Poland

Friday, September 19 - Travel Day  Walked (!) from the hotel to the airport. Checked in early because I hate worrying about being late. Flew Lufthansa Wroclaw to Munich, about one hour, no problems. Two hour layover in Munich, which was just barely enough because we had to move a lot to get to our departure gate. Deplaned from Wroclaw flight onto the tarmac and got on a bus. Long wait on the bus till everyone was off the plane, including an elderly lady who needed a wheelchair (and yes, they had two guys carry her in a wheelchair down the movable stairway to the tarmac.) Bus took us to the arrival terminal which wasn't our departure terminal. Needed to take a train to get there. Crowded train, didn't fit on the first one that came by so we waited and caught the next one. Eventually got to the right terminal and the right gate just as preboarding began for our flight. The long nine hour flight home was on an Airbus A380-800. A very big jet, is a double-decker with first class an...

Thursday, September 18 - Travel day,  Toruń This was primarily a travel day to get from Gdansk back to Wroclaw where we will fly home tomorrow. Except . . . About halfway we stopped in the city of  Toruń , an old medieval town located at a ford on the Vistula river. Archeological finds date back as far as 1000 BC but the beginnings of  Toruń  as a city were in 1231 when the Teutonic Knights built a fortress.  Toru ń  is famous (they tell me) for its gingerbread. From Wikipedia:   The very first mention of Toruń gingerbread comes from 1380 and speaks of a local baker called Niclos Czana. The product quickly gained fame across Poland and abroad. Toruń and the city of Nuremburg, itself famous for special gingerbread, were eager to protect the secrets of their recipes from each other. Finally in 1556, they formed an agreement by which each city could bake the specialties of the other. The famous City Hall was built in the 1390s then expanded in t...

Wednesday, September 17 - Gdansk Busy day Gdansk is a port city. Earliest records say it began in the year 999 as a fishing settlement that grew into a trading town, then eventually to the biggest port in Poland and the biggest port on the Black Sea. Enjoyed breakfast at the hotel in the Old Town district. A lot of this city was damaged or destroyed in WWII, but less so than Warsaw. As it was there, it has been rebuilt to maintain the old look. Walked down a beautiful pedestrian mall named the Long Market that ends at the Motlawa River. This was the main waterway around which all the port activity happened. The spire in the distance looks like a church but is actually City Hall. Me on the bridge over the Motlawa River. You can see the Crane over my right shoulder - it's the dark brown building overhanging the river. Gdansk is famous for (I'm told) the big Crane used to load/unload ships, basically a large derrick overhanging the river, capable of lifting two tonnes to a height ...

Tuesday Sept 16 - MiastKowo & Travel Day MiastKowo is a small town with the parish church nearest to the village of Czartoria, the family home. We met the priest and looked at some of their old records. Got photos of pages we thought were relevant, again in Russian Cyrillic cursive, hopefully to be translated later. We couldn't read the writing but could recognize the names. Took the Priest to lunch, but he tricked us and paid for everyone on a trip to the bathroom. Visited the local cemetery. Didn't find any graves of actual family members, but found a lot with the family name. Visited Czartoria, a really small town, no church, didn't see a grocery store. Didn't really stop except to get a photo. Now on the road to Gdansk. On the way we saw several Stork nests atop telephone poles: Quite a lot bigger than I expected.

Monday, September 15 - Łomża This morning we visited with Mrs. Marta Chojnowska, the archivist for that Łomża Diocese.  She has church records of baptisms, weddings and funerals of my ancestors. We are trying to get more information on my great grandfather who immigrated to the US from Poland in about 1905-10 and settled in Reading, PA. The Cathedral of Saint Michael the Archangel at Łomża, aka Katedra św. Michała Archanioła w Łomża. My last name is Carts, and my great grandfather's name was Franciszek Czartorynski. We've found immigration records and church records in Reading. We think my grandfather Americanized his last name when he went into the army in the 1930s. Anyway, the immigration records show the home town of the Czartorynski brothers as being in Łomża, Poland (and sometimes listed as Łomża, Russia, because Poland was part of the Russian Empire back then) so here we are looking for more ancestry on Franciszek. We found records of Franciszek's (and his wife Kamil...

After checking out of our apartment in Warsaw, we headed two hours northeast to Łomża, where we will conduct family research. (Łomża is pronounced "Waum zsha"). It rained on and off, but we were able to stay dry. We had lunch at a place on the town square. I'm getting to like my pierogi and beer.  Then we spent a while going over the family genealogy research that Paola has compiled.      Marty and I are lucky that she has taken the lead in this area. I'm so confused. But I think having apple pie while trying to learn family history helped.  Tomorrow we meet with the local Diocese archivist. 

Saturday, Sept 13 - Warsaw Did a walking tour with Margaret through Warsaw. Łazienki Park Belvedere Palace - One of two residences of Polish presidents. This one is in use now because the other one is undergoing renovation. Not particularly pretty so no pictures. Palace on the Island - Looks like a baroque palace, it is really a bath house. Built by a wealthy citizen in 1683, then bought by King Poniatowski (the last King of Poland) in the late 1700s who converted it to an art museum. Poniatowski was  a patron of the arts. The Palace is located on an island on a small lake.  Baroque style palace. Chopin Monument - Supposed to be famous but I've never heard of it. I guess I don't run in sophisticated circles. General Sobieski III  Monument - Sobieski was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania between 1674 and 1696. Considered one of the best kings in Polish history, he was also a military genius.  Sobieski III was the Polish general who in 1683 led Polish, Austri...

  Fri Sept 12 - Warsaw In Warsaw Morning - visited the Royal Warsaw castle Too big for any of my photos, so here's the link to the Wikipedia page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Castle,_Warsaw The castle was completely destroyed in WWII, down to the foundations that were blasted by the Nazis towards their goal of erasing the Polish identity. So what we see today is a complete reconstruction. As with several historic structures we've seen, the original had changed over the centuries as needs changed. As the royals got richer they built on to the castle. So part of the reconstruction effort was deciding on to what stage of the historical castle to rebuild to.  The castle is now an art museum with beautiful rooms and paintings and sculptures of historical Polish kings. Throne room Painted ceiling in one of the portrait galleries. The 1791 Polish Constitution, first of its kind in Europe and second in the world, after the US Constitution in 1789. I'm told the two h...

Not much exciting today. We left Zakopane about 10 am and drove to Warsaw, about a 6 hour trip. Stopped in Kielce for lunch, actually a pretty good place, may have been the best tomato soup I've had on this trip (even though I've been pleasantly surprised with pretty much every meal I've had on this trip.) Food -  Pierogis are considered the national food. You'll find these on every menu in every restaurant. They come in several varieties - different fillings, cheeses, sauerkraut, meats, thicker or thinner dough, etc. Often topped with bacon bits or caramelized onions. We get a lot of soup, almost every meal. Either tomato or a traditional sour rye soup that is sometimes served in a sourdough bread bowl (see Sept 6 entry).  We get vegetables at every meal. Not surprising except for breakfast (in my experience). So today we got scrambled eggs with bacon, sliced bread (toasted if you like) and butter, and sliced tomato and cucumber. Curious pluralization of the word piero...

  Poland, Day 8, Wednesday, Sept 10 - Tatra Mountains, Hiking --We had stopped at a grocery store last night on our way to the B&B, so we had breakfast fixings for this morning. The store was disconcerting because the packaging was different and I couldn't read the labels, so I had to struggle to shop. For example, milk is not refrigerated and comes in a box like a large juice box. --Breakfast was scrambled eggs with bacon and sausage, and cucumber and tomato. And coffee. -- Today was our hike into the Tatra mountains, located south of the town of Zakopane in the southern part of Poland. The border with the Czeck Republic and Slovakia runs through these mountains also. The area is all part of the Tatra National Park. This area is very popular and the weather was nice so the closest we could park was 2 km away from the park entrance at Palenica Bialczanska. We popped over into Slovakia to find a restroom. Public toilets usually charge a small fee, I paid 5 Zloty, about $1.50....