Poland

 

Each new country we enter brings its own excitement, and we had the same feelings of anticipation as we entered Poland from Germany.  We spent the first night just over the border from ‘Frankfurt an der Oder’, where we stayed in a small guest house, dined sumptuously and slept. Next day, we drove 170 km east in the province of Poznan (we knew it as Posen) from where our ancestors made the decision to flee impositions on their religious practices, and seek freedom in South Australia. I was astonished to discover that Posen is not just farming land inhabited by a remnant of German peasants, but is a large, historic, industrial city of half a million people.

As is common practice with us, we spent the last hour of our drive in the city in fairly dodgy streets, looking for the apartment we’d booked.

It turned out we were staying behind this door! It was much better inside that outside.

 

We then proceeded to enjoy the city which we found to be very attractive – a famous town square, surrounded by numerous well-kept merchants’ houses (all rebuilt to original specifications after 1945, as the city had been destroyed by bombing).

  

 

 



Anne at a monument in Poznan

 

Next day, we headed a further fifty km east to Nekla, a small country town of several thousand people, famous in my eyes as the place where my great grandparents grew up, and in turn left from for Australia in 1847. Our experiences there appear under their own posting. Nekla is about one third of the way due east across Poland from Germany (towards Warsaw).

 

To the north of Poland and Autumn at its best

From Nekla, we drove 300 km north-east to a city called Olsztyn.

Bagel day at a small town we passed through on our way north. Although we bought some they were quite tasteless and we suspect they were more for decoration.

 We were staying at a small village, twenty km from Olsztyn, where we were warmly welcomed by our hosts Yvonne and her husband Jacek (in Polish it's Iwona and ‘Yartsek’). They have a secluded farmhouse in which we immediately felt warm and at home. We made it our base for the next few days.  On one eight degree morning, with layers of thick jackets and gloves, we walked several km to a neighbour’s house to pick up the milk supply (goats’ milk of course!). 

 

Iwona and Jacek's house

 

Jacek emerging from his wine cellar

Iwona, Jacek and family

 

 

This is the road we walked one cold  morning, with layers of thick jackets and gloves, to pick up the milk supply

Roadside trees and the surrounding forest were awash with splashes of yellow, amber and brown autumn leaves conjured up by the chilly days. We walked for several hours, along miles of narrow, sometimes cobbled country roads, trying not to fill up our SD cards with photos of abundant autumn colours. 

One of many adorned Christian shrines in northern Poland

 

 

 

 

What happened to the gnome?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Venturing further afield  we drove another 100 km north-east, close to the Russian and Lithuanian borders. There we inspected one of Hitler’s command bunkers (Wolf’s Lair), now a significant tourist destination, and returned via minor country roads.

 

Collapsed bunkers, destroyed by the Germans before the end of the war in order to hide accumulated information.

 

 

A major cathedral in a small town

The Baltic Sea beckoned us, so we continued from Yvonne and Jacek’s home to Gdansk. En-route we spent a couple of hours on a castle tour at Malbork. Malbork is famous as the base from which, around the fifteenth century, thugs (alias monks known as the Teutonic Knights), periodically sallied forth to kill off any heathens they could find between Spain and Jerusalem. Charming. (They did some good things as well!) Over the centuries, many other military, civic and religious leaders have also called the extensive castle complex home.

Malbork castle

 

 

 

 

Gdansk exceeded all expectations. Especially after a twenty minute lesson that taught us that the way into the B&B car park is actually NOT by the ‘Exit’ boom gate. Exit gates just WILL NOT accept the card no matter how many ways you try to insert or swipe it. On the other hand, it operates immediately at the gate around the corner marked ‘Entry’! Oops.  

 

The rogue Exit gate

Although a port city, with stevedoring, shipbuilding and other industrial activities, Gdansk is also wonderfully attractive. Here too, numerous merchants’ houses were rebuilt after WW2, resulting in a tourist’s delight.

 

Pics from 1945

 

 

 

View through the main gate

 

 

Main square

Organ grinder in the main square

 
 

The lower line of this solemn Latin inscription could be read as 'Rum is the foundation of everything'

 

A reverent devotee in St Catherine's cathedral

 

Someone begging

 

 

The fresh food people

 

Beauty in the city

 

Pirate Pete's ship

 

While in Gdansk, the weather was unexpectedly warm and sunny (20 degrees), and we had a wonderful time roaming the streets and experiencing the city. Bob was so delighted that he bought a hat! Anne bought a ring!

 

 

 

 

 

And then to the south

Our next journey involved driving through Poland from top to bottom – Gdansk to Cracow, a distance of some 600 km. We wisely did the trip over two days, again staying one night en-route in a small village hotel. Fortunately Anne’s Polish language and many gestures proved good enough to ensure the receptionist she was not wanting to stay in the same room as another couple booking in at the same time, and had her own husband in the car. Their body language clearly showed they certainly did not want us sleeping with them…..and vice versa! Later, we walked into the village centre and ordered good local fare from a small café – without a word of a common language. We are honing our cross-cultural skills with each new adventure.

The next day brought us to our accommodation in Cracow without arrival incident. At Cracow, we spent our first full day on two exhausting guided walking tours – a tour of the Old Town, and a tour of the old Jewish Ghetto. Both were fascinating.

 

Memorial to Crakow Jews killed during WW2. Each chair represents 1,0000 people and there are 65 chairs.

A street in the Jewish section of Cracow where scenes from "Schindler's list " was filmed.

Between tours, we lunched at an authentic Polish café – Bob ordered salad and received a quiche – Anne ordered soup and enjoyed it.

Our second full day at Cracow was spent at a deep underground salt mine. We started the day by walking for twenty minutes to the ‘bus station’. We found the interchange centre easily, but for the next half hour we were lost in a multi-level maze of tram and train platforms - but no platform for buses! At length, we managed to escape to the street from where our bus would leave. An hour after that, and we were successfully at the head of the mine shaft.

The tour took three hours: initially down four hundred steps to Level One, where rock salt had been mined for six hundred years, making Cracow famous and wealthy. Further tunnels took us to subterranean caverns and cathedrals carved from solid rocksalt. Many statues have also been carved from the rock salt as display pieces. 

 

 

Salt sculptings

 

 

Chandelier made of salt crystals

 

 

Our return trip to the Cracow CBD was notable in that our bus, already full when we boarded, somehow managed to also fit in a full class of school students plus further passengers at all subsequent stops. No-one seemed fazed, and we just had to get used to being pressed snugly against our fellow-sardines. We returned, and still had time to buy a chess set and souvenir artefacts.

On the day we left Poland, we stopped for a few hours to visit Auschwitz. An expert guide showed us all we wanted to know and much that we’d rather not know about the place. Having been to Dachau concentration camp three years ago we were somewhat prepared for what we would see but it was still a sobering visit. 

 

The infamous inscription at the entry gate 'Work makes you free'

Inside Birkenau. A scene you may recall from movies

Passenger carriage used to transport people to the camps.

 

 

 

We continued on into the Czech Republic, with several have ‘interesting’ travel adventures - this time with the GPS lady (the numerous road-works detours totally confused her), plus driving in the rain, and seeking an obscure hotel after dark where no English is spoken, etc etc, thus completing 11,000 km of driving.  Our intention is to now spend a week at Prague where we arrived early in the afternoon, relieved that there were no dramas finding the place. Just sometimes, it’s nice and easy, especially when the street bears our family name (even if slightly miss-spelled)