Category: Poland

We are not actually in Szczecin nor in Poland, but in a small German village just over the border called Mescherin. It is about 10 kilometers outside of Szczecin but we really wanted to use Szczecin in the blog. Nothing gives a better feel for the Polish language than a place name whose first four letters are SZCZ. By the way Szczecin is a major port. The picture above is Poland taken from our campground in Germany.

We are unfortunately at the stage in the trip where our goals are traveling to Amsterdam and not seeing cool places. Today we programmed over 400 kilometers of travel. The first 200 kilometers were on 2 lane roads paralleling the construction of a new freeway, so a lot of the time we were in construction zones. Luckily we got to use the new freeway section that has recently been completed for most of the last 200 kilometers and it was quite nice.

We arrived at the campground and the manager did not speak any English, but after some effort we got everything sorted. We also forgot we are in Germany, surprisingly Germany is the least credit card friendly country in Europe. After some digging around we came up with enough Euros to cover tonight, but one of our first stops will be an ATM tomorrow.

After we got settled in we waived to our neighbors and they waived back and shouted over “Are you Americans?” Stephanie and Perry are from Colorado and have been driving a rental RV around Europe for the last 6 weeks. This is their first experience in Europe and are loving it. We spent a couple of hours exchanging stories. As much as it is nice to meet people from all over Europe while we are traveling, it is always nice to run into Americans as the conversation is different because we are all strangers in a strange land. The stories always go to ways we embarrassed ourselves by not quite getting how things work here, and things that we see that we wish we had in the US, as well of course to things that we do better at home. We really enjoyed their company.

Sopot is a suburb of Gdansk that is refereed to in travel guides as the St. Tropez of Poland. So we decided to check it out today. It was a quick trip on the tram to the train station, and then a very short train ride to Sopot. We arrived to a very nice main street that led right down to the ocean.

Sopot is a very nice beach town with the typical array of souvenir shops, restaurants and ice cream stalls. The waterfront is very clean, and the beach is wide and the sand is inviting. As a weekend destination it would be really fun.

It is also the home of what is reported to be the longest pier in Europe. We walked up to the pier hoping to take a stroll out only to find that it required a ticket to get on the pier. After a short debate we decided to pony up the money as we are unlikely to return to Sopot.

It seems like it is pretty new, and it is quite long. We walked out to the end of it to see what the longest pier in Europe felt like. At the end of the pier was the same pirate ship that we kept running into in Gdansk, so now we know where they went on their two hour ride.

The only down side we saw to Sopot was the water itself. Away from shore it looked pretty clear, but right up against the beach there were seaweed beds that made the water look dark and not too appealing. So our rating is beach and sand outstanding and on par with St. Tropez, water not up to the crystal clear green and warmth of the Mediterranean.

We finished our visit with a lunch at KFC. KFC is by far the dominant fast food place in Poland. They are everywhere, and about every other rest area on the freeway has a KFC in it. Ton thought it was interesting, because while chicken is a big part of Polish food the traditional dishes were all baked or grilled. We saw no Polish fried chicken. The KFC was different than the US and good, but in the future we are going to stick with the Milk Bars for our Polish lunches.

The day started with a misfire. We wanted to visit the Solidarity Museum near the shipyard, but thought we would begin at St. Nicholas Church which is the only church in Gdansk that the Soviets did not burn when they captured the city in 1945. Google Maps is usually pretty good so when I put St. Nicholas church into the program and told it we wanted to use transit all looked good. It told us to get off at the Opera House exit, and then proceed on foot for 500 meters. When we got there we found an old abandoned church in an overgrown park. There must be two St. Nicholas Churches. So we put in the museum, doubled back to the tram line and went back the way we came to the center of the city.

We have been very impressed with the museums in Poland and the Solidarity Museum did not let us down. It is a rust colored building made of steel panels that are supposed to represent the raw steel used to make ships. It sits on the edge of the still active Gdansk ship yards, surrounded by huge cranes.

The museum does a great job of showing the history of worker led dissent throughout the history of the Warsaw Pact. It gives background on the causes of different rebellions in not only Poland but Czechia, Hungary, and East Germany.

The museum excels at giving you the story of the workers movement in Poland beginning with a strike at the Gdansk Shipyard in 1970 over price increases on basic necessities. This strike was violently put down by the police and the army with over 40 workers killed.

While the strike resulted in the workers returning to work, it did not lesson the discontent in the ship yard. Also, it was not just the workers at Gdansk who were unhappy, but most factory workers in Poland. One of the biggest sources of discontent was that the factories were just poorly run and terribly mismanaged. While the shipyard in Gdansk was completing almost one ship every 5 days it was doing it despite the management not because of it.

The strike in 1980 began as many work stoppages do over the firing of a popular worker. Anna Walentynowicz was a crane worker who had worked at the plant for nearly 30 years and popular with her fellow workers. She was also a pain to the management of the shipyard who took revenge by firing her a couple of months before her retirement depriving her of her pension.

The shipyard workers took over the shipyard and made demands to be allowed to form a workers union independent of the communist party. This strike soon spread through out Poland and quickly most industrial sites and mines were also occupied by their workers.

These workers were not intellectuals or theorists, they were blue collar workers who were primarily interested in practical things like improving working conditions, and the economic status of their families. Their initial demands were not to be part of the government, just to be allowed to form a union independent of the government. Lech Walesa an electrician from the Gdansk shipyard became the leader of this group and led the negotiations between the newly formed Solidarity and the ironically named Polish Workers Party (the official name of the Communist Party of Poland). In early 1981 the government recognized Solidarity and allowed it to begin to represent the workers in industry throughout Poland.

In 1982 the Communists decided that Solidarity was too much of a threat and cracked down, arresting many of the leaders and forcing the rest including Lech Walesa into hiding. But, by 1986 the economy in Poland was in shambles and to try to recover the government again recognized Solidarity. This time Solidarity realized that they could not function just as a workers union, but needed to become involved in politics. They negotiated with the Communists to be allowed to run in the next election. The communists allowed a narrow majority of the lower house to be elected freely, and the entire senate. They felt that they could control the outcome. But despite stacking the deck and limiting Solidarity’s access to television and radio they lost all but 1 of the freely elected seats, losing control of parliament to Solidarity. The timing was good as the Soviet Union was also undergoing great economic strain and could not do what they would normally do; which was send in the tanks. As a result of this Poland withdrew from the Warsaw Pact and most of the economic alliances with the Soviet Union. Over the next few years other countries followed Poland’s lead until the eventual fall of the iron curtain.

The story is wonderfully told. It inspired me to accidentally write a short college report on the Solidarity movement in Poland. In addition to seeing new sites and enjoying cool food and drinks, I sometimes learn new things.

Old habits are hard to break. Our daily routine is pretty set. One of us is up around 7 am, if it is cold we stay under the blankets until about 7:30, then I get up and make coffee, and warm a cup of milk for Ton. After I am done with that I go for a short walk or I empty the cassette for our toilet and fill the water, to give Ton some privacy to get ready for the day. After she is ready she prepares breakfast. If we are moving on I take the dishes to wash while Ton starts to organize the interior of François for travel. When I get back with the dishes she puts them away while I unhook the electrical cable and put it away. If we are on a normal travel day we are usually on the road by 9:30. If we are in a hurry because we have a long drive we will dispense with breakfast and have sandwiches, that gets us on the road before 9.

I had gotten up early to watch the Timbers play Kansas City at 4:30 in the morning, fortunately they won. The game was over about 6:30 so I climbed back into bed for a bit, but at 7:30 I was up making coffee. We kept telling ourselves we weren’t in a hurry, because it was only about a 45 minute drive to our new campground and technically you are not supposed to arrive before noon. But despite everything our routine could not be stopped and we were on the road at 9:30. We arrived at the campground about 10:30, but the manager just sent us off to find a place.

We got an early start into Gdansk, and were in the old town before noon. Gdansk had gotten great reviews from everyone we knew who had visited it, but we were still surprised about how nice it was.

Most old towns in European cities are centered on a central square, usually called the market square. The pattern is pretty much the same, a town hall, a market building, some impressive homes that used to belong to the wealthy merchants, and in most of Europe (but not Poland)the most important church.

Gdansk does not follow this pattern, there is no central square, but a wide long street called the Long Market. The street is about a mile long and has all of the same buildings (again except the church), just stretched out over this stretch of road. We enjoyed the change of pace. The town was very busy as it was a glorious Sunday to be out, and a lot of the locals were enjoying their town with the tourists.

It was a great day to people watch and take photos and we enjoyed joining in with the promenade. Unlike in the summer when the foreign tourists arrive today the crowd was mostly Polish. After going up and down the Long Market we headed over to the main church one block away.

St. Mary’s Church is said to be the largest brick church in the world. However, a few years ago we visited the Cathedral in Albi France where we were told it was the largest brick church in the world. We aren’t sure which is larger but we can vouch to the fact that they are both immense brick buildings. Like a lot of the churches in these parts, St. Mary’s has alternated between being a Catholic Church and a Lutheran Church. Today it is Catholic, and when we stuck our head in there was a Mass underway so no pictures of the interior.

Gdansk is a port city and today is a large commercial port and ship building center. The city is built around the Vistula River, and a tributary of the Vistula called the Martwa Wista. The center of the city has several islands that are also full of historical buildings. It gives it an Amsterdam like feeling to me, but instead of canals it is branches of the river.

Today was intended to be a check the city day without a set agenda. It turned into a real fun day of wandering, people watching, and trying local delicacies. Over the course of the day we had another Milk Bar lunch, stopped in a nice brewery, and visited a coffee shop in the converted home of a rich guy from the 18th century.

On the way back to the campground we decided to extend our visit by a day as Gdansk has a lot more to offer. We have not begun to explore the history of the city including it’s role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Our friends recently visited Gdansk and highly recommended that we see Malbork castle so we were off bright and early to visit. The castle was a short drive away, and we were up early expecting some kind of large police event at 8 am which is why we had to suddenly move sights last night. As we were finished packing up there were about 8 guys in t-shirts and shorts relaxing under a tent smoking and joking as we used to say in the Marines. We decided the police event was most likely a family picnic. As we had plenty of time we punched Lidl into Greta Garmin before we left and she told us there was one less than 2 kilometers away. After an extended shop we are well stocked with food.

The drive over was quick and easy and we were one of the slowest cars on the road which I enjoy, it allows me to sip my coffee while the other cars slip around us. The only weird thing is Greta announced there would be tolls, and when we pulled onto the freeway there were nice toll booths dispensing tickets. When we exited the freeway 100 kilometers or so later I pulled into a toll booth and handed the ticket and my credit card over to the attendant and she immediately handed the credit card back to me and raised the barrier. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth we sped on out of there.

The skies were looking kind of threatening so we headed straight over to the castle. The entrance fee comes with an audio guide and it was one of the best audioguides we have ever seen. It knew where you were on the castle grounds and automatically told you about the room you were in without any button pushing. It also did a good job telling you which doors to use to stay on the path which in a building of this size was critical.

Malbork castle is either the biggest castle in the world, or Europe, depending on the source and how they measure things. It is immense, and is definitely the biggest brick castle in the world. Construction began in the 1300’s by the Teutonic Knights after they were thrown out of Jerusalem by the Turks, who maintained it for about 150 years. It then came into the hands of the Polish kings who had it until Poland was partitioned in the late 1700’s, where it became part of Prussia.

It is an immense brick building that was expanded several times under its different landlords. The audio guide says it was never captured, but it then mentions that in one siege the defenders after running out of food, sold it to the attackers. I’m not a lawyer but that sounds like a surrender to me. The castle was severely damaged at the end of WWII and Malbork became Polish again. It has been rebuilt to its current state over the last 60 years.

We wound thru brick courtyards, across moats, and up and down multiple flights of stairs over 3 and 1/2 hours. It was a lot of walking but the quality of the audio guide kept our interest, and they even allowed for a break in the middle of the tour recognizing the amount of work it took to cover the huge castle.

At the end of the tour we headed back to François for a well deserved dinner. The thunderstorms that we were worried about never came so we spent the evening relaxing and listening to the trains passing by on the back of the campground.

Torun is unique in Poland in that it was mostly untouched in WWII. The buildings you see in the town center are the original buildings and not reconstructed like in most of Poland.

Today the most striking thing about the visitors to the city were that they were almost all Polish school children. The city was teeming with groups of students being led thru the city by their teachers. All ages were represented from early elementary school to high school. They brought a fun energy to the city.

Ton always has a list of places to visit when we go to a city and my job using google maps is to try to find them. One of the things on the list was a small sculpture of a dog that is famous locally. We looked for it all day and thought we had missed it, until we got lucky and just as we were walking up a group of school children who had surrounded the sculpture moved away from it. We had passed it several times, but every other time it was engulfed by a class hearing the story of the cute dog.

On our hunt for the dog we were doing some window shopping and came across a bakery with very interesting pastries and a big wood fired oven. The pastries looked vaguely familiar, but not particularly Polish. While we were discussing where we had seen these pastries before the owner waved us in. It turns out they are Georgian pastries. We figured that we had seen something like this in Bulgaria. The owner was quite nice and took time to explain the different pastries to us, and showed us the oven. We feel bad as we intended to go back, but the weather got in the way and we didn’t.

Our next stop was St. Mary’s Church. It is an old Gothic Church just off of the main square. One difference in Poland compared to much of Europe is that the churches of the town are normally not on the main square, but a block or so away. So a lot of time the churches are at least partially incorporated into neighboring buildings and are not as monumental as churches that occupy their own space.

We have seen a lot of churches over the years we have been traveling here. We pop into them and take a look around. The interiors are always beautiful, but lately few have been memorable. The interior of St. Mary’s was memorable. The stain glass was beautiful and different than most churches. But what made it most interesting is the wall art which is from the 1300’s and well maintained but not heavily restored. The same was true of the floors which looked like they are from the original church. We were fascinated to see a church that had not been thru a 20th century restoration. It somehow felt more authentic.

We had lunch in a Milk Bar which is our favorite find in Poland. Again a good hearty lunch like mom would make it if she was Polish. We have learned and instead of both of us ordering an entree. We ordered one entree, and one huge bowl of ham and potato soup that was more than enough for the two of us.

As we were looking for some more statues we came across a Cat Cafe and figured what the heck. So we went in for coffee and a desert. There were 5 cats on duty, but being cats they were all taking naps in the windows where the sun was. Eventually a couple of the cats woke up and made a pass thru the restaurant but decided that no one deserved their attention and went back up to the windows. Our coffee and desert arrived on a robot which was pretty cool and it did meow at us when it arrived. The desert and coffee cost as much as our lunch, but it wasn’t delivered by robot or have cats involved.

Torun has a leaning tower so we had to go check it out. It is part of the fortifications in the city walls. It is leaning quite a bit. In Torun you are supposed to place your feet agains the base of the wall and then conform your body to the wall. If you can hold that position for 5 seconds it means you have a clear conscience. After a couple of attempts I managed to do it, but what it really takes is good core strength which I don’t have anymore.

By now it was about 5 pm so we decided to head back across the mile long bridge to our campground. It turns out it was a good thing we left when we did. About 15 minutes after we got back a large thunderstorm complete with hail rolled thru. We hunkered down and rode it out happy that we made it back just in time.

About 30 minutes after the storm ended there was a knock on our door. Someone from the campground informed us that we had to move to another part of the campground as the police were going to be using the part we were staying in tomorrow starting at 8. We were the last one she informed so all of our neighbors had already staked out their new spots. Someone from the police was putting police tape around the perimeter where we were parked. We packed hastily and moved. Just as we settled down another large thunderstorm rolled in so Ton whipped up some noodles for the night.

It rained hard all night last night. When we woke up we had a discussion about whether we should move on, or just hunker down for the day in Poznan. About 10 am the rain let up and several other RV’s pulled out so we decided to head on.

Our destination for today is Torun. It is a university city famous as the birthplace of Nicolas Copernicus. The drive over was smooth even though the rain continued most of the way. We arrived about noon and set up François in a half full campground. When I picked the campground on Park4night, I told Ton it was just across the river from the old town. What I didn’t realize was the bridge across the river is over a mile long, so we are not as close as we would like.

We were kicking around heading over to the town for a reconnaissance when it began to rain hard again. So instead we just settled down and took advantage of the good wifi to stream some movies for the rest of the afternoon.

I had been looking forward to Poznan for some reason. But it turns out my history was wrong. I thought Poznan had survived the war intact, but it turns out it had sustained damage, just not catastrophic damage like other Polish towns.

Poznan is known as a market city and is famous for its universities. The market square was very nice. What was interesting for us was that in the center of the market square was another block of buildings built in Baroque style. The buildings are very well done and decorated with different motifs. The block in the center of the square was built to replace wooden stalls that sold various goods in the 1600’s.

Poznan is famous for a unique type of croissant called a St. Martin croissant. It is not light and flaky like a French croissant. We decided we wanted to try one. Also, every noon at the town hall clock Poznan has a famous display where two goats (the symbol of Poznan) come out and butt heads twelve times. So we decided to kill two birds with one stone.

There was a coffee shop that served St. Martin’s croissants and was directly in front of the town clock. We ordered a croissant and a beer (don’t judge us we are on vacation). The croissant was interesting, we couldn’t agree on what it reminded us of, I thought a scone and Ton thought a less sweet cinnamon roll.

As we were eating our croissant a large crowd was gathering in front of the town hall. About 10 minutes before noon, a guy came out of the building and made a long announcement in Polish. The people who understood Polish started to drift away. Those of us who didn’t hung on hopefully until noon, but as we suspected the announcement was that the goats were not going to appear today.

A little disappointed (with both the croissant and lack of goats) we headed off to our next destination. As we were leaving Ton started to sing to the tune of a French song she had learned in school called Le Coq est mort (the rooster is dead), Le Goat est mort. I told her they weren’t dead just on vacation, and she said no they are dead to her.

We have fallen in love with Pirogi’s which is a dumpling. Ton had read about a Pirogi restaurant that was supposed to be fantastic called Na Winklu. We weren’t sure we would get in as it is a hole in the wall with just a few tables. We were lucky and got the last table. We have had boiled Pirogi’s which are very similar to Chinese dumplings in several places in Poland. Na Winklu also had baked Pirogi’s which we have never had before. We ordered a plate of each. They were both fantastic, the boiled ones reminded Ton of Thai dumplings, her only regret was that we didn’t have the Thai sauce for the dumplings. The baked ones were like another Thai dish called Curry Puffs and were also very good.

When we came out after lunch we saw dark skies building up, so we decided to head back to the campground a little early. We timed it well as it started to rain just as we arrived and continued for the rest of the day.

The day was off to a slow start because we ended up having a charming conversation with our host last night. We are staying on a small farm complete with chickens, ducks, and large fields of wheat. The campground comes with two cute dogs who decided we were worth hanging out with, and a cat who deemed us unworthy.

When we woke up in the morning we found a cartoon of eggs on one of the chairs outside François for us. We had some for breakfast and they were delicious. Last night I had asked if I could borrow a hose to try to clean some of the dead bugs that were coating the front of François. Instead at sunset the husband showed up with a hose a bucket of soapy water and a long handled scrub brush, and proceeded to scrub down the front of François. What great hosts.

In the morning we went to pay, and ended up chatting for 45 minutes about life in Poland, hosting guests in a campground, and living life for joy, not profit. She confessed that her dream would be to immigrate to the US with her son, and husband. Like most Poles we have talked to she has family in the US, in this case an uncle in Boston who she would like to visit one day. She was charming and we also met her mother who was out to feed the chickens. It was a great start to our day.

Eventually we were on the road to Poznan. We haven’t been to a grocery for a while and as we were approaching Poznan we saw a LIDL and our afternoon was complete. We nearly filled a basket with necessities and then were on our way to the campground. By the time we arrived it was too late to do a reconnaissance of Poznan, so we gave François a scrubbing on the inside and enjoyed a nice pasta dinner.

The cover photo is of a narrow gauge railroad that runs in front of the campground. One of the engines is a steam engine, but the one I got a picture of appears to be a diesel engine, but a cute one.

Today was about driving and getting to western Poland to continue our travels. It was a pretty quiet drive, but we quickly missed our quiet roads in the Baltic States. Poland has some of the densest truck traffic we have seen in Europe, I think more dense than even Germany. We don’t know where they are all going , but there are a lot of them.

We are the only customers at a small family owned campground tonight. We have met the whole family. The husband has a great collection of communist era vehicles that he spent about 2 hours showing me. The wife very proudly showed us a video of their sons preschool getting an English lesson today, he is 18 months old!

He had two copies of a van I had never heard of called the ILSA. It was produced in Poland from 1952 to 1994. He told me the original engine and transmission was based on Ford trucks that the US had given the Soviet Union as Lend Lease in WWII.

He bought this one from the Krakow transit authority in 2015 where it had been used as a night bus. The production of the van continued for nearly seven years after the fall of communism. It has a feature I have never seen in any vehicle. The top of the engine is accessible from the interior of the vehicle. You remove a cover in the center of the dash and the engine is right there. He joked that it was so the guy in the passenger seat could work on the engine while they were driving!

These are the kind of encounters that make these trips so much fun. The family was so welcoming and we spent two hours looking at cars communicating mainly thru Google translate, and it was fabulous.

We had a 250 kilometer drive today as we are moving north towards Lithuania. It was a little too far to make in one day, so we selected Elk as our stopover for the night. Looking at Elk on the map I envisioned a medium sized lake side community of about 10,000 people.

After a quick and smooth exit from Warsaw including a stop to give François a much needed wash we made great time on a brand new freeway heading north to Lithuania. The heavy truck traffic that has been ever present in Poland petered out a little north of Warsaw and it was pretty much smooth sailing. When we exited for Elk we were surprised to find ourselves in a busy commercial area. It turns out Elk is a good sized town of over 70,000 people. But the good news was that because of that they had a large and well stocked Lidl which we spent some time in.

Our last surprise was when we pulled into the municipal campground it looked full. But we luckily got the last spot in the place. After settling in we took a walk along the lake front which is one of the main draws of Elk. They had a well developed waterfront and there was a very nice municipal park. The highlight was a line of wood carved statues of every king of Poland in history. We enjoyed our brief Polish history lesson as we ambled along the waterfront.

Yesterday we were a little underwhelmed by Warsaw, possibly because Ton was under the weather and without her list of places to see I am a little lost. We cut our losses and headed back early. As I said yesterday, Ton rested for the evening, and this morning she felt a lot better so we headed back into town.

We got off the tram at Charles de Gaulle roundabout and the first thing we came across is a giant artificial palm tree. It was erected in 2002 to honor the Jewish population of Warsaw. One of the streets that feeds into the roundabout is Jerusalem street which led to the old Jewish Quarter. The artist had visited Jerusalem and was impressed with the number of palm trees in the city. This inspired her to erect the artificial tree as a temporary street art exhibit. It split the community with many people liking it and many hating it. But the people who liked it won the rest of the city over by showing up one January weekend for a beach party in the center of the roundabout complete with bathing suits and beer.

We decided to stroll down Nowy Swiat (New World)street, which is the main street leading to the old town. At the beginning of the street is the building that used to be the communist party headquarters in Poland. After the fall of the communist government the Poles showed their disdain for communism and sense of humor by converting it to the first stock exchange in the new capitalist Poland. It is now an office building but it still hosts one of the major banks in Poland.

Our first stop was at the Church of the Holy Cross. It is a nice Catholic Church with a pretty interior. At one time the composer Chopin was the organist at the church. Chopin is another national icon of Poland. The main reason we visited the church is because Chopin’s heart is buried in the church.

Unlike yesterday we began to appreciate Warsaw as we strolled down the street. The University of Warsaw is located just off the street and the students were out in force giving a positive energy to the crowd on the street. There were a lot of elementary and middle school groups on their end of the year school trips that also brought a good energy. The sun came out as we walked and Ton felt a lot better than yesterday. So we enjoyed ourselves.

As we were leaving the market square we saw a sign for a tea shop which offered over 120 types of tea. It said it was located in the basement, and it looked interesting to me, (though I was hoping they also offered coffee). We headed in on the spur of the moment and it was a great experience.

We both ended up ordering teas (no coffee), and they were carefully prepared and meticulously served. We didn’t realize when we ordered them that we were ordering pots of tea, because the price made us think we were ordering cups of tea. We ended up sipping on our tea for about an hour as our pots seemed bottomless, but the tea was delicious.

The coat of arms of Warsaw features a mermaid armed with a shield and sword. Apparently, no one really knows why. So the locals have made up a legend for the mermaid. The mermaid is a fresh water mermaid (Polish has different words for fresh water and salt water mermaids.) She swam up the Vistula and when she got to the old town she liked the place. But she didn’t like the fishing nets so she began to create currents and waves in the water to free the fish. When the fishermen went to capture her she charmed them with a song so they left her alone. But a rich merchant decided to capture her and put her on display. The fishermen of the city rescued her, and since then she has taken up arms to protect Warsaw.

Yesterday we had walked by a restaurant that we wanted to try. Ton has been looking for cabbage rolls since we arrived in Poland, but apparently they are not as popular with Poles as they are with Polish-Americans as we have not found a lot of restaurants that feature them. This restaurant had them on the menu so we headed over for lunch today. I ordered the Schnitzel that was the daily special for about $12. But when Ton ordered her cabbage rolls they said they were out, so she settled for Goulash. My Schnitzel arrived and it was the biggest pork cutlet I had ever seen. Tons Goulash was also immense. In addition we had a big bowl of sauerkraut and two giant dill pickles given to us as appetizers. We didn’t come close to finishing our meals, and ended up skipping supper.

Sometimes first impressions are wrong. Today Warsaw won us over and we really enjoyed ourselves. We are both glad we gave it a second chance.

We slept in a bit as it would only take about 45 minutes by bus and tram to get into the old town. We were not sure what to expect as Warsaw is a largely rebuilt city. It had the misfortune in WWII to have been one of the cities that received the most damage during the war, it was essentially leveled. Warsaw was subject to three different attacks by the Germans. When they invaded in 1939 the Poles retreated into Warsaw and then held the Germans off for about 30 days, the Germans did considerable damage then. In 1943 the remaining Jews in the Ghetto in Warsaw rebelled and decided to fight rather than go off to the concentration camps to be liquidated. The Germans leveled the Ghetto. In 1944, the Polish Home Army (resistance), rebelled when the Red Army of the Soviet Union was only about 20 kilometers from liberating Warsaw. The Home Army was mostly Nationalist, and anti-communist, so the Red Army cynically stopped and allowed the Germans to destroy the Home Army and the Nationalists who made it up. This pretty much completed the destruction of Warsaw.

The center of the city is nice, but lacks the character of the older cities that did not undergo the destruction that Warsaw did. The Poles are very religious compared to other countries in Europe, but many of the churches that were central to the culture of Warsaw were not rebuilt by the communists until many years after the war if at all.

We stopped in a coffee shop that had an interesting take on the history of Warsaw. The street the coffee shop is on was the center of the cafe culture of Warsaw before WWII. After the war this particular shop was allowed to continue by the communists as a coffee shop, but as coffee was considered a luxury item, there were significant constraints on how it could be brewed. It was interesting reading as I waited in line for my excellent coffee today.

The main square has the recently rebuilt Royal Palace. The original palace was completely destroyed during the last battle of Warsaw in 1944. Initially the post-war communist government refused to allow it to be rebuilt, as obviously a Royal Palace was not in keeping with a communist government. The government finally bowed to popular opinion in the late 70’s and the reconstruction began mostly funded by Poles living outside the country, though local Poles did contribute.

We had a relatively short day as Ton is struggling with her allergies and the pollen is out. When we got back we saw our new neighbors who had British plates. Their dog was quite friendly and leaped inside François to check things out. They were quite embarrassed, but we thought it was funny. It turns out they are an Australian/Lithuanian couple who live in London, along with the Australians mom who is a Maori from New Zealand originally. They were quite charming and I had a nice talk with them while Ton fought off her allergies in François.

After spending the longest time we have ever spent in one campground it was time to move on. Tomak and his family at Kluczwoda Camping made us feel more than welcome while we were there and we highly recommend it as a place to base for a visit to Krakow.

After a little adventure getting out of Krakow because Greta again insisted on routing us on the unfinished S31 thru town. By the time we got Google involved we spent about 20 minutes wandering thru skinny suburban Krakow roads, until we found route 7 heading towards Warsaw. The rest of the trip was a breeze on a brand new freeway, and we arrived at Wok Camping on the edge of Warsaw, which is another nice campground.

Ton began to prepare our evening meal, and I decided to head down to the Vistula River as it was nearby to see what I would see. It was a short walk and I arrived at a very crowded beach on the river. It was about 80 degrees today, and a large crowd was enjoying the last day of the holiday week, and unfortunately the last good day for a while. We thought we were done with the heater, but the highs are going to drop back into the 50’s and the lows into the 30’s for a few days.

Having accomplished my goal of finding the river and the bus stop for tomorrows ride into the city center, I headed back to François. The rest of the afternoon consisted of a nap and a bit of movie watching.

Today we prepared to get on the road again. After 12 nights in the campground in Gacki we are going to hit the road again. The campground emptied out early today with many of the Polish families heading home after their week off. We returned the Corolla in the morning and took an Uber back to the campground. We spent the rest fo the day taking care of chores.

Ton decided my hair was getting too fuzzy. I thought she was going to clean up my neck, so I handed her the clippers without a guard on. The next thing I new I had the shortest haircut I have had since Officers Candidate School. Ton says she likes it.

We planned a short trip into the foothills of the Tatra Mountains for today. Our time in Krakow is coming to an end. This is our longest period in one place in our time traveling in Europe. Because of that we have been able to visit some smaller places that we definitely would have missed on our normal travels, and Lanckorona is one of those places.

Lanckorona is famous for having 4o traditional wooden homes from the 19th century. The home were all built in about 1869 after a large fire had wiped out the village. It is a small hilltop community overlooking a valley with views of the peaks of the Tatras Mountains.

It was a nice drive up into the mountains, and the main roads were flowing smoothly without the truck traffic that had been clogging them up all week. On the other hand the parking lots for the town were quite full, and we were lucky to get the next to the last one in the lot next to the town hall.

Today is Constitution Day in Poland and it is a bigger holiday than Labor Day so all of the stores are closed. Tomak from the campground explained that Labor Day is a holiday associated with communism so it is not as popular here as in other countries in Europe, he said that the only reason it is still a holiday is that Poland joined the EU on May 1. When we arrived the local high school band was just wrapping up a concert in the square to celebrate Constitution Day.

After a quick turn around the market square to check out the stalls offering stuff for Constitution Day we headed up to the church. Ton directed me to read the history board about the church while she headed to the front door. I heard the organ in the church playing so I assumed there was a Mass going on, so I wandered around the grounds of the church trying to find Ton. I finally stuck my head into the door of the church after a few minutes only to find Ton standing there by herself. She told me that the organist had been practicing when she went in so she got to enjoy the organ by herself.

While I was circling the church I had seen a steady stream of people going up the hill on a well developed walking path. After we left the church I told Ton we should go see where everyone is going. She looked skeptically at the rather steep trail and wanted to know what is up there. I took a look at google maps and it was an old castle. Ton reluctantly went along with my idea. After a short but very steep climb we came to the ruins of an old fort from the 1600’s that had been destroyed during an invasion of Poland by the Swedes in the late 1700’s.

The climb was a pretty good one and in the end the grounds to the castle/fort were closed while a new bridge and walkway were being constructed. So we took one picture to prove we had made the climb and then headed back down to town.

After our climb we decided to reward ourselves with a beer. We saw what looked like a small cafe and went in. What wasn’t obvious from the road is that the cafe had an immense garden eating area behind it. It was one of the nicest cafes we have seen on this trip. We got a table in the garden and I went back inside to get the beers, when I got to the head of the line I got a yogurt with a Mango Puree on the spur of the moment.

We took some time savoring our beers and yogurt while doing some really good people watching. When we were finishing the yogurt Ton suggested I go get us another desert which I did, this time a cheese cake. We continued with our people watching for a while, and then headed back to the Corolla for a pleasant drive back to the campground and an early evening chilling in François.

Today was not a day for tourism. Last night just as I finished up the blog we got an alarm on the control panel of François. The fault said that our gray water (waste water) tank was full. I knew that was not true, but went out and verified that it was the opposite of full, basically dry. A quick google check showed there was a Knaus dealer in town. I sent a text to see if it would be possible to get in, not expecting an answer, remember the country is on vacation this week. Surprisingly someone texted me right back and we were able to get an appointment for this morning. During the night the alarm went off several more times, for a problem that is not a problem. But it is very good at disturbing your sleep.

We were off bright and early and were met by an English speaking person who turned out to be the person I was texting with. He said he was going on vacation this morning, but would explain the problem before he left. We were then led to a very nice waiting room and told to wait. 2 hours later the technician came and got us and pantomimed that the gray tank was very dirty and that caused the sensor to fault. The explanation was very unclear, but friendly. They did their best, but I didn’t really understand what they had done to fix the problem. But in the end he showed that the readout for the gray tank said 0%, not 100%. They then handed me two bottles of gray water tank cleaner, and I think told me to use them the next time we fill the gray tank. After settling the not unsubstantial bill we were on our way.

After lunch in the campground, we decided that today was going to be a chore day. Our first stop was Leroy Merlin which is the French version of Home Depot. It is also very popular in other parts of Europe. We picked up a few things for François there, and then walked over to the mall which was adjacent. The mall was like all malls over the world, but had a great deal of American products, like Levis, Wrangler, Nike, Columbia, basically every major American clothing brand.

When we arrived here one week ago we were the only customers for two nights. The place is now jammed with tents, trailers, and RV’s crammed in every nook and cranny. We spent the rest of the day watching people carefully maneuver their vehicles into position in the campground. Tomak and his mother are certainly earning their pay this week.

By the way as I was typing this the alarm went off again. So another trip to the Knaus dealer is in our future.

Today is Labor Day in Poland (and most of the world). 5 days ago we were the only guests in the campground, today it is jammed with mostly Polish families enjoying the week of holidays. The owner Tomak looked pretty hectic today, he told me he was playing Tetris with campers. European campgrounds are much less regimented than US ones. Delineated spaces are the exception rather than the rule, so when times are quiet you have a lot of room, and when times are busy, there is always room for one more if you are creative.

For the first time in our week in Krakow we drove somewhere without running into at least one traffic jam, so we were downtown in a hurry. We got to our go to parking lot near the old town, and there was only one space left. I managed to squeeze into the spot with Tons help from outside the car.

Tomak had advised us to go to the underground museum at the Cloth Building in the Market Square. In 2005 and 2006 there had been a major archaeological dig in front of and under part of the Cloth Building. Since people have a tendency to build on top of the existing stuff, quite often over centuries the current “ground level” can be 15 or 20 feet higher than the true one. This museum shows the different levels of construction under what you currently see at the Market Square.

It was interesting to see the evolution of the city from underground. The museum does a good job of explaining what drove the new construction as well as explaining the difference in construction techniques and materials over time. There is also extensive displays of artifacts found during the dig as this area has been a center of activity for over 800 years there was a lot to find in the dirt.

After the museum we headed over to a Brewery near the old town that I had been looking forward to since we arrived. The beer turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but once again we really enjoyed the food. Ton had borscht and baked duck, and I had goulash in horseradish sauce. So far we have been really enjoying Polish food.

Our last stop for the day was Jagiellonian University. It is the first university in Poland and has been in operation since 1364. It is also one of the oldest universities in the world still in operation. Nicolas Copernicus studied here and is the most famous graduate.

We made one more pass thru the square to do some people watching before heading back to the campground.

After several days of bustling around Krakow we headed off to the small village of Zalipie. Zalipie is a village of about 60 or 70 homes 100 kilometers east of Krakow.

Around 1900 some of the women in the village began to paint flowers on smudges on the outside of their homes caused by wood smoke. They used a paint made of powdered dye and milk.

This art spread from home to home in the village. The artists were mostly the women of the village. The flowers are not based on real flowers, but the imagination of the artist.

We joined a tour of several of the homes in the heart of the village. As we were parking for the tour we met up with a Polish/Dutch family who now lived in Switzerland. I heard the mom asking someone if it was ok to park where we were in Polish, after I heard her speaking English with her daughter. I asked her to translate the answer for me and she laughed and said yes it was ok. They were a very interesting family of polyglots. Mom was Polish, Dad was Dutch, the kids were going to school in Zurich which is a German speaking town, the daughter who was about 10 and spoke English with almost a perfect American accent to both parents. The son seemed to speak to his Dad in Dutch and his mother in English. Grandma was along for the trip and only spoke Polish, but was having a great time looking at the houses as it reminded her of her childhood.

The tour gave us access to the interior of three homes that were very beautifully painted. They also gave us an idea of a typical country home from the early 1900’s in Poland.

We visited the cultural center for the town. They are trying very hard to preserve the tradition in the village. A lot of the women who were doing the painting have passed away over the last 20 years. They are trying to develop a new generation of people to continue painting the homes.

Our last stop for the day was the local church. It was also well decorated with a flower theme.

We probably would not have found this village if we had not been forced to slow down in Krakow. So today we were glad we had to slow up.

The most important tourist attraction near Krakow is Auschwitz. Ton and I discussed whether to visit the camp prior to coming to Krakow. Initially we had decided to pass on it as we were not that keen on seeing a monument to mans cruelty. But when we extended our time here we decided we should go. All tours to Auschwitz must be guided, and unfortunately there is not one tour in English available this week. We suspect that all of the tour operations in Krakow buy up the English spots in advance, so the only way you can go is by joining one of their tours from Krakow. So despite our new intentions we are going to miss Auschwitz.

The other important historical attraction near Krakow is the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Salt has been produced in the area since paleolithic times. The springs around Wieliczka have always been salty, and salt was produced by diverting ground water into pits, letting the water evaporate, and harvesting the salt that remained.

In the 1300’s a Hungarian princess named Princess Kinga was promised in marriage to a local Polish prince. When she was asked what she wanted for her wedding present she asked for the salt mining rights around Wieliczka. She hired 13 miners, and told them to start digging and one of the largest salt deposits in Europe was discovered.

The mine was in continuous operation from the 1300’s until 1996. At that time there was severe flooding in the working mine, and the cost to rebuild was not justified by the going rate for salt.

The mine is immense. The mine goes down 1073 feet and has over 187 miles of vertical and horizontal passages.

The mines have been a tourist attraction for centuries. Noted dignitaries have been brought to see the mine back to the 1700’s. It has been run as a commercial tourism site back to the late 1800’s. One of the stories on the tour talked about a canal boat tour that took place in one of the brine tunnels in the early 1900’s. It was canceled after one of the boats full of German soldiers in WWI capsized with many of the “tourists” drowning.

Waliczka was one of the sites on the very first list of UNESCO world heritage sites in 1978. The list of UNESCO sites has grown quite a bit since then, so they are proud to be among the first.

The tour is really extensive, taking over 3 hours, including an optional museum tour (we somehow ended up in a Polish museum tour, but enjoyed ourselves none the less) . We went over 400 feet under ground climbing down over 800 stairs, and walking 1.5 miles. Fortunately, you get to take an elevator up at the end.

In the late 1800’s 2 miners and a local artist asked to convert one of the large rooms into a Catholic Church. They worked on this project on their own time without compensation for 20 years. The church is very impressive with a life of Jesus carved in salt around the exterior walls of the church.

There is also a huge hall that can be rented for weddings or corporate events. These days tourism is what is keeping the mine alive and they are very creative about embracing tourists.

While the experience was very structured, we enjoyed how they presented the history of the mine. They did a good job of mixing descriptions of very practical things, like how do you get the salt to the surface, and how that changed over the centuries. They also focused on the importance of the mine in the history of Poland, and used it to tell the story of Poland nationalism. Almost all of the national heroes of Poland are given a mention during the tour even if they only visited it once.

Wieliczka is another beautiful world heritage site worth visiting.