Tag it:

even better

Tuesday, October 16, 2001 10:38 AM
laryn ended the last email in poland. from there it just got better. here are a few hilights.

prague is even nicer than krakow mostly because there is more of it. alot of sculptured buildings with painted facades, cobblestone streets, etc. the cathedral near the royal palace is one of my favorites so far. charles bridge is also a beautiful place with alot of history, character and lively crowds. laryn had a caricature done by one of many artists on the bridge. the bridge has sculptures of various saints spaced along the entire span and when viewed in the mist or at dusk with lights it looks great. at night we slipped into the 'dissident's cafe' (or cafe slavia) where the secret police and political dissidents played 'cloak and dagger' games in the communist era. we ordered grog which was a warm, rum drink.

we took a tour a little further south to try to get into the 4th dimension but we ended up justing staying in a hotel in pisek and then coming back the next morning. (the 4th dimension was a bungee jumping outfit off a 50m bridge which was probably closed and which we couldn't find). st. barbara's cathedral in kutna hora is quite spectacular. it was built in the height of the prosperity of the silver trade and it has an incredibly fancy exterior of buttresses and large pointed towers. the gargoyle, rainspots which extend out from the side of the roof, the stonework at the tops of the painted glass windows and the wood carvings in the prayer booths are all individually and uniquely done and it is amazing to the see the detail, care and time that must have been invested to accomplished it all. the cathedral was right on the end of a narrow street with a stone wall and sculptures as well, which only added to the overall effect. the wall overlooks the valley and across the valley a forest of changing leaves which we tried to capture on film but will undoubtedly fall short of its true appearance.

from prague we took a train to karlstein castle and on route an old man with a gnarly face and whizened beard moving from one seat to another closer to ours, noticed us and gave us an "ahoy" (hi) and a thumbs up. originally this meant one more stop to karlstein (because the czeck use a thumb as 1, thumb and index finger as 2, etc.) but eventually it must just have meant something else. when we stood up for the stop he got up too and offered us some rum (which we pronouched with a strong r as room). we only toured the outside of the castle which was fairly similar to the 'disney-like' castle of the guide books set up on a hill overlooking a small peasant village. lorainne mckinnett was playing as we walked around the battlements ("mummer's dance" i think) and it seemed just right.

i should have mentioned earlier, that in krakow we went down to the dragon's cave below wawel castle where prince krak (nice name) supposedly killed the dragon guarded the area where krakow now lies. the cave was really neat - very jagged rocks, small passages opening to bigger caverns, little niches and the dark cave feel. in kutna hora (czech republic now) we went in the old silver mine that was used in the 14th-15th century and we had a somewhat similar feeling except the passageways were much narrow (40cm at smallest) and everything was drippy wet and covered with calcium. we only managed to go down about 35m and there were approximately 10 floors of shafts below that were covered in water.

also in kutna hora, we visited 'the bone church' which was a small church with many bones arranged in a variety of ways - 4 mini-huts, a chandelier (using all of the bones in a human body), a coat of arms, and other like things. it was quite disconcerting and i can't imagine ordering and arranging bones of real people like that though i never had close to 40,000 people buried in my backyard either. the abbot of the monastary had carried back soil from near golgatha while on a visit to jerusalem and sprinkled the soil on the small cemetary so people from all over wanted to be buried there. during the plague and hussite wars thousands upon thousands of people died and were buried there so that the bones were stacked up in piles around the buildings until a half-blind monk started arranging them inside the church.

we also visited auschwitz and birkenau in poland - auschwity being the smaller of the camps and birkenau the place of mass killings but both collectively known as auschwitz. its hard to put into words or to say much that adequately expresses what happened in those places. the numbers of those killed are too big to imagine and don't seem to even relate to the 'actual' people who were killed there. its easy to say some numbers or to speak in generalities when the reality is so much worse. there was a monument in birkenau at the end of the tracks where the selections for those who were fit to work and those who were to be cremated immediately took place and it lay flat out except for a tall, chimney-like structure which the tour guide said she thought symbolized 'the only way out'. a little plaque on the side began, "forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered 1.5 million men, woman and children..." and i think that these concentration camps today are a lament of the biblical kind in which it seems like we should put on sackcloths and ashes and mourn. also remembering that in these places the power of christ's love would still shine in tangible, physical examples like a prisoner exchanging places with another condemned to die or in the spirit of the workers who rose up in revolt and destroyed one of 5 crematoria. and i wondered as we walked through the barrack, shanties of the prisoners with the grass growing bright and green, the sun shining warm, and my shoes scuffing on the stone - in such little things of blessing, i don't know how to say it - how to two people could help but see what they do to each other. perhaps that i can look at it in such an uncomprehending manner of what really happened and that even on that day could be walking there is another blessing. we remember with sorrow and yet we can still move and live and be for another day.

that's all for now. we're in munich moving on towards augsberg, germany.

Patrick & Laryn