In this museum you have every item within easy examination range. You really could reach out and touch….but please don’t !!! We walked the streets of the restored mansions dating back 500-600 years each. We’ve had breakfast and a couple of lunches under the umbrella’s on the largest medieval square in Europe. It was laid out in 1257. The square is always crowed with tourists, students, and pigeons. Let me tell you, they have pigeons !!! We have also had the pleasure of visiting many churches here in Krakow. Every daylight hour a bugler sounds a very simple melody based on just 5 notes from the high tower of St. Mary’s Church. The melody abruptly halts in the middle of the last phrase. It seems that the bugler was sounding an alarm when an arrow pierced his throat and the alarm melody abruptly halted….tradition…. We were out before breakfast this morning and didn’t get back until 6 this evening….we have been caught in the rain and sometimes a downpour the last 2 days out….we will be getting out later…. Tomorrow….
3 August ’04, Tuesday. Imagine walking the same “Royal Way” (streets) as the Royalty in Krakow have since 1018 ….Climbing to the defensive position on the wall of the bastion, “Barbakan” ....crossing the moat (now void of water) at the “Florian Gate, that was built in the first half of the 14th century ….sitting in a pew at the same St. Andrew’s Church from the 12th century…. These are but a few of the amazing things we were able to do in the last two days. We shopped the stalls of the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) that dates back to the 13th century. This hall was originally used to sell cloth. Now it sells just about anything that a good “tourist” would be willing to spend their money on. We visited and thoroughly enjoyed the Czartoryski Museum with their collections from Leonardo da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine and Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan, to Roman, Egyptian, Italian, German, and Flemish paintings and memorabilia.
In this museum you have every item within easy examination range. You really could reach out and touch….but please don’t !!! We walked the streets of the restored mansions dating back 500-600 years each. We’ve had breakfast and a couple of lunches under the umbrella’s on the largest medieval square in Europe. It was laid out in 1257. The square is always crowed with tourists, students, and pigeons. Let me tell you, they have pigeons !!! We have also had the pleasure of visiting many churches here in Krakow. Every daylight hour a bugler sounds a very simple melody based on just 5 notes from the high tower of St. Mary’s Church. The melody abruptly halts in the middle of the last phrase. It seems that the bugler was sounding an alarm when an arrow pierced his throat and the alarm melody abruptly halted….tradition…. We were out before breakfast this morning and didn’t get back until 6 this evening….we have been caught in the rain and sometimes a downpour the last 2 days out….we will be getting out later…. Tomorrow….
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1 August ’04, Sunday. Sitting outside in our “Easy Chairs” and having a small glass of wine tonight, I started chuckling. Louise looked over with that, “what the heck is up with you?” kind of look. “Can you believe, you are sitting here, reading your book, and having a glass of wine, on a beautiful summer day in front of your “New” home in ..Krakow, Poland ???? We do have to pinch ourselves once in awhile just to make sure we are still alive. We had a very uneventful ride to our new campground this morning. I had a great navigator working beside me and she didn’t hesitate in getting the job done right. We like our site a lot, and look forward to staying in Krakow for 3 to 4 days at least. From everything that we have heard and read, we are in for a wonderful experience here. From the campers coming into the grounds and setting up their pitch, we are not going to be the only “travelers” in town. So far this is the most crowded campground that we have been in. It could be because they don’t charge for the wash machines and we are definitely taking advantage of that…. Tomorrow…. Yep, you guessed it, Krakow 31 July ’04 Saturday. Auschwitz….. Birkenau….. The mention of these two locations for most of us sends shivers up our spine and ask the question “Why”. For the survivors of either of these camps…..we can’t imagine their thoughts, their memories, their wounds. Who are the survivors? The Jew’s, and the non Jewish, yes, but many others as well. We think of the survivors as those with the “id number” tattooed on their body, but as time has gone on, there are many who survived the holocaust that we most likely haven’t thought about. The wounds of Jews are associated with the memory of an attempt to completely annihilate their nation. Poles suffered as a consequence of the increasing violence on the part of their enemies. Germans suffer under the burden of guilt connected with their history. For Louise and I and the others that were there Saturday, and I’m sure every day prior and after, have left with many different feelings inside us. I can only speak for myself and I felt angry, pity, lucky, mad, sick, confused, and many other feelings that will stay with me forever. It wasn’t that I wasn’t aware of what happened in Auschwitz prior to Saturday, but this was my first visit “to” Auschwitz. There IS a difference and I am a different person, I am a better person, for taking the opportunity to visit, to see, to touch, and to smell….Auschwitz - Birkenau. For those who might look for a lot of pictures, I could only take a few….there were other opportunities but I couldn’t or maybe better put, I wouldn’t. |
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