Tuesday the 26th was a travel day, and a very long day at that. We traveled by bus from Prague to Kraków, with a stop at Stramberk, Czech Republic for lunch. Notice that I have changed the name of our tour to "The Heart of Europe". This part of Europe has gone through a lot of upheaval, especially in the last 100-150 years. Eastern Europe has too many connotations with the Communist era for the locals, and "Heart of Europe" seems more appropriate.
In Stramberk we had lunch in a local brewery. Our host could speak Czech and German, but not English. Vera became the group translator. Dave got his wish, a sampler course of the local brew. Awesome!
An interesting street sign. This street is named "Horni Basta", which means "Fortification Hill".
The next day we started our tour of Kraków at Wawal Castle. It is a medieval fortress atop a hill overlooking the old part of the city.
Kraków is a beautiful city; we enjoyed it even more than Prague, and that's saying a lot! They have one of the largest central squares in Europe. This picture does not do it justice. Surrounded by many open air restaurants with live music, it reminded us of St. Mark's Square in Venice, only many many times bigger.
Unlike the Czech Republic, Poland is a very religious country, with many old churches at every corner of old town. St. Francis Basilica has some of the best Art Nouveau in situ. The old gothic Bascilica was damaged by a fire in1850, and it was later redecorated in the art form of the time. This stained glass window depicting God creating the world is a huge window, and the colors brighter and more vivid than my camera could capture.
The clip-clop of horse drawn carriages can be heard everywhere. Watch out for the trams, as they are very quiet, and don't stop very fast. We took one of the trams out to Schindler's factory (as in the movie "Schindler's List") to see a very detailed history of war time Kraków. Tomorrow we will see more grizzly WWII history at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial, and then another long drive to Hungary.
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