Blogs from Poland, Europe - page 190

Monday afternoon Before WW II 3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland. At the end of the war only 300,000 were still alive. Our travel guide says that today only about 2,000 Jews live in Poland. We visited the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz twice. Our guidebook says that a visitor should take a tram as it is some distance from the historic center of Krakow. We walked. It really isn’t that far. During our wanderings we found two synagogues. For a small fee both can be visited. In one I was told I could take no pictures. In the other an elderly man who collected the small entrance fee encouraged me to take pictures, even of the torah. He seemed especially proud of a beautiful stained glass window that had the menorah. From what I saw it appears ... read more

We ate our supper at a small restaurant that served only crepes. The crepes were not only very good, they were very inexpensive, less than two dollars for a crepe filled with curried chicken and veggies … do you hear that Crepes Normandy??? Less than two dollars!!! Anyway, we left the restaurant and walked around the front of St. Mary’s Church that sits at the northeast corner of Market Square. I was quite surprised when I saw a wood fire burning beside the church with a large crowd gathered around. You know there is nothing like a crowd to spark interest. Nancy and I edged our way into the crowd to see what was going on. To my surprise the Catholic Cardinal, surrounded by his entourage, was conducting a ceremony, reading aloud from what I took ... read more

As we wandered around the Krakow castle complex we noticed a sign saying, "Dragon's Lair." We followed the sign and found a small building, rather like a guard's post, at the outer western wall of the castle grounds. From here there is a wonderful view of the Vistula River. This is the entrance to the Dragon's Lair. My first thought was that it was a dungeon where prisoners were kept, but I was wrong. It is the entrance to a cave and centuries ago, so the legend goes, this was the home of a dragon, a mean, nasty, virgin eating dragon. I have thought about this and wondered how in the world could the dragon tell if a young woman walking along the river was a virgin or not? The door leading to the entrance of ... read more

Commercial mining began in the Wieliczka salt mine early in the 13th century. Salt is still being taken from the mine by evaporating the salty mine water that has been pumped to the surface. Mining of salt by digging stopped in 1996. In centuries past when a horse entered the mine they never saw daylight again, but were worked and housed within the mine. Miners also spent long periods of time in the mine. To alleviate boredom skilled miners carved statues, rooms and a chapel from the salt. We got the chance to tour three levels of the MANY levels of the mine. The tour we took allowed us to see the sights from 64 to 135 meters below the ground. First we had to walk down 400 stairs to get to the first (64 meter) ... read more

As i always had a weakness for Eastern Europe i always wanted to discover more of this part of the old continent. Since the Low-cost airline SkyEurope has very cheap tickets to central and eastern europe i decided to give my boyfriend a long weekend in Krakow, Poland. From all the eastern european countries Poland has always been the country that least appealed to me. Since from the cities offered by SkyEurope Krakow was the cheapest i decided to read a bit about the city. The image i had of Poland as a grey, east-block country still is true but Krakow seemed to be one of those cities which had kept its old beautiful historic center. It is often reffered to as the second Prague. I decided to book this trip and end of october we ... read more