One last weekend hurrah was in order to get a Polish stamp in my passport, so 12 hours one-way later, Raph and I were in Krakow, an infamous city indeed... We went from Prague's main station to a town divided by the Czech and Polish border, "Czesien/Tsesien." We stopped at "Cesky Czcesien", had a bite to eat, and walked across the border (about 20 mins). I think we were the first non-Euro citizens the foot border guards had seen all week: they made a big fuss changing the dates on their stamps and showing our passports to every guard they could find...
Then we picked up a train in "Polsky Tsesien" and headed on our merry way to Krakow-- through Oswiecen (Auschwitz), among other stops. Although it was a rare opportunity, I didn't have the heart to visit the concentration camp and its museums: the stations themselves were enough for me.
One thing you really notice about the Polish countryside as you are sitting on a rickety old train that conjures images of the 1940s-- it is much shabbier than the Czech countryside. Wild, in a someone started to build something, and then just left it there-- 50 years ago-- kind of way. The exceptions were the churches, which obviously received all the reconstruction
Zloty and
Groschen. The train stations don't have clocks or directions or signs on the platforms (just numbers), and often are simple rotting wooden shelters that you feel must have looked like this during WWII. Perhaps that, and the gloomy weather and garbage dumps, is why it was so easy for my mind to drift into imagining the deportations of the Holocaust, perhaps even on the very trains I was riding on. That, and the Synagogue we visited in the Jewish Quarter only had Holocaust literature. For all the rich Jewish-American tourists who come there I imagine. For me, it was very hard to escape the Holocaust in Poland. Memories of it are everywhere.
We did spend a wonderful evening in the Jewish Quarter however, listening to live Klezmer music at a restaurant called "Ariel." Absolutely rich, seductive mixture of oboe, base and accordian (sometimes violin), Arabic and Western all at once, sardonic, mournful and celebratory...Raph claims Krakow has the best nightlife in Europe.
Krakow itself was beautiful, if still under construction. It sports the largest medieval square in Europe, a gorgeous castle (not to mention the dragon!) and cathedral that contains the coffins of several popes and kings. Another unique aspect of Krakow is the defense system the castle had in place-- a tiered system of moats and a defense fortress unlike any other; very effective.
Oh yeah, and then there was the searching for Piotrek's (Raph's friend's) apartment in the pouring rain as Raph had insisted he remembered the way...luckily some stranger took pity on us and lent us her mobile phone...Polish is not Czech, but it helped! There was more trauma on the trip home, but you'll have to ask me for that story in person. All's well that ends well.
Just wanted to let everyone know that I arrived safetly back in the U.S. I am in Virginia (Washington, DC area) now, and will head to San Francisco tomorrow for Kendra's graduation (Masters of Computer Science) ceremony Sunday. Then back to VA, and it looks like I'll be in NYC from June 27th until July 2nd-- so book me now;P
