Another day, another walking tour! I wish that we had known how wonderful Krakow was going to be and how much there is to do here- we would have stayed longer and gone to the salt mines and spent more time exploring the Jewish quarter. We have really enjoyed our time here.
The walking tour we went on was a tour of the Jewish district and a bit about the history of the area as it relates to WWII. Poland was actually quite a sanctuary for the heavily persecuted Jews in the 15-16th centuries thanks to Kasmeir the great who had a lover, Esther, who was jewish and he invited the persecuted Jews to come to Poland. Thousands of Jews moved to Poland- currently, only 200 people of the ~700,000 living in Krakow identify as Jewish. We saw the original synagogue and traveled to the area that acted as the ghetto during WWII. In the center of the area that was the ghetto was a memorial to the Jews who lived there and eventually died in concentration camps, dozens of empty chairs face towards Auswitz, others face different directions all symbolic of other areas of poland. We saw the area where Oskar Schindler had his factory. It was an interesting, emotional tour. The more I am learning about WWII and communism, the more I am realizing how little I know. I have become much more interested in history after hearing so much about so many things I knew nothing about.
Our Australian friends, Ben & Lee-ann, showed up for the Jewish tour as well. After the tour we went to grab some more of the delicious pierogi we had enjoyed the day before on the food tour. As we were getting there, we saw another couple from the first walking tour we had been on in Krakow. They were an older couple from Wales. So, we all ordered our pierogi and sat down on the tiny benches outside and chatted about where we had been and what we had done in Poland. It was a really excellent evening and always fun to hear about what other people have done and where they have been. The couple from Wales left after dinner since they had a taxi taking them to the airport at 4am. We went to a nearby pub with Ben and Lee-Ann to chat some more. We swapped travel stories and the topic turned to the dangers of travel, namely, getting robbed. We were just really getting going and getting into the gory details of all the ways that people we knew or knew of had been robbed while traveling (they had some that we had never heard of, including kids lighting newspaper on fire in front of travelers in Rome, shysters on the streets of Paris approaching people, offering to make them friendship bracelets, but instead tying a piece of string tightly around their fingers, almost to the point of cutting them and demanding to be taken to the nearest ATM) and all of a sudden this young, drunk guy comes up to us and asks if he can join us “out of the blue” as he put it. We all kind of looked at each other… “Uh, sure” we said. So, he sat down and Lee-Ann continued her story. He stopped her and said “can you start over so I know what you are talking about?” Then when she hesitated, “…or maybe you would like to know more about me?” And then he launched into a story, littered with curses, about his job, where he lived etc. It was very strange- most likely he was just some drunk kid who wanted to practice his English, but his timing couldn’t have been worse, we all had robbery on the mind!! We finished our drinks and excused ourselves. We really enjoyed getting to know Ben and Lee-Ann and learning all about the joys of duck ownership!
The next morning, we caught a bus to Wroclaw, Poland. We mispronounced the name every single time we said it- saying “row-claw” until one of our tour guides kept referencing a town called “vrots-swauve” and finally, it clicked- Wroclaw is pronounced “vrots-swauve”. The bus was very nice, another double decker, it had wifi, outlets and a bathroom with paper and soap- it was also cheaper and faster than the train. We were impressed by these things, but what really made the difference was… the juice boxes they handed out! Yup, good ol’ fashioned juice boxes and snacks. Best bus ride ever! Anyway, we got to Wroclaw, the Venice of Poland, around 3pm. We spent the afternoon crossing bridges, watching ducks and taking pictures of the beautiful city. It had a lot of rivers and islands, but that’s about it as far as similarities to Venice (it was even missing all the pigeons, instead it had ducks!). Maybe it’s because we were there in fall instead of summer. It was beautiful and interesting for its own merits as far as I was concerned though, regardless of whether or not it is similar to Venice. We only had part of one day in Wroclaw, but would have liked another day or two.
A few pics from Wroclaw…
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