Castle Hunting: Malbork Castle

We stayed in the town of Malbork on our way towards the Lithuanian border, and we visited the incredible Malbork Castle. We've been having terrible weather, so the shots are more atmospheric than good. It was fun, though, and we had a great walkabout in the cold and rain, trying to get a view that encompassed all of the immense fortifications.
The castle has a long and interesting past. It was first founded at the end of the thirteenth century, and was built up over the next century or so. The castle served as the primary base for the Teutonic Order after they were kicked out of their post-crusade headquarters in Venice by the pope, which happened about 1309.
The day was pretty awful, but it wasn't so bad that we didn't have fun. This was a big castle, the biggest in Poland. In fact, some people say that it's the largest gothic fortification in Europe, and I was excited to take some pictures of it - despite the light being dismal and the clouds casting a dismal air over the town.
The scale is incredible. It was impossible to get a good shot of the entire thing, except from across the river. The original castle walls enclosed fifty-acres, which is astounding. At the height of its military importance, the castle housed over three thousand soldiers.
As the pride of Malbork, and of the Polish castle scene, the castle is in great condition, having been lovingly restored and taken care of. The detailing in the brick is amazing, as is the wooden accents and tiling on the roofs. It must take a lot of effort to keep this place up. Nearly half of the fortifications were destroyed during WWII, so a good deal of the brickwork was actually done by modern artisans. It explains the mottled look of the walls.
We had some lunch inside the castle, at their restaurant. We ate near a roaring fire as we waited out the spitting rain. It was nice to have a little soup and sit in the warm room. It also gave us a new appreciation of how thick these brick walls are, and the intricacy of the structure.
This is a food that I'd just as soon forget about. It's called "smalek," and it's very good, but it's also not good. It's congealed pork fat, mixed with crumbled pork cracklings and leftover cooking bits. It's meant to be spread on bread like butter. It's really a terrific thing, but, like I said, it's not good. In other words, the worst part about it is that it's so darn good.

Night At the Museum

Merlin: This was our front yard in Ciechanowiec. We were staying in a "skansen" building on an old estate - a skansen is a collection of old buildings brought together to form a kind of museum. This one was famous, and was also a "Museum of Agriculture." They had rooms for rent in some of the buildings, and we stayed in an old, thatched roof house. It was pretty modern inside, but it was still fun.

Rebecca: We parked our car right outside our little house, at the urging of the groundskeeper with whom we shared a wholly incomprehensible exchange on the rainy, dark evening we arrived. It was hard to tell if we were doing the right thing and really hoped that a tour group wouldn't be taking pictures crouched down next to our New York license plates in the morning.

Merlin: There weren't any tour groups. It was very quiet, actually. When we called about the room, the guy who talked to us (Artur, the only person at the museum who spoke English) asked if we wanted to "see the museum."

Rebecca: We weren't exactly sure, at the time, why he would ask such an obvious question. When we awoke to find that we were definitely the only guests, possibly the only museum visitors and that a tour of the grounds would take two and a half hours (did we mention it was still raining?) we realized that Artur may have actually been trying to give us, and himself, an out.

Merlin: It was a very interesting tour, though, and Artur was a great guide.

Rebecca: His grandfather actually grew up on the property. His great-great grandfather was the groundskeeper in the estate's hay day.

Merlin: They have a great collection of old tractors and other farm machinery. Also, a collection of bee hives, old tombstones from jewish cemeteries, an apothecary garden, some Belgian man's donated antiques, a working water-powered grain mill and "the first and only collection of Easter eggs in Poland." This last collection seemed a little incongruous, but it was very neat. They have over 1,500 decorated eggs from all over the world. The penguin egg was Artur's favorite.

Rebecca: I believe he said it was also "the biggest Easter egg collection outside of Ukraine."
Merlin: They also have a lot of farm animals. This sheep "smokes," according to Artur. What he meant was that she would eat cigarettes given to her by the tour guides. Here she is, having a smoke.

Rebecca: There was another little guy, with horns, that Artur dubbed "a killer." Ever since we asked him what his favorite Easter egg was, he had begun to give far more personal commentary (which was fun). A bunch of ropes meant to block off visitors were thrown aside and we walked around a few dioramas, muddy shoes and all. After he let us sit in an old carriage "because no one will know" he confessed that they sit in it and drink beer all the time anyway.
Merlin: They were in the process of moving a barn from a neighboring town. They have about forty buildings at the skansen, dating from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century.

Rebecca: When Merlin asked how they marked the pieces or remembered exactly how to reassemble the barn, Artur answered "They just remember. They have to." Truth be told, there didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to the piles and no visible markings, but I have to think their method is a little more complex than a big ole game of Lincoln Logs.
Merlin: Here's our house. Luckily, it had none of the mustiness or mannequins of the other buildings.

Rebecca: Or the plastic food.
Merlin: When we went into town for dinner we found six little markets - all selling the same things - and one place to eat. This was my food. We called it "pork cutlet a la zapiekanka."
Rebecca: It's really a shame that we didn't bring a camera the second night we ate here, because Merlin's "Ciechanowiec" style meat had a layer of shiny cornflakes stuck on top of it with cheese shellac. And I'm not talking about crumpled up cornflakes -whole ones. It was amazing.

Castle Hunting: Pieskowa Skała

Pieskowa Skała has a strange name, like every Polish name. The "W" makes a "V" sound, the crossed-out "L" character sounds like a "W" and the rest of it just turns into gibberish, or something approximating gibberish. It is a beautiful renaissance fortress, though, that we visited outside Krakow one overcast day.
The clouds and dim light prevented us from getting good pictures, but we had a good time anyway. Polish tourist attractions are largely deserted in the more wintery months, especially as one travels further away from the main cities. Pieskowa Skała is in the Ojców National Park, not far from Krakow. There was almost nothing open around the castle, and we had to resort to eating zapiekanka (click on the link to get disgusted/hungry) because there was literally nothing else.
We hiked up to the castle from a low parking lot by the road. When we got there, we were greeted by a few policemen and their unfriendly german shepherd. We decided that we weren't very keen on sticking around for long, so I have no idea what the interior of the castle looks like. I did get a few shots of the courtyard, which is one of the more interesting parts of the building.
This is the well mechanism, which appeared to be a reconstruction and didn't seem to have all of its pieces in place. Wells are featured prominently at many of the castles that we've visited, which makes sense. It's hard to defend a place without any water.

Like many castles, the structure is an amalgamation of different styles and eras. It wasn't built all at once, but rather added onto gradually over many centuries. The initial fortification was erected in 1340, but the castle really took shape in the 1540's, two hundred years later. A century after that, the galleries and roofline were completed, and it has remained largely the same since.The day wasn't as miserable as it looks. We had a good time climbing around the castle, trying to find a vantage point that would afford us a good view. It was difficult, though, because there aren't many higher points around the outcropping on which the castle is built.

We made a valiant attempt to get a good shot, though. We descended to the valley, crossed this stream on a fortuitously-placed fallen tree and made our way up the opposite slope.
Unfortunately, the hillside was too densely forested. This is the disappointing "best shot" from that foray. It's a very pretty castle, and I wish now that we'd taken the time to poke around inside.

A Use for Stale Bread

Zapiekanka is definitely the most popular street food in Poland. It is stale bread with melted cheese and ketchup. Often, there's another topping involved. Ours had mushrooms. Some have meat. Fancier ones may be called "hawaiian" and include canned pineapple or "greek" and include olives. While a lot of street vendor signs also read "hamburgy" and "hot dogy" (which I think translates into hamburger and hot dog, though my Polish isn't great) the only thing you really see people walking around with is zapiekanka. I'm surprised there isn't some Polish-American kid making a killing selling this stuff out of their dorm room. All one would have to do is invest in a grater and buy a block of mozzarella cheese now and then. Then, you swing buy a bakery after hours and snatch the bag of unsold baguettes left out on the curb. Save the ketchup packets that come with just about any order of takeout and voila! you've got yourself a zapiekanka business.
Our zapiekanka was purchased at this roadside food van and was probably not the best, but on a drive that didn't offer any other food options, we figured it was the perfect opportunity to try it out. Most of the zapiekanka we had seen around Wroclaw and Krakow was much, much smaller and crispy, toasted. Ours was limp and soggy, the result of a quick microwave warm-up by the friendly vendor, and had to be held up with two hands. It was delicious nonetheless (especially with the mushroom surprise) and went down far too easily. It reminded me of the Elios pizza squares I used to get at my town pool's snack bar. Only the size of Merlin's forearm.

I wish I spoke Polish when...

...we bought bread in Ciechanowiec. We saw this on the shelf behind the counter and thought, "Yum, brown bread!"
When it was brought down from the shelf and handed to us, we noticed that it looked more like a marble pound cake or something, but it was too late to turn back.
We thought, well, it won't taste good with mushroom cheese (more on that later), but you can't go too wrong with marble pound cake.
Unless it's actually fruit cake- which it was - and you can go very, very wrong with fruit cake.

Żurek, My Love

I have fallen in love. About three days into our time in Poland, I decided to give my barszcz (borscht) consumption a rest, fearing my appendages would soon turn fuchsia. While I love mushroom soup, it's hard to consistently pick out of a 'zupy' line up. Imagine if you didn't speak English and learned the word "mushroom" and then were given menu after menu that read portobello, crimini, shiitake, hen-of-the-wood, oyster, etc, never actually using the word "mushroom." So, I tried out żurek and never turned back.

So, what is żurek? It's "sour rye soup." You have to combine rye flour, warm water and garlic and let it sit in a jar for a few days, to let it sour, before you can make soup with it. Sorta like the kombucha of soups. It's brothy and garlicky and salty. Obviously, it's sour. The best way I can describe the taste is to imagine sucking on a big slab of rye bread that's been dunked into some good and cloudy white miso soup. Sorta kinda.

The best part about żurek is that it almost always contains half a hardboiled egg or - in very special instances, of which I've had two - BOTH halves of a hardboiled egg. Most often you can order it with or without chopped up kielbasa. When I haven't been able to specify 'sausage-less,' it's been easy enough to just eat the rest up and leave the flesh behind.
Merlin has been more than happy to clean the rest of my bowl like a happy dog at the foot of a dinner table. (Sorry for the comparison, honey, but it just worked too well to pass up).
We found this instant żurek at the supermarket and tried it out in our hotel room on a rainy day, adding water from our plug-in kettle. I can't say it was half-bad. In fact, it was more than half-good, but mostly tasted like garlic powder water with croutons. I fully intend to master the art of żurek-making and have it be part of my soup repertoire. My maternal grandmother's family was Polish and I think it would be fun to have my future kiddies grow up eating żurek. Spoonfuls of heritage.

Kazimierz

Kazimierz is a neighborhood in the south of Krakow, originally separated from the main city by the Vistula river. The Vistula has been diverted, the riverbed filled in, and the district connected with Krakow proper. It was historically the Jewish quarter of the city, and some 60,000 Jews lived there in 1931. Today, there are only about 200 Jews in all of Krakow. It's a fascinating place, and we spent an interesting day poking around.
We came for the market, which we had thought was more of an antiques/flea market, but turned out to be a "cloth market." The "cloth" that they're hawking is really used clothing, mostly polyester, sold alongside a few booths with knockoff perfumes and costume jewelry. It was fun, crowded and ugly. People were very competitive about their rummaging. Rebecca, surprising me, didn't buy a single thing.
We had coffee at this little cafe, which we assume was made to look old - the look was too studied to be real. It was a great place, nonetheless, and was popular with nannies. At least, we think they were nannies. The women we saw might have been mothers, but their youth suggested otherwise. The neighborhood has a lot of places like this - it's a recently gentrified quarter, with a bohemian vibe that's on the verge of becoming gauche.
This cat was on a leash.
Down an alleyway, near a restaurant, we noticed this couple. They're either calmly pondering what's about to happen to them, or they're having wedding pictures taken. Rebecca learned, later, that this alleyway was featured in the film Schindler's List, as well as other movies. It seemed like a strange place to take photos, but they looked great.
We stopped in at a Jewish cemetery before we left, which was sobering. The yard is walled off on all sides, the only entrance is through a small synagogue. There was a man at a table, charging admission and making sure that everyone was wearing a yamulka before they entered the holy site. Fortunately, he had one that I could borrow, and we were able to go in. The synagogue itself was crowded - a tour group - but the cemetery was nearly empty, and we wandered amongst the tombstones for quite a while.
The graves predate the holocaust, and some appeared to be very old. It was difficult to tell exactly how old they were because the inscriptions were all in Hebrew, but it was clear from the condition of the stone that they had stood for at least a century. This is about the only thing that's left of the Jewish community in Kazimierz, as it was emptied during the war. The buildings were claimed by non-Jewish Poles, and most of the old community was destroyed. It's amazing to think about this place in those terms - the 60,000 Jewish residents here made up a quarter of the pre-war population of greater Krakow, and they're almost entirely gone. We wondered, actually, what or who had preserved the cemetery? It seems incredible that the tombs weren't desecrated and that the synagogue is still there.

Rebecca went back down today and bought a used, leather purse that she likes a lot. I'm glad because it would have been a shame to waste such a great cloth market.

Krakow for Tourists

Krakow sees its fair share of tourists and is well equipped for them. I have to say, though, I'm surprised there aren't more visitors. Even the biggest attractions are not even slightly congested. Granted, it's not exactly high season, but I saw more of these tourist golf carts sitting around empty than zipping around full. The carts tout their routes on the awnings, "Jewish Getto," "Old Town," etc. My favorite one said "Schindler's Factory." I loved it because - well - his factory wasn't in Krakow. It was a ways outside the city, definitely too far for a golf cart. The movie Schindler's List was filmed in Krakow, though, which means that the cart most likely picks up naive tourists and brings them to the movie location. Brilliant.
We saw a good number of locals buying some of these half pretzel/half bagel things, but the greatest concentration of carts were around the Main Square - the biggest Medieval square in Europe and favorite tourist jumping-off point. Merlin and I tried one, excitedly, one morning and found it to be dry, stale and not worth finishing. Part of me thinks that it's because we visited a cart that's used to people like us pointing, smiling, signaling "one" with our finger and then forking over some zloty for three-day-old bread.
Wroclaw had a strange obsession with dwarfs, or should I say they had a particular cultural connection to them. In Krakow, it's all about dragons. This cart sold dragon stuffed animals, key chains, magnets, pillows and - of course - shot glasses. I didn't even notice the Hard Rock Cafe behind it until I was flipping through my pictures. Then again, I've seen a Hard Rock Cafe in every major European city so far, so it probably doesn't set off my "whoa look at it!" radar anymore.
Horse-drawn carriages are a major tourist draw in Krakow. Even the "cool" Lonely Planet authors said it was something we just had to do. I'm not sure why, really. If people took horse-drawn carriages to work or something I may jump on board for the experience, but they don't. The horses looked as beautiful, well groomed and absolutely depressed as the ones in Central Park. Intriguingly, though, I have yet to see or smell horse poop - very much unlike Central Park. The drivers here didn't look much happier than their creature companions.

Merlin and I have turned to each other more than once and said, "Wow, I never thought I'd be in Poland." It's true, really, which is part of the reason we started this trip in the first place. Europe isn't just France and Spain and Italy and all the places on your "I Want to Visit One Day" list. Visit Krakow. It's beautiful and there's an empty golf cart just waiting for you.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

It's a strange thing to say "I've always wanted to go to Auschwitz" out loud. As someone that ate up any and all books about the Holocaust as a child, though, it's true- I have always wanted to go to Auschwitz. Walking through the gate that read Arbeit Mach Frei ("Work Sets You Free") into the stunningly well preserved camp it felt almost like walking onto a movie set or, worse, going back in time. The barbed wire, the signs still in place, the barracks. It was almost comforting to spot a modern office or archive room through a curtain.
The place was, predictably, swarming with tourists, but it was large enough that you still had fleeting moments of being completely alone to take something in. Merlin and I stood in this room, a gas chamber, until we heard footsteps approaching behind us. When we turned the corner to the next room, there were two ovens, a wreath placed atop each. Two men took turns taking photos in front of them (neither smiled, thankfully) and we waited until they moved on before we took our own photos (not including ourselves). I initially loaded the picture to place here, but something about it just felt gratuitous. Walking up from the morgue, we were almost surprised to find that the day above ground was just as sunny and warm as we had left it.
A number of guided tours were being conducted in the museum. I really appreciated that they were being given through headphones, keeping the grounds relatively silent accept for the guides whispering into microphones. There were a number of people, including us, that chose to walk around at their own pace, stopping to read the information panels that were erected in a few choice spots. Instead of overwhelming you with information, the simple marble posts, that vaguely resembled tombstones, would simply say something like: "This is where they hung the bodies of those who attempted to escape as a warning," in Hebrew, Polish and English.
Inside a number of the barracks were exhibits donated by other countries and/or curated by the museum itself. A sign outside one read "Physical Evidence of Crimes" and we entered expecting to find legal documentation or film reels about the Nuremberg Trials. Instead, there were long hallways filled with confiscated belongings of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz. There was an entire hallways of shoes (above), another with prosthetic legs and crutches.
To see the thousands of shaving brushes, eyeglasses, suitcases with names and drawings painted on them was incredibly overwhelming. On the very top floor was a smaller room dedicated to baby clothes, shoes, rattles. It was fairly harrowing. We actually left Auschwitz I shortly after that to walk over to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the second camp, built mainly for extermination when the sheer number of people passing through became too much for the crematorium of the first camp to handle.
We were glad to have the half hour walk to refresh ourselves before entering Birkenau. A railroad track runs right through the front gate and skeletons of barracks stretch as far as you can see. It was impossible to tell where they ended and the bare trees in the distance began. Near a pond filled with ashes of people who perished on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau stood these tombstones, written in English, Polish, Hebrew and German. Looking into the water, you could see the bottom was completely white.

Our Itinerary Has Been Updated!

We have decided to rework our itinerary in order to shift all the car-friendly countries to the first year or so. That way, we can ship Nilla back, not have to worry about all the restrictions on insuring our car overseas for more than a year and tackle the second half of our trip with some really huge backpacks. We're pretty excited about it. Check out our new itinerary.

Wszystkich Świętych (All Saints Day)

All Saints Day is also Day of the Dead In Poland, it's a national holiday. Yesterday, the first of November, we were in the countryside outside Krakow and experienced a little bit of it.We knew that it was a big deal - our friend Piotr told us about it - but we had thought that it was going to be centered around a few religious sites, or in a few towns. We didn't realize that we were going to see hordes of people near every cemetery. There were makeshift parking lots set up along roadsides, scores of candle and flower vendors. We had to slow down in every town, people were clogging the roads. As it got closer to dusk, and we were heading home for the day, the crowds began to dissipate a little. We were able to find a spot to park in the town of Chrobrego and we walked down to the village graveyard.
There were still a lot of people there, and most graves were covered with candles and flowers. It was a semi-somber gathering of people. The clothes were clearly "sunday best," and voices were hushed - but people were smiling to each other and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Some graves were more decorated than others. People travel long distances, we've heard, to visit the graves of relatives and many make journeys to more than one cemetery. They place candles on the graves so that the spirits of the dead can make their way through the night.
The candles were beautiful, especially as the sun set. The whole place was lit up, the bouquets were illuminated in strange ways and the breeze began to die down. As we were leaving, it was almost silent.
Daylight savings time happens earlier here, and it has been getting dark very suddenly. Driving home we passed a few more graveyards, all of them lit up, the candles very bright amongst the stones and trees. It was a surreal, beautiful experience.