Krakow, Etc.*

*In German, "etc." is "usw." (Und so weiter . . .)#
#Our German really isn't getting all that much better. I learned about usw. years ago.

The big recent event for us has been our son Joel's arrival (with his girlfriend Jenny Sylak) for a visit. They got here in the morning of May 9. We didn't give them too much time to recover from jet lag--because of my schedule, the best time for us all to go off together was not long after they came. So we got on the train to Vienna on the 10th--here they are having lunch with us in a little restaurant there. We wandered around the city a little, sent Joel and Jenny on the tour of the Opera House that we'd done in February, then went out to Schoenbrunn Palace on the metro. (It was the summer palace of the Hapsburgs, though it's just a few miles from the winter palace in the middle of town. Insert snide remark about imperial dynasties here.) It's quite a grand place--the buildings are impressive enough, but the grounds are just massive, with rows of trees going on almost forever, various statues and fountains and little hills and viewing areas here and there, etc. The pictures don't really do it justice.

We went back into town, had dinner in a nice place with some guy playing hammered dulcimer, and wandered around a little more. Then we headed back to the Sud Bahnhof to catch the night train to Krakow. We'd agreed to go there with Joel and Jenny partly because Jenny's grandfather is Polish, and was born not far from there.

Marlyce had figured out that taking the night train would a) save us a night in a hotel b) give us time to see Vienna and more time in Krakow and c) be a restful sort of adventure. It was pretty cheap, too, since we got a special fare and a compartment with fold-down bunks, sheets, and pillows.

It turned out she was right about everything except the "restful" part. I think all of us slept some, and after a while, when the train was actually moving, the rocking was kind of restful. But there were a number of stops, including a long one at the Czech border while we waited for some other cars to be added and listened to very loud announcements in various languages about what was happening with other trains, the relatives of the conductors, etc. (I'm kidding about the last part, I think.)

Anyway, we arrived at Krakow at 6:30 a.m., ready for, well, something. We dropped our bags at the hotel, but they said the apartment wouldn't be ready till noon. So we walked around the square a little, but couldn't find any place open for breakfast. So we bought some soft, chewy pretzels at a street stand--they were delicious, actually--and sat at the feet of the statue of Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's most famous poet, waiting for things to open up. (You can see the chewing going on here.) Finally we got some eggs and coffee in us, and felt ready to wander some more.

Krakow is a beautiful, historic city--the cultural center of Poland, or so people say. And we had beautiful weather there, too, as you'll see in the pictures. There's a lot of Hapsburg influence there too, but the Poles are quite proud of their own Wawel Castle (which dates back several centuries) and their heritage. It's easy to see that things more or less stood still for a long stretch under the communists. Now there are lots of fine new buildings, and many older ones that have been wonderfully restored, but there are still lots that are in pretty bad shape--often right next to the new ones.

We walked around the castle and the church that's part of the complex for quite a while. (Joel figured out that the outside of the church with its twin chapels, one green and the other gold, is on the cover of the Rick Steves eastern Europe guidebook that we were carrying.) There seemed to be a lot of activity in the area, with various groups of performers like this young choir and TV people around, but we didn't know just what was going on. Someone told us later that the president of Poland had come by later in the afternoon.

Around 11:00 we decided it was time for a light lunch and a serious nap, so we got some thing to eat, did a little shopping, and then checked in. The apartment--up under the eaves of a building on the northwest corner of the Market Square--was definitely quaint. It was comfortable enough, but had some unique features, especially the large, red-painted beam that curved through the dining area (structurally important, we felt sure). Jenny whanged into it once or twice, but we enjoyed the place anyway. (Joel also found a great furry hat to help him through the next Waterloo winter, as you can see.)

After some rest we all felt ready to see some more of the city, so we walked around some more, and did more shopping as well. (Things were at least relatively cheap, or so it seemed.) Later in the afternoon we went down to the old Jewish quarter--Poland had more Jews than any European country before WW II--and went into a synagogue that's now a museum. We had dinner outside at a Jewish restaurant, where the food was very fine, and saw a monument nearby (a lot of empty chairs spaced out across an open plaza). The factory where Schindler employed a lot of Jews to keep them out of the camps was just a few blocks away, and we managed to find it too, though there's not a whole lot to see. (During this day we also twice ran into a nice young couple from Cambridge, England, once at the castle and again in the Jewish quarter, and then the next Sunday we met them again on Mozart Square in Salzburg, which was pretty cool.)

The next morning we got up as bright and early as the young ones could manage (they were still fighting jet lag and the night train adventure, of course) and got a bus for Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish, give or take a few marks I can't add in this format), which is about fifty miles west of Krakow. We spent most of the day at the main camp in town (it was originally a Polish army barracks) and the second, bigger Auschwitz-Birkenau camp a couple of miles away, which is where the largest number of people (Jews, Poles, gypsies, and others) were actually killed.

It's hard to know where to start or end in describing something like this. Everybody knows the story, I suppose. There are the famous things to see: the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate (rebellious Polish workers welded the B on upside down), the rooms that are filled with women's hair cut off the dead, with shoes, with eyeglasses, with hairbrushes, the wall where they shot people, and of course the gas chambers and crematoria (mostly in ruins). One of the most striking things for me was the sheer size of the grounds at Birkenau, where most of the barracks have long been torn down and only the chimneys remain, stretching off into the distance. It was another beautiful spring day, and the grass was green and the lilacs were blooming. We were glad for the chance to take it all in, and glad, too, to know that we could get back on the bus and go away.

We caught a full-size bus back to Krakow, and sort of dozed through much of the trip. The oddest moment came when the lid on the roof vent (which had been open) suddenly broke off, banged very loudly on the roof once, then bounced away to land in the ditch somewhere. Several people told the driver what had happened, but after the slightest of acknowledgements he just kept going. Maybe this happens all the time.

Waiting for the bus, we met some people from Florida who told us about this medieval-themed restaurant where they had eaten the night before. It turned out to be just up the street from our hotel, so we went in to check it out. People were ordering "pork on the sword," which they brought out dramatically on skewers and flamed right there in the midst of things, which was pretty cool. There was also a very good three-piece band--violin, accordion, and some kind of recorder--playing along behind everything.

We took the day train back early the next morning, and had a pleasant, if slightly tedious, trip back. It was nice to see the countryside pass by--everything from yellow fields of rape seed to vineyards and fields of hops, and many small and larger towns as well.

I had to go back to work on Thursday and Friday, but Marlyce took Joel and Jenny around to some of the local attractions. Then on Saturday we took the train to Hallein and the bus up the mountain to see the salt mine. It was sort of touristy, but kind of fun. You ride a little train back into the mountain, after putting on these white coverall-type things to keep your clothes from getting too dirty. The mines were started a very long time ago by the Celts, then reopened in the Middle Ages, and they were the real source of the wealth of Salzburg for a long time. The local archbishops became rich and powerful on the income from salt, which was shipped down the Salzach (hence the name) and then all over Europe. The best part of the tour was sliding down these wooden chutes that the miners used to go down fast. Even better, though, was the sort of summer-bobsled run that Joel talked us into trying out. It meant walking close to a mile uphill all the way to a ski run. You go up to the top of the mountain in the chairlift, and then ride down in a little car with a control stick that you can brake with, if you get scared or are about to run into the person in front who has stopped to admire the scenery (this happened to me). You can see by the grins that we enjoyed this considerably.

Those who have read this far should know that after all this fun, I did work quite hard this week . . . the first exam in my big North American Civilization class was due, and of the 175 students registered, 140+ actually took the exam. I gave it online, so the computer did much of the grading, but I still had to look through every one, give points for near-misses on names and so forth, and read two essay questions for each exam. I finished about 4:00 today, to my considerable relief.

Joel and Jenny are now off in Prague--they left early yesterday and are coming back late tomorrow. They will have to do their own reporting on that trip!