Krakow

Finally we arrived into Krakow, about 3 hours later then our arranged meeting time with Gerald Kohan. He had lost his phone on his trip over and so we were going off of our back-up plan to meet in the main square, only we were 3 hours late. Luckily he was checking back every hour on the hour and we happe
Krakow was really beautiful! We were finally able to meet Gerald’s family: his wife, Gosha, and daughters Alexandria and Madja. Sorry guys if I spelled your names wrong! Our kids immediately paired up, or at least Jessica and Alex did, and Nicole, Madja, and Rachel formed the troika as we affectionately referred to them. It took all four adults to keep Paul occupied, and Peter gave us an extra hand when needed. We had a great time together! We were so compatible that we managed

to keep finding more and more reasons to stay. We enjoyed our time there for 6 days, instead of the original 4-5 that we were thinking.



(above, Maja and the two girls, side, Jessie and Alex hanging out)

We toured the Castle, its private chambers, and the weapons and armor, along with the kript, where many of the royalty and important people in history were buried.
We enjoyed visiting the beautiful church and bell tower.

We visited the salt mines close by. These were all hewn out of the salt rock, which is in many different colors, not just white. Pictures can’t quite capture the beauty of this underground world with its many sculptures and even chapels. Take a close look at the floor and chandeliers, it is all salt rock!
A bit of trivia--here is where the word “salary” comes from, the workers were paid in salt.

We went spelunking into a dragon’s cave and heard an old fable about the dragon who was eating all the townspeople. The dragon had demanded the kings daughter, but obviously the king was unwilling to giver her up. He sent many knights out to kill the dragon, but unfortunately they all lost the fight and their lives! Finally the town’s shoemaker volunteered to fight the dragon if the king would promise his daughter’s hand in marriage for him if he won. The king was desperate, and didn’t really think this shoemaker would succeed when his knights had not, so he agreed.



The shoemaker then gathered up some sulfur, and stuffed a sheep with it. He placed the sheep outside of the dragon’s cave and the dragon came out and gobbled it all up. He became parched with thirst from the sulfur and ran down to the river to drink. He drank and drank and drank until he exploded! So the shoemaker won the princess’ hand in marriage where everyone else had failed. What a great story. The caves and river are just below the castle so the story really must be true! The dragon sculpture that remains today really does breathe fire (every five minutes). Rachel especially loved this tale!








(pic. Bell tower, and down below, the dragon!)




We visited the town square several times. It is closed to automobiles and is alive with tons of people and traditional Polish food. Krakow is one of the few places in Poland that has survived through many turbulent times including WWII. At one time the city was rigged with explosives by the Germans so that they could destroy it if they needed to retreat, but somehow the Russians outmaneuvered them and they were forced to flee in a hurry, leaving the town intact.
We heard many of the polish traditions and fables from Gosha and Gerald and from these excellent tour guides, we were able to understand the area and country with a deeper insight. It was an incredibly valuable experience that we really loved!
(salt mine pics are starting, those to the right are the stairs going down, down, down, down, down)

You can really feel the authentic history of the place. We listened to a concert complete with bells, pipes, singing and great dancing too! We had fun window shopping. One area of the square has been the traditional place for people to sell their wares for eons, and still had the coats of arms for the different trades (cobbler, weaver, etc.) painted up on the walls where their stands would have been set up. We bought the kids some really cute little wooden toys there, and some beautifully painted wooden easter eggs. One of the kids favorite activities was feeding (and chasing) pigeons in the middle of the square. They got pretty good at it!














Eventually, we did have to leave, before we spent all our money and drove the Kohan’s nuts. We filled six days solid with non-stop fun, but still left without one very important ballroom dance lesson that was promised us, so we have that to look forward to the next time we meet up again! Thanks Kohans! We loved our visit!






One other very important item I was still on a quest to find in Poland still eluded us. Polish pottery is something I have wanted to buy for a long time, and once we were in Europe I started saving (well, kind of) so that I could blow it all on a mismatched set for the family, ok…for myself. We got some tips on where to go from Gosha, and the next day we set off in search of pottery. We were not disappointed. The little town of Boleslawiec boasts the most famous school educating people in the technology and design of ceramics.

It is also home to many manufacturing plants, so it is like one big outlet center for ceramics. I shopped while the kids played at the cute little Garden Hotel we stayed in. Several boxes later, we left heavy laden with beautiful stuff that I found at 60-70% off. Just think of the money I had just saved! Anyone who wants to come to visit can now be treated to an Italian meal served on Polish pottery! Won’t that be an experience! : )

(this is how paul wanted to be carried the whole trip!)

We pulled out of Boleslawiec heavily laden, and headed to our next stop, Prague.

I thought the fire breathing dragon was the perfect way to end the blog entry. See you all next time, hope you enjoyed the pics!

Road to Krakow (Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary)

Picking up where I left off on our Eastern European family vacation:
Our next two days of vacation were spent driving, driving, and driving. After leaving Sarajevo, Bosnia, we once again entered back into Croatia, where we took a slow, but beautiful drive through the mountians and into Hungary. In the beginning, we weren’t really sure we were on the right road, because our GPS didn’t have a very good map of the area, and kept telling us we were off route. The sparsly populated mountain road was beautiful and almost felt like we were back home in Colorado! As we did encounter little pockets of civilization, it was soo cute and quaint. It reminded me of the scenes from the book, Heidi. I imagined these mountain folk never leaving their little villages. Some funny things we encountered along the way: An old man, walking his cow down the road, a woman washing her clothes in a big tub in her front yard, lots of old old cemetaries, some Christian and some Muslim, lots of milk cows wandering around on and off the road, an older lady herding sheep and goats, a man raking his hay into cute little hay stacks., the police officer, giving Pete a ticket for driving without our lights on (oops! Even without a common language you can still get a ticket and we had to pay for it on the spot! He was very nice about it though!) Then there was this little old lady who stepped out into the road in front of us and flagged us down, holding out her passport and jabbering away to us. We had no idea what she needed, so we just gave her some money, and kept going. She didn’t act like that is what she needed, but took it anyway. I think she was trying to get a ride. I kicked myself for not getting her picture after we drove off, because she truly looked like a witch! Warts, big nose, and all, and she was dressed in some interesting clothes which were mostly black. We saw lots and lots of police officers, Eventually another officer flagged us down for speeding (we didn’t know the speed limit since it wasn’t posted) and right at the moment that we were trying to play the dumb foreigner, Paul, as if on cue, began throwing up in the back seat. Pete jumped out and I was scrambling to find napkins. I guess the officer finally decided that we weren’t worth his trouble after all that and just waived us to continue on once we had gotten the mess cleaned up. It was a stroke of good luck for us, or maybe a blessing from God, because Paul never complained or got sick again after words. We spent the night in a little bed and breakfast in Hungary. The innkeeper spoke no English, but he and his wife knew a little Italian, so we were able to get by. They were really friendly and sweet and picked two bags of plumbs and 1 bag of tomatoes for us to take with us on our trip. We had wanted to spend some time in Budapest the next afternoon, but by the time we got there, we realized that we only had time for lunch. As you can see Paul found the joy of picture taking, and went a little crazy! Other than that we were there just long enough for us to get a parking ticket, and a beautiful view of the city from the car windows. Definitely a place that I would love to go back to. The Hungarians were very friendly people.

Lunch in Budapest.....

Sarajevo...

After leaving Dubrovnic, we drove north through some mountains into Bosnia until we reached Sarajevo. Our route was pretty deserted except for the many remnants of old rock walls that had once sectioned off all the hillsides. One old road, wide enough for only one wagon, or perhaps one tank from the days when the Soviets occupied this area wound around, following a similar route to our newer, somewhat improved road. Occasionally we saw a few piles of rubble of what we assumed were little rock houses. Our purpose for entering Sarajevo was for Pete to attend some top secret, super cool, world crisis NATO meetings there (none of you can tell a soul.) We arrived a day early so that Pete could show us around the city. It was beautiful and set in a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides. Only 15 years previously, this country had been part of the country of Yugoslavia. After Bosnia split off, they immediately began their own discord between the Serbians living there and everyone else, mainly of Muslim faith. Muslims and Serbians (Christians) live together fairly peacefully in the city now, but had the US and NATO forces not stepped into the crisis, there may have been solely Serbians left. With the help of the Country Serbia (to the east of Bosnia) the city of Sarajevo had been successfully cut off from all outside help through the mountain passes, and civil war raged.. Many of the buildings still have scars, particularly in the area we were staying. The one main road through the city was nick-named “Sniper Alley” during the crisis. One of the city’s most beautiful buildings almost survived until just at the end of the war it was set on fire by Serbians. Today it is a beautiful but burned shell, it’s main purpose a reminder of more turbulent times.

The city felt somewhat primitive and poor, with a distinctly Muslim feel to it. Most of the Muslims there are pretty relaxed and peaceful, with only a few radicals. We did see one full faced Burka, but mostly the women and men looked pretty “western” or the women had the shawls on their heads over modest dress. It was really cool and definitely different then any other country we had ever been to. Particularly the toliets were a bit different! Ew! What a surprise we had when we first entered the public restrooms!

We enjoyed the market in the center of the old town with its antiques and old crafts. Our favorite was the copper alley. I ended up buying a beautiful copper pot for my kitchen. The girls bought some leather and wooden shoes from a cute little man who spoke no English at all. He taught us the word for thank you, “Fallah.” Peter got a cool wooden canteen after pricing the ENTIRE market, (he is a very savvy shopper). And Jessica was allowed to purchase some belly dancing attire after earnestly promising that she would not be using it to dance for any boys.

Legend says that if you drink from the fountains, you will be returning some day to Sarajevo...

Muslim call for prayer...

Coppersmith...

On our way home from the market one evening, Jessica, Nicole and I were trying to sneak a picture of a cute little old lady struggling with her bags and a few pieces of corn she had just bought. As she looked up, she caught us trying to take her picture and broke out into the biggest toothless grin which lit up her entire face. I wish I could display the picture which is only burned into my memory, but here is the pose that she happily agreed to stand for with Nicole. She was soo cute! Smiles are the same in any language!

On our way out of town, we were attacked by a swarm of little boys begging in the street. They had caught hold of our van and were running along beside us until Pete was able to fish out a few coins for them. Just up the street was another little girl, left all by herself on the corner. She looked like she was only about 5 or 6 years old.

Just as we were regretting having to leave, and sad that our shopping was all finished, a small group of mountain Bosnian’s wares caught our eyes. The little boy, Yesjdan, was just Paul’s age and they got along great! Only one man spoke English, but we all used a lot of sign language to chat away, and it was funny because he interpreted for his wife and I, so we were able to have a typical conversation between mothers, telling all about how old our little boys were and how much they weighed and how well they were speaking, etc. The girls were fascinated by the horse-skin rugs! They had some really cheap prices and we ended up buying two sheep skin rugs, one more really big copper pot, and a clay pot to cook in the fire with. They gave the kids a little clay pyramid shaped piggy bank as a parting gift and our little boys kissed each other goodbye.

Hello everyone! We're having an awesome time on our vacation! We began our trip by purchasing a European mini-van for $500. It won't go over 100 kmh, which is about 60 mph, but most of the roads we will be traveling are slow, windy things anyway. It is truely a Naples car, which means it looks like crap! I think every single green panel is dented in some way, but we think it will run ok, and it was the right price!

We drove from Naples, on the west side of Italy, over to Bari, which is on the East side by the Adriatic. Here we caught a ferry at 10:00 pm that sailed for the town of Dubrovnik, Croatia. We arrived at 7 am the next morning. There's so much we've been learning and we've been busy with the camera! Here's some pictures for you guys so you can see what we've been up to.

Dubrovnic is a beautiful small town. Of course, everything now seems small compared to Naples! In the center of the town there is an old section which dates to the middle ages. It has been remarkably well preserved, and was renovated after a war there damaged many of the buildings. At the entrance of the old city there is a map which documents the damage from the bombings. All of the buildings have been restored to their original state, and you can see the contrast between the new roofs on the buildings as compared to the old ones. The main street of town is beautiful, and paved with a gorgous stone of some type (which looks new to me.)

Some cute pictures by a fountain:

And the local neighborhood dog! : )

The city still has the complete walls, which is a big tourist attraction to walk all the way around. However, 4 adults and 3 kids prices later, we decided that we could look up at the walls with just as much enjoyment!

Here's the pics by the coast.

Here's paul chasing the pigions, something we've discovered is one of his favorite things to do!

Here's the view going out of Dubrovnic to Bosnia

This is the castle wall around the old city of Dubrovnic. It was amazing, we didn't go on the wall because it was very expensive, but we still had a fun time walking right next to it and all through the city, it was very beautiful.

We stopped by a restaurant with a beautiful view right next to the ocean, it was really nice.

We bought some beautiful linen table cloths from the cutest old lady, as you can see. We had to take a picture of her and her work.

We love you all and will talk to you later!!