Kracow through the looking glass
Well, we've just spent a lovely few days in Kracow, for which Richard very kindly flew over from London to join us, and helped us investigate some of the famed nightlife. In fact, his investigations of the nightlife of Friday night were so successful he was unable to investigate too much additional nightlife until Sunday night (although we did find a cosy little cigar lounge which kept us entertained for a while on Saturday evening).
After a small amount of snow on Friday, Saturday warmed up a bit which turned things a bit slushy and wet. We sloshed to the university which was where Copernicus (hero of physicists) studied, and some time later, the future Pope John Paul II.
On Sunday to a nearby salt mine which has been mined since the 12th century and is now full of salt carvings, including a bas relief of da Vinci's Last Supper in a huge underground cathedral. Our guide seemed to be sick of her own jokes.
On Sunday evening we entered a bar called Alchemy in the old jewish quarter. On one wall was a wardrobe, and at the back of the wardrobe, a looking-glass. We stepped through the looking glass into a whole different room full of wonderous things. Well, actually just more places to sit. After a few rounds, and some good conversation with a couple of locals, we came back through the wardrobe to find the whole town covered in a blanket of whiteness - snow on the cars, on the trees, on the roads and on the tram lines.
We walked home through the lovely park that surrounds the old town - that, and the restrictions on cars entering the old centre makes it a very nice place to walk around. And it is full of pedestirans, funnily enough.
Richard and I met the next morning for a trip out to Auschwitz, a couple of hours away. I was a bit apprehensive about how it would be, and it certainly does stick in your mind. Added to the stories of ghettos we'd heard in the Budapest synagog we'd visited, it almost makes it harder to understand how something like that could have happened.
And so, to Warsaw, where we are now. This place was completely levelled after the local resistance attempted an uprising in 1944, and the impressive rebuilding of the old town has earned it World Heritage status.
Now we're about to hop on a bus to Vilnius in Lithuania where it will apparently be minus 6 degrees tomorrow night.
After a small amount of snow on Friday, Saturday warmed up a bit which turned things a bit slushy and wet. We sloshed to the university which was where Copernicus (hero of physicists) studied, and some time later, the future Pope John Paul II.
On Sunday to a nearby salt mine which has been mined since the 12th century and is now full of salt carvings, including a bas relief of da Vinci's Last Supper in a huge underground cathedral. Our guide seemed to be sick of her own jokes.
On Sunday evening we entered a bar called Alchemy in the old jewish quarter. On one wall was a wardrobe, and at the back of the wardrobe, a looking-glass. We stepped through the looking glass into a whole different room full of wonderous things. Well, actually just more places to sit. After a few rounds, and some good conversation with a couple of locals, we came back through the wardrobe to find the whole town covered in a blanket of whiteness - snow on the cars, on the trees, on the roads and on the tram lines.
We walked home through the lovely park that surrounds the old town - that, and the restrictions on cars entering the old centre makes it a very nice place to walk around. And it is full of pedestirans, funnily enough.
Richard and I met the next morning for a trip out to Auschwitz, a couple of hours away. I was a bit apprehensive about how it would be, and it certainly does stick in your mind. Added to the stories of ghettos we'd heard in the Budapest synagog we'd visited, it almost makes it harder to understand how something like that could have happened.
And so, to Warsaw, where we are now. This place was completely levelled after the local resistance attempted an uprising in 1944, and the impressive rebuilding of the old town has earned it World Heritage status.
Now we're about to hop on a bus to Vilnius in Lithuania where it will apparently be minus 6 degrees tomorrow night.
posted by Wednesdays at 12:57 PM
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