you' until the bus of extreme cold, noise, discomfort and fear (Eoghan was awake for the entire nail-biting journey, eyes peeled, watching for the moment the bus driver swerved us into an oncoming truck!) took us away from Poland and on to pastures new.
