Our guide was a young man named Thomas, and I could kick myself for never getting a picture of him! He was wonderful. He spoke excellent English and was very easy to talk to. He picked us up at our apartment and we headed south. The scenery reminded me if Iowa--but with more hills, green, lovely with fluffy white clouds that day. we drove by miles and miles of fields of poppies and lavender. Thomas told us that mothers used to use the poppies to make little chew bags to quiet their babies. Wonder if Omi ever did that? Did Mom grow up on opium?
The first stop, about an hour form Wroclaw, was Swidnica Church of Peace.
It is the largest timber-framed church in Europe. There is good reason why it doesn't look like a church on the outside. It was built in the mid 17th century when Protestants were out of favor. To build the church at all, they had to follow these rules: Only use perishable materials, such as wood, and hay, it could not look like a church, could not have a bell tower or bell and had to be completed in one year. They were outwardly compliant, but just look at the inside!
Around the church was a wonderful cemetery--overgrown and spooky.
Back in the van, and next stop was Ksiaz Castle.The third largest castle in Poland, it was built toward the end of the 13th century.
A lion for Dave.
The castle changed hands many times until the Hochberg family got a hold of it in 1605. Much of the current tour tells the story of the Duchess Maria Teresa Olivia, "Daisy."
She married into the family at 17 for wealth and importance, but was never very happy. Here is a small breakfast parlor.
A doorway that I liked.
Daisy worked as a nurse during WW1. During WWII a reporter published an article telling that the family was working against Hitler. Obviously, the Nazi's weren't going to tolerate that. Hitler had the castle confiscated. Daisy lived the rest of her days in a villa in another city. She died in 1943, no one knows where exactly she is buried. Today the castle can be rented out for weddings and conferences.
After seeing the castle, we had a quick lunch at a little stand near the parking lot---sausage and bread with mustard. Thomas asked if Polish sausage in America was like this? It isn't, and I was trying to explain how sausages here are much smaller. Thomas pointed out that it was ironic that I was in Poland trying to explain Polish sausage to a Polish person. Couldn't argue with that!
The last stop on this tour was at the complex Osowka, a huge underground construction the Nazi's began but didn't finish. No one knows what the purpose of these tunnels was. Conspiracy theories abound, but the only certain thing was that the working conditions for the prisoners sent here was appalling.
Don't know exactly what this was. Just another deep hole in another tunnel. Dark, scary and miserable.
A few cannons and odds and ends were left out. Sadly, the countryside here was beautiful. I could just see Mom going into the hills looking for mushrooms.
On the way home, I was talking to Thomas about the rest of our plans, specifically, whether he could take us on the Auschwitz-Birkenau Tour? The original plan had been to take a day trip to Auschwitz when we were in Krakow, but our time in Krakow was very short, and it seemed to me that if we went to Auschwitz on one day and the salt mines on the other, we would have very little time to see the city. Thomas was happy to sell us another tour--and then kindly made the suggestion that if we wanted he could just drop us off in Krakow, rather than bring us all the way back to Wroclaw only to have to take the train back to Krakow the next morning. A great idea.
When we got back to town, we met up with Dave and set off for the old town to meet my cousin, Carolyn and her daughter, Bella. I hadn't seen Carolyn for years and had never met Bella. But they are world travelers and Bella just graduated from high school and wanted a European trip to celebrate. They'd never been to Poland, and the timing worked out. It was fantastic to see them. We had a loooooooong dinner at a nice Pierogi place in the old town.
In Poland, and I guess most of Europe, they don't bring you the check unless you ask for it--if you can catch the eye of the waiter, that is. You can sit at the table all night. We had a lot of catching up to do and did sit there for hours. Also, very exciting for me, was the appetizer--OFFAFET!!! Offafet is something of a shameful secret of my past. When Omi made anything with bacon (which was often), she would pour off the grease into a little jar and put it in the fridge. When it solidified, she would spread it onto homemade bread and eat it--sometimes with mustard. I loved offafet sandwiches. But somewhere in my teenage years, realized that eating pure fat out of the jar wasn't a great idea, especially since I already had a weight problem. I hadn't eaten offafet in probably 30 years. But here it was! In public! As a perfectly reasonable and delicious thing to eat! I think this variety had lard as well as bacon grease, so it wasn't quite as yummy, but it was a start! I ate up hearty, and it was wonderful. Offafet might just make a reappearance in my fridge someday. After dinner, we discovered that although Carolyn and Bella were also staying in an Absynt hotel, it wasn't our hotel. They were actually staying at the main location where we picked up our keys. We went with them to see the place. MUCH nicer lobby, with room service and everything. We said goodnight and walked home in the rain. Stopping for some lody (ice-cream) on the way.
At home, we wrote some postcards, washed some socks and went to bed.
4:30 a.m. Another drunken idiot starts yelling. At this point I got up to take his picture, but I was too late. All was quiet. I got back into bed and just as I'm drifting off, he starts singing--in English, from the Titanic, "My heart will go onnnnnnn."
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