POLAND!!!!

The third country on our trip was Poland. We decided to stay one night in Warsaw and then take the train to Krakow. Matt had been practicing some popular Polish phrases and we were armed with our Polish/English dictionary so we were very excited to start our Polish adventure.

When we got in, we took the bus downtown to grab dinner and check out the main sights in Warsaw.

University of Warsaw Entrance

Rynek Starego Miasta "Old Town Market Square" The whole Old Town Market Square was bombed during World War II. After the war, everything was rebuilt to look as it had before with tall, ornate, and colorful houses. There are restaurants, churches, museums, and shops now inside a lot of the buildings Pierogie Restaurant!! Pink Church Brick Church On our walk back to catch the bus we found ourselves in the middle of a protest in front of the President's Palace. From what we could make out on the signs it was a war protest. We actually ran into protests in 3 of the 4 main cities that we stayed in: London, Warsaw, and Rome. In Dublin we missed a protest which started after we left the city for a tour. This was the only war protest, the others were protesting increases in university fees. Polish War Protest Palac Namiestnikowski (President's Palace) Lit up like the Polish flag The next morning was November 11, Polish Independence Day. So when we got back to our hotel we asked the guy at the front desk what sort of celebrations would be going on the next day. He said, "You know how in America on 4th of July everyone gets together and celebrates with barbecues and fireworks?' "Yeah!" we excitedly replied. "Well we don't do that..." Um... awkward. We told him thanks for the info and went up to our room. Our train to Krakow left first thing in the morning but after getting to the station we realized that our tickets didn't have gate or train numbers on them. We found the info screen and looked for the 7:30 train to Krakow. What we found was a 7:15 train and an 8:00 train, no 7:30. Matt couldn't find anyone who spoke English so he decided we would just jump on the 7:15 train. So after searching for help, struggling down the stairs with our two 75lb. suitcases to the platform of a train we weren't supposed to be on and waiting with a huge group of people who knew where they were going, I did the most helpful thing I could think of... I started to cry. When the train showed up we got on and it left, no one checked out ticket! I instantly cheered up. It was a beautiful ride through the countryside and we were so happy to have made it out of the train station without any hassle. An hour and a half later a train employee pops up and asks for our tickets. We handed them over and he told us we were on the wrong train. Then he said something into his walkie-talkie in Polish. The train started to slow down, another employee showed up and we noticed we were in the middle of nowhere. This is it, we thought, they are kicking us off the train. Luckily we were wrong and all they wanted us to do was pay the difference between the wrong tickets we bought and the tickets we should have purchased. After that we were able to sit back and enjoy the rest of our ride in to Krakow. Hotel Matejko We had the top balcony! View from our balcony When we looked out of our balcony we saw that there was a parade being set up to celebrate Polish Independence Day. It commemorates the anniversary of Poland regaining independence in 1918 after 123 years of partition by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

We went downstairs and got ourselves a good spot for the parade

Here are a couple quick videos of the parade

Raising the Polish flag

We decided to grab a late lunch after the parade ended. After taking our order, the waitress brought over a basket of bread and some kind of spread neither of us recognized. Rather than ask what it was we just dove right in. It was delicious! After we killed half the bread basket, Matt asked in his best Polish what the spread was.

"A traditional Polish spread called Smalec," she replied

"What's in it?" he asked

"It's animal fat!"

Once we were done we decided to walk off the half a cup of animal fat we devoured and check out more of the area surrounding our hotel.

Grunwald Monument

originally built in 1910, reconstructed from 1972-1976

Lisowski!!

The next day was our trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was a somber, eye-opening experience and we decided only to take one picture.

Arbeit Macht Frei

"Work Makes Free"

We walked down the street from our hotel the next day to explore the Old Quarter, which is considered the heart of life in Krakow.

Rynek Glowny

The largest town square in Europe

There are tons of shops and restaurants in the Rynek Glowny. The coolest shop that we found made and infused their own vodka. The shop carries around 30 different flavors a day.

And they let you taste as many as you want!

Couple selling handmade bird whistles

We walked through the Cloth Hall, a big covered market place that runs right down the center of Rynek Glowny. When we got to the end we saw a woman reading Tarot cards to tourists. We stopped and watched for a minute then Matt decided to take a picture.

Bad idea...

She jumped up and ran at us yelling in Polish. We're still not sure if she put some sort of crazy Polish gypsy curse on us.

On a lighter note Poland has "probably the best" advertising we've ever seen...

Before we got to Poland, we did a lot of research on Polish restaurants. One we were particularly excited to visit was "U Babci Maliny." There is no sign on the street, you have to walk through a university building and find the stairway in the courtyard that leads down to the basement restaurant.

We found it!

Right through the door there is a nice little old lady who looks up from her needlepoint only to point customers in the direction of the restaurant.

And to take a picture

The restaurant is set up to look like the inside of an old lady's house.

It was delicious

Matt is hoping to take a summer class here

St. Mary's Basilica

We found a really cool under ground bar to stop in and have a drink

So glad we didn't have to walk down these after a couple of beers

Enjoying a Zywiec underground

We got hungry and decided to grab some street food above ground

Matt got a Zapiekanki, a pizza made of bread, mushrooms, cheese, and ketchup

Yum!!

Since I don't like mushrooms, I decided to try the hot dog. It had a ton of lettuce, onions, and tomatoes on it.

There was also a creepy second hot dog hidden under the main hot dog

We had our 3 Faces of Krakow tour the next morning. The first stop was Nowa Huta, "New Steel District," the Communist District.

The area was built without a Catholic church and in 1960 Nowa Huta inhabitants started applying for building permits for a church but the communist government would not supply them with building materials. With support from Bishop Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, people started gathering stones from all over Poland and used them to construct Arka Pana (the Lord's Arc) Church.

JP II Statue

Arca Pana

The second face of Krakow was the Jewish district of Kazimierz.

We visited Remuh Synagogue and Cemetery. One thing neither of us knew was when a man visits a synagogue his hair must be covered. There was a tour ahead of us and all of the visitor yarmoulkes had been handed out, so Matt was the lucky one who got to wear the janitor's old, dusty, red baseball cap that we are pretty sure was pulled out of his basement. Needless to say he wouldn't let me take a picture of him.

We took a quick walk through the synagogue which was built in 1553 and originally known as the "new synagogue." The cemetery was beautiful and we learned about the Jewish tradition of leaving small stones and rolled notes on the tombstones.

This cemetery was destroyed by the Nazis during the German occupation of Poland. Most of the tombstones were ripped from the ground and laid flat to use as paving stones. After the war, all of the stones that were mostly intact were lined back up but no one really knows if any are over the correct graves. The broken pieces were gathered and turned into a wailing wall on the front of the property where many visitors leave rolled notes in its cracks.

Remuh Cemetery Wailing Wall

The third face of Krakow was the Rynek Glowny town square.

Nun watching the St. Mary's trumpeter

Every hour at St. Mary's a trumpeter plays the Hejnal Mariacki out of each of the four windows in the highest tower. It is played live 24 hours a day 365 days a year. It stops abruptly before the end of the song to commemorate the bugler who was shot in the throat while playing the Hejnal as a warning of a Mongol invaision of Poland in 1241.

Here is a sideways video of the trumpeter

The church was built in the early 13th century and was one of the most beautiful and ornate churches we saw on our entire trip.

The largest gothic alterpiece in the world and a national treasure of Poland

This piece has a fascinating history, read about it here

The ceiling

Close-up of the Polish eagle on the ceiling

After St. Mary's, we wandered around the square one last time. We checked out a bookstore and happened upon Poland's other national treasure.

Polish Twilight!!

Poland, of course, was Matt's favorite stop on our honeymoon. I loved it also; it was so much more than I was expecting. The people were great and the food was amazing. Matt is really hoping to go back and perfect his Polish at the Polish School for Foreigners so we can buy the correct train tickets for a visit to the villages where his great-grandparents lived.