Krakow is full of Surprises!

We breakfast at Niepolomice in a lovely room off the courtyard that has been refreshed by a late night rain shower. Breakfast is very good in this lovely castle. We are scheduled for a guided tour of the castle and museum at 9 AM.

Fot: Niepolomice Castle, Linda

We gather in the courtyard and are given a brief history of the castle before we climb a series of stone staircases to the veranda that encircles the courtyard.

Fot: Niepolomice Court Jester, Linda

We make our way along the marble walkway past mysterious doors and chambers that will soon open to us. Our guide first takes us into a room full of costumes, weapons, trophies and other accouterments of palace life from the earliest periods of this castle to the near present. There are many lovely and interesting objects of art and great value. The jewelry is stunning. We move on into other chambers more typical of the living quarters of the roayls who inhabited this palace. Finally into the room that served as the legal court and audience room for the king and queen. The palace is very lovely and the reconstruction has been carried out with the utmost attention to detail, although it is clear none of the furnishings are original to this castle. Our tour ends with a question as to whether we want to see the art collection. We eagerly assent and an entire new wing of the castle opens to our eyes. This is an amazing experience. The art collection is vast and magnificent. There are many portraits of Polands royals and other important political and literary and scientific figures of their history. noticeably absent , to me at least, was any likeness of Chopin. I was struck, over and over again, by the images of Jan Sobieski III, who looks exactly, and I do mean exactly, like Aneta's father Witek Weclawek. I finally went to find Aneta and took her one of the marble busts to show her what I was observing. She had to agree that it looked like a bust of her father but she assures me that there is no royalty in her background whatsoever. I respectfully disagree with that pronouncement! Somewhere in her genealogy there is DNA from behind the barn or something!

Get me in a really good art gallery and it is hard to pry me loose. Aneta gently encourages us to move along quickly as we have a 10:30 appointment with "The Crazy Guides" who are taking us on a tour along the "communistic route."

We hastily make our way to Nowa Huta for our tour with Aneta making cell phone calls to the guides to get them to wait for our late arrival. They are very relaxed about the whole thing and basically say , "no worries." We are about an hour late arriving and we are hustled directly into a restaurant that survives from the communist era as the only restaurant that was allowed to be built in this area that, at one time, housed over 17,000 people.

The Crazy Guides are two young college students with good English skills, neither of which was alive during the communist era. But they have learned their history well and provide us with a photo and dialogue overview of what Nowa Huta was intended to be. This was a communist vision of an ideal city for the workers. They buildt a huge steel factory on the outskirts of the development, layed out a fabulous street plan with wide, elegant boulevards, leading, like the spokes of a wheel, into a lovely center square. Public buildings were to be erected to provide all the services the people would need. Multiple high rise apartment buildings were put up and properly decorated with renaissance style adornments to make them look lovely, substantial and appealing. Lower floor apartments were large and reserved for government officials, of course. Upper floor flats were small and housed several families at once. The nirvana plan was never fully realized as pollution, acid rain and smoke from the factory made living in Nowa Huta very unpleasant for the farmers and villagers who had been recruited to a better life in this new city. The communist also left out a church. Much to the dismay of the people in this largely Catholic nation this was an unacceptable oversight. The people began a campaign to build a church putting all of their money into this project. They were finally given permission to build but outside the boundaries of the city proper. This in a city where one single streetcar served 17,000 people and cars were as scarce as hen's teeth. The town still exists but with a population reduced to around 3-4 thousand. The mill closed for a time after the communists fell and has been purchased by a private company and reopened with modernization and mechanical upgrades that have eliminated most of the jobs. All the streets and boulevards had the names of communist party heroes. The main street leading from the factory into he center has been renamed Ronald Reagan Boulevard. All the other streets now bear the names of Polish Poets, heroes of the Warsaw Uprising and other significant figures in Polish history. While at the restaurant we were encouraged to order a drink - anything we wanted - Vodka was recommended! It wasn't even noon yet and we weren't really a drinkin' bunch. The guides were quite disappointed in our reluctance to drink Vodka.

Fot: Communistic bathroom, Linda

Anyway, that over, off we went to visit a typical flat of the workers where we were showed the Vodka distillery in the bathroom along with a very funny looking little automatic washing machine. The kitchen was enormous by flat standards that I have seen but we were told it had to accommodate several families. The living space was adequate for one family but certainly not more than one. We were told that up to 12 people occupied a single flat during the communist era. Then we were served a drink. A shot of Vodka to be gulped down in a single swallow. Some of us did the deed and others politely declined. The Vodka was served with a dill pickle.

After leaving the flat we were taken to an area near the entrance to the factory. Our guides were nervous about us getting too close as it is now privately owned and apparently the owners are not very friendly to tourists who want to take photos of the place. (Industrial espionage fears?) Nothing to fear from this group but they wouldn't know that.

Fot: Crazy Cars, Linda

Back into the funky little plastic car, operated by two lawnmower engines, and the psychedelic van with the red velvet interior and shag carpet that served as the transport vehicles for the tour. These two cars survive from the communist time and are quite interesting. The car is so small it is hard to imagine it as a passenger vehicle - let alone one designed to haul four people! The van held the remaining 5 of us and it was crowded as well. What an amazing experience this tour turned out to be. Peter and Sara were our guides and they did a superb job of both explaining and driving these unsafe and ridiculous vehicles. Leave it to our Aneta to come up with something as interesting as this for our travelers!

We returned to Krakow proper and headed straight for 'Yesterday and Today' again for lunch. We took a little more time today to enjoy our lunch in this delightful neighborhood cafe that obviously caters to locals. Dennis, Fran, Aneta and I sat outside under an umbrella table and enjoyed our lunch in the sun of a beautiful fall day. After lunch we walked across a busy street and down into an underground underpass that took us across the railroad tracks and popped us out right at the Jewish Square. This square contains the memorial of chairs sitting throughout reminiscent of the personal furniture and belongings left there as the Jewish people were rounded up in this square to await deportation to the camps. Across the street on the corner is the Apothecary Shop of the pharmacist who was also a hero to the Jewish people during the time of selection. We took a few photos and walked a bit around the Jewish Quarter while we waited for Aneta to bring the van. Aneta picked us up where she had dropped us off before lunch and then took us to old town Krakow for another afternoon of shopping and independent sightseeing.

Joe and Naomi scored the wood carving they had been hoping to find in Zakopane and they are thrilled. Mary bought the handbag like the ones the rest of us had snagged the day before. She also bought a nice picture of a cat from one of the artists set up in the square. I found a beautiful wallet in purple to compliment my new handbag. Fran found a couple of nice gifts for folks at home who were caring for her cats. Aneta disappeared for the afternoon and we were really left to our own devices. As the afternoon lingered we gathered in the same sidewalk cafe as yesterday to wait for Aneta. She arrived acting very mysterious. She wasn't in any hurry to get us back to the van so we laughed and sipped our various drinks and waited for what was yet to come.

Fot: Carriages in Krakow, Linda

One thing about Old Town Krakow is the abundance of beautiful carriages drawn by horses making their way up and down the streets and around the square. The horses are beautiful and very well cared for. We watched this procession as we enjoyed the oncoming evening. Finally Aneta asked us to drink up, pay up and get ready to move. We obliged and she led us to a side street at the end of the square where we were loaded into two of these beautiful carriages for a tour of Old Town Krakow. What a beautiful sight and what a relaxing ride through these cobblestone streets, people watching and gazing into shop windows at the latest offerings in fashions and art and housewares. Finally back to the square where we thought our ride was surely over. We were so wrong. The carriages turned down the side of the square and just kept on going toward Wawel Castle. Once they exited Old Town Krakow and crossed the busy intersection from the town they pulled up in front of a small restaurant and stopped. We all disembarked feeling like kings and queens for a day. Aneta took us inside 'The Horn of the Ram' a charming restaurant that served gluten free meals so Joe could eat without concern.

The waiter brought wine and filled everyone's glass - except Dennis who doesn't drink wine and Aneta who never drinks when she is guiding or driving. We skipped the appetizer this night as it was clear that everyone was overeating and feeling the effects of all this wonderful rich food. We enjoyed a lovely salad and a nice main course of baked chicken followed by a nice desert. Aneta disappeared again and returned laden with gift bags. She delighted everyone by presenting them with thank-you gifts as a memento of their trip with Unique Grand Tours. Fran got the mixings for the hot mulled wine from our night in the Goral Restaurant in Zakopane. Dennis got a Polish Jazz CD since he had expressed his interest in Jazz as a music he enjoyed. Naomi received a pair of Polish Pottery salt and pepper figurines of a grandmother (Babcha) and grandfather (Dziadek) since her journey was in honor of her grandparents who came to the US from Poland. Joe got Polish Jazz for the same reason as Dennis - he likes Jazz. Annie received a lovely handmade wooden box with an inlaid horse head on the top as she talked much about her daughter's horse and love of horses during the trip. Mary also received a Polish Jazz CD, as did Laurie. I received a beautiful three strand amber necklace that beautifully compliments a pair of earrings I purchased in Sopot on our first trip to Poland in 2007. What a thoughtful and lovely woman Aneta is. I think I speak for all of us when I say this was a very special trip, made all the more so by Aneta's planning, attention to detail and to our personal needs as individuals. (I am going from memory on the gifts folks, so if I got anything wrong please post a comment and correct me. Aneta is away today and I don't have her for a reference guide.)
Linda