Poland

Loction. Hostel in st pertersburg
Author. Davina
Status. It's snowing outside
Lesson.

We arrived in st Petersburg yesterday from Warsaw. We ended up flying
because we couldn't quite justify spending 28 hours sitting up right
in a train versus a 2 hour flight for £30 more.

So I am writing about Poland in the attempt not to get too far behind.

We stared in krakow. The orignal reason we came here was to visit
auschwitz. We had heard krakow was a lovely city but that was all we
really knew.

Our first night was with mark and after spending a great time together
in Prague we were a lot more subdued in krakow after auschwitz. After
a sad farewell we looked to see what krakow would offer.

First thing we did was a walking tour. It was classed as an off the
beaten track tour. It was good but too long. I was very foot sore by
the end. But we did get to see the jewish ghetto and oscar Schindlers
factory.

The next day we went to the salt mines. Back in the day salt was the
prime way of preserving food so not only was it important it was also
worth a lot of money. Soldiers were paid with salt. So when this mine
was founded it was a massive asset to the people of krakow.

It was mined for around 600 yrs so you can imaging how extensive the
mines were. As it was the basic home for 1000s of people the miners
started carving sculptures out the the salt. Statues to churches the a
12cm deep 3d carving of da vinci's last supper. We went down to about
135m by stairs and the rode the miners elevator back up.

We even met a very interesting 70 year old dubliner who is writing a
text book on how to use economic factors to predict the future. He is
not confident that lessons will be learned and things will get better.

We decided that we were interested enough to go on another tour and
started to get really interested in krakow. Unfortunately it was time
to leave and we were left feeling that we could have seen more.
Although our second guide thought we were mad to Warsaw. He said it
was ugly. Very much a sence of sibling rivilry there.

We got to warsaw and caught the bus to our hostel. Which was pretty
friendly.

We have either been very lucky, no matter where you go you will meet
friendly people.

It was here that we separated. Si got in touch with the opera house
and went to visit them. I went to the national museum.

Had a bad direction day that day and took me ages to find and when i
got there I couldn't work out were it started stated at the end. Much
to the irritaion of all museum staff. But as my polish is non existent
and their English just as bad I just dredded going into each room and
getting that dirty look.

But I found it fasinating. I did not realise that there were 2
uprisings in Warsaw. The Jewish one and then the Warsaw one. It put in
perspective 12% of the city was destroyed during the invasion. By the
end 85% was gone.

The Warsaw uprising was so well organised that they had everything in
place before they started with comand posts and first aid stations.

They manages for over a month and even had the scouts delivering post
behind the lines. Unfortunately it failed, helped along by the Russian
army who sat on the other side of the river watching and waiting for
the Nazis to finish off the population.

When they surrender the Nazis deported the entire population to
concentration camps and set about destroying the city building by
building.

It is amazing to see how they have painstakingly rebuilt the old town
to it's former glory after being left with ruble.

That night we went to the opera. I have only ever been to the opera
twice. Both times with Simon, both time in a forgein country and both
times it was the Magic Flute.

The difference this time was that it was aimed at children. The format
was set so it was narrated as well as sung and there was some jokes
and audience singalong. Was very cool to hear the audience get very
excited even though I couldn't understand either the French or the
Italian.

Next day we went to what was left of the ghetto. Was really close to
the centre of town and all that was left was one street and a bit of
the wall. And they had a line following where the wall was.

We also had DVD watching time which was really needed.

Next day we went to Russia.

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