June 26, 2016
Michau and Lukasz had clearly put a lot of thought and effort into showing me around their part of Poland. For our first day, we headed to Wroclaw for a walking tour.
Wroclaw was known by the German name Breslau prior to World War II, as it was part of Germany prior to the war; throughout history, this city has been part of the Kingdom of Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, the Austrian Empire, Prussia, and Germany. After the war, it became part of Poland and officially adopted the Polish name Wroclaw. Both names sound very similar when pronounced properly, even though they are spelled completely different.
We began with a walk around Ostrow Tumski, or Cathedral Island. This is a beautiful spot on the Oder River.
Lovers place these locks on the bridge pledging their commitment. This bridge looks like it weighs twice what it was supposed to.
In several places there are these photographs on the walls showing the location just after WWII. I tried to take a matching photo of some of these to compare the war-damaged buildings to today’s rebuilt structures.
Same as above, but rebuilt.
Same general area today.
Next we walked through the old market square and past the old Town hall.
Old Town Hall
People keep making fun of the small bike I’m riding….so I got a bigger one.
One of the more odd sights that I was interested in seeing in Wroclaw was the Krasnale, or Gnomes. It all started with the “Papa Smurf”, a gnome-looking figure that was placed at a location where the Orange Alternative, an underground anti-communist movement, met in the 1980s. Much later, these small gnomes began showing up in various locations around the city. Eventually, they became an attraction themselves, and today there are over 200 of them around Wroclaw. It’s very easy to walk right past them and never even notice, but if you want to search them out, one easy way is the Gnome Finder app. I downloaded this free app and it shows the location of every known gnome in Wroclaw.
A bit hard to see in this photo, but there are three gnomes in this piece. They are inside an ATM machine, and are the actual inner workings of the ATM. Placed just next to the real ATMs.
Another one on a window sill.
This guy is on the steps of a church.
After a bit of gnome-watching, we stopped for a lunch of traditional inexpensive Polish food at Setka Bar. This place had a great atmosphere.
Great food, and cheap. Oh, and Polish-style means your lunch comes with a shot of vodka. As Michau put it, “Poland is great practice for Russia”.
Usually pictures on the menu help when you can’t understand the language. Not so much here.
After lunch we did a quick sprint up the spiral stairs of the tower at St. Elizabeth’s Church for a great view of Wroclaw, before sprinting back down and over to the Racławice Panorama. This incredible painting is over 45 feet tall, and over 7500 square feet of total surface area in a circular presentation that you stand in the center of to view. It was originally painted in 1893, but was hidden away during WWII to protect it, and spent many years in storage before a new home could be built to present it again. It depicts the battle of Racławice which took place in 1794. By adding special lighting and three dimensional items, the painting really comes to life. I found it difficult in several places to distinguish where the painting ended and the 3D pieces began.
Part of this is a painting, and part of it is actual materials. For example, a portion of the fence extends out of the painting into real fence materials and sand. It is done so seamlessly that it’s difficult to see where one ends and the other begins.
Again, part painting, part real materials. It’s so well done, it reminds me of the Pageant of the Masters in Newport Beach, California.
After viewing the panorama, we took the train back toward Jary, and Patricia joined us for dinner at the house of Lukasz’ brother and sister-in-law. His dad was also there, and I had a great time talking with him, even though he speaks limited english. He was very excited to have an American come to visit in their small town, and was interested in my travels. He had a large World Atlas and we spent some time talking about my route through South America and Africa.
Dinner with the Dobrzanscy family. Just another example of great friends, great food. I would have a lot more of these experiences before leaving Poland.
After dinner it was back to Michau & Patricia’s to rest up and prepare for our riding tour of southwest Poland over the next few days.
Wow! You are sure getting some great hospitality from your hosts/friends. I have a Polish friend at work and I showed him your postings. He is from Kielce. He pronounced Wroclaw for me, and there isn’t any “L” sound in the middle. something phonetically like Vro sav? Wodka at almost every meal too. What kind of beer, I mean Pivo where you all drinking in those orange cans?
Exactly! Wrocław is pronounced “vratswov”. The “c” is pronounced “ts” and the “l” with the line through it is pronounced like a “w”. So “Wrocław” and “Breslau” are not that different sounding.
Poland being the third largest beer producer in Europe (behind Czech Republic and Germany), there are lots of craft breweries. I tried Pinta’s American Pale Ale, and Tyskie. I also had a Kozel (Czech beer). I think the orange cans you are referring to was at the party the first night; that was actually a Spanish beer from Barcelona called Estrella.
The pictures are fantastic as well as these people. About the time I start to think “what an f’ed up world” along come people like this: wonderful wonderful people. Wish I was there!