The Yin…..the entry of Poland into the European Union had an enormous effect in uplifting the country from its rural roots into the fast lane of economic develop. Poles that we talked to said that it changed everything. They were no longer a pull toy, they were part of something big and bold, Europe. Roads were built, Poles went all over the place freely, industry moved in and development was huge. All of this has made Poland a different Poland, a Poland looking west where they can see their future development continuing.
The yang…The election of JPII, as he is called in Poland, to the papacy was a huge boon to the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. For an already deeply religious and most devout of all European countries to have a Polish Pope was the most amazing thing to Poles. It just ingrained the church into their DNA. The country became even more dedicated to the church.
The Poles are traditional Catholics and there is now a huge pushback against Francis whose attempt to modernize and liberalize the church is met with outright and public scorn…..show’s how much I know..I always thought there was a thing called “Papal infallibility.” But most Catholics here are totally opposed to the new agenda. The church’s influence comes early and constant…students spend twice as much of their academic time studying religion as they do learning about their own history and culture.
Elections are even held on Sundays and people go to church first and then to the polls…nice segue for the church. The political ramifications of this were seen in the national election for prime minister held while we were in Krakow. The party that won was the party that espoused the heaviest dose of Catholicism. And with that result, Poland has made a sharp turn to the right with potentially massive implications for all of Europe…at least that’s what is all over the news, and even this morning there was a lead article in the Washington Post about that very same thing.
The party that won the election, in what was considered a landslide, did all the usual promising of everything to everybody, but embraced the conservative agenda of the Polish church hierarchy. The new prime minister to be is a huge fan of Urban, the president of Hungary who is even further to the right and has made a big splash about the refugee situation. They talk about this group of nations that we just happened to visit as some kind of sub-section of the EU. They say that they think alike and it’s becoming more different from western Europe. It will be interesting to watch the various forces working within the country determining the direction the country will head.
Poland has had the ebb and flow of history cross its path on so many occasions, reading a list of all the people they had wars with for a variety of reasons reads like a who’s who of Europe…Everybody wanting to go west went through Poland…everybody wanting to go East went through Poland. And they had their own forms of aggression to kick up the numbers as well.
And now for one of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, Krakow…. Krakow is a lively gem with a market square to rival any that we’ve seen. There is a certain similarity to them in various cities of Europe, at least the ones that didn’t bombed into oblivion during WWII. Warsaw got leveled during the war, but they rebuilt their old town just as it had been before the war…brick by brick. Here in Krakow all around the very large square there are many outdoor eating establishments and with the Autumn nip in the air blankets and propane heaters create a relatively comfortable atmosphere for dining al fresco. Street performers do their thing from break dancers attracting large crowds to mimes standing mute in whatever costume they have decided to portray their “Performance Art.” The clop-clop-clop of horses hooves on the cobble stones announce the arrival of another white horse-drawn carriage to take the tourists around to areas where they have probably already trod, but they do seem very popular. Carol noticed that the horse shoes were like women’s high heels and raised an inch or so in the back…..must have something to do with the difficulty of treading on cobblestones. The tourist gift shops around the square range from the kitschy to the sublime, read expensive.
One of our Uzbek “granddaughters,” Guli, came from Warsaw to see us and we had a nice two days with her. She studies at the university in Warsaw. Her mother had moved to Germany about 15 years ago and remarried. Guli had been terribly unhappy without her family. She has a little brother which she had not seen since he was born 10 years ago, but finally she was able to obtain the necessary documents and is now studying in Poland where she can visit her family on weekends after an 8-hour bus ride.
She had wanted to go see Auschwitz, the most infamous of the Nazi death camps. We weren’t really interested because we have seen Dachau in Germany, and how much of man’s inhumanity to man does one need to see? However, we were willing to take here there. Good news, bad news, there were not any tickets available for the days she was with us. It never occurred to me that it would “sell out,” and that they limited the number of visitors.
So plan B was a visit to the large salt mine in the area. It was very interesting……1,000 feet deep with 178 miles, (that’s not a typo) of horizontal shafts some of which date back to the 13th century where the miners picked and shoveled this commodity worth the price of gems in the Middle Ages. We walked down 378 steps to a depth of 443 feet on our tour. We walked for several miles to visit many of the chambers which included high-arched full cathedral like ceilings where they actually do celebrate mass every Sunday. It’s hugely popular with over a million visitors each year.
A touristy rip off folk show with mediocre food was a disappointment, especially after the wonderful dinner at the Mozart show in Prague. But Guli enjoyed it and that made it better to handle.
We are staying with a Servas family now that Guli has returned to Warsaw. Like so many families in so many places, their apartment in a block of apartments is small but serviceable….Kitchen and bathrooms (one for a toilet only, and the other with a sink and tub) are extremely small but suffice to their needs.
Getting here proved to be our usual adventure of trying to decipher directions and signs. It was complicated by the fact that we were told to arrive about 6 p.m. but they went off daylight savings time that day and so our late afternoon search was further complicated by darkness. A little guess work as to where to turn onto streets we weren’t sure were correct proved successful and my usual practice of finding gas station where there is usually somebody who knows where we are trying to get proved very rewarding as a lady said “Follow me, it’s not far.”…so off we went. We’ve been met with this kindness several times already….people going out of their way to be our personal GPS. Once we arrived at the block of flats came the next part of the adventure. The address of 24 Na Blomie 9/19 was very confusing since there were about a dozen buildings all marked with a “9.” However, once again the local population comes to the rescue and people found it for us with a little exploration.
Eva and Andrew were gracious Servas hosts even in their very small flat which got smaller with two guests. But, like so many it is functional and does the job. The world doesn’t operate on granite counter-tops and Jacuzzi bathtubs.. They were/are university professors. Andrew now retired and our age, was a font of information. Eva, 15 years younger still lectures at the university. They are cultured, have traveled widely and are very interesting people with whom to converse. I can’t imagine that other Servas hosts would have been as knowledgeable about, and as open, Poland than these two..it was a very lucky find…lots of good conversation, lots of honest insight was gained. It was a pleasure to meet them as well as informative.
Now, we are through with the big 4, Budapest, Bratislava, Prague and Krakow…time for us to slowly weave our way back to Budapest for one last night and then get on the river cruise…I think it’s time for some country and rural living for our last week.
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