Poland and Slovakia Wednesday, September 23rd 2010

Last weekend (from early Friday morning until late Tuesday night) Don and I went to Poland and Slovakia. We flew to that tourist mecca, Krakow, a gorgeous ancient city that was not destroyed in the 2^nd World War and that is less expensive than most European cities. It is possible to eat a meal there for 3 dollars, and to see indescribable gorgeousness. Wavel Castle: the original capitol of Poland, built on an even more ancient hill-fort, burial place of kings and of Poland’s heroes, root and center of Polish Christianity and home of Kraken the Dragon, killed by King Krakus, who gave their names to the city; Krakow: pre-WW2 home to a great and large Jewish community decimated by the Nazis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w-P%C5%82asz%C3%B3w_concentration_camp), 500-year old synagogues cheek-by-jowl with Catholic churches; Jewish cemeteries with rare tombs; St. Mary’s, the most beautiful cathedral I have ever been in (and I have been in many, in many countries), with a bugler who plays the same mournful tune on the hour, 24/7, to commemorate the attack of a Mongol (called Tartars by the Slovaks and Poles, and Huns by us, as in Attila) army—the bugle call saved the city, but a Mongol arrow caught him through the throat. Every hourly bugle call is ended mid-note, in memory of that death.

We rented a car and drove south to the Tatra Mountains, tall and craggy and rocky, with snow at the tops already in mid-September. The way south from Krakow is only an hour and a half, curving and climbing upwards the whole time, winding through mountains from which we could see the even higher ones still south of us. In these lower mountains are Goral shepherds who make a smoked cheese called oshipky, very popular with the Polish people, with a texture similar to smoked mozzarella. I find the taste unpleasant, despite its being totally gorgeous looking, being made in decorative molds whose patterns have survived for centuries. The shepherds’ families sell the cheeses on the side of the “highway.”

We drove to Zakopane, a famous ski resort in the Polish Tatras, but found it too crowded and busy. So we drove to a nearby mountain village and stayed in a room rented for $20 by a beautiful old Polish woman who spoke not a word of English, but who took my hand and showed me what I needed to know. She and I kissed and hugged when we parted, despite communicating only in sign language and a scant smattering of Polish on my part. A highlight of any visit to the Tatra area is Goral architecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorals

After walking around the village and admiring the view of the Tatras and wondering how so many back-yard ski lifts cam to be erected, we set off to drive through the Tatras to the Slovak border, where we stopped at the fast-running river and the Slovak man who sells toilet-use, cold drinks and beers, as well as hiking guides and maps, showed us great hospitality in return for getting a chance to use his English. Our drive was beautiful—somewhat, I imagine, like driving through the Alps, although the highest Tatras are about 8000 feet, rather than double that, as the Alps can be. And, thankfully, there were guard-rails! We also drove through some of the Belianske Tatry, a somewhat geologically distinct, lower range, right next to the High Tatras, and which are LOADED with ski resorts and the distinctive Goral wooden architecture. http://www.beliansketatry.com/en.html

By the way, there is excellent beer in Poland, with the best we tasted being Zywiec—pronounced Zhiviets. The beer is not as good in Slovakia (it’s not very good in Sweden, either, by the way), which makes better liquors and wines.

We continued on to the south east, stopping at Spissky Hrad (pronounced Spish-ski), the ancient ruined castle that is a symbol of Slovakia. It was a hill-fort and then a castle-fortress many thousands of years ago, and then ancient Celtic tribes came and built a hill fort on the nearest hill, making Spis outmoded. Later, when the Tartars/Mongols/Huns invaded, Spis proved more defensible, and it was re-built as one of the greatest and strongest fortresses in Europe. It withstood the Mongols over and over, and during the Renaissance became a lovely palace. Any of you who have seen “The Lord of the Rings” movies and remember the Hornberg, upon which the multi-level royal city of Gondor is built, will have some idea of what Spis Castle looks like. http://www.spisskyhrad.sk/en.html

We stayed in a small hotel in Kosice, and then attended mass at St. Alzbeta (Elizabeth) cathedral in downtown Kosice. A t least ½ of the people attending Mass did not receive Holy Communion. I later asked my cousin’s relatives about it and they said that it is because Slovaks (and possibly Poles, too) still think of the Church the way we used to before Vatican II; they do not receive Communion unless they have gone to Confession the day before. And the nun giving our Communion refused to place the wafer in my hands; she made me open my mouth to receive on my tongue.

Afterwards we wandered the beautiful medieval town square (beneath which archeologists have discovered the ancient Roman walls), and came across a car show, with all of the cars having been made in the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe (Skodas and Tatras, mostly, and an old Soviet army jeep).The cars that were made before WWII were quite beautiful, despite the low quality of them after the War.

We then met my father’s cousin Marion in Myslava, a town just next to Kosice, and one of the villages that my father’s father’s family came from. When I was there 3 years ago, I could not find my great-grandparents’ graves (Maria Berova and Jan (Yan) Tomaskovic), but Marion’s cousin Margita (Gita, pictured above) brought us to them. We then spent the rest of the day with Gita’s family (her son, the son’s wife Jana, and their teenage son Tomas), at their beautiful home with amazing garden and yard. They were SO hospitable, giving us multiple apples from their yard, local honey from their own stock, dried herbs for an herb tea that they had made for me, from herbs they had grown in their yard, and fed us home-made cake and shots of a Slovak liquor, Fernat. We brought Marion and Gita up the mountain to Vyzny Klatov, the village that the Tomaskovic family came from before they moved down to Myslava. Neither of them had ever been there. It was a wonderful day, with everyone happy as could be, and Marion especially happy to introduce her father’s Slovak family to one of her relatives from America.

After visiting the day care center run by Jana (pronounced Yanna) in the morning, we drove westward along the southern border of Slovakia, at one point being less than 2 miles from Hungary, but unable to reach it, as the roads were unlabeled. I had wanted to see the Slovak Karst (limestone) region, which is also called the Slovak Paradise. It is a large area of mountains and steep valleys, with ski resorts and deep forests, bears, wolves, lynxes, and wild boars. We looked at the map and decided to take the route that we could tell went through the mountains, so as to see more than we thought we’d see from the highway. It turned out to be a logging road, without, unfortunately, any guardrails. Anna, Nick, and Eric will know exactly what this means to me, to ride on a narrow, bumpy road as it climbs steeply for a full half hour, going up at least a couple of thousand feet, without any guardrails anywhere. I did NOT end up on the floor of the car, and did not sob—both of these I and Donald both consider major improvements in my reactions. We stopped at a roadside spring, and got out to fill our water bottles, and Donald made me drink a few mouthfuls of Slovak booze, which very much helped, as did the 20 minute walk I took up the road. By the end of those 20 minutes, I had finally reached the top, and from there on the road was not as terrifying. The villages within these mountains HAVE to be completely cut off in winter, once snow falls, and it HAS to be a lot of snow. We emerged at last at Poprad, and were able to set off into the border mountains (with guardrails!!) again, making our way back to Krakow. Eric—I think Marion’s cousins took you to the Slovak Paradise years ago, right? I remember you describing the places you had to use metal ladders drilled into the rock to climb up some of the ledges. This method of using ladders to help hikers manage the worst spots, is fairly common in the Slovak mountains, it seems. Many of their mountains are steep and saw-toothed and require these ladders to be climbable.

It is fascinating to realize that eastern Slovakia is a different world from Poland, which is closer to Western Europe in many ways. Poles may be experiencing un-and under-employment and life may be a struggle for them, but eastern Slovakia is much poorer, as well as very off-the-beaten-track for tourists, oriented more towards the east (Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia) than the west, with tourist-serving people speaking German as a second language, not having any English. The smaller towns in the southern and central Slovak mountains are even less used to any tourists, as they are small and have no real tourist pulls, other than scenery, which other places also have.

Back in Krakow, we stayed in a budget hotel, a 5-minute walk from the Rynek (the largest town square in Europe). As night fell, the full moon came out and made the Rynek even more romantic and gorgeous. I can’t wait to go back to Eastern Europe again, for more of their hospitality, gorgeous scenery and beautiful cities and towns.