Archive for the ‘Poland’ Category

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Beccie joins us in Poland

September 30, 2006

We whooshed to Warsaw, Poland, where we were meeting Beccie YAY! We had to catch an overnight bus which was AWFUL because it was packed and we couldn’t even spread over two seats. We arrived in Warsaw and just slept for the first day, as did Beccie who had just spent 16 hours in a London airport. In Warsaw we spent most of our time looking at stuff to do with the Jewish population that once lived there. We visited a museum, cemetary and Nazi prison. It’s insane to see how much the Warsaw Jews were forced to suffer - of the 300,000 who lived there before the war, only about 3,000 survived. The architecture was quite grey slab like in Warsaw as well - mainly because the whole city was levelled by the end of the war and everything had to be rebuilt - for every 20 buildings, only 3 were left standing by 1945.

We continued on to Krakow, the old royal capital of Poland. Unlike Warsaw, Krakow was not bombed as badly in the war and thus stil had the pretty architecture, colourful baroque buildings a a pretty old town. On one of our days there we took a day trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the biggest concentration and death camp in Poland, which I cannot even put into words. We saw the gas chambers and incinerators, the cramped living conditions and the warehouses of items that the Nazis kept to reuse - spectacles, shoes and gold teeth but also the hair of the victims to be made into cloth and mounds of baby’s clothes. It was unbelievably haunting. The odd thing was that the outside was very pretty - cobblestoned streets lined with trees and all the houses were cute red brick barn like barracks. But the atrocities that occured inside were just dizzying to even think about. We also visited Schindler’s factory and walked around the Jewish Quarter where we were staying.

We’ve now entered Prague and have been looking around. It is by far the prettiest city we’ve seen, with all of it’s church spires piercing the skies, but also the most touristy, in some places you can barely walk because of all the tour groups. We also popped to Kutna Hora to see a bone church, but more about that later.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Olomouc, also in the czech republic, a nice university town that was recommended to us.

Speak soon x x x

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We made it to Poland…Alive!

September 6, 2006

Yay! We actually made it here!

After everyone was buying me drinks for my farewell party from Harrods, I managed to make it home at about 2am to find that Thad and Claire were drunker than I was, and still packing the last few bits, in between drinks and dodging the 9 australians and 1 frenchman crammed into our house.

We managed to get to the bus stop though at 4, and caught the bus and train to the airport, in perfect timing for our flight. The flight was pretty horrible cos we’d all pulled an all-nighter but pretty short at 1 1/2 hrs so it was OK. And then suddenly we were in poland! Ha ha.

We left the airport (after an emergency chicken burger) and waited for the bus to take us to the city of Gdansk, and fell asleep on the pavement at the bus stop. Eventually though we made it to our hostel and stayed there the rest of the day eating junk food to make ourselves feel better.

The next day we actually did some exploring of Gdansk, which was formerly Danzig of Germany before WW2. The town is quite small and also very industrial (”cosmopolitan” according to the guide) and we managed to walk through the Old Town TWICE without realising it because it was so small! They had a magnificent brick church that towered over everything. We went in to have a look and got caught in a mass service, so bolted. It was an odd church because some parts were very ornate, but the walls were often bare and whitewashed. We think maybe the tapestries etc were looted or destroyed either in the war or by the soviets. After walking around the very pretty town square with all the colourful building facades and the town hall, we sat in a cafe for about 3 hrs, eating pastries, still recovering.

That night we caught a bus from Gdansk to Vilnius in Lithuania, which took 13hrs. It was actually an OK trip as we had 2 seats each so we got a fair amount of sleep. Once it got light I got my first views of Lithuania, which were rolling hills with classical farmhouses punctuated by dense forests and the occasional Soviet block of flats. The walk from the bus station was a bit of a trek, took us about an hour and we all had about 18 kg of luggage on our backs. Vilnius is beautiful though I really love it, It’s got a huge Old Town (can’t miss this one) and is dotted with these enormous dominating churches that sit on winding cobblestone streets, however between these are run down dilapidated old buildings that just add to the odd dreamlike feel of the place. We went to the main cathedral and I hunted for the “miracle tile” and made a wish, and wandered through the maze of beautiful courtyards of the old university. We also saw the only statue of Frank Zappa to exist!

Yesterday we took a day trip to the town of Trakai, very close to Vilnius. Trakai is famous for it’s fairytale castle that sits on an island in the middle of a beautiful lake and surrounded by forests. It was breathtakingly pretty. We walked around the islands and inside the castle before having coffee on the side of the lake to enjoy the view more.

We are staying in a lovely hostel over the river in a suburb called Uzupis, which it’s residents have declared as a breakaway republic from Lithuania. It’s a haven for artists (and drunks) and the street art and statues and little galleries around here look fantastic. Thad and Claire at this moment are looking for the constitution of Uzupis, which has points such as “Everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat”. Today is our last day here, so we’re spending it visiting the old KGB Headquarters, which is where political prisoners used to be tortured and killed and has now been
turned into a musiem of Genocide. Fun for the whole family. We’re also having another walk through Old Town before heading to the train station to catch our 17:55 train to St Petersburg, Russia.

The train takes 15 hrs I think, so hopefully it’s comfy! Tomorrow we wake up in St Petersburg, and Thad wakes up 21! Yay! He’s all grown up now!

I’m off now to explore, but just to let everyone know, Thad and I stupidly forgot to top up our mobiles before we left and so can’t contact anyone or receive calls. We can receive smses though!

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