Goodbyes: August 2012

After damn near all day on the train we finally made it to Krakow. I am sure at times I could have walked faster than we were moving! We caught a taxi to our hotel and then caught a tram into the city to meet Janna. We came around the corner and there she was waiting patiently, with a big smile on her face. We talked continuously over a delicious dinner and then walked around the city square – getting our history lesson from our tour guide Janna. The main square or Rynek Glowny is Europes largest square measuring 200m x 200m. St Mary’s Church which is very gothic in appearance and has a couple of interesting stories around the two huge towers that are quite different to each other. ).
The church is something of an oddity in that it's towers are assymetrical. The

story goes that two brothers were commissioned to build the towers and that they decided to each build one of the towers. What should have been a collaboration of talent soon became a competition with one brother demonstrating his superior speed by completing his tower early whilst the other one diligently and methodically built at his own pace. When completed the younger brother was so jealous of his brother's superior work that he murdered him before committing suicide himself.
We made plans for the next day, we would go to the salt mines and Janna had to work. And then that evening Falk her boyfriend would arrive for the weekend.

Murray and Janna at Rynek Glowny

Wieliczka Salt mine

We got into the city, then we caught a bus to Wieliczka. The queues were huge, hate to think what it would be like on the weekends. Interestingly the shortest queue was the international one. There were loads of Polish people. We joined a tour that took about three hours, which we thought was a little too showy and touristic. We went down steps to 68m and then a down to 140m before returning to the surface. They have certainly done some amazing sculptures out of salt, and the walkways were well made of timber and turned hand rails. The underground chapels that we saw were pretty cool, with huge round poles holding everything up. They were painted white to try and help reflect any light there was down there. Maybe we have just been in too many mines to really appreciate this one.

figures made from salt

you could see and taste the salt on the walls

salt forcing its way through

In the day, they had horses down in the mine to work

The main underground chapel

Famous picture carved of salt - looked 3d as it was 10cm in depth

All the wooden framing was painted white to help reflect any light.

Entrance to another underground Chapel that you got to by boat

The famous street, that was used as the 'royal route" to enter the city.
Not sure why these two are standing there!

The Florianska Gate at the start of the royal street.
The main city gate was build at the end of XIII century to protect the northern entrance to the city.
It became an important feature on the Royal route leading from the Sukiennice to the Wawel Palace.

A little hard to see, but in the distance to the right of the big tree is a building that is white.
Well this is the building that Janna is helping check architecture plans for at the moment.

Unfortunately we woke to an overcast day with weather forecast for Zakapane sounding poor so we planned to have a sleep in and meet at midday for lunch and sight seeing. Another enjoyable day visiting the Old town, Wawel Castle from the 14^th century, Collegium Maius which is the oldest surviving and still being used university in Poland. Really beautiful, I can only imagine working in a place like this would be rather special. Florian Gate, which was build so that special people had somewhere nice to walk – we walked down the road, but Janna said we were walking the wrong way so not sure if that makes us extra special or just plain not special at all! We visited the Kazimierz region, founded by King Kazimierz the Great in 1335, which later became the city to house all the Jews that were fleeing persecution from all parts of Europe. During WWII the Nazis relocated Jews to the walled ghetto in Podgorze just south of the Vistula River and most were exterminated in the nearby concentration camp. Steven Spielberg’s film the Schnindlers List is based around these areas. The eastern Jewish quarter has many synagogues and also many Jewish restaurants and a market to visit. Janna got us tickets to a music concert at a Jewish restaurant Ariel, which was enjoyable. Our waiter suggested some food options for us to try and when they arrived at the table we were surely not disappointed. The soups were delicious and the mains equally – and the best part was, it was beef – yes beef, it is not very often on all our travels we have seen beef! . The music was a guy on a piano accordion, a guy on a base and a woman playing the violin and singing. A mixture of Polish, Yiddish and German I think – whatever it was very good and most enjoyable. So after eating, listening to music and annoying a bus load of Germans we left about 10.30 to head home and get some sleep in the hope of an early start again to Zakapane.

Somewhere on our Krakow city tour standing in the rain!

The Collegium Maius - the oldest building of learning in Poland. Originally in 1400 you could study medicine, law and the arts here. It is still used as a University today, but I am unsure what you can study here now.

Falk and Murray trying their strength in the gardens of Collegium Maius

The day before Murray had got a haircut, and the hairdresser cut the top of his ear -
I was simply trying to even things up a bit.

A great 70's cafe with yummy food for lunch.

Janna and Falk

All of us together

A picture on the wall outside a restaurant.
Haven't checked out the words yet,
but looks good to me hahaha

guess who??

In the Jewish quarter - hard to see, but gumboots on the windowsills - not sure why.

Dinner and concert at Ariel, complete with a side show from the boys.
Murray took the plaster off his ear, then it bled, needing a serviette to mop up the blood and then the phone to compress, so Falk decided to give him a call or maybe was it the other way around anyway hilarious!
but maybe you needed to be there.

But no – thunder storms and rain predicted, so another sleep in was in order followed by meeting up around 12 again. We headed straight to the Sunday market after fighting with our umbrellas, had a look around there in the rain, then decided a visit to one of the museums might be safest bet. We headed in that general direction walking through the beautiful cobbled streets, and were feeling a bit hungry so came across Kogel Mogel – a communist restaurant. Decor was all in red and cream, menu was printed on a full single sheet of newspaper and the name and description for example -
300% of the Norm
As big as the 6-year plan, solid as the worker-farmer alliance. Pork lion of a piglet fed exclusively with acorns from People's Guard national forests. Provided strength necessary to fight for a better tomorrow and a bone which you can take to your workers hotel.
Dad's home
Served with onions, prepared according to the recipe of wive and life-partners waiting long hours for the return of their men from party meetings.
Very cool find, and again nice food, we thought a little to fancy for communist times but still using delicous basic ingredients. From lunch we decided to go to the Mounds, there are apparently five mounds around Krakow, only four exist now. They were build as lookout from what I can gather. With umbrellas in the ready and full tummys we headed off, firstly by tram (the wrong tram- double the distance) and then by foot for 1.6km winding up the hill to the base of the mound. It was a nice walk through some big old trees. Reaching the top we looked for a toalette then headed up the ‘mound’ as we started we could see that a huge rain cloud was quickly covering Krakow. We knew we didn’t have much time to waste. We made it to the top, took some photos and headed quickly down. On a clear day the view must be amazing, it was still not bad the day we were there. We made it down just as the sky opened up and it poured down. We took cover in a small museum based on the history of the mounds for about two hours, and after playing a few rounds of eye spy we then went to the bus stop and caught the bus back closer to town. Very cool place. We walked along the Vistula River before turning and heading into town. A bit of souvenier shopping and grocery shopping and then found a cool smorgasbord type eatery for dinner and then Janna took us to an underground pub to enjoy a beer and listen to some tradition Polish music. It turned out that the guy wasn’t playing that night, but it was still a really neat little pub to visit. We said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways, hoping to see each other in the morning even if it was across the platforms, as Falk was returning to Germany on a train 10 minutes after ours left. Cut a long story short, we ended up by having breakfast at 5.30am with Janna and Falk and more final goodbyes. Note to self must watch Schindlers List.

Interesting tree on the way up to the Mounds.

The mound

Cool little tower to walk at the begining

Oh my goodenss!

look at those beauties - oh and the black sky behind them.

Poor Krakow is going to get it soon.

Falk, Janna, Murray and me on the top of the mound, minutes before it poured down.

heading down quickly.

Crossing the Wisla river back into the city centre.

It was really great to see Janna again after two years and also of course to meet Falk.

Thanks again guys for showing us around Krakow and spending some time with us ‘fossils’.

Our host Ella and friend Mary (from the USA) picked us up from the train station and we drove around 10kms to Agrochatka our home for the next two weeks.

It was a small 2 hectare plot of land; with huge crops of potatoes, beets, pumpkins and tomatoes. Also fields of hay and oats. Three milking goats, several chickens and zotic the dog. We arrived late afternoon so there was no work for today just got settled in and met everyone. Husband Jurek, daughter Karolina, and Spanish helpx Victor. Next morning we started weeding, first the beets then the potatoes. Yes I say started because it took the four of us a week to complete – but man what satisfaction we had seeing that we had finished! There were general weeds as well as thistles, which were a little hard on the hands. The next day another person from the USA Daniel arrived and also two Chinese people. So it quickly became a big international family, which made for interesting chit chat. Murray had a tummy bug and trips to the toilet became more frequent and urgent so was taken off garden duties and given the task of sanding and re varnishing the two front doors – aarh a sigh of relief as it was much closer to the little room he needed so often at the moment. So the weeders continued to pull weeds in the boiling hot sun. The hay was cut and needed turning by hand a couple of times a day, and then raking by hand into high piles for overnight, then to be raked out again the next day to dry some more. It was harvest time and the weather was excellent, hay, was being cut, grain harvested so the local farms were all busy, but we eventually got a baler to come after a few days and bailed the hay into round bales and then the next into cubes. Meanwhile we carried on with the weeding task. Murray ended up by going to the Doctor in the end as let’s say the path was well worn to the little room! After an ultrasound on his stomach and several different medications he was on the mend - hhmmm just in time for the weeding to have been completed!

The next projects were really fun, painting some furniture, and some old beehives. Daniel was very creative and after painting the walls then added some artwork. It quickly became evident that a competition had to be held and so Victor and I worked hard on our hives too. Mine was bigger and the oldest I think, late 1920’s or early 1930’s. Hopefully the boys won’t read this so I can safely say mine was the best! It was interesting to see how styles had changed. Ella took us to a local bee apiary one afternoon. It was very famous as a priest who studied bees for years lived there and it was really interesting. We got quick glimpse at locally made, Polish beehives which were made out of polystyrene and another out of compressed foam. On the way home we called in to a playground as Ella wanted to build one at Agrochatka.

Rough sketches of a playground were made and Ella would check out supplies the following week. In the mean time, more hay was cut, straw was cut so needed daily turning and stacking, flowers gardens and cobbles needed weeding and a fire pit surround was being talked about. Murray and Daniel were keen to get started on that task, the pit was dug out and we all helped shift some rocks closer, cement and sand mix arrived and we were good to go. Me on the concrete mixer, while Daniel and Murray lay the rocks in the cement. A trailer load of oats was harvested which then had to be bucketed up into the barn loft. It was a busy place with everyone working away at something, each at their own pace. The weather was still great so by midday it was pretty hot, but like on any farm there are jobs that must be done. We were racing the rain clouds one day to get the straw cube bales in the barn, which we nearly did. The rain cooled the air a bit and sleeping at night was a little better although the mozzies were a constant nuisance and we have loads of bites all over us. They also had these really painful little flies similar to the Australian march fly, but smaller and they had a narrower body, a really painful bite – it doesn’t last long but really nasty.

Raking the hay

At the little lake by the empty swimming pool haha

Daniel and Murray road sweeping - just a few barrows of grit and they can get started on the fire pit, as well as doing the community a favour - sweeping the road.

My old bee hive, without its roof on.

Mary's farewell

The clan at Mary's party

And this was only after 3.5 bottles of Polish Vodka !
A great night - but not good the next day haha.

Daniel and Victor

The grain has arrived.

All hands on deck - or should I say hands on buckets!

Murray with the Chinese helpxers

Cowboys from America and Spain

Very plain houses in a communist style

Fire pit half done and it is being used,
Victor, Daniel, Murray and Jurek

Looking good - bbq the Polish way

Three quarters of the way there.....

Isa and Kaite farewell.

Amazing wood carving

Hhhmm - no caption for this one

At a local Polish resturant

Daniel and Murray working on the playground

A kiwi roast dinner
Babcha, Jurek, Victor, Karolina, Daniel, Murray and me

In amongst all the farm work we were lucky enough to go to the pools one day only to find that they were half empty for cleaning – haha – still a nice break lying in the shade under the trees. A trip to the Kluczborg museum with Jurek and Karolina as our interpreter, was good, although I did manage to get told off twice by the museum staff. A sudden down pour changed the rest of the plans and we headed home. We visited one of the many old wooden churches whose design is quite unique to the area. Mary who had been at Agrochatka for three years was returning to New York to live, so we had a farewell party for her with a lovely meal the Chinese couple – who weren’t a couple had cooked – yummy! The night ended in Vodka shot games, great fun at the time and Murray gained a couple of new brothers – had to be there really, but he suffered the next day. It was a great night and how could it not be with good company and five bottles of Vodka!

A night out in Kluczbork at some friends of the family was enjoyable, and we got to try some favourite dishes from Poland. Very nice – a few more recipes to jot down and try at home.

Next to leave were the Chinese, heading back to China via Amsterdam?? Then we left, the Victor and Karolina left for Iceland were her older sister is working at the moment. So poor Daniel, will be working hard out until more help arrives. Daniel actually lives in Warsaw and teachers English, so was there on his semester break. Just thinking about Daniel – he makes the most amazing bread from sourdough, also awesome peanut butter! We hope he visits us in NZ one day. We had a great time with the family and guests, in a really great part of Poland.