Campo Family Travels: { Poland }

{ Poland }

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Sarah & Kinga

Jul 31 - Aug 05, 2013 -- The majority of our 15-day trip was spent in Poland, Szczecin and Krakow. When we originally planned this trip two years ago, it was because the Tall Ship Regatta would be concluding in my father’s hometown. Jon thought it would be a fun vacation and my parents thought it was a perfect excuse to come back and see the family and take in some entertainment. It also just so happened that a lot has happened with my family – my aunt Mariola became engaged to a charming man named Marek, and my cousin Diana and her husband Przemek welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Kinga! With all this and our move to Netherlands, our plan to return to Poland was perfect timing!

Przemek, Diana & Kinga - the happy family!

The happy married couple, Mariola and Marek

Our arrival into Szczecin (Sh-che-chin) was quickly met with the question of where to park our “precious, highly at risk” car rental… clearly the mean street was not an option and there really aren't any long term parking garages. So the answer: an outdoor, $3/day parking lot, and parked safely on a grassy curb, guarded by a "guard cat." When we returned 5 days later to a secure, undamaged car we realized the rental agency might have been slightly exaggerating the danger of parking a Ford Focus station wagon in Poland.Other than that we spent the first couple of days wandering around the beautiful city. Jon had never been, so it was fun to not only introduce him to the other part of my family, but also to get lost in the city with all of the roundabouts and one block streets. We met Kinga the first afternoon that we arrived… and I think she might be the most adorable baby girl ever. Thursday brought about a “traditional Thursday night Polish dinner” hosted at my Aunt’s house. It was a perfect introduction to the delicious Polish cuisine, for Jon. Mariola's potatoes with dill are still our favorite dish from the whole trip!

Mario graffiti

Proving that the old water pumps still work

Local cheese and olives

Our Friday was filled with wedding festivities to celebrate the marriage of the two sweetest people I know. It was a simple Catholic service at the family parish… difficult to really grasp for those non-Polish speakers, but really no different than a traditional catholic service back in the states. A LOT of sitting/standing/kneeling, repeat. After the service everyone went to the reception venue, a beautiful indoor/outdoor setting – perfect for the hot afternoon. Great food was had, and as always toasts were done with vodka. A random gentleman sitting next to us would fill shot glasses with ice cold vodka and remind us that “Polish vodka is best enjoyed cold…” and really, who can argue with that? It wasn’t until many shots later that Jon noticed we had been drinking Russian vodka. Our new friend quickly changed his line to “RUSSIAN vodka is best enjoyed cold!” Luckily for our potential hangover, the dancing began and we escaped any more drinking. The dancing and partying went on until the wee hours of the morning. We called it quits just before midnight and heard that the party continued well into the morning hours. Saturday brought the conclusion of the Tall Ship races and the beginning of the festivities for the city. The riverbank was full of vendors pushing traditional Polish cuisine: sausages, bread with seasoned bacon drippings and pickles, corn on the cob and if you were lucky, a cheese usually only found in Krakow. The streets were filled with hundreds of thousands of people and we actually got to see the Polish President, as he officially opened the celebration. We later learned that an estimated 2.75 million people attended the four day festival, which is pretty impressive when compared to the town's population of only 410,000. Quite an exciting time for the little city! In total there were some 70 ships from all over the world that docked at the riverside; a few really large ships and the rest medium to small. We decided to brave one of the lines for the bigger ships, the Mexican ship, and got to climb aboard and take a tour. It was quite impressive, and we were lucky enough to have a bit of a tour guide seeing as my dad had worked on ships like that when he was in college. We decided to call it a night about 11:30pm, about a half an hour before the fireworks show, which actually worked out quite well... The apartment we stayed at had a perfect back porch view of the show and we all took it in wearing our pajamas.

It felt like a step back in time to see these huge ships

A view of the nightly festivities from above. The crowd was enormous!

The Mexican ship lit up. My dad commented on how
miserable it must have been for the Mexican crew to hang those
lights since they are likely not flown when the ship is sailing.

More ships

There were boats everywhere!

Jon got to converse with the Mexican crew!

Watching the Polish President speak aboard the Polish tall ship

Our final days went by quickly, with Sunday being our final full day in the city. We spent the morning hours relaxing and recuperating from all of the festivities and then it was off to Kinga’s baptism. There was a sweet reception held afterwards and then we all headed back down to the river for one last walk through the Tall Ship chaos. Monday morning we said our goodbye's to the family (they get a little easier now that we make more frequent trips back to see them) and piled all of our luggage back into our little Focus and started the 7 hour drive to Krakow.

King about to be baptized - and trying to steal the microphone

Kinga's godfather, Sebastian, lighting the candle for her baptism.

Now... let me just say, the Germans know how to maintain their highways. The fastest route from Szczecin to Krakow uses the German autobahn, so we drove south through Germany for a large portion of the drive. It went by quickly and we didn't fully appreciate how uneventful it was until we crossed back over into Poland. It was as if someone laid speed bumps in the highway... for miles and miles. Most countries would improve such an awful stretch of highway, but Poland simply lowered the speed limit to 70km (a far contrast from driving 160km in Germany), unless the road was really bumpy which lowered the speed to 50km. All together it was about an hour of misery, and stopping at rest stops was more for our sanity than for a restroom break.

When we finally arrived in Krakow, our GPS guided us seamlessly into the Old City and right up to our hotel door. The many pedestrians walking by looked a little pissed that we were taking up valuable walking space, so Jon and I hopped out quickly and ran inside to inquire about the parking situation. The front desk woman flew out of her chair and told us to RUN to the car - so we did. She quickly explained, in Polish, to my father that cars are prohibited on the streets in the area (apparently carrying a 2,000 PLN fine) and pointed us to the nearest parking. Still worried about the warnings from Hertz, we found a police officer who reassured us it was safe to leave our car. We unpacked our little car and headed back to our little flat.

The city was bustling that day, full of tourists and kids with their backpacks and sleeping pads wandering around so we decided to hop off the main square and grab a bite to eat in a restaurant we'd been to before. We ordered some more traditional foods, potato pancakes, bigos, pirogi and pig knuckle which we ate family style - so delicious! After dinner we decided to head back to the flat for a nap before we did more city discovering. When we headed back out late that evening the streets were even more full. All the restaurants in the main square were full and there were street performers everywhere. We finally called it quits sometime around midnight (mind you, it's a Monday evening!) but their partying didn't end until well after 5am.

Clock tower in the town center

St. Mary's basilica

Old town center square market

Jon and I woke up early Tuesday morning so that we could look around town a little more and head over to Wawel Castle. We got there about an hour before it opened, so that we could get a head start on any line that might happen, and when we got up to the top there were THOUSANDS of people! We finally found a woman who spoke a bit of English and asked why there were so many people and she said,"Oh, it's just a pilgrimage." Like, don't we see this all the time?! Luckily that was where they started their... journey(?!) so they cleared out before the castle tours began. We wandered around all morning and then headed back into the Old City to get lost in the perfectly charming little alleys.

Walking up to Wawel Castle

Inside the Wawel Castle court

A pretty courtyard view of the cathedral and castle

Dragon's den -- the castle's [formerly] secret underground labyrinth

Paintings from the street vendors in Krakow's Old City.

Did I mention that we were in Europe during a heat wave?! The
temperature never dropped below 90... and all but a couple
of our hotels were air-condition-less! We found a little pigeon
trying to escape the heat in the tiniest bit of shade.

We ventured into the Jewish Quarter one afternoon. During WWII the Nazi's essentially isolated the Jewish population from the rest of the city. Many were transported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Such a terrible part of history and a very "real" part of our trip. This wall is part of the remnants of the isolation of the Jewish Quarter.