Day Six — On to Munich

Monday, May 6

Today was pretty much a transfer and settle into Munich day.  That said, I did see and learn a lot.

My pre-arranged transfer to the airport came early (which is good, as I’m chronically early) and getting to the one-terminal airport with 90 minutes to spare was nice.  I managed to fit in some shopping in the terminals.  It was a bit odd though, absolutely no one ever checked my passport along the way....  I had it out at every stop and no one looked at it. Yikes.

I took the S-Bahn from Munich airport to Marienplatz, which was a 38 minute trip and landed me right next to (literally!) my hotel.  I’ve never been so conveniently located!   I’m right off the square where the two city halls are and convenient to underground.  My room was ready at the hotel here and I unpacked a bit, threw on another layer (it’s cold here!) and headed out. 

I did Rick Steves’ Munich city tour on my own.  This time I did it audio style on my iPhone rather than read along.  It went well, although the directions were a bit convoluted a few times.  But I learned a TON.

On the main square, there is Old City Hall (Alte Rathaus) and New City Hall (Neue Rathaus).  Except Old City Hall is newer than New City Hall.  Much of Munich was leveled by bombing in WWII, except in the square, the Old City Hall was mostly destroyed while New CIty Hall survived a lot of the hits and the city rebuilt Old City Hall making it newer than New CIty Hall.  A lot to follow, I know.  But several of the churches I visited today were leveled, or nearly so, by bombing and reconstructed fairly quickly, relatively speaking.  It gives me hope that Paris can do the same with Notre Dame which was far less damaged than these churches!  A few of these churches had before and after photos from just after the bombings through the reconstruction and it is simply amazing how they rebuilt here.

The walking tour led me past and through most of the churches around the square.  One was the home church of Cardinal Ratzinger turned Pope Benedict (so now I’ve been in the home churches of both of the previous two popes).  Another had many of the tombs of the German royal families, including King Otto and Mad King Ludwig.  The styles of the churches varied greatly from Jesuit to Catholic, Baroque to NeoClassical to Renaissance.  An interesting side-note is that my hotel is surrounded by 5 churches, all of which ring bells on the hour 24 hours a day.  This ought to make for interesting sleeping.

One of my more interesting stops was to Dallmayr, which is a giant, high-end food hall that caters to the Munich elite.  It has everything from chocolate and wine and spirits to prepared foods, teas and coffees.  Yes, I did some damage there, but I’m none worse for the wear.

The walking tour looped around (but didn’t visit) Residenz, which was the former royal family’s winter home right in the city (Nymphenburg Palace was their summer home) and ended up in the Odeonplatz, which is the square where Hitler and Goering held an uprising, both got shot, Hitler got arrested and spent 9 months in prison writing Mein Kampf.  Right before the square there was a small lane to the left that had a wavy trail of golden bricks through it.  That was the last spot where Germans could duck through to avoid having to enter the square and give a Heil to Hitler on that day.

For dinner I popped into a beer hall across the street that had a fair number of vegetarian offerings on the menu.  It was seat yourself so as a party of one I tried to find the smallest vacant table I could, and that was a table for four, unfortunately.  The server wasn’t pleased by that and she let me know.  The service was not really great but the food was good.  In all the market stalls I passed on the street today, it’s obvious that white asparagus is very much in season right now.  So my main was white asparagus and boiled potatoes with a Hollandaise sauce on the side.  My starter was called obatzda, and it was a blend of three cheeses and some spices and butter into a spreadable cheese that you put on a pretzel or bread.  It was really good.  I had apple fritters for dessert.

I did another loop around the square but at 8:00 it wasn’t even close to dark enough for the buildings to be lit up yet.  Maybe another night...

Day Five — All Pierogied Out

Sunday, May 5

Today was a much-needed return to levity and mental escape.  The day started off well when I got a solid night’s sleep, probably the first I’ve had since I got here.  One thing is for certain is that jetlag isn’t nearly as easy to cope with as it was when I first started traveling 25 years ago.  Taking 5 days to feel normal again is a pain.  Remind me of that when I get home and go through it all again.

Anyway, same hotel breakfast as before and I was picked up at 8:50 by Comfort Tours Krakow for Wieliczka Salt Mines, arranged by my hotel.  Oh how nice it was being escorted around in a Mercedes SUV with just four other guests.  Yesterday’s nightmare of the massive tour bus full of 60 infirm passengers was long gone (though I did check to confirm that I booked a small group tour in Munich for Neuschwanstein, phew!). The driver dropped us off at the entrance to the mines with the appointed English speaking guide and saw us off on the tour.  We joined a group of about 20 other English speakers with our one Wielickzka guide.

Now in an effort of full disclosure, I’ll admit that this wasn’t even on my radar for this trip.  I read about it and thought it looked sort of kitschy and not my thing and I had plenty else to do here.  And then I had Sunday free and I’d seen all I’d planned to, so that’s when Wieliczka Salt Mines came into play.

The carvings and chapels and grottos in the mine have been built over the last 200 years or so by miners who wanted to memorialize themselves and their time down there.  Rock salt was extremely valuable to the Poles at one time (more expensive than gold)  but now the miners who still work down there are primarily maintaining the chambers and features of the carvings.

The entire system is kept at a constant 57 degrees which is what is best for maintaining the salt.  The earlier exhibits (all made of salt!) explain how the mining worked, showed how the horses moved the salt that was quarried out of the shafts and the role salt played in history.  The statues are of people from mythological characters to religious scenes, politicians, poets and Pope John Paul II.  We saw two grottoes or lakes that are as salty as the Dead Sea.  One they used to let guests take a boat on until 7 soldiers went out and started to dance in the boat, the boat capsized and yes, I know what you’re thinking, that’s ok because you float in that water, right?  Well, no, not if you’re stuck under the capsized boat.  They died and ruined the fun for the rest of us.

Anyway, the tour group makes its way through a series of tunnels.  Everything is rock salt except for the wooden beams and structures supporting the shafts and everything around it.  Wood is used instead of metal because it doesn’t corrode like metal does in the presence of salt.  There were long sections of tunnel that were split by doors periodically. Due to the air pressure in the tunnels, we’d all have to get into one closed section and close the door behind us before we could open the next door in front of us.  I was surprised by how temperate it was, how not grossly humid and how fresh the air seemed.  I wanted to ask the guide if her hair or skin benefit from the constant exposure to that environment but she’d disappeared before I had a chance.

The grand finale before a series of gift shops was a large chapel that had to be four stories high and so ornately carved and decorated, it was breathtaking and at the same time hard to realize that it was all below ground.  They also have a pretty large function room and a few smaller chapels.  The guide said people frequently get married there (and they take advantage of an elevator installed for the handicapped guests so no one is traipsing down 800 stairs in a wedding gown).

It really is its own little village down there.  There were a few toilet stops, at least two snack bars and a larger cafeteria.  And somehow, credit cards worked in the gift shop.  Hmmmm....

The guiding there is really well choreographed (Auschwitz could take tips from them on this).  They let the groups go about every 4 minutes.  None of the explanations at any of the caverns took much longer than that.  The groups were kept tightly together (especially when it came to the pressurized doors) and any stops for toilet, snack, souvenirs or photos in the largest rooms) were strictly timed.  That meant it was never really crowded at any stop and that we didn’t have to wait for an elevator like the general public has to if they go on their own.

So I came away suitably impressed.  Who knew?  We did get a bit stuck because where our guide led us outside was a place we didn’t recognize and she disappeared before we could ask how to get back to where we were meeting our guide to return us to Krakow.  I plugged it in my iPhone maps and 10 minutes later we found him.

It was misting heavily when we got back to Krakow.  I decided to walk back to the National Museum and just poke around the exhibitions there but on Sundays it’s free and between it being free and the rain, it was a madhouse.  Plan B was to walk back to the hotel and just pop into all the churches along the way and see what I could see there.  That was fun.  It occurred to me though that when I went into one right around the corner from my hotel, that I’d been in it earlier in my trip.  Indeed, it was Pope John Paul’s church when he was here and it was across the street from the building he stayed in when he came to Krakow as Pope.  I’d approached it from a different direction on my first (jetlagged) day here on my walking tour, and had been by there a few times coming and going to other places and not even realized it.  Hmmm. So then I decide to revisit castle hill and pop into the cathedral there, because I now doubted what I remembered from that church, but it all came back to me when I saw the relic of Pope John Paul’s blood on the altar.  Yep, I’d been there.

I’d heard about a restaurant with some good vegetarian options from the ladies on my food tour, so I headed there around 3:00 for a late lunch/early dinner.  It was wonderful!  It was about 2 blocks in off the Old Town Square and called Zalipianki.  I had carpaccio of veggies (zucchini, cucumber, beets, radish) with goat cheese and cranberry sauce that was to die for.  I have been craving veggies and this really hit the spot.  My main was pierogis filled with sheep’s cheese and topped with caramelized onions and beets.  Dessert was a massively deep dish apple pie.  That Winnaca rose that I have had here twice now was on the menu, so who was I to say no?  All in, it was my most expensive meal at $35.  It has been incredibly cheap here to eat incredibly well.

After dinner I poked around the stalls in the market in cloth hall, walked up Florianska Street one more time just window shopping.  There’s a little vodka shop on that street that will sell you shots of vodka, so I tried a caramel infused one, which was interesting (but warming, much needed with it drizzling and cold!).  I made it back to the square to hear the bugler do his hourly call at 5:00 and checked out the flower stalls in the square on more time.

I started to flag about from walking around and the cold and wet was getting to me so I had one more drunk cherry drink at the little shop closer to my hotel and called it a day.  

That’s it for Krakow.  I’ve enjoyed it here and have certainly eaten well.  I’m checked in for the flight to Munich and all packed.

Day Four — Auschwitz-Birkenau

Saturday, May 4

Today started at an absolutely ungodly hour for vacation (although oddly I have no problem getting up at 5:30 a.m. on safari!).  Too early for breakfast to be available here, so I ate a donut I’d bought last night and took a few protein bars with me along with OJ and a bottle of water.  Today was the day I’d planned to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Let’s get the logistic out of the way.  You can’t visit Auschwitz I without a guide from the museum there.  I signed up with a local tour agency to take a bus to the site and from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and back to Krakow.  That part worked out fine.  So for those considering going to Auschwitz from Krakow, it really doesn’t matter which company you go with, as they’re only driving you there and facilitating your entry to the sites (reserving your spot and paying your admission).  The guide who takes you around the site is from the museum.

The tour starts at Auschwitz I, which was primarily use to house Soviet prisoners.  There are 28 barracks and the camp held “only” 15,000-20,000 prisoners.  It is disconcerting to say the least though to see how well landscaped it is, with new (since the camp was closed) trees and lilac bushes.  Combining the landscaping with the bright blue skies and brilliant sun when visiting on a day like today almost feels wrong.  I felt like it should have been overcast.  And cold.  At one point I saw a pigeon gathering straw to build a nest somewhere nearby and marveled that life is going on there in light (or in spite?) of all that has come before.

Our guide led us through several of the barracks that helped him weave his story.  Indeed, they were mostly quite effective.  He explained how the Zyclon-B gas was tested here, how the barracks were originally one story and the prisoners built the second stories on them.  There was one corridor with the official intake photos of some of the prisoners (about 200 or so) with their newly given prisoner number which would become their identity for the rest of their stay here.  It was hard to see the photos of them, knowing that they were being told this was all temporary...yet all of them had a date of death on them too. 

There was a room of photos that were taken by prisoner who were working at the crematoriums.  They’d snuck cameras and film and were able to document women being forced into the death chambers.  They played such a role in proving that this all actually happened.  I wondered if they could even believe it themselves.

There was a very large scale display of “prisoners plundered” which was all of the belongings taken from the prisoners.  When they arrived at either camp, they were told to leave their belongings, mark up the bag if they must, but that they’d get the belongings back after a disinfecting shower and some food.  Of course none of that happened, and for some new arrivals at the camp, their shower was really the gas chamber, because the weak or useless prisoners were killed upon arrival.  What we saw were immense piles of eyeglasses, prosthetics and crutches, prayer shawls, brushes, cookware and horrifically enough, two tons of human hair.  The Nazis kept all the hair that was shorn off the prisoners for reuse in textiles.  Two tons of hair?  That had to have been from an ungodly amount of people.  It was horrifying.  To think that what we were seeing, these ridiculously large piles of belongings, were from only a small set of prisoners is mind-numbing.  And sad.  It puts humans behind the numbers, and the result is chilling.

We were taken into a barracks that had cells in the basement for punishments.  Some were just solitary confinement, some were starvation cells.  The point of either was to drive the prisoner crazy or have them die under inhumane conditions.  In the basement it was so narrow that it was one line of people weaving through the hallways.  It was somewhat sign-posted for way-finding but we were meant to be following the guide.  At one point, the young twenty-something in front of me took a wrong turn and we (half of our group of 30) lost our guide, and we were doing the same circuitous route we’d just done.  We were wearing remote headsets so we could hear him no matter where we were within range and by now we’d lost him.  He and the first half of the group had made it outside and were moving on.  He never stopped to count his charges or wait for us. I finally got us outside and he was already two barracks away, and we had to run to catch up.  I thought we were all there and started to pay attention to him again, wondering what I’d missed in this 5-7 minutes of lost time.  Suddenly an elderly Jewish couple came up and she yelled at the guide, “you need to wait, you can’t just leave us.”  Her husband yelled “I’m angry, you had no right running off on us, I lost people here and I’m not even getting to see it, you’re going too fast.”  The guide was completely nonplussed and said in his monotone drone “there are groups behind us we must keep moving.”  The gentleman countered “I came here to learn too, I deserve to see.”  At this point a younger guest said to the guide “we asked you to slow down, we told you we’d lost the group.”  Ugh.  The older couple were both so visibly upset, my heart just broke for them.  It had to have been bad enough to be here at all, to be reminded of what they’d lost and how, but then to add insult to injury.  It took every part of me to swallow that down and refocus.

We ended this part of the tour by seeing the only gas chamber and crematorium still standing in either Auschwitz camp.  The larger ones at Birkenau were destroyed by the Nazis as part of their attempts to destroy the evidence.  It was more than a little bit creepy to be in the gas chamber and then see the adjacent ovens.  While the Nazis claimed Zyclon B was the most humane way to kill, it certainly didn’t sound that way to me.

We had a quick break before we boarded the bus to Birkenau.  Thankfully they don’t make us walk the 3km between camps.  Who knows who the guide would have left in the dust on that walk.  During the break I let our tour operator know what happened and that the couple was very upset and I found what had happened inappropriate.  She said she’d reach out to them.

Auschwitz II or Birkenau was much larger.  And completely desolate.  The land is barren.  You see the tell-tale main gate and the rail road tracks leading to the sorting platform, and then it’s nothing but barracks or destroyed barracks as far as you can see.  This camp was massive and bleak.  As the largest in the camp system, it had 300 barracks.  Towards the end of the war there were over 99,000 prisoners here and 3,500 Nazi workers.  I think of everything, I was just not prepared for the scope of it, how large it actually was.  We saw the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria and walked past many of the barracks.  We were allowed in one to see the three-high bunks and how primitive the structure was.  How anyone lived in there in the winter is beyond me.  Even today I found it cold in there.  To say that this is all beyond comprehension is really an understatement.  Even reading back all that I’ve just written, it doesn’t seem to do the experience justice at all.

We boarded the bus for the hour-long trip back to Krakow.  We arrived at 2:00 and I was ravenous and feeling pretty crappy from not having eaten well since the food tour yesterday.  I went back to the really good Polish restaurant we went to yesterday.  I had the potato cakes again, pierogis stuffed with sweet cottage cheese, spinach and caramelized onions and a glass of that rose.  I felt so much better with food in my stomach, but mentally I was still off.  It was only 3:30 and too early to crash at the hotel but I needed to do something to clear my mind.

I decided to pop over to The Europeum, the national museum’s European painting collection.  It was only 4 rooms and their prized Rembrandt landscape is on loan to Warsaw (dang it) but I did stumble quite literally over a Vigee Lebrun!  I love seeing her portraits and I was thrilled to see an old friend in her here.

That wasn’t quite the dose of museum I needed so I just walked.  I went back toward castle hill and walked along the river.  I watched little kids playing and bigger kids running around the stalls at a market on the green there.  It was warmer than the morning and the fresh air felt good.  So I continued my big circle around the Old Town and headed back toward my hotel.  I popped into an ice cream shop and had mint and chocolate on a cone.  Continued my stroll a bit more and still felt it too early to pack it in for the day.  That’s when one of the most fortuitous things happened...

I looked up and saw a wine bar.  Seriously, I had no intentions of doing anything but people-watching with a glass of wine.  When I said I’d be interested in trying some Polish wines, the server poured me a flight of 5, from white to rose to red, and a plate of Polish cheeses to go with.  She told me about the origins of each and what makes them good.  It was amazing!!  What that sweet lady didn’t know is how a little extra TLC sent my way was just what I needed.  It wasn’t the wine or the cheese, but a friendly person willing to talk wine with me.  And that made all the difference.

This whole day reminds me of something my travel guru Anthony Bourdain once said that resonates so strongly with me today:  “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

Today travel wasn’t pretty or comfortable.  Until the wine bar.

Day Three — Mostly About Food

Friday, May 3

In my head I’d planned to sleep in today but it wasn’t to be.  I just couldn’t sleep past 6:30, so I read for a while and got up to head out before my food tour.

Breakfast was the same as yesterday.  The weather here though, is not.  After two glorious warm sunny days, I was greeted with overcast skies that looked heavy with the threat of rain.  It was also about 15 degrees cooler, so much so that I went back inside and put another layer on.  And then I bought an umbrella under the premise that as long as I had one with me, I wouldn’t need it.  Fingers crossed.

Today is the second national holiday here and I think a more significant one.  Not a lot was open and it turns out that despite what the National Museum website said, they were opening an hour later today than usual.  Many shops are closed entirely or opening quite late.  Locals are walking around with the country’s flag and enjoying time out with family and friends.  I asked my food tour guide if the streets around the Old Town Square are always so packed or is it just due to the holidays.  He said this it light foot-traffic compared to the height of tourist season in the summer.  Yikes!

I walked about 15 minutes to the National Museum which is temporarily exhibiting Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with Ermine, which I’d not seen before.  Its home museum is under restoration and rather than keep it off view or send it out on loan, the museum decided to display it here.  In all my museum going, I’ve never seen such a succinct, streamlined exhibit but it was perfect for the significance of this painting.  There was one corridor in a jewel-tone purple leading to the room the painting was in.  There were two panels of explanatory text (how Krakow got the painting, it’s current condition and what scholars think of previous attempts to restore it) and then the darkened room where the painting itself was, set into a wall at eye level.  Three guards kept watch and no photos were allowed.  It was all quite dramatic but the overall effect was wonderful.  Being among the first in the door this morning meant that there was no crowd yet so I got to stand and admire her practically alone.  Of all the da Vincis I’ve seen, I think this is the most beautiful.  Well worth the trip.

I headed up to the Barbican where I was to meet Mat, the guide from Secret Food Tours.  I’ve taken this same tour in Paris and London and loved it, and I had high expectations for this too.  I was not disappointed.  I’d be joined by Anna and Jane, two very nice ladies from the UK.

Mat started the tour off by giving us the Polish version of bagels, which I’d seen being sold on street corners everywhere.  They are just boiled dough with salt on them and as I’d eaten only a light breakfast today in anticipation of the tour starting at 11:30, it hit the spot.  

Our first stop was a pub filled with jubilant locals toasting the holiday (at noon!) where they specialize in Polish sauerkraut stew and beer.  Unfortunately due to the holiday there was no vegetarian option for me but I did try the beer, and, as someone who detests beer, I have to say I actually liked it!  If I was out I’d probably order one if I knew which one I had today!

Next stop was a really nice restaurant that was authentically decorated as if a cabin in the hills of southern Poland.  This, I think, was our favorite stop.  We shared a bottle of Polish rose wine and then had grilled sheep’s cheese with cranberry jam (better than the one I had my first night here) and a potato pancake with garlic butter.  That was simply mashed potato shaped into a 1/2” pancake and baked until the outside crusted a bit.  Both were amazing.

After that we were off to a milk bar that was hidden away inside a university building.  It’s open to the public, but none of us would ever find it on our own.  It is called U Babci, which means “Grandmother’s” and all of the staff look to be someone’s grandmother.  A milk bar is self-serve, meaning you order at the counter and then get called to pick up what you’re eating.  It’s meant to be hearty and very cheap food.  Here we had a fruit juice, made with “any fruit you have around”; this one tasted like plum, strawberry and maybe some apple.  The pierogis here though put the ones I had the other night to shame.  Mine were filled with mushroom and sauerkraut and they were amazing.  The other ladies had them filled with meat.

Our next stop (yes, we’re still eating!) was at a restaurant that specializes in herring.  We tried two kinds, one marinated in beet root and the other in oil and onions.  Both were meant to be eaten on bread slathered in butter.  And we knocked it back with buffalo grass vodka, because “you must water your fish”.  This was really very good.  I liked it better than what we had in Amsterdam (I think that was pickled).  Our second shot was of the cherry liqueur like I had the other night.  Mat called it “drunken cherry” which is pretty darn accurate!

We meandered to the other side of Old Town to work up a last bit of appetite and sat at the outdoor cafe next to the castle.  Here Mat served us cappuccino and two types of cake: cream cake and apple cake. The cream cake was Pope John Paul II’s favorite.  It was similar to a Mille feuille only with a lot more cream.  The apple cake was three layers, a crumbly top, an apple middle and a shortbread base.  Both were extremely good, I can’t say which I liked better.  I was absolutely stuffed and ready for a nap when it was over (just over 4 hours).  So I actually did go an lay down for about an hour, mainly to get warm since it was suddenly so cold out!

Mat told us a lot about how things have evolved in Poland just in his lifetime.  He remembers standing in line for things when he was little, everything from vacuum cleaners and carpets to chicken and sneakers.  Even if you didn’t need what you were queueing for, you got it anyway in case you could trade it or sell it for something you did want.

Mat admitted that Poles can be hard to get to know and may seem distant or unfriendly.  He says that what happened here in WWII still weighs on the nation, but that once we break through we’d see they are a happy, fun-loving people.  That’s good to hear.

While we were on the patio (under a canopy), it rained for maybe 15 minutes, but we were content just people watching.  When we finally said our goodbyes, we ladies made plans to meet up for dinner at some point before we go home.

I wasn’t going to eat anything else tonight but realized I will miss breakfast here tomorrow leaving so early for the Auschwitz tour.  So I picked up a hummus on multigrain sandwich at Costa Coffee and a paczki at a local bakery, and a single serving bottle of the cherry liqueur.  And that was supper.  Man, I’ve had paczki at home and I thought they were good, but this blew them away.  The donut part is heavenly soft and buttery and the cream is off the hook good.  Remind me of this when I’m moving like lead when I get home....

Early to bed for a 5:45 wake up, off to Auschwitz by 6:45.

Day Two - Walking My Feet Down to the Ground

Thursday, May 2

Having slept the sleep of the dead all night (or perhaps it was just not having two sets of four paws climbing all over me all night), I jumped out of bed as soon as the alarm went off.  I didn’t feel 100% rested but certainly had broken the back on the jetlag.

After a great shower (awesome water pressure, passable hair dryer) I had the hotel’s included breakfast.  It was a nice buffet spread, although with some odd choices, like salads, tomatoes and olives and some pickled veg.  I stuck with eggs, a croissant with sour cherry jam and a small yogurt with coffee and OJ.  That got me on my way.

I’d pre-booked a ticket to Oskar Schindler’s factory museum.  I had plenty of time to walk the 2 miles to it, but didn’t want to expend the energy so early, so I caught an Uber.  We’ve used Uber in a lot of different cities now, and Krakow limits where you can pick one up in order to tame traffic in the historic city center.  It was about a 3 minute walk to the nearest place I could grab an Uber.  The car was clean and the ride about 10 minutes.  The area the museum is in isn’t a place I’d normally go as a tourist (it was after all a factory and is still in a very industrial area) but no worries, there were plenty of people there.  As we approached the museum, I saw a lot of groups of people all dressed the same, and realized it was four bus-loads of tourists all waiting to visit the museum.  Thankfully I pre-booked the ticket.  When I left the museum around noon, a sign was posted saying that tickets for the entire day were sold out.

The Schindler factory is now one of the best places to learn about the history of Jews and the Holocaust as it took place in Krakow.  Very little of the museum is about Schindler himself.  It was here though that I was reminded of the shortcomings of my public school education...so much I don’t know and embarrassing to admit it.  So I ended up learning a lot, particularly about the build up to WWII and why Poland was a target.  Their resistance was impressive though and they are a tough lot.  The exhibits really stepped me through what happened in Krakow, almost to the month from 1939 through to the end of the war.  How it all happened and how people survived it continues to perplex me.  I’m not sure I’d be that strong.

The factory itself is in the ghetto area and what made Schindler unique is that he housed the Jews who worked for him on the grounds of his factory, and fed them better than Jews in camps and also provided medical care when needed.  At one point the authorities were trying to force him to make his employees live in camps, so he built a camp nearby where they would live, but treated them as well as the employees who lived on site.  What makes this all the more remarkable is that Schindler was a German Nazi himself.  He was only in Krakow to make money.

It was interesting to see the room that was the office in the movie (I’d just watched it in preparation for coming here) and also his actual office (which was not in the movie).

At the entrance to the Schindler Factory, there is a 35 minute documentary film about the genesis of the Holocaust here in Krakow.  As I was one of the first people in the door and eyeing the massive crowd on the sidewalk behind me, I opted to skip the film and head straight through the exhibits.  That paid off well.  I don’t know how I’d have managed otherwise.  There were lots of labels with densely packed text.  Had the rooms been even half capacity, navigating and reading what I wanted would have been near impossible.  About half way through I could look through a glass wall to exhibits behind me and they were bumper to bumper people.  I made the right call.  I got through most everything before the large school groups and tour groups caught up with me (they clearly weren’t reading everything!)

A sad part of the Schindler story though is that for all the people he saved by keeping them on his payroll (not just his employees but all the generations that resulted from them staying alive), he died poor after several failed businesses.  He was buried in Israel at his request, but received posthumous commendations for his efforts.

Leaving the museum I walked back to the main part of Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter.  At that point, I was at the end of Rick Steves’ walking tour, so I decided to do it in reverse, rather than walk to the start and backtrack.  It didn’t make a difference doing it out of order, it was just more efficient.

My first stop was Ghetto Square, where there are 68 chairs set out in the square, one for each 1000 Jews deported from this square (either to work camps or death camps).  It was chilling to think that the “selection” or sorting process took place right here.  Also on this square is the Pharmacy Under the Eagle, which was run by Tadeus Pankiewicz, who aided the Jews even after his pharmacy was caught within the boundary line of the ghetto.  He did everything from hiding belongings for safekeeping to funneling money and communications in and out of the ghetto for the Jews inside it.  This was an interesting little museum with a very interactive display quality to it.  They encourage opening drawers and doors (where stories or artifacts or photos are hidden), sniffing bottles of “pharmaceuticals”, picking up books or newspapers, etc. everything but “consuming them”.  Ha!

From here I ventured further into the neighborhood and found an assortment of food trucks (there were several clusters of them around here).  I had a pressed sandwich that had falafel, salad and french fries all together in it!  That’s efficient.  It was quite good (and massive!) but very filling.  Just the right energy to keep me going.

I continued on with the walking tour.  I went through a few squares and passed through the passage made famous in Schindler’s List (you’d know it if you saw it, it hasn’t changed a bit).  There was one more square with several food stalls and some vendors selling used goods, everything from old military medals, knives and handicrafts to used vinyl albums by The Smiths!

The first synagogue I went to was the Isaac Synagogue.  It was very simple and stark, but had a lot to say for itself.  The walls were painted with the prayers for those worshippers who couldn’t afford the books for themselves, much like the stained glass windows in Christian churches.  The most impressive synagogue though was the Old Synagogue, which was sunken down so that its foundation was below street level, but on purpose since no Jewish building could be taller than a Christian building.  I must have spent over an hour here, reading everything that was posted about the history of Judaism in Krakow as well as the tenets that make up Judaism and its holidays.  Again, not something I knew before, but I was soaking this all up like a sponge.  My travel guide says this is the oldest surviving Jewish building in all of Poland, built in the 15th century.  It was fascinating.

My walk continued past the building where Helena Rubenstein (the cosmetic magnate) was born to the Old Cemetery.  It was used from the mid 1500s until the 1800s and having buried a significant number of Jewish intelligentsia here, is considered one of the most important cemeteries in Europe.  Yet it was totally destroyed in the war and excavated and reconstructed in the 1950s.

It was a gorgeous day, high 60s and bright sun, the kind of day we wait for all winter in Boston and only get a couple of before spring flips to summer and it’s 80 and humid.  I skipped the tram back to Old Town and walked, and made it in the same amount of time as I would have if I took the tram (I literally met it at the stop closest to my hotel).

At 4:00 I took an hour long break back at the hotel to rest my feet and back.  I headed back out to survey the area around the hotel, did a bit of shopping and browsing around.  The area around the main square, which was pretty empty at 8:30 this morning when I left the hotel, was packed chock-a-block with strolling humans again.  I can’t tell whether this is the norm or just because it’s a holiday week (yesterday and tomorrow).  At least there’s car traffic, just the odd tram or two you have to watch for.

Dinner tonight was at a Georgian restaurant near the square.  I stumbled on it and remembered how good Georgian food was in Moscow.  This was pretty good and a great find on short notice!  I had eggplant thinly sliced and rolled with walnut paste and pomegranate seeds as an appetizer.  The main was a Georgian bread baked with cheese and spinach (like a sauceless deep dish pizza, almost) with pickled beets and cabbage on the side.  Dessert, of course there was dessert!, was a chocolate layer cake with the best dark chocolate ice cream I’ve had in a long while.  I had two glasses of white wine and a glass of red dessert wine.  Miraculously all this cost $23!  (Forgot to mention last night’s meal was $32!). This is certainly not a budget breaking trip so far....

Several times in walking on the pedestrian street to and from the hotel to the square, I’ve passed his hole in the wall where all the patrons are standing out on the sidewalk drinking this bright red liquid in crystal glasses.  Curious, I popped in tonight and learned it’s a sort of Polish spirit made from cherries.  Of course I had one and joined the throngs on the sidewalk.  It was quite good and will likely be my stop for the next few nights!

A lot of the servers at food stalls and shops here have tip jars out at home, but almost all of them have signs on them indicating what they’re saving for.  “Tips for travel to Georgia” (the country, I’m guessing, I can’t see Atlanta being a big draw to the Poles).  Or Spain.  Or Italy.  My favorite though was a busker playing guitar on a side street, and his sign said “Travel to Cambridge, tips for MBA at Harvard”.  Yep, he got a tip from me.  Any little bit helps.

That’s it for today.  I’ve managed to stay awake almost until 10.  I’ll sleep in a bit tomorrow since my Secret Food Tour doesn’t start until 11:30.

Day One - Welcome to Krakow

Wednesday, May 1

I could not have had a more uneventful passage to Krakow than I had on Lufthansa.  Both flights were smooth, early (!) and quick.  Funny how 6 1/2 hours feels like nothing after doing 14 hours last fall!  My only complaint is the amount of walking I had to do to transfer in Frankfurt; that airport feels Heathrow-like in its spread, but I suppose walk fights of DVT, so all is good.

I met my pre-booked driver to take me to my hotel and away we went.  Only 79 zloty, which is about $20 for a round trip transfer. Yes, Poland is proving to be a budget-hunter’s paradise.  Prices are amazing across the board.

My hotel, Hotel Wawel, is about 2 blocks off Old Town Square, on a nice quiet side street away from the throngs.  People generally don’t wander down this way, there’s nothing but the hotel.  As it’s a public holiday (Labor Day) today, there are herds of people walking around the square and the castle and everywhere in between, so it’s nice to get away from it all.  I have the bedroom window open now since it was so nice out today (mid-60s, sunny and blue skies, such the opposite of home right now!) but may close it just in case it drops overnight.  The day was perfect for walking!

And walk I did.  I showered and changed when I first arrived and hit the streets by 11:30.  Since I had about 4 breakfasts and my dinner all in the space of 10 hours, I wasn’t really hungry until late afternoon.  I opted to follow Rick Steves’ self-guided walking tour of the Old Town.  Love him or hate him, his walking tours are informative and lively.  I learned a lot and had some a-ha moments.  There are a ton of churches here, and I think I was in about 6 today, but there were reasons for each and it made the walk interesting to compare them.

There’s a church with two towers in the market square.  Historically a trumpeter has played a song from the top of one of those towers on the hour.  But many years ago, the trumpeter was killed in battle up there when he was struck by the enemy, cutting his song short.  Today the ritual continues and on the hour a trumpeter plays the same song from the top of the towers in each of the four cardinal directions, and cuts off the song at the same point that the original trumpeter was slain.  Random trivia: today’s trumpeters are also firefighters and they stay up there for 24 hours at a time to do this job.

The beautiful gothic cathedral on the square was a highlight but for the scaffolding on the high altar.  It would have been nice to see its claim to fame while I’m here but restoration is part of the risk of traveling for art, I suppose.  I wound my way around and through the university district and the cloth hall which is now market stalls.  I ended up over where Pope John Paul lived when he was visiting here as Pope, which is across from one of the churches where he first worked as priest.  The church has a pew marked with a silver plaque indicating where he liked to sit and pray when he visited there by himself.  Now St. John Paul is a major celebrity here.  You can’t walk more than a few blocks without seeing where he went to school, where he lived, or was first a priest, or archbishop or cardinal of Krakow.  They haven’t forgotten him for sure.  He is likely Krakow’s favorite son.  There is a chapel in the cathedral with a floor panel that’s waiting for his remains. He left no instructions on how to deal with his body after his death, so the Vatican buried him there.  Krakovians are waiting for him to be moved back here, but all signs point to that being unlikely.

I popped into a cafe to have a hummus, tomato and spinach sandwich and then took on the castle area.  Of course castles are up hill, so that was a hike but once up there, there is the national cathedral, a bell tower to climb and a cathedral museum.  Of all these, I found the museum pretty interesting with it’s collection of St. John Paul memorabilia, everything from his cloaks and shoes and hats to silverware that he gifted to the cathedral over time.  They only have 4 rooms, one of which is devoted to him, but some very nice papal artifacts.

Probably the coolest thing I did today was climb the bell tower at the castle hill.  It was only 70 very narrow steps up but we passed 3 enormous bells on the way.  These had been forged 500-600 years ago!  And they were each upwards of 6000 pounds.  I was baffled seeing them all hung in a wooden bell tower...just how does that work.

I made it to 5:00 before I really needed a break.  I came back to the hotel and recharged, then went out to dinner at a place on the town square called Wesel. I’d read their menu during the day and it looked like it had a few things for vegetarians on it.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I had a bottle of still water, a glass of Polish rose (who knew? Very cherry and fruity!) and fried sheep’s cheese with cranberry jam, pierogi stuffed with lentils in a mushroom sauce, and fried apple cake with a shot of cherry vodka, all for $32!  That’s a bargain!  And it was very filling.

So far my initial impressions are that Krakow is similar to Prague, only maybe not as friendly or as pretty.  It’s very walkable and comfortable.  I need to spend more time before I can say for certain how I feel about it. And make the determination after a good night’s sleep!

Trials of an OCD packer

I'm a ridiculous overplanner.  I'm ridiculously organized and overthink everything.  There are contingencies upon contingencies, plan Bs and backups to backups.

That's why this back-to-back trip thing with 40 hours between them shouldn't be so anxiety-producing.  But it is.

The bedroom is its usual staging area of stuff.  Two suitcases litter the floor.  Clothes and toiletries are strategically piled for easy transition.What can be packed now is. I have in my head what needs to be laundered and packed for Europe and what needs to go from one daybag to another.  But other than passport and credit cards, does anything else matter?

At some point I need to stop and enjoy the ride.  I think that time is now.  After I check the Toronto bag one more time.  I should have everything in there that I need (Morrissey ticket, passport, credit cards?)

Hopefully I'll look back on this in a couple weeks and laugh.  What a first world problem for a travel-holic.