Monday morning we walked through "Old" Krakow to Wawel Castle / Cathedral where St. (Queen) Hedwig, who restored the Jagiellonian U. lived/is buried, where St. Stanislaus (Poland's #1 guy) is buried, where Juliusz Slowacki - the poet who prophesied a Slavic Pope - is buried, and where Karol Cardinal Wojtyla served as Archbishop. It is also the home of an awesome legend about a dragon.
Wawel Castle
OK. On the left is my lovely roommate, Olivia. On the right is our very first black woman in Poland. This picture is to commemorate the moment, the triumph of diversity. Yeah, no one else thought it was as funny as we did, but that's ok because we are awesome.
Picture stop on the way up the big hill to Wawel
...which was about halfway.
Wawel Cathedral (no, I don't know why one dome is regular and one is rusted)
Wawel grounds
The view of Krakow from the bell tower (which was a heck of a [narrow, high] climb)
Mmm... pierogi. This was the best lunch.
After lunching (and shopping), we got on the bus and went to Nowa Huta, which was a Communist project. We went - specifically - to the Arka Pana, the Church of the Lord's Ark. They don't just call it that; it apparently was built to the dimensions of Noah's Ark. Huge is an understatement. I don't think this church was completed that long ago - I think KW/JP gave it the official go-ahead shortly before he was made Pope (late '70s). The Commies didn't want to let the Poles have a church in Nowa Huta, but the Poles -stubborn?- went ahead and built one. It took 20 years and ...a lot of rocks? I don't know; something about stone by stone. Anyway, very infused with the suffering of the Polish people within the Communist rule. The church has three levels: the main sanctuary, a loft/second floor, and an Adoration chapel/grotto below the altar. The most striking thing in Arka Pana is the crucifix, which is really just the corpus, about 15', and the very depiction of agony. Intense.
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