Churches, Shopping and "Lady with an Ermine"

We had breaky in the room this morning and then headed out to see the rest of the main sites we missed yesterday. Namely these were St. Mary’s (the big church on the main square), St. Francis Basilica, and the Czartoryski Museum.

Our first stop was the museum. Heavy on relics of Polish history (go figure), this museum also houses a couple of very well known works from Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. Leonardo’s “Lady with an Ermine” is really an amazing painting. Painted before the Mona Lisa, it is one of only several portraits of women that Leonardo is known to have painted. IMHO it’s in better shape, larger and frankly, more attractive than the Mona Lisa. There were placeholders in the museum for several objects looted by the Nazis--as well as a display of several items that had been looted but recently returned after they turned up at Christie’s Auction House in London in the 1990’s and then spent a decade in litigation over ownership. Thanks EU!

While waiting in line for the loo on the way out of the museum a Spanish tourist stopped to ooh and ahh over our Anna--said she was not only very beautiful, but was radiant like our lady, Mother Mary. I might call Anna whiny, but radiant? Not so much. She then proceeded to grill Courtney as to her religion and was disappointed when she replied, “no soy Catolico”. However, she was encouraged by C’s apparent ability to sort of speak her language and prattled on for a while before realizing that little was being understood by her audience. The ethereal international encounter ended with a "beso" from the woman on Anna's cheek and a photo op. From now on our second daughter will be referred to as St. Anna the radiant.

Speaking of language--Polish is a really hard language to figure out. The letters don’t make the sounds you think they should. So just reading off a menu isn’t so easy. And with just four days in Poland, we haven’t invested heavily in learning more than how to say please (Proscze) and thank you (Dziekuje). I’m pretty sure that Hungarian will be even harder.

Next it was off to St. Mary’s, an amazing Gothic church completed in the 1400’s and containing some of the most impressive medieval woodcarvings in existence. The roof soars over 100 feet and the entire interior of the church is painted in elaborate colors and scenes. Like many of the Polish Catholic churches, there were little chapels welded on to the side of the main hall--each with a different style and roofline. This makes for some very interesting exteriors--kind of gives it a Russian feel.

We then swung by St. Francis--the church that Pope John Paul II headed-up when he was head honcho of the Archdiocese of Krakow. The church is also home to some very famous stained glass windows by Polish artist Stanislaw Wyspianski (vees-PAYN-skee). He was the leader in a movement called “Young Poland” -- playful folklore and peasant life with an Art Nouveau twist.

Obviously we were not pacing ourselves very well today as then we headed back to climb the Tower at St. Mary’s -- all 239 stairs with you best tourist friends! Actually, it was not as hard as some towers we climbed in Florence but still a bit daunting on the spiral case. The reward was a magnificent view of Cracow. Something that the hejnal firemen get to see every day when they bugle on the hour. Very lovely!

Again, no rest for the wicked and the girls and Courtney split off to do some shopping while I went in search of wine and laundry soap…and more churches. Court apparently had a little meltdown as you have to “pay to pee” in Poland and they had not the proper change so they had to hoof it back to the apartment. A brief rest, though, and out they went again. Hallie got a gray, Eastern Euro T-shirt and they also picked up some goodies for tomorrow’s breakfast. Tonight we plan to head out to a nice Poland/Italian restaurant recommended by the Rickster (Rick Steves) then back to the castle for a Chopin concert in the courtyard. Chopin, it turns out, was Polish. Go figure!

Do Widzenia (Good-bye!).