Poland: Part 4

Hello again!

As of now I am back in Sopot, staying with my host family. They are so nice! I will have to post something about them at another time since there has been so much we have done up till now that I still haven't shared. Since my last post we have been to Krakow, the mountains of souther Poland, Weba, and back again.

As for now, below are a collection of images from Krakow.

We spent several days in the Old Jewish Ghetto district of the town. Krakow is one of the few towns that was not destroyed during WWII. As a result, the city is not only very historic in nature but has become a center for tourism.

During our time there we saw several photography exhibits by several British photographers, a couple musical performances, and participated in a photo-scavenger hunt formulated by our fearless leader, Dennis Chamberlain. Later, when in the Mountains, we would have a critique of the images we took for the scavenger hunt.

We also saw Wawel castle (shown below) which houses the bodies of several Polish kings, military leaders (including one who fought in the American Revolutionary War), and the national Poet, Adam Mickiewicz. The recent death of Poland's President Lech Kaczynski in a tragic plane crash over Russia and plans to bury him in Wawel led to divisions across the nation. While the country was largely unified in it's mourning of the President's death, some questioned wether he was worthy of being buried amongst kings. With campaigns against the decision and protests in the streets, others claimed that Kaczynski would not have been considered for Wawel if he had passed under natural causes. Despite the resistance, Lech and his wife Maria were eventually buried in Wawel castle.

The city's historic architecture left something interesting to be found at every turn. I felt like I could walk the same street several times and find something new upon each pass. It was great!

Prior to our arrival to the city, nearly 2,000 people had been evacuated due to heavy rain for several days. The river swelled to nearly three times it's original size. Fortunately the rain had largely subsided upon our arrival, though it did effect some of our plans. We were supposed to visit Auschwitz, the historic concentration camps of WWII, however the flooding had closed it down from tourists. Instead we spent that day visiting one of the largest salt mines in Europe. After a descending a 54 flight staircase and enjoying a 2 hour tour, we had only seen 1% of the mines!

Sorry for the largely unorganized nature of these images but time is short these days. We have 4 more days before I head back to the states! Funny how time flys right?

Check back soon for some pictures of the mountains!

Hugs and love!

-P.