Photo 1a and b: Kraków rynek
After a day in Wrocław, we traveled to Kraków for three days (four nights). Kraków is we think the prettiest city in Poland. The city was not damaged by the war the way every other major city in Poland was, and the city is well prepared for tourists (again, unusual for Poland). The Rynek (city center) has the largest market square in Europe, with many churches, shops and restaurants.
Photo 2a and b: iron collection in Tarnów
Our first day here was actually spent an hour by train east of Kraków, in the smaller city of Tarnów. Here is Jerzy, an iron collector. We collect old laundry irons, and have visited other collections in many countries.
The subject of old irons (in Polish: stare żelaska) is very immense and diverse, and every collector has a separate focus; the collection here is irons mostly from Poland, Germany and Russia. There are a lot of charcoal irons, which have a wide variety of latches and handles; a picture of one of these is included here that is worth hundreds of Euros.
Photo 3: Tarnow, first independent city
Jerzy took us on a walking tour of Tarnów. This was the first city to become an independent Polish city after the country was reestablished following the end of World War I. This city, as all Polish cities that I have seen, has many monuments and statues to celebrate some aspect of the country’s history.
Photo 4a and b: Jewish memorial
Forty percent of the Tarnów population prior to the war was Jewish, which included the area in which Jerzy lives. Very near his apartment is this monument, which memorializes the first 752 Jews taken from this area, in November 1939, to become among the very first inhabitants (if that is an appropriate word) of the German work-, and later death-camps.
Nearby is this plaque on a wall that marks where a group of Jews were lined up and shot. Jerzy’s mother was a witness to this event. I suspect every town and city in central to eastern Poland has these stories and monuments (western Poland was previously German, so the present residents do not have memoroes of the local war history).
Photo 5a, b and c: Basilica
I referred to this as a church and Jerzy quickly corrected me – this is a basilica (here, home base for the main priest of the diocese). Inset into the walls are the burial sites of various princes, with the top inclined to better show the person (I have not seen the tops inclined this way before). Nearby is a museum of the wood-carvings from old churches; the one of the left is from 1300. Many are incomplete or missing pieces, which allow one to peer into these to see the intricate wood constructions. Beautiful.
Photo 6a and b: Lyceum
This is a Lyceum (grammar school). You need to know that in my walking tour of Tarnów, I took pictures of more than a dozen statues – or kings, writers, inventors – but I will choose to show this one, of a teacher (one of two in front of the Lyceum). I do not recall ever seeing a statue to a school teacher in the U.S.
Photo 7a and b: Buildings
These old European cities have so much in the way of beautiful old buildings, that include various ornate designs and artwork. I include a couple from Tarnów here. The first of these has at the base a memorial to the previous Jewish owner, lost to the concentration camps.
Photo 8: Polish cigarette packages.
From a store display, these are boxes of cigarettes. The warning are much more explicit than American get from the Surgeon General (let Poles see these and still smoke – a lot!).