A blog about a beautiful city, Wrocław Poland.

Cześć! Odwiedziłem do Polski

Or, "Hello! I visited Poland."

Witaj moja przyjacioł i rodzina, zazwyczai moje rodzice, poniewaz ja nich dostarczam. 
Welcome my friends and family, normally my parents, because I deliver to them.
Dla nasz wakacje, uczę się mowić po polsku. Raczej zły.  Do Ksiąz, nasz kierowca mówi "Znasz dożo słowa do polsku."
For our vacation, I learn to speak in polish. Rather bad. To Ksiąz, our driver says "You know a lot of words in Polish. " 
 Note, he did not say, "Mówisz po polsku." or "You speak Polish."
He spoke English much better than I speak Polish.  
In fact, I probably would've done just fine in Poland without knowing any Polish, but it does make it more interesting to know some of what is going on around you. And, there were places I ventured into that I did not find English speakers. For instance, the post office, where I went to purchase znaczki postkart do Stany Zjednoczone: postcard stamps to the United States. The sales person seemed a bit irritated before I even got to the desk. Then, I try English, and as someone who went through her schooling during Soviet occupation of Poland, she did not learn English, she learned Russian. So, I went about butchering Polish to get the job accomplished, and she ended up laughing with me, correcting my horrible pronunciation of "znaczki" and, maybe, pretended not to know ten held up fingers to her question of " Ile?" (How many?) meant ten. So I had to go with "dziesięć", and make her smile again. It got more complicated when I decided to ask if the stamps would work for a letter as well. I think I talk too much. 
One of the reasons I decided to learn some Polish is that this trip, as is with most of them , was because Huz was speaking at a conference- this one in Wrocław, Poland. So, I am alone during the days, and have to make plans and decisions with no one to help other than the kindness of strangers. And, the Poles are very kind, helpful and welcoming. The older people I interacted with, that had little English, were fun to talk to, as they liked to correct my Polish, and were amused. The younger people all switched directly to English, which is very nice, as I often felt linguistically challenged enough. 
I was helped, before our departure, by a God Moment. About 3 weeks before we left, I delivered Youngest to morning marching band practice. Atypically, I had brought my breakfast, so sat for a moment in the parking lot, having my sniadanie. I was about to leave when a car pulled up facing mine, to deliver their own band kid. The license plate on the car read "Wrocław", well, truly it said "WROCLAW", but I made the leap, and did so, out of my car, waving wildly at the driver. Undoubtedly, I terrified her, but she obligingly wound down her window and would you believe that here in rural Ohio, I now have friends who are from Wrocław, Poland? Wspaniały! Wonderful!

Okay, the only Polish pronunciation lesson I will share is that "Wrocław" is pronounced
"Vrots-wahf".  And, roll the "r" a bit. Much prettier than what how we would say it in English.

Now,  Huz is working and I'm playing, all the way in Europe,  thus we wanted to have a bit of vacation for him too. So, we flew into Berlin, Germany, and spent the day there, then traveled to Wrocław by bus and then after our week in Poland, went back to Berlin for a few days.
I don't sleep on planes. I wish I could, but it doesn't happen. So, the first day is a zombie-blur of uncomfortably tiredness. I do best with a 15 hour awake-day. This was a 32 hour one. But, not as bad as all that as I had two cat naps in the train station in Berlin, and a few hours of blessed sleep on the bus.

I slept in the Berlin Haupbahnhof, hobo life.

I do remember figuring out the tram in Berlin to Oranienberger Strasse for some food (I also can't eat anything they serve on planes)  and making it to our gorgeous hotel in  Wrocław and rallying for a small plate dinner on the hotel roof- one of the top meals I've ever enjoyed.
 Okay, so although much is a blur,  I remember the food.

Huz was speaking at the EVDI conference, European Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging. He did a bunch of other important stuff too. He's famous. I was told so at another roof party that week. Huz was at the buffet (I ate a shrimp, but wasn't secure enough in the ingredients to try two)  and I was hanging out with my glass of wine. I introduced myself to the nearest pair, and then, as a connection point mentioned I was the wife of Huz, maybe you know him. And this is what was said
"OF Course I Know Him, He's Very Famous." Yep. Like if Sting read x-rays. Like if Ryan Reynolds used CT to image cat intestines. Hugh Jackman made giddy by Dorso-Palmar Lateral Obliques.

Famous.

And, I was a turysta. Lucky me! I never have thought to myself "Boy, I'd really like to see Poland." But, that was because I didn't know any better. It's beautiful. And a busy place. The modern history is still palpable if you look around- WWII was disastrous, and Soviet Occupation was a mess. So, really, in my lifetime, Poland has become Poland again. They are still constantly fixing and rebuilding. Much of what was destroyed has been restored, some completely new, but a lot in the original tenor. And, if you weren't paying attention, you may not even notice, but the resilience is fascinating.
The center of Wrocław is the Rynek, or square. It is very large, and has buildings in the middle of the square, with passages through them. It is a popular tourist destination, with buskers, sidewalk restaurants galore, nightclubs and beautiful architecture. The centerpiece is the old Town Hall, which managed to survive the bombs in good stead.

The Town Hall has several different building styles, and the clock on the front is an Astronomical Clock made in 1580.

The buildings surrounding the Rynek are decorative, and mostly painted stucco in cheery colors. Throughout the town, there is a stark contrast between the old buildings in pinks and greens and the Soviet era block apartment structures, all plain concrete.

Pre and post Soviet buildings.

The cities of Poland were pounded by Soviet forces in April 1945. If you look around, there are photos of Wrocław from that time posted in the area they were taken. An estimated 50%  of the city was destroyed. Warsaw was 85% flattened. Here a photo of the Rynek, then and a few from now.

In the background of the photo, you can see the toppled spires of the churches on Cathedral Isle.

Wrocław was founded in 1000.

 The church named it as a bishopry? I think that's right... so, it was built around Cathedral Island, which features the cathedral, several other ancient catholic churches and, incidentally, a nice botanical garden. There are nuns. Lots. But way more cobblestones. Sensibly the nuns do not wear heels. I tried it once on the cobblestones. Hard on the heels.
You get to Cathedral Island, Ostrów Tumski, by crossing a bridge. The most picturesque of these is Most Tumski. It is a "lock bridge" so called because people purchase locks and attach them to the bridge. Also, the bridge is painted a turquoise color, and the locks are in colors too. Bardzo kolorowe. Very colorful.

On the other side of the Most Tumski, you can see the cathedral rising above the buildings. 

Twin spires mark the biggest of the churches on Ostrów Tumski, but the cathedral looked very different in 1945. Remodeled by bombs 700 years into it's run. 

Today the spires are back. But you can see in the photo below, taken from a boat on the river cruise, that the towers were fixed to be almost identical to original. 

 But the signs of repair are all around. There are buildings covered in scaffolding and netting, in current repair. If you get away from the main center, there are buildings still crumbled into a shell awaiting repair. And the ones already repaired- new brick replacing what was blasted out.

This is the tower of St. Elizabeth's church. Directly next to the Rynek, this church has been restored into a beautiful light-filled place to worship. I assume many of the large clear glass windows were not original to the building, but an adaptation after destruction of the original windows and walls. There is even a window built from little black and grey and white glass tiles, that doesn't make sense until you see it from inside, and it is a close up of a pope's face. Pop art, church style.
Since the town is so steep in church history,  even I got a selfie with a pope!

Almost famous.

A real-deal moat.

Because it is a medieval town, there is also parts remaining of the original city walls, and a MOAT. Marauding tribes beware! This place harkens back to a time when walls and a moat kept out invading parties. Didn't work so well in the 20th century, so they are just a bit of charm now. I guess the moat and walls didn't help much against the Prussians in the 1500's either, because they gobbled up the area called "Silesia", which included Wrocław, and renamed the town "Breslau".

Which is particularly interesting to me, as the Germans still call Wrocław, "Breslau." The guidebooks and postcards made for the German visitors do not call the town Wrocław. I find that intriguing. Is it not like British tourists carrying around a guidebook to "Chesapeake Colony" when touring Washington DC? There must be more of an explanation here, but I have not heard one.

We had the opportunity to explore the Prussian/Silesian history a bit more with a trip to a fantastical Zamek, or castle... Ksiąz. Plus, a bardzo pięknego, very pretty Stud! For another blog. Another place in time when Queen Sigrid "The Haughty" was afoot!