Blogs from Wroclaw, Lower Silesian, Poland, Europe - page 3

This morning we enjoyed a great buffet breakfast at the family owned Hotel Stekl. We then left Bohemian Paradise National Park, heading for Wroclaw in Poland. Wroclaw (pronounced Vrotswaf in Polish, known as Breslau in German) is the largest city in western Poland. The history of the city dates back a thousand years, and its extensive heritage combines almost all religions and cultures of Europe. At various times, it has been part of Poland, Bohemia, Prussia, and Germany. It became part of Poland in 1945, as a result of the border changes after the Second World War. Prior to the war it had been part of Germany. Wrocław is a university city with a student population of over 130,000, having a similar number of university students as Berlin, which is a substantially larger city. In ancient ... read more

Sunday, June 11 – after breakfast at Hotel Fortuna, we had a walking tour of old town Kraków. We had a very passionate and knowledgeable young guide, Alicja. We started at St. Florian’s Gate (the only remaining gate), where a small part of the adjoining wall still stands, dating back to the 1300s. In the 19th century, the moat was filled in and made into a park - a green ring all around the old city, measuring about 4 km. Kraków has a long and storied history dating back to the 900s. We saw the Rynek Główny (main square), which dates to the 13th century and is the biggest open square in Europe. We saw the remaining tower from the town hall, St. Mary's church, which was built in the 14th century by the people of ... read more

Winter travels in Eastern Europe – Dear Friends in Wroclaw, Poland We drove our car 3,300 km from Minsk, Belarus where we are teaching to see the cities, Christmas markets and quiet snow covered countryside of Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic and eastern Germany. We ended our trip in Wroclaw, Poland (pronounced Vrotslav) and spent two nights with good friends Andrey and Ola. Their new apartment is cozy with a great view of the city skyline. (We stayed with them twice when they lived in Vilnius.) They cook good meals and taught us to play a game called Lines that helps people understand how difficult it was to get goods in soviet times. Ola went with us on a Free Walking Tour of the old town. It was freezing! But such a beautiful old town and many ... read more

A Night at the Opera. At one point in history, this would have been a Bohemian Rhapsody. Wroclaw is disputed territory. It has changed hands through history, passing only most recently back under Polish protection in 1945. The city, the dominant place in Lower Silesia, was once known as Vratislava, under Bohemian rule. By 1526, the Austro-Hungarian empire was back in charge and the city became known as Breslau. The King of Prussia then intervened and took over in 1741. Napoleon arrived for a while as a liberator - perhaps an alternative theory why the concept of the dwarf is popular - before Breslau grew into the 2nd city of Prussia after Berlin. At the point of German unification, the city was the 3rd largest in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. It is now the 4thlargest ... read more

On our last day in Santiago we mainly shopped, did a little more exploring and made sure we were ready to rise at 4.45am the next day to catch the bus to meet our flight to Warsaw. We went to many shops in the higher up part of the Cathedral precinct where we had not been before, procrastinated over what to buy, prompted by Tim's , "that's just rubbish!", (or words to that effect), approach to our shopping, and just relaxed. For dinner we went to a small restaurant away from the more tourist area and had mixed paella and bread with vino tinto, red wine. It took some time to come out which is a good sign as it indicates that it is being prepared fresh rather than reheated. It was delicious and we adjourned ... read more