Benfords in Poland
Our latest visitors were my parents, who arrived on the 10th. After spending a few days checking out the required Poznań attractions, we headed off for the first stop on our trip: Kraków!
Our original plan was to stop in Częstochowa on the way there. This is the site of the famous “Black Madonna” icon and attracts millions of visitors a year. We changed our plans after we discovered a few days prior that we would be passing through along with over one hundred thousand pilgrims celebrating the Assumption of Mary.
Despite living here almost a year, we had never been to Kraków, the second largest city in Poland, but heard all kinds of great things about the city. It was remarkably untouched by WWII, so it doesn’t have that “rebuilt by the communists” feeling. Their main square is much larger than Poznań’s as well.
In Poznań, there is a high likelihood of being hit by a tram or a bicyclist. But in Kraków, it’s the horse drawn carriages and the golf cart tour vehicles that will get you.
We checked out Wawel Castle:
And the Barbican, which was part of the old defensive wall around the city:
Later that afternoon, we headed out to the Wieliczka salt mine, about 8 miles southeast of the city. The two-hour tour, 3.5 km tour was in English and took us through less than 1% of the total area of the mine. There are many figures and statues carved out of salt, but the most impressive “room” was the chapel, featuring salt chandeliers, a salt Pope John Paul II, and the Last Supper carved into the wall. All of the carvings were done by miners and not professional sculptors.
(photo from Wikipedia—for some reason, we can’t find ours!)
And while we took the stairs down into the mine (100-some meters below ground), there was, thankfully, an elevator ride back to the surface.
After Kraków, we headed to Wrocław, which is about 2 hours south of Poznań. We have driven through the city a few times, but had never actually stopped. (Driving through the city is so maddening, you don’t want to stop…you just want it to be over with as fast as possible.)
Wrocław’s main square is beautiful – their Gothic town hall is exquisite.
All of the other buildings are also fabulously decorated:
The churches on the river were very idyllic as well:
Wrocław has an interesting history, because it returned to Polish control after WWII and underwent an extensive re-population. It had previously been part of Germany and was named Breslau. Due to its extensive damage, a lot of the city was rebuilt under communist rule. The monolithic, gray apartment buildings are quite the contrast to the colorful square.
As we headed toward Berlin, we stopped in Bolesławiec, in southwestern Poland, which is better known as the home of Polish Pottery. It’s a nice little town and, most importantly, has several factory outlets.
We reached Berlin with enough time to walk around a bit before dinner. I was not fully prepared for how big a city it is. Since we didn’t really know what we wanted to see or where to go first, we decided to take a guided walking tour the next day.
The tour was awesome. While scheduled for only 4 hours, our guide, Brian (an enthusiastic Canadian, who loved to make fun of Americans, Brits, Kiwis, Aussies, Danes, and his fellow Canadians), asked if we wanted to see some extra places and spend more time at some of the sights. As a result, our tour clocked in at 7.5 hours. Of course, we saw all the required sites:
Brandenburg gate:
Remnants of the Berlin Wall (ironically, the remaining sections are surrounded by a fence):
The Reichstag/Bundestag:
(The huge line is all the tourists waiting to go into the glass dome on top.)
We also stopped at Hitler’s underground bunker, which is now a parking lot. After visiting Wilczy Szaniec, this makes two Hitler bunkers in less than two months. Weird.
So if you are in Berlin, looking for a good tour, and have comfortable shoes, we highly recommend Insider Tours. A bunch of us joined Brian the tour guide for beers afterwards. Mine is green!
Thanks Mom and Dad for a great time!
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