Day 19 - 15 April 2019 Monday - Krakow

My word these days are wizzing past.

Weather is beautifully sunny but still cold, 7c at 9.00am.  Still need to be rugged up.

A few years ago the Krakow city fathers & mothers decided that they would excavate and resurface the market (Rynek) square.  When they started to dig they discovered that the remnants of the medieval city still existed below the current street level.  So they said, 'hey we can make money out of this', sorry, what they actually said was 'this should be preserved for future generations and it will become a world famous archaeological site'.  So they have turned it into a museum called Rynek Underground and it has been very well done.  The whole museum is below the market square and it has all the remains of the medieval city, including cobblestone streets, water and drainage systems and lots of artifacts.  It all sounds a bit 'dry' but I assure that it isn't, there are also lots of modern AV presentations and lots of information about life in the city during the period.  It talked quite a bit about the place of the guilds, including blacksmiths, silver and goldsmiths and tailors etc in city and in particular how each guild had a place to defend in the case of attack.  I spent a good 2 hours in there and it was well worth it.

Kid in a sculpture

Food photo for Andrew

Still a beautiful day when I emerged from the depths of the Rynek Museum, so the Wawel Hill castle complex was next on the list.  This is south of the old city and is a complex of castles, palaces, cathedrals etc on a hill overlooking the Vistula river and is magnificent on a day like today.  I am not up to speed with my history of the Polish royal family but I think at some stage they lived in a castle on this hill but not in the buildings that are currently there.  Although, a number of Polish kings and/or queens have been coronated, married or had funeral's held in the cathedral there.

The views of the vista of the Vistua river were magnificent and there was nice cafe for beer and cake for afternoon tea, and a quite sit in the nearly warm afternoon sun.

On my walk back from the castle I walked past a little restaurant down a side street near my hotel and they were advertising themselves as traditional Polish and on the menu posted outside they had 'Pork Knuckle'.  I have been looking for a good pork knuckle since I arrive in Europe.  

This was a funny sort of a restaurant approached off a lane way off a side street and then down two flights of stairs to a basement with a number of rooms with arched brick ceilings.  I sat down and asked the waiter to bring me pork knuckle and beer.  The pork knuckle arrived in its own roasting dish with a rich gravy, the by now obligatory pile of roast potatoes and mountain of sauerkraut, with little pots of mustard and horseradish.  It was delicious!  And then t0 finish things off I received a complimentary glass of peach schnapps.  

I slept well tonight.

Fun Fact:  Peach schnapps helps you sleep.

Step Count:  10,584

Observation:  As I was about to go out to dinner CNN started to report on Notre Dame burning down.

Day 18 - 14 April 2019 Sunday - Krakow

Ok, hands up all those who knew that today is Palm Sunday????

I didn't but I do now.  I was having a slightly aimless wander around the market and the market square when I noticed a lot of people wearing Polish national dress and I twigged that there must be something going on here today.

At little later there was a procession around the market square of various groups from what appeared to be different diocese or towns dressed in variations of national dress and accompanied by small bands or men playing piano accordions.  Some were carrying palm leaves and that is when I made the connection with Palm Sunday, (doesn't take long for me to catch on).  They call Adelaide the city of churches, I tell you now Krakow leaves Adelaide for dead in the number of churches stakes.  There are cathedrals, churches, monasteries, convents, abbeys and any other religious building you can think of everywhere.  Of course Poland is strongly Roman Catholic and I think Krakow would be at the top of the list of the devout.  Obviously the Reformation didn't make it this far north.

And now for the parable of Jesus and the Australian with a cold.  A little later I came across a stage set up in the market square and each village group got to do a little musical number which appeared to be being judged by Jesus.  A sort of heavenly X Factor.  Anyway as this finished Jesus was coming down off the stage and I went up to him and said 'I have a bit of cold do you think you could do something to help cure it',  anyway he looked at me and said something in Polish that sounded a bit like 'Fuck Off' or he could have been giving me a blessing.  Anyway, as I still have the cold I don't think that he was giving me a blessing.  (Photo of Jesus follows, although his donkey looks a little stuffed)

After my religious experience I decided it was time for a beer and then headed 

off on the walk to the Oskar Schindler Museum.  On the way I bought a bread bagel/pretzel from a street vendor for my lunch.  I'm becoming almost European.

It was about a 3k walk but very pleasant in the almost warm sunshine.  After negotiating the usual bun fight at the entrance.  (Now this was supposed to be a ticketed admission by time, and I went to some trouble to get the appropriate ticket for the appropriate time, I am not sure why I bothered, I could have got in with a jam jar label). Anyway the museum is the building where Oskar Schindler had his factory and sheltered his Jewish workers during the German occupation of Krakow in WW2.  It was very well done and told the story of Krakow from the beginning of the occupation in 1939 until the German defeat in 1945 and the subsequent occupation by the Soviets.  The poor old Poles had a tough trot off it for a while there. 

After the visit to the museum I got a cab back to my hotel, it was getting late and eating into my pre dinner drinky time.

Dinner was a nice veal dish with potato pancakes and a mushroom sauce accompanied by a dark beer (porter) at 9.5% and a glass of local red wine.  (Although I did give them a bit of a rev as I was leaving for ignoring the single diner sitting in the corner, me, and told them that they would be getting a bad review on trip adviser, that put the wind up em).

Fun Fact: Pedestrian crossings are advisory, not obligatory.

Step Count: 7,475

Observation: The sounds of Europe - The clickety clack of trolley suitcases being dragged across cobblestones.

Day 17 - 13 April 2019 Saturday - Krakow - Day trip to Auschwitz and Salt Mine

Cold today and I have a cold, but I am soldiering on like the good little trooper that I am.

Today is a full day out, getting picked up by the bus at the hotel at 8.20am and then returning at about 8.00pm.  However after today I have three days in Krakow with nothing much organised apart from visiting the obligatory, castles, cathedrals and museums including the museum located at Oskar Schindler's factory of Schindler's List fame (or of the book Schindler's Ark written by the Australian author Thomas Kenneally that the movie was based on).

At 8.20am, as arranged I am picked up at the hotel by a mini bus for the journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau with 8 tourists already on board.  There are 2 youngish English couples and one couple's daughter, Millie or Minnie, I was never quite sure which, and an Australian couple, Brian and Rae, about my age, from Rye. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau is the complex of concentration camps created by the Germans in WW2 and is about 70 kilometres out of Krakow.  The camp is comprised of 2 separate facilities, the first being an old Polish army barracks that the Germans used as the basis for the Auschwitz concentration camp and the second was the Birkenau camp that was built from scratch.  The images that you maybe familiar with; the trains arriving at the camp, the selection process etc actually took place at Birkenau.  Birkenau also had the largest gas chambers and crematorium, although Auschwitz also had a smaller gas chamber.  Between them the two camps were responsible for the deaths of between 1.1 and 1.5 million people, the majority of them Jewish.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz

Birkenau

Birkenau

Salt Carving in the Salt Mine

Chapel in the salt mine with salt chandeliers

As you could imagine a visit to these two camps was a very sobering experience.  The atmosphere was also heightened by it being very cold, grey and bleak.  The Birkenau camp is also on a flat open plain and the cold was bone chilling.  Although the tours of both facilities were well organised, due to the volumes of people going through they were a little rushed particularly at Auschwitz and we didn't really get any time for quiet contemplation or to try and absorb the magnitude of what we were experiencing.

After leaving Auschwitz-Birkenau we drove back towards Krakow and after a late lunch (miner's plate for me, two sausages, a heap of potatoes and a mountain of sauerkraut served in a sizzling fry pan), we visited the salt mine at a place whose name I cant remember.  Anyway this is a proper underground salt mine that has been in operation since 1500 something.  I was a little disappointed as I expected a salt mine to be all white shiny reflective crystals, but no, underground salt is a dirty grey and almost rock like.  Anyway it was quite interesting and warmer than above ground level.

Back at the hotel by about 7.00 after a big day and a day with a significant emotional impact.

Fun Facts:  On the way back from a concentration camp nobody wants to have a sing song on the bus.

Step count: 9,351

Observation: I have fallen behind with the blog but will catch up over the next couple of days.

Day 16 - 12 April 2019 Friday - Train from Przemysl to Krakow

This broadcast is coming to you from somewhere in Europe.  That is how Chester Wilmot (I think), the famous 2nd WW war correspondent used to start his broadcasts as he wasn't allowed to say where he was for security reasons.  I am saying it because I am on the train to Krakow and I am not sure where I am apart from in Poland.

The train journey is three and half hours and there is no buffet car, so I bought some iron rations with me, a bottle of water and a block of chocolate. Half an hour into the journey and I have drunk most of the water and eaten most of the chocolate, could be a long trip.

 The weather forecast for Krakow is max 4 degrees and min 2 with rain and possible snow, with a similar forecast for tomorrow.  Tomorrow I am doing a bus trip to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Quite a bit of snow on the ground and buildings on the way to Krakow, very hard to get a picture of snow from a moving train.

I arrived in Krakow early afternoon and checked back into the Imperial Hotel.  I went for a walk and decided I needed a coffee, all the market square cafes were closed due to the weather, but lo and behold before me was a McCafe, should I? would I?  I should, I would and I did and I had a surprisingly good coffee and a pastry.

Fun Fact:  The Poles in my train compartment weren't as amused by the sight of snow as I was.

Step count: 6,940

Observation:  McCafe makes good coffee!

Day 15 - 11 April 2019 Thursday - Przemysl

Clair, they have done it to me again, a hotel website with lots of happy people standing around the hotel bar, but when you arrive there the bar hasn't operated in years.  Luckily there are a number of other bars, that are open, around the town and I have discovered the bar Bosko and it even has Wi Fi.

Big touristy day, sorry, amateur historian day today with my guide, Marcin and driver, Andrew waiting for me outside the hotel at a rather chilly 9.00 am.   

Andrew & Marcin

We visited four forts on the outer fortification ring, a communist era command centre, a strange bar, a tartar mound and observation point looking over the city, some TGW cemeteries and a bunker from the 2nd WW Molotov line.  And, Andrew gave me a bag full of bottles of homemade preserves, pickles and various home made distilled spirits.

The forts were the main reason I came here and they were fascinating,  Marcin chose four of the best preserved forts or ones that best represented a particular style or era of fort building.  There is about 25 major forts and a similar number of minor forts in the outer ring and probably something similar in the inner ring.  Before surrendering the forts in 1915 the soldiers of the AHE destroyed or attempted to destroy some of the forts with explosives with varying degrees of success so some are more ruined than others.

At the start of TGW the city was part of the AHE and the city and forts were garrisoned by troops from all over the empire.  Then after a siege of 3 or 4 months and the loss of 10s of thousands of lives on both sides, including the civilian citizens of the city the Russians occupied the city.   Then the Germans stepped in to help their AH allies and they retook the city from the Russians after another, albeit much shorter siege.  

After the end of TGW the the parts of the AHE that we now know as Poland gained their independence, but of course the fighting wasnt over.  From 1919 to 1921 the Poles fought a number of wars against the Russians and Ukranians all over the location of the new borders.  Some of the this fighting took place around Przemysl.  Andrew said that his grandfather has lived in four countries without moving house, AHE, Poland, Ukraine and Russia.  He also fought in four wars, on various sides.

After all this Poland settled down to life as a fiercely independent country until 1 September 1939 when it was invaded from the west by Germany and from the east by Russia (USSR).  Przemysl was in the unfortunate position that the the river that runs through the city, the San, was the agreed dividing line between the two invaders.  So the southern bank (old city) was occupied by the Russians and the northern bank (new city) was occupied by the Germans.  During this time the Russians, expecting trouble from the Germans built a series of bunkers along the river, called the Molotov line, one of which we visited today.  The Russians were right to expect trouble and the Germans kicked them out as part of operation Barbarossa and the Germans remained in occupation until being defeated by the Russians in 1945.  During this time the Germans exterminated pretty much all of Przemysl's 16,000 Jews.

After the 2nd WW Poland was occupied by the Russians and remained a communist controlled country until 1989.  During this time the Cold War developed between Russia and the communist controlled Eastern European countries and the USA and their allies, including Australia.  Today, I visited a communist era control room, located under the local primary school.  It is a actually a facility of a number of rooms designed to be sealed off from the outside world in the case of a nuclear attack.  It was constantly manned from the late 1950's until the mid 1990's.  It was an interesting tour and scary to realise how prepared they were for a full scale nuclear war.  The tour finished with a fake nuclear attack and us having to evacuate through a series of tunnels whilst being shouted at in Polish, good fun, I think.

Cold war control room

Nuclear war battle map, check out the little nuclear bombs in western Europe

I've gone on a bit here, but I needed to put things in perspective. Ive had a great day , Marcin spoke very good English, but Andrew not very much but they were nice guys provided a great tour, I would heartily recommend them to anybody coming this way.  This is being composed in bar Bosko over a couple of beers, whilst I decide where I go for dinner.  I haven't downloaded any pics from today yet so they will come later.

Fun Facts:  I was that close to the Ukraine border I coulda spit on it, but this is still a very sensitive area so I chose not to.

Border markers

Step Count: 10,810

Observations:  Average wage for somebody working in a shop here about Zl2,000 (about $750AUD), per month.

Day 14 - 10 April 2019 Wednesday - Train from Krakow to Przemysl

When you book some components of your journey you think, ' this will be interesting' and that is fine from afar but when it finally gets here you think maybe I didn't mean 'this interesting'.  I am staying in the Hotel Europejski in Przemysl and the tariff is 110 Polish Zloty which is a little less than $40 per night, it appears to be clean, and it is close to the station.

Even a CRT television

Today I travelled by train from Krakow to a small Polish city 15km from the Ukrainian border called Przemysl, population about 60,000.  Now Przemysl is probably economically disadvantaged and hasn't recovered from the collapse of communism when everybody had a job and so on.  Apparently from what I have read the major cities such as Warsaw and Krakow are doing ok but the further you move out into the regional and country areas the harder it is economically for the population.

This city is also is unfortunate that it sits on one of the pathways through the Carpathian mountains so that any invader from the north or the east heading towards western Europe had to come this way, so it has been fought over, sacked, ransacked, invaded and occupied many times.  The most recent was in the 2nd WW when it was part of Poland and was initially invaded by both Germany and Russia (at the same time) and then the Germans kicked the Russians out and then the Russians kicked the Germans out and then the Russians hung around for the next 50 or so years.

During the years prior to TGW, this city and lots of Poland was part of the Austo Hungarian Empire (AHE for short).  The city was crucial to the security of the AHE so from about 1850 onwards they built a series of forts in an inner circle and an outer circle around the city.  Some have referred to it as the Verdun of the East.

Anyway to get to the point, these forts were crucial in a siege and a number of battles in TGW, and that is why I am here, to visit the forts and other military installations.  I have organised a guide and a driver for the day tomorrow and then I am out of here on Friday heading back to Krakow.

I am looking forward to filling you all in the forts,the siege, the battles, the outcomes, and the geo political consequences of the fighting in this region of the Eastern front.

I might pop in some pics later.  I don't think that the telly in my room works so I will have plenty of time.  Goods news I have got the telly working but now I am too scared to touch the controls in case I lose it again, anyway I am enjoying the Polish quiz program that the telly seems stuck on.

And I actually like this one

Fun Facts: I went to the castle which is the number 1 tourist attraction here and I was the only visitor there.  There is also a big rock there with a striped flagpole next to it,

Number of Steps: 9,330 (lots uphill though)

Observations: I wonder if I am the only Australian to have ever visited Przemysl.

Day 13 - Tuesday 9 April 2019 Budapest to Krakow

Up early, had to be at the airport at 7.20am for a 9.20 flight.  It seems funny going through all the rigmarole for an international flight and then spend 40 minutes flying in a Dash 8.  Still, a nice flight with LOT Polish Airlines.

I am staying at the Imperial Hotel in Krakow, which is right on the edge of the market square, some say the square here is the largest in Europe, but I am not sure about that.  The square is surrounded by restaurants and bars, all with outdoor dining and drinking areas looking out across the square.

I am sitting in one of the cafes, still within range of my hotel's wi fi typing this and lo, I hear a trumpet player in the distance.  The trumpeter plays a tune from the ramparts on the hour but he only ever gets half way through and suddenly stops.  The legend is that in 1363, or thereabouts an observant guard spotted the dreaded hun or turk or somebody at the gate and started playing his trumpet as a warning, but halfway through his warning call he was struck in the throat by an arrow and died without completing his call.  But his warning was sufficient to arouse the garrison and they defeated the enemy.  So now, whenever this tune is played it is never completed.  My word you people learn some interesting stuff reading this blog.

I am only in Krakow for one night.  Tomorrow I get involved in some TGW stuff, goody I hear you all say.  Tomorrow I catch the train to Przemysl, the scene of a major siege on the Eastern front in TGW.  I have a guide and he has a driver organised for the day on Thursday and we will be visiting various sites around the town relating to the siege.  The town was occupied by both the Germans and the Russians in WW2 and we will be visiting some of those sites.  We will also be visiting a cold war command centre from the time Poland was part of the Warsaw pact.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Poland has experienced a lot of history and I intend to cover it all!

Lunch today was the largest pork schnitzel I have ever seen with a complimentary starter of the largest pickle I have ever seen with cold sauerkraut and a plate of french fries and a cold Polish wheat beer and a complimentary plum brandy (I think) to finish with, all in all most satisfying.

After visiting Przemysl I am returning to Krakow for 3 days so will report more on this city then. 

Fun Facts: The drivers of the horse drawn carriages use a bag on a stick to catch the horse droppings (most of the time).

Step count today: 10,850

Observation: Heavens to betsy, they still give you a plastic straw, sometimes two, in your spritzer, we will all be going to hell.