Klodzko, Poland June 28-30 part 1

 

We came to Klodzko because we heard there are tunnels here.  We haven’t seen medieval tunnels yet.  We took a taxi up to the hotel, got dropped off and then couldn’t find a way to get through the gates.  The dogs were barking and we rang the buzzer, but no people.  We eventually just pushed our way through the parking gate and found no one at the desk.  So, we played fetch with the dogs.  I eventually walked all over the hotel and found one person in the kitchen.  Eventually, everything worked out and we had a nice room. 

   It has been very hot and humid this last 10 days with no sign of getting cooler.  We are going to start choosing our hotels by who has air conditioning.

When we walked to the old town and the fortress, after getting directed by a couple of non-English speaking locals, we found that not all of Klodzko has been rehabilitated.  Poland is behind east Germany in recovering from the cold war and has chosen not to go to the Euro even though they are a part of the EU (European Union).

As you can see in these pictures, some things have been fixed up and others haven’t.  It is an interesting contrast.

      

He was the first and only street sleeper we have seen. 

OK, it has been 5 minutes since we have posted church pictures…..we can’t have that.   There is a statue of a wolf on the second floor of one of the buildings.  (no picture, we couldn’t find it)  He has his tongue hanging out.  The prophesy about this wolf says that one day he will drink from the nearby Nysa Klodzka  river.  Well, the prophesy came true in 1997 when the river flooded.  Why, you ask, am I mentioning this when I said I was going to post pictures?

     The top mark is the height of the 1997 flood.

Church of Assumption in Klodzko

          

I finally got a good picture of a stained glass window.

The ceiling of this church was outstanding

                   Close up of just one paintings on the ceiling.

Klodzko, Poland Part 2

 

So where are the tunnels we went to see?  There are 2 sets of tunnels. 

It turned out that throughout the city's history, generations of Kłodzko's merchants had developed an extensive net of underground basements and tunnels. They were used for storage and, in times of trouble, as a safe shelter from artillery fire. With time the tunnels were forgotten, especially after the original German population was deported, and during the years after World War II many of them started to collapse, along with the houses above.  Since the 1970s the tunnels were conserved and the destruction of the city was stopped  (wikipedia) These tunnels date back to the 13th century.  Pictures were not easy.

The second set of tunnels, 40 km or about 24 miles, are under the fortress on the hill overlooking the city.  This fortress was built and rebuilt many times over the centuries starting in 1129.  It was used as a prison and for defense.  They stored explosives in the tunnels at strategic spots and could blow up invading armies from below.  They knew how to pack the explosives so all the power went up and did not destroy the tunnels….remember these tunnels were built in the 19th century by prisoners of war. 

   The city that the fortress protected from the fortress.

   

The fortress was entered by a drawbridge over a moat.  The drawbridge still exists but the moat is filled in.  We only got to visit a small portion of the fortress, since that is all that is open to the public.

    

 

 

                                                        

The tunnels are very dark and some, not all, are this small.  We were told before hand that there were low tunnels and we “could enter at our own wish”.  We have been enjoying reading menus and advertisements and tour information that has been translated for us.  The problem is when we see them we are not able to write them down. 

The soldiers who watched in these tunnels had to work in the dark,,,full dark, because the powder was so explosive no torches could be used.  Imagine, miles of tunnels you had to know by heart and run through blind.

Bautzen, Germany June 23-28 Part 1

 

We left Leipzig this morning after returning some electrical adapters and buying new ones.  It was interesting but do-able.   I explained that we needed square plugs because someplace I was told that other countries had square outlets.  We are trusting the salesman who said that even though square plugs don’t go into round holes,  round plugs go into both square and round sockets.  Thing is we won’t know until we leave Germany.  So this is part of the adventure.  (note: so far,in Poland, he is right)

Then we walked to the train station early, and unthinkably the German fast rail train was 35 minutes late.  Right,  a  German train late.  Well it finally arrived and we traveled to Dresden where we caught a local train, just in time (with no minutes to spare).  We had no idea when we were supposed to get off this train and the train was very crowded, which makes handling luggage fun, and no announcements in English and the announcements that were made you couldn’t hear anyway.  Somehow we found the Bautzen stop, hauled all of our stuff over cobblestone sidewalks, (really great for your luggage wheels) and made it to the pension. We are not sure our luggage will survive the entire trip.  We are slowly turning our purple duffle silver (duct tape color, George in Amsterdam gave us some, we used it up and have been unable to find more)

On our way to our hotel or pension, we heard all kinds of singing and yelling and music. We had no idea what it was. We came across a man dressed in a rabbit suit. We asked if he spoke English, he did, and told us he was getting married soon and this was his last free days. So he was having his bachelor party.  His friends has previously passed us pulling a boom box and tons of beer.  Needless to say, a good time was being had by all.

The pension is lovely.  We have 2 rooms and a Jacuzzi type tub in the bathroom.  We are on the third floor, remembering that third floor is three floors above the main floor, which is the 0 floor.  Our room overlooks the River Spree and the Peace Bridge.

                   

When we first arrived we had lots of trouble getting on the internet and NO ONE speaks English.  Well, we wanted to see what it is like to be in a small German town and we are finding out.   Finally got the internet to work. No, we have no idea why it works now but didn’t before.

We had dinner at the restaurant at the pension and went to bed.  Interesting thing about dinner, they served you a very hot stone and you put your meat on it and cooked it with the sauces they provided.  Interesting, tasty but not wonderful.

On Sunday we decided we would take it easy, as my sister suggested.  We are not as young as we think we are.  The more we travel, the more we are discovering that we need to rest.   We went down to breakfast, included, and we were pleasantly surprised.  It was wonderful.  Beautifully served, with lots to choose from.   Even had yogurt that really is yogurt.

Duane slept most of the day and I worked on this blog and some bookkeeping that needed doing.  (OK, so you noticed that I worked on this blog on June 24th and it is posting in July.  Internet connection that can post pictures are rare)  For dinner we just walked around and found a restaurant that looked nice and had outdoor seating.  We sat looking out at ruins of a monks’ church (sorry we just went to dinner, so no pictures)  from an outside seating and had the most wonderful meal.   Of course we had beer with it.  Everywhere we eat, beer is the cheapest drink to have and we are in Germany, so we have 2 different beers each lunch and dinner.  We never drink beer at home.  We don’t really taste much difference in the beers, mostly pilsners (whatever that is) except for the dark beers.  Anyway, the meal was wonderful.  When we were served our beer and waited for our meal, they brought bread and a spread.  The spread was the “yogurt” we had with our cereal.  I guess it is a bread spread.  Part of the adventure.

The second day, after breakfast we followed the walking tour in an English tour book the owner lent us.  We found out all the tours were only in German.  We are in love with this town.  I don’t know how many posts this will end up, because we took hundreds of photos.

Bautzen is known as the city of towers.  It turns out there are lots of towns with walls.  The history of Europe tells about there being separate medieval princedoms and each had to protect itself from the others.  These walls and towers and battlements have been rebuilt over and over again as one princedom or country overtook the area.  This town has the best preserved and the most beautiful walls and towers we have seen so far.

    

One of the towers has been turned into a hostel.  

Even the alley ways are beautiful

                                                         

 

                     

We bought dinner at a shopping center and ate it in our room.  We were exhausted and took a Jacuzzi.

Bautzen, Germany Part 2

 

The third day, we did our laundry. Sounds simple right? Not so. We had directions to the place. This city had 3 ancient walls. It started as a small town wall, then as the town expanded, the wall got bigger. Then it got bigger again. A little of this last wall is left and they built a green belt along original line of the wall. We followed this park and got to the area of the laundry. We had the address. We found the street, we thought. There is a triangle of land with the street on each side having the same name. Our street name. We had to ask for help. Luckily a lady walking her dog spoke enough English to point across the street. So we were helped to the laundry and then helped step by step to do the laundry. All went well and the white asparagus soup the owner made for us was delicious.

We climbed up to the tower of one of the many churches in town.  The entrance to the bell tower stairs is a little small.

  

 The view from the top made it worth the climb                  this is just one side of the view.  We took over 380 pictures in this town.  It has been very hard to choose which ones to put in here. 

Another place we saw was the ruins of a church with its cemetery.  I think it is one of the most beautiful places we have seen.  It looks to me like a work of art.

               

                                                

All of that walking around made us hungry.  We found a gelato (ice cream) place that we went to 3 times.  The ice cream they have there is unique.  We didn’t, but we could have had…..

Spaghetti…….   or 3 eggs ..

These are ice cream dishes.  They also have lasagna noodles and fruit salad.  All made of ice cream.

We also saw some lunch meat that looked interesting…  want to eat a teddy bear?

Here are some more wonderful sights we saw

             

When we got back to the room, we started deciding where to go next. That is not an easy thing, since we have no plans. We looked on eurail train maps, on web sites for Poland, since that is where we are going next. We looked at cities and small towns. Then we looked at train schedules. Hours later we went to bed, no decisions made.

Bautzen, Germany Part 3

 

                    

                                              

 

Bautzen had many very destructive fires.  Most medieval towns lost most of their buildings to fires multiple times.  In Bautzen, there was one building that survived all of the fires.  It was assumed that it was a “witches house”.  It is known by that name to this day.

                                                  

 From the top of the water tower you can see the old wall and it’s towers as it looked in old

                                                        

 Bautzen is a very open and friendly and accepting town.  It seems it has always been this way.  There are Germans living here, as you would expect, and Sorbians.  Sorbians are the smallest sect of something  (sorry without internet to research and our bad memories, we can’t remember what sect they are, Duane thinks they are the original settlers of the area) and they are given equal importance to the German people.  All signage is required by law to be in both languages

                                                                      That is pretty progressive, and has been the case for centuries.

Here there is the only church in Europe, and maybe anywhere, where both Catholic and Protestant religions worship in the same building.

          

In the rear of the church is a memorial celebrating their Jewish citizens.  Sorry, but memorial is wrong and I can’t think of what to call it.  There are boards showing where each Jewish family lived, what they had contributed to the town and what became of each and every one.  Some didn’t make it out of world war II alive and some emigrated to other countries.  There are pictures of the families before and after the war.  I felt as if the Jewish families were held as family to this church.  They loved and miss them.  It was very moving. 

I found this family and I wonder….my grandmother on my mother’s side’s maiden name was Geltman.   We, of course, don’t know how that name was changed at Ellis Island.  So, the family named Gelmann might be relatives.  They didn’t have any emigration information on that family, so I’m afraid they didn’t make it.

 Today we woke to an uncooperative computer. No internet all day. We were able to use the owner’s computer and decided and made reservations. No, you will have to wait to find out where.

The people here don’t speak English but they sure do their best to help. We have found translate.google.com   It may save our lives in the months to come. We went out in the afternoon and saw the water tower and 2 interesting churches. These really are interesting (just like the others). Then we came back and ate at a nearby hotel with a wonderful restaurant. While we were eating outside under an overhang, someone was playing a harmonica. How romantic and what a wonderful sendoff.

Last picture, Duane posing with the devil again.

                                                           

We are OK, just busy

 

Just to let you know we are OK and spending a lot of time on trains and in rooms, without either the ability or the time to update this blog.  Hopefully we will be able to update soon.  We have been to Bautzen, Germany and Klodkzo, Poland since the last blog.

Right now we are packed up and waiting for a taxi to take us to the train to start our 9 hour travels to Krakow, Poland.  We will spend one night there, see some sights the next day, then travel to Wielczka, Poland where the salt mine with sculptures is for 4 nights.  From there we will take one day trip back to Krakow and one day trip to Auschwitz. 

A little bit more that we learned about Germany.  I know I thought of Germany as the bad guys in the war.  What I’m finding out is that the Germans thought of the Nationalist party as the bad buys who took over their country.  Then the Russians took over their country.  I guess I mentioned it before, but it is still a surprise.  In Bautzen we saw pictures of what the city looked like in 1945.  Both the Germans and the Russians bombed the town.  The town was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The people suffered terribly, just like people on all sides of the war.  WAR IS AWFUL.

In Bautzen there is a church that has both Catholic and Protestant services in it.  It is the only church of its kind in Europe, who knows maybe the world.  This has been going on for centuries.  This town has and had no animosity toward any religion.  They even have a whole section of the church dedicated to the 75 Jewish people who lived in the town, who they were and where they ended up.

Got to go, the taxi is here.