by Melinda Brasher

Created on: November 02, 2010

For Americans who grew up during the cold war, Poland may bring to mind black and white images of depressing concrete blocks and poor peasant women with head scarves.  The concrete block apartment buildings do exist, but it's amazing what paint can do.  You might see some head scarves in the country, and in the dead of winter you might wear a head scarf yourself.  And yes, there's a lot of cabbage, a lot of consonants, and not a lot of racial diversity.  But Poland is a vibrant, modern country, full of historical sites, pleasant towns, and natural beauty.  The more time you spend there, the more you'll love it.      

Krakow

No longer an undiscovered jewel, Krakow is now quite clearly a discovered jewel.  Even with the throngs of tourists, you'll still be charmed by the famous Wawel castle and the historic town center, much of which is original.  The market square is huge, with the pretty cloth hall holding court in the middle.  A center of trade for seven centuries, the cloth hall now holds stall upon stall of traditional souvenirs:  carved wooden boxes, amber jewelry, amber lampshades, fine crystal, and many other traditional Polish handicrafts.  The church on the square has two towers, one higher and fancier than the other.  One legend claims that the towers were designed by two brothers, one of whom was lazier than the other.  Guess which one.  When the towers were finished, the lazy one was so jealous he killed his brother.  No less gruesome, but a lot more noble, is the story of the trumpeter who was on duty in the taller tower, which served as a watch tower, when  the Tatars attacked.  He blew his bugle to warn the people, but the Tatars shot him mid-song.  Today a real trumpeter plays the same song, cut off in the middle, in all four directions, every hour.  If you fall in love with Krakow, that song will haunt you when you leave.   

Auschwitz (Oswiecim)

From the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign (work makes you free), to the displays of human hair "harvested" from the prisoners, to the gas chambers and barbed wire and haunting train terminus, it's one horrid reminder of what human beings are capable of.  Don't go alone.  About 1.6 million people died here during WWII, more than a million of whom were Jews, and those who survived lived in such wretched conditions that it's a wonder more of them didn't die of despair. 

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