* The place to be in Poland

Another weekend excursion but instead of leaving me excited its left me a bit unsettled, questioning my decision to stay in Warsaw. My last visit to Krakow was 10 yrs ago - a stark 160-degree contrast from the Krakow I found. Although its always been an impressive city of recent historic proportion, its not until the last 5 yrs of so, that its come alive with cafes, shopping, restaurants, hotels and people…everything that makes a city vacation exciting, This seems to be where its at in Poland – and that alone makes it exciting for me – let me be a stranger among a crowd of people, sitting at a outdoor café, and I’m all smiles.
Krakow 's Old Town (every European city has one) is a well preserved, walled medieval area whose architecture is unique to cities found in Central Europe. Fortunately, this one wasn't obliterated, like Warsaw. Before the war, close by Kazimierz, was the site of a large orthodox Jewish community and has an impressive number of Synagogues. The poles were kind enough to leave one, 3 story building, that was bombed out. One could peer in and see that something came through the roof and did heaps of damage. The beloved Pope John had his parish here, the movie 'Shindler's list' was filmed here and it was the seat of power for many years, way, way back when. Unlike Warsaw there’s an energy here that only comes with having a big university and tourists.
Apprx 1.5 hrs away, you’ll find the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau – a very moving sight indeed. In Auschwitz, is a museum – and among its various artifacts is a bewildering collection– there, collected, separated by glass rooms, reaching to the top of the ceiling, you’ll find personal items of the prisoners..such like reading glasses, human hair, toothbrushes, suitcases and even prosthetics. It literally stuns everyone into silence, as you walk through this display as you can easily visulize their owners and the horrid end they endured.
Krakow is lovely not only in its architecture, but part of its charm is its size. Its walk able and tramsstops are ubiquitous. One bonus to the eye, is that there are no ugly 10+ story communist blocs (like mine) but all buildings are no more than 4 stories high.
As I was traveling alone here, I decided to stay at a hostel so I could have company plus, heck, who needs a good nights sleep – I an do that at home :-)- Plus its only $20 a nite! But whew, I’d forgotten how tiring traveling alone without a car could be. This was my schedule on Friday - on my way there: Walk/Tram/Walk/Train/Walk/Tram/Walk all with about a 20 lbs suitcase. I’m stunned at times that I actually have the energy to do all that – living in the States, seems to atrophy a lot of the muscles needed to do, the above said tasks.
The great thing about hostels is that pp staying there are all people traveling alone or with small group and everyone is a buzz with travel stories – can you see why I was in my happy place here. The crowd here was different though than ones I’d met up in Australia. Very reflective with quite a few deep exchanges between strangers..., it was like a pseudo-intellectural gathering for the travel thinkers. Perhaps it was the historic value of this city (and others they’d seen in Central Europe) but it was fascinating to see these young minds open up…see people - that’s what traveling does to folks! One Chilean traveler said he was ‘tired of all the churches though and wanted to see a city in Europe now overrun with them". Hmmm, a place w/o churches in Central Europe… I’ll have to work on that one.
I extended my trip by one night, as who knows the next time I’ll be there. I made plans to travel to Wroclaw this weekend (the "new" Krakow,) the hot weather, however, (most trains here don’t have A/C) coupled with my lazy attitude, had me decide to spend my last week, hanging here, in the Warsaw hood. Plus I have lots of traveling ahead of me. On the 3rd of Sept, I pack up; leave my little bachelor pad behind and travel further south to vistit: Budapest, Bratislava, Cesky Krumlov, Carlsbad and Prague. I’m still working on where to go for the last 10 days before I, sadly, (tear) head back to home base - any suggestions?
My Michigan peeps (Rami, Paul, Holly, Val, Rick & Camille) will be joining me for the first 2 weeks of the Central Europe jaunt. I’m real excited to see these familiar, much-missed faces, from home – should be fun traveling - with the gaggle of us. I can just hear our melodious exchanges… “ " hey, whose taking so long in the bathroom”,…”I’m hungry, w need to eat NOW”….”I thought I told you to turn right, not left”….”fine, forget you all, I’m going by myself then”…...."my feet hurt, can we take a cab"....”are we there yet”... oh yes, should be a scream!