No Sleep Til Liski

For years, Bob has been planning, or should I say talking about, visiting his hometown in Poland, Liski, the town in which he spent the first 12 years of his life. Well, he finally did it--he (we) drove to Poland.

Since we were driving, we decided to spend a couple of days in Krakow and Zakopane before continuing to Zamosc and Liski, and I was surprised how close Poland is to us. It took us only 8 hours to drive to Krakow, and 8 hours is not long for a family that drove 13 hours straight from Barcelona. Of course, the road to Krakow is a major highway, whereas the road from Krakow to Zamosc is more like a country road, which made that leg of our journey slow and hair-raising (passing a truck while another truck is coming head on is scary).


Krakow was our first stop, and it reminded me of Chicago. Maybe because I heard so many people in Chicago speaking Polish, or because like Chicago, Krakow has so many beautiful buildings--some in very good shape and others in desperate need of a coat of fresh paint.

Our first day was spent walking around the old city (Stare Miasto) and looking for a Polish restaurant, Chlopskie Jadlo, recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. It turned out to be a chain of restaurants with very good food, beer and vodka, but more expensive than we expected.




Our second day was spent in the Wieliczka Salt Mine, where statues and chapels have been sculpted from the salt. Even the chandeliers are made with salt crystals from the mine, and they have an underground cafeteria, which, of course, I had to eat in. They also know how to squeeze pennies from tourists--they charge 10 zloty (3.50 Euros or $5) for a permit allowing one to take photos. This turned out to be a re-occurring theme throughout Poland.




Later, we walked from our hotel to Wawel Castle, which has wonderful views of the Vistula River, and beneath it, a cave where Prince Krak killed a dragon.


We ate dinner that evening in a Ukraine Restaurant. Unfortunately, they were out of Ukrainian varenyky (pierogis) and I wanted to compare them to the Polish.


The next day we drove to Zakopane, Gorale (hillbilly) Disneyland. I loved it! The restaurants have waiters and musicians dressed in the local Gorale clothing and singing local folk songs. The songs reminded me of the songs my grandmother, who is a Boyko, the Ukrainian version of Gorale, sang.



The best part of Zakopane is the Tatra Mountains, which remind me somewhat of the Rockies in Montana, although not quite as majestic. We drove into the mountains on our second day, and rode a horse-drawn carriage to Morskie Oko, the Eye of the Sea, a large lake in the mountains.



On to Zamosc, the largest city (about 70,000 people) near Liski. When we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Zamojski,on the market square right next to the pink town hall, we had to upgrade to a suite, which cost us 30 Euros more a night than we expected, but it was worth it. We had two bedrooms and two TVs, which meant we didn't have to share with the boys.


On the way to Zamosc, we noticed all the storks and their nests built on utility poles and the chimneys of houses. We had heard from our parents that the storks return to Poland and Ukraine every spring and occupy the same nests. If they don't return to their nests, then it is bad luck for the family that lives in that particular home. I always thought we had a lot of storks in Germany, but nowhere as many as we saw in Poland.




Finally, we made it to Liski. Our GPS was able to locate Liski, but the last kilometer would have been over a rutted, dirt road. So we had to find an alternative route, which we did, over a paved road. Bob had a hard time remembering where his family's home was until we found the church, then it came back to him. Bob's cousin came to meet us and we met his grandmother (Bob's great-aunt), his brother, his brother's wife and a neighbor, whose son Bob played with as a boy. We saw Bob's old house and barn, which are no longer in use, and visited the graves of Bob's grandparents. It was fascinating to see where Bob grew up--more so than I can describe in words. And the boys seemed very interested in Bob's old home. Alex suggested that we live there. We toasted our visit with vodka and Bob's great-aunt invited us to return. I hope we do.

PS Sorry CK for borrowing your title, but I couldn't help myself.