They weren't thrilled about letting us in, even though we were clearly dressed for church, since we were also clearly tourists, but they gave in in the end. The cathedral was standard European mind-blowing, and mass was interesting even though we're not Catholic and we couldn't understand a word. Across the way from the church was the extremely helpful tourist information place. We stopped in and they helped me and Catherine book a tour of lower Silesia. She wanted to go back to Stale Jitske to look at the shops. Shops were closed, but we got better pictures of the animals. Including this golden goat doot.
This was all very near our place so we went back, changed then headed back out to really explore. We found the river again, which was having a random book give away this time.
I found a learn German book written in Polish that I thought Dad would like. Also interesting was this statue. The first time we saw her she was wearing a t-shirt.
Across the river we could see a tall building that had the Harry Potter icon. We were sure it was a hotel, but Catherine couldn't resist looking. It was a hotel of course, not in the least romantic.
After our nap we went back to the old town to get a "chimney cake" from one of the cute stalls. Catherine loved it, I thought it was kind of blah. For Dave's birthday I had snuck a "cake candelabra" to Poland. We tried to put it in the chimney cake and light it. Massive fail, but I think the candelabra is still cute.
Carrying on with the suggested guidebook sites, we found the Ossolineum--which is part of the university.
We went into the small, pretty garden
and into the library, but this was obviously not the famous library. Most of this area was closed for Sunday. We DID find the right Cathedral island. Wow.
These gas lamps are famous. Wroclaw is one of the very few places left in the world that still employs a lamplighter.
They are serious about not sitting on the chains.
At the souvenir stall before the bridge we found a souvenir stall selling what looked to be the best gnomes so far. We bought it. The bridge to the island was interesting too. It was covered with locks just like Paris.
The island is rightly named. There were 5 or six large Cathedrals, St. John the Baptist was the most amazing.
One of the other Cathedrals--most of the churches we saw had this pretty red and white brickwork.
There was also a Jesuit seminary and street musicians.
We walked slowly toward home.
The town is full of lovely surprises like these historic sidewalk markers.
and a friendly neighborhood alligator,
We had dinner at Burger Love. Good burgers, but no fries, only coleslaw. I liked these chairs.
On our way home we found our friend, Melina and her son, Eli who were also there for the conference. We chatted and then got hot chocolate, and Catherine introduced me to "string cheese." Oh my, best stuff ever.
We lit the candles and sang at Dave again.
We ended the day at about 17,000 steps.
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