The year 2012 had begun in Poland and
there I was once again (NYE-Krakow). This time I was helping to load
a van to take to Austria but with plans to return another two times
in the course of the following couple of weeks. Road tripping Poland
was a fresh feature of the trip though the central focus was on
Krakow, the town I had spent the bulk of my time ringing in the new
year. This time around it was quite a bit warmer and we were more
than just my brother and I wandering the medieval streets. There we
were, my parents, my brother, a couple cousins, an aunt and myself
settling in to a nice 4 room, 2 full bath apartment with high
ceilings and a pretty huge kitchen on the old-town border of the
Jewish quarter. It was a far cry from the Goodbye Lennon hostel I
stayed in just 8 months earlier even though it was situated just a
block down the street.
Krakow was chosen as home base. From
there the road took us to Austria, to another part of Poland, and to
Prague. On our second day in the city we packed up and headed east
toward the Ukrainian border. It is there, a tiny village with one
small store and a park at its center that one of my great
grandfathers came from. My grandma Matusick's parents both came from
this remote region of Poland. They were in neighboring villages but
they hadn't met until they arrived in a Pennsylvanian mining town. I
could only imagine their initial conversations about the old country
that brought them together. We strolled around the village in the
foothills of the Tatra mountains, the very roads that well over one
hundred years ago my great grandfather walked as a child. I wonder
what it looked like back then.
On our way out of the village we
stopped by a world war one monument on a hill looking over another
village where my great grandmother was born. It was there that I
realized that since my great grandparents left these villages the
area has seen two great wars and decades of communist rule. So much
has happened in the last 100 years. Slowly cruising the main road my
aunt spotted the house number. It was the very house that my great
grandmother was born in. They jumped out and with the help of my
brother's Ukrainian/Polish attempts they got some info about the
family from some locals residing there. The name has left the
village but the memory remains, for a short while longer anyway. The
initiative to track down these birthplaces was that of my fathers
cousin Joanne who put in a lot of time researching which resulted in
a pretty unique experience for us all deep in the Poland countryside.
The other days in Poland were spent
strolling the old square and the Jewish quarter catching some quick
facts from our free walking tour guides. Krakow is a charming city,
still not so touristy, still not so expensive. It's a relaxing
breather in comparison to Prague and Vienna. You can easily see
Pols, learn about Polish culture and history, and hear it all from
Pols themselves. The walking tour guides must complete a course in
order to get certified and the course is in Polish so there's a
pretty good chance that the guide is a local.
The beautiful Wawel Castle sits high
above the Wisla River at the southern end of the old medieval city.
Walking around the medieval city you find pretty churches, a large
section of the original wall and gate on the side facing north, nice
cafes restaurants and bars, all with a gorgeous square at its center.
The square is larger than that of San Marco in Venice with the
stunning Cloth Hall at its center featuring your typical souvenir
pushers and amber jewelry venders. In one corner of the square a
bugle calls out to each of the four directions every hour, on the
hour, from the higher of the two steeples of St. Mary's church.
Street performers take over one side of the square showing their
break-dancing skills with their hungry top hats perched at the edge
of the crowd begging for change.
Making our way to the Jewish quarter we
leave the medieval center passing through a pleasant park which
surrounds the historical center on all sides. It's in the Jewish
quarter where you'll find some of the nice bars and cafes to grab a
beer in and listen to good music. You'll also find a few synagogs
sporting their Hebrew script and stars of David. It was there that
shots of the Jewish ghetto in the movie Schindler's list were taken
even though the real ghetto was just across the river where a
haunting memorial sits just minutes from Schindler's factory. When
passing through the Jewish quarter don't hesitate to stop by its
small square where you'll find a building at it's center selling the
local street food Zapiakanka, a piece of toasted bread topped with
mushrooms, cheese, and whatever other toppings your appetite calls
for.
Krakow is a must see for any traveler
seeking history, culture, cheap prices, and a break from the busy
tourist cities of Europe. For now anyway, it is still a small
charming European city but I can see that changing in the coming
years as vacationers gradually push their boundaries further east.
My last day spent in Krakow was a
lonely one. My flight left a full day and night after the family had
departed. My brother back to Ukraine on a train, my parents, aunt,
and cousins back to America by plane. There I was, once again, alone
in Krakow after the long vacation. Those are the loneliest times,
those periods of stillness following intense periods of togetherness.
That day I made it out to Krak mound where I could see the old
center from a hilltop off in the distance. It was my last day in
Poland before beginning the next stage of my journey home which would
take me to northern Italy, to my girlfriend, and to the Mediterranean
coast.
No comments:
Post a Comment