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Published: March 23rd 2009
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Katedra
It is an amazing Gothic building and during the night it looks even more impressive, I think. Short facts:
Participants: Me and my mentor Katarzyna
Destination: Poznan, Poland
Length of the trip: 3days
Distance: 275 km from Warsaw to Poznan
Music: Queen Adreena, Nirvana and silence
Reading: National Geographic and Pravda
Day 1
I came to Poznan about 10 pm and my hostess from couchsurfing met me in train station. She lives not far from Katedra so the first small sightseeing was on a way home, I think churches look even better at night. First evening I spent at her place drinking tea and getting to know each other.
The next morning I was not in a hurry, woke up quite late, spent morning drinking coffee and reading National Geographic magazine. My hostess gave me a map and told what should I see, what should I skip. So I head out and started my sightseeing tour from Katedra and its crypt. This Katedra is first church built in Poland. And the in crypt there supposedly should be tombs of Prince Mieszko I and first king of Poland, Bolselaw Chrobry. The idea being in this kind of place is that it should be something really special. WHen I went there there was a person vacuuming the place
Statue of Johannes Paulus II
My hostess mentioned that at night he looks like a superhero, and I think he really does. He was a great man. so I felt more funny than any other feeling.
Then I was walking towards Old Market Square and I remembered that at noon there should be a special sight there and I looked at my clock - it was noon. So I was a minute late. And about that sight - it is in the Town Hall, the clock tower. Each day at noon two goats come out and butt each other for minute. It really does bring quite a crowd to the Square. It was really interesting imagining that people gather to that place since this mechanism was constructed in 1551. Even now, when there really are so many things to see that people became really picky, so many gather there to watch this simple event (and most of them are Polish people, not foreign tourists). Behind this mechanism there is a legend. It was in 1551, the clock master was having a ceremony for nobles. The dinner was about to be served, but the meat got into fire and it was not eatable. They could not buy more meat at this late hour, so one of people saw two goats and decided to cook them. He took the
Katedra
From the other side goats, but they escaped and climbed to the tower. When nobles saw it it amused them a lot. Even if there was not much meat during dinner, the evening came out to be good. And to mark this event the mechanism with two goats was built.
The whole Old Market Square was really nice place. But when I saw one place I was jumpy happy - it was "The Lizard King" pub. As absolute Jim Morrison and "The Doors" fan I promised myself to come in evening and have at least one beer there (and I did).
As I was hungry I went straight to "Green Way" vegetarian place, which was offered by my hostess. While I was walking towards it I found really great little manga shop. To please my geekiness I bought two signs with Samurai Champloo and Death Note. I also talked a bit with shop owner - he was talking in Polish, I was talking in English hand we understood each other. The "Green Way" was such a great place. Their portions are huge, food was awesome and it was also cheap. It inspired me to become more vegetarian.
Then I took a suggested walk to
Most Gybinski 1907
The bridge to Cathedral Island was destroyed during war and this is paining on one of the walls of how it used to look. see all main sights. Many churches and such, as usual in Europe. But I really did enjoy it, the city has some sort of a calmness in it, feels like it has slower pace (maybe it was just the feeling I got).
One of "sights" that my hostess told about was "Freedom Chicken". Somewhere in Poliwejska street there is a kiosk that sells fried chicken. The officials of city wanted to shut this place down, as it is near church (or something like that) and the guy sued the authorities and it was in trials for 10 years (as I remember the story) and he won, he is still selling his fried chicken there.
I am not too big of a fan of museums, so I went into just one of them, which was also suggested by my hostess, it was Museum of Musical instruments. It was really interesting, as they had those instruments from all over world and from different centuries.
Other really nice sight was Old Brewery, which has shopping mall in it now. I am not a fan of shopping malls, but it was really interesting construction.
After all sightseeing I went to "The Lizard King" (Sadly
they did not play a one "The Doors" song while i was there). After that me and my mentor went to couchsurfing meeting. While waiting for people to gather we enjoyed a fire show in front of Town Hall.
Day 2
Second day was cloudy, it was raining (not string) and I went out to for some more sights. I strolled to the Old Market Square again, I still had time till the goat show and went to cafe. I was only customer in this nice little place, it had old French poster and jazzy music. I ordered some coffee and spoke a bit with waiter who was really nice. When it was about time for goat show I asked for the price and the waiter said that as I am interesting person its zero for me, I tried to pay, but he insisted. That was really nice of him and got my mood even more up. So I got to goats in time and there was a crowd again there (even though the weather was not nice). It was fun watching it with so many people.
Then I went again to have lunch to same vegetarian place. It
Katedra
From the other side of bridge was again so good. Never though soy kotlets are such a good meal. After this I slowly strolled to Cytadela place, its a big park dedicated to Freedom Fights and has lots of exhibitions outside. It was almost empty and very silent. I enjoyed this melancholic walk a lot, the feeling that all place is just yours and that you don't have to hurry anywhere and can enjoy these moments by yourself.
After some walking around I went back. I wanted to go on a mini-train, but maybe because of the weather it was closed. So I went back to my hostess and we had coffee and talked. I even almost forgot to go to train station.
When back to Warsaw I had this feeling that the weekend, even though it seemed slow at that time, went through so fast and it was just few hours ago that we rushed to the same Warsaw Train station to get into our train to Poznan.
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