I had enjoyed Kraków immensley, but time was not on my side on this trip so it was time to make a move. Next on the itinerary was Wrocław, a small city on the South Western side of Poland which had spent a lot of time being invaded by the Germans and renamed Breslau. Either name is used now, but since it's currently in Poland I prefer to call it Wrocław (which, totally non-phonetically for English speakers, is pronounced something akin to "ross-wov").
First impressions of Wrocław are of a bright, lively but not crowded city with lovely wide streets, trees, the river Oder and gorgeous mediaeval architecture. I trundled off to the hostel where I dumped my bags and immediately wanted to go to sleep, but convinced myself in time that I was here to enjoy my holiday (TM) TO THE MAX (R) and I was sure as hell not going to sleep it away in bed. So. Walking around Wrocław. I saw a bunch of guys at the hostel front desk and heard them speaking Basque. I thought of heading over to say "Kaixo" but they were all six foot as Basque men usually are and five six foot men in a group is not the world's least intimidating sight, even if they smile. So I slunk off to explore.
I was tempted to go look inside but my skirt didn't quite cover my knees I stayed firmly on non-holy ground. Instead, I returned to the hostel to take a longed-for nap. When I woke I found a Californian girl and a male Londoner drinking vodka and lemonade and playing on his Mac. They were old friends travelling together. We chatted for a while about music, but I felt a little like I was intruding on their "vibe" so when they announced they were going clubbing I told them I'd stay at the hotel and rest. I was a bit disappointed, after the amazing connections I had made in Kraków, but it was clear they had a lot of catching up to do, if you understand what I mean...
The next morning I woke up early and took a walk through the quite deserted city. The only people I saw were a lone nun limping along a cobbled street, and a whole load of people crossing a bridge with bunches of flowers. I guess they were going to church but it was Saturday. Other than the church bells, you could practically hear a pin drop in Wrocław that morning. The lack of people and car noise made me feel like I was in a rural town 500 years ago, helped by the churches which dot the landscape.
Auto-portrait of sleepy self:
Polish Love Padlocks:
Soviet style building:
I wandered back to the main square where there was some kind of military parade going on. There was a marching band, gun salutes, and lots of officers marching up and down the square, showing off all their testosterone. I later realised this pomp and circumstance was for the Polish Armed Forces Day, to remember the Miracle at the Vistula. Thanks, Wikipedia!
Parade over, I went to see the Panorama of the Battle of Racławice. It's basically just a painting, but instead of painting a big mural and hanging it flat on the walls, they painted a long ribbon of canvas and stuck it on the inside of a circular building, like you would line a flan ring with pastry. So you stand in the middle of this enormous painting, which has some sort of amazing Renaissance 3D special effects, and in front of the painting they've placed some real grass, rocks, farm materials and things to kind of "extend" the painting so you are not quite sure where the objects stop and the painting begins. The effect is pretty awesome. Plus you pick up an audio guide to relate the story of the battle, the details of which I can't remember other than that the Polish won it, and that Kościuszko was in charge of the insurrection (so now I know where the name of Australia's highest mountain comes from). Pity it couldn't save Polish independence from the pesky Russians in the end though.
I whiled the rest of the afternoon away with "La Catedral del Mar" by Ildefonso Falcones (I left my finished Larsson in Kraków to a lovely South American gentleman who hadn't read it yet. Just too heavy to lug around) in the park, then headed home to the hostel.
I had an early night, so the next morning I ended up waking very early. For want of something better to do, I grabbed my book and headed out to sit in the sun in the main square and read. When I arrived, I noticed there were two benches, one occupied with three young lads recovering from the previous night's revels. I wondered if I should sit there, it being too early for me to be in the mood to deal with drunken louts, but in the end I just plonked myself down on the other bench.
Naturally, it only took three or four pages before the drunkest of the three, Serge, came over and started trying to hit on me. Sigh. I ignored him as best I could when another of the three came over. But Arek was thankfully not drunk, he was in fact extremely knowledgeable, trilingual (Polish, English and German) and interested to know what on Earth a girl was doing at 8:00 AM reading in Wrocław's main square. I explained that I just liked to read, but he still seemed amazed and replied that no Polish girl would ever get up early to go to the town square just to read a book on a Sunday morning. He and his friends had been discussing me, intrigued, he told me, and he was going to tell all his friends about the strange Australian girl he met who likes to read in the middle of the city. I asked about his story, so he explained about his Polish mother, German father, how he had lived in Wrocław, Hamburg and now Łódź, and the history of all these places. Łódź, he and his friends assured me, was not worth visiting, but Arek urged me to visit the Jewish cemetary in Wrocław, which was actually what I already had planned for that day. Thanking him, I said goodbye to the sweet Arek, drunken Serge, and their softly-spoken Brazilian friend Alex, with whom I had managed to have a small conversation in Spanish.
I love cemetaries, and the Wrocław Jewish Cemetary was highly rated, so I set off to have a look. I could see from the map it was quite a way away, but I had no tram ticket handy so I decided just to foot it. The sun was blazing, but I kept on as the lure of shady tombstones impelled me forward. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I finally arrived. At a building. With no kind of signage. I looked around for some kind of entrance. Couldn't find any doors, gates, or other such indicators. It must be closed - I couldn't believe it after the long and tiresome walk. I sat down in the shade for a few minutes to catch my breath and assimilate the fact that I had to trek the same route over again. Rested, I made one last check around the building to see if I could find the entrance, and there, like a mirage, was a gate with a path behind it. Why did I not see this before? I was jubilant.
At the door there was an elderly Jewish man with a series of guidebooks for the cemetary. He managed to communicate to me somehow, that I was to take the book into the cemetary and leave it on the way out. If I wanted to keep it, it would be 10 złotys. I took it and went inside. It was absolutely lovely - green, leafy, shady, serene, well-kept. I wandered around and took in the inscriptions, some in Polish, some in German, many in Hebrew. Apparently the cemetary was saved during the war because it was outside Wrocław city centre, and therefore wasn't a bomb target.
After having taken in the cemetary I went straight to the bar for a very sweet Okocim beer, which tasted like a little glass of heaven after my long, hot walk. Added bonus: lovely beer plus an empty stomach led to a very good mood, and I sang all the way to the train station in the afternoon to catch the train to Poznań.
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