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In addition to Trier, this is one of the oldest remaining Roman Gates north of the Alps from AD 179

3rd row left - A Bishop chess piece made from marble

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Top Row - High water mark in 1845

2nd Left - Maximilian

Bottom rows- Views across the river at an area called “Little Venice” because the houses are right on the river.  The entire first floor and a lot of the second floor was under water in 1845!

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Top row - A crane was housed in this structure that is from 15th Century and used to load and unload ships

Bottom row - Wheels where men walked to provide power for the crane

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June 13

On our last day in Warsaw we went to the Museum of Jewish history. It traces the Thousand Years of Jewish history in the Polish region. Mythology says that a Jewish person was walking in the woods and a bird or butterfly is there and says go to polin. He set out for this mythical region and discovered Poland. The exhibition outlined the ups and downs and of the Jewish people and how they were treated throughout centuries. Suffice it to say they had many ups and downs and mostly were treated as second-class citizens except when the nobility needed them to manage their finances. It is a huge Museum home to four floors and probably covers an acre of area. There was a huge Memorial to the ghetto uprising and we had an interesting visit. We then walked back to the royal castle. It had been completely destroyed by Hitler during World War II. A lot of the paintings and other artifacts were lost. Some of them were hidden by the Polish people before the invasion, but the Nazis really tried to destroy connection of the castle from the people. It was almost too opulent to believe. As we were looking for a place to have dinner, a man handed a flyer to us about it restaurant near our car. We're headed that way anyway to have dinner at the restaurant we had eaten the night before, but we decided to try this one. The waitress was very friendly and helpful and we ended up having fried potato cakes with goulash and a mushroom sauce. With the exception of one restaurant where we had a smallish Caesar salad, the portions over here have been plenty enough to feed two people with one dish. An Asian lady behind us spoke in English to the waitress but she never engaged us in conversation. However, our next door neighbor came and sat down and ordered dinner. I felt she was German from the words she used with the waitress and we started speaking to her. She was a hoot and, by the way, a federal judge in Germany working on Asylum cases. She was there with a colleague from France working on issues of asylum. We talked for an hour and a half about the problems with assimilation of the people seeking Asylum. She said most of the time the parents cannot assimilate because they won't or can't learn German and therefore can't work. The children go to German schools learn the language and are assimilated more easily into the economy. She asked if we had the same situation in America and we said of course sometimes. Also sometimes with some asylum seekers they are highly educated in their home country but can't work in their profession because of the language problems and won't take any other work to help support their family. She said If she was an asylum seeker in another country, she would do whatever work she could to help her family and not receive all her support from the government. That would only be right according to her and show the children that you do what is right for the country who gave you shelter. She said she would even be willing to look out horse stalls. She is a horse enthusiast and told us last year it was so dry they had very little hay for the horses and it became a big problem. While we were talking, the Asian lady by and said to us in perfect English, “are you still here with a smile”? We would have asked her to join us but she kept walking. We had a great time in Warsaw but it was time to leave in the morning.

June 14

Before we headed out I sent a WhatsApp message to Concetta wishing her a happy birthday, assuming she would be in bed, but she was not. I pre-pulled but she was happy that we remembered. After that, we headed to Poznan, the birthplace in Poland. It was a nice easy drive and we found a hotel downtown with a small kitchenette that looks new on the inside. We went to the cathedral Island where in 966 according to history, Poland came into being as a state. They had a fantastic Interactive Museum with an English audio guide that gave the whole history of how it came to be. There's also the old Cathedral on the island that was destroyed during the war, but has since been resurrected.  We also came to Poznan to see the Old Town Hall and the Clock Tower that has two goats butting heads at noon time. We got here and found a parking place just in time.  And within 20 minutes of 12, the square in front of the Town Hall was full of people mostly kids on school holiday trips. Allegedly the Two Goats represent the time when there was a big banquet planned where the two goats were going to be the guests of honor when they escaped about  the time when they were going to unveil the clock. The clockmaker was ordered add the errant animals to the mechanics of the clock. There is also an exceptionally painted house near the cathedral Island area that depicts several scenes in 3D. I'm not sure the pictures will do it justice, but I can tell you the wall is flat and there is a window in the wall that looks like it's in a 3D panel. There was construction going on across the street so there was construction material blocking the lower panels, but it is a fascinating piece of art. We wandered around the town square looking for a place to eat and a nice young lady talked to us about her restaurant so we decided to stop and have the specially prepared pork schnitzel with sauerkraut and cottage cheese. I'm not a cottage cheese fan but we did it anyway. It turns out it's more like boursin cheese than cottage cheese and the sauerkraut was delicious. The Schnitzel covered the whole plate and the girl was happy to bring us two plates to eat with. There is always a lively crowd in the town square every evening and we were there until almost 8 30. The weather has been fantastic albeit hotter than we would like.  There is now A/C and most often not even a fan in the rooms. June 15 We left early in the morning you go to Turon To have some gingerbread. There's a gingerbread Museum and we wanted to see it. It gave us a very interesting about the history of gingerbread making in that town. I'm pretty sure gingerbread was invented in Nuremberg or at least perfected in Nuremberg. Turon was a nice town and had a couple of interesting buildings, but we had lunch and headed toward the town of Odry which has ancient stone circles in the forest nearby. It was a nice easy drive through the countryside to a hotel with a kitchenette. We weren't sure our GPS was finding the right place and we didn't see the address as we drove past it. We stopped and called the owner and his wife said my husband will come and show you the house which is 200 meters from where you're parked. Paul was very nice and all dressed up. He hurriedly got us into the room because his family was having a wedding that evening and we think he came from the restaurant where the dinner was being held for the family. It's a very rural and pleasant atmosphere. They even have a chicken coop in the backyard. We would have stayed longer, but the Wi-Fi doesn't work. The room only cost $32 and it’s like brand new, built by the owner.

June 16

We Have had two nights of violent storms but without the predicted hail.  Last night was one of them. lights flickering off and on several times during the night. We know because the family had going in the room doesn't come on automatically when the power is restored. Around 2:30 am some members of the wedding party came home to the hotel. We got up early to leave for Gdansk via the stone circles. I had not paid for the room last night because the owner was celebrating a wedding. I waited until 10 a.m. to call him so we could check out and I woke him up. He came to me in about 15 minutes in the same outfit he was wearing the day before. I apologized for waking him but I need to pay. He said that's all right we had a good time and I didn't get to bed until 4 a.m. We wanted to pay and get on the road, but he wanted to talk about lots of things, many of them somewhat political. His English was very good for someone who had never studied it. I told him I had worked in Germany for 11 years and he said why? I said the money was good. He said but there are more important things than money. He doesn't like Germany and after seeing what happened in Poland I can understand. He was the first person to actually voice those negative opinions. We ended up talking for over an hour in the stairway outside our apartment. I told him we would stay if we could have a drink later. He said he would but this is the third day of the party and I have relatives from all over Poland here for my niece's wedding. His wife finally came out and asked for the key to something to get some food. She speaks almost fluent English and is a teacher in town. We had a long conversation some of it was about the political situation in America and the fact that Polish people have to buy a visa to come to America. He likes Trump is standing up to the Russians and he doesn't believe you can trust Putin at all.  He is glad American soldiers are going to be stationed in Poland because he is always worried about the Russians coming back. His family has lived on this land in the countryside for several Generations. He said the Germans and the war didn't bother them because there was nothing there and then they had 40 Years of “stinking” communist rule. Now they start to come into their own, even after 20 plus years after the communists left. After that we programmed our cell phone and GPS in the car was a little town of Odry to see the stone circles. Sometimes GPS in a car and on the phone gets confused in rural areas in Europe. They told us to go one way I felt sure we should go the other way so we did. It turns out I was correct, but we were almost an hour away from that small town and when we booked the hotel I was sure Booking.Com said it was only 8 miles away.   We had a very interesting Drive because 3 GPS systems finally had us going in the same direction and when it told us to turn off onto a gravel road, we were reluctant to do so.  We knew the town was in the middle of nowhere so we followed the GPS. It was a very interesting 15 minute drive to the town after we turned onto the gravel road. It was a one-lane road mostly, dirt with pot holes and everything was filled with water. I wasn't sure our Ford Fiesta would go through some of them, but it did. We got into town and couldn't find the stone circles until we read a Polish sign and interpreted it on our phone. Everyone else who came to that town came on a paved Road. That's the trouble with GPS it takes you the shortest way, not necessarily the best way. We enjoyed seeing the stone circles, but all the information was in Polish so we had to figure some of it out and look it up again on the internet. We then headed for Gdansk for the evening. We got here close to 3 so we stopped and had coffee and pastry after finding a parking place in Old Town.  The meter seemed to indicate that parking was free on Saturday and Sunday. We wandered around Old Town looking at some buildings and found an information office. We go a map and asked the girl if parking was free on Saturday and Sunday. She didn't think so but I told her I think that's what the parking meter said, so she said I guess it is Monday through Friday pay parking. It was too late to do anything about it then so we wandered around town till about 5 before we looked for a room. We ended up finding a nice hotel on the river that runs into the Baltic Sea and met a very interesting character when we checked in, Wojtek, pronounced like Voytek. It's too much to go into here, but suffice it to say he could have been a stand-up comic and some of his views on the world are a little bit warped, but in a funny way.  He speaks very good English and we look forward to visiting with him later on Monday. I asked him about the parking meters and he said yes you have to pay money through Monday - Friday,  Saturday and Sunday is free. And I asked if the hotel has parking.  He said no but you park around the corner from our building the parking is free there. He said I know because that's where I park every day. Luckily, we had found a parking place 50 feet from hotel in the free zone, we hope.  He gave us a very nice room on the fifth floor, but it had not been cleaned as promised so he put us in another room not quite as large but with a kitchenette overlooking the river and a drawbridge right outside our window. It's fun to look at when it goes up and down, but not at 6:15 in the morning  when it makes its first opening or closing of the day.  The drawbridge has a pre-recorded message telling everyone to get off the bridge in three languages and then there is an alarm beeping as it is going up or down. The sun comes up around 4:15 over here, but starts to get light earlier so we weren't fully awake but we weren't in deep sleep.

June 17

Yesterday was overcast and cool with a high of 68.  Today promises to be sunny and cool with a high of 71. Finally we're not sweating all day. Before we went out sightseeing, I uploaded all the pictures I had taken through yesterday and now I am updating the narrative. We went back to the Green Gate where did the Amber museum is located. Turns out many museums are open for free on Monday. The Amber Museum gave a great historical perspective on Amber and what everyone thinks it really is, is pine rosin that has bugs and leaves trapped in it, etcetera.  Poland and specifically, Gdansk is/was the center of the  amber manufacturing industry in Europe and they traded Amber all the way to the Far East. That took us to lunch time so we ate lunch and wandered around Old Town looking at really old buildings. We went to see the armory that Wojtek told us about. On one side is very beautiful, but on the back side it shows the ravages of war and is very run down and not kept up in contrast is beautiful side that opens up onto the main street.  We're okay with not seeing the two museums because that would have kept us out at least another two hours. As it was we were able to buy our breakfast bread and lunch for tomorrow, come back to the room and rest a little bit before we went out for coffee and to look around again for another hour or so. We found the delightful Market Hall which is built in the shape of a Main train station, but it is filled with shops selling  clothes, jewelry, shoes, pastries, fresh fish and three or four butcher shops and outside was the vegetable market. It looks like they have some Polish heirloom tomatoes. Right now it’s cocktail hour and I'm mixing my Scotch because I have ice cubes for a change. As we were leaving for dinner, we stopped by the reception desk I spoke to our friend Wojtek for about 45 minutes. It was supposed to be a short farewell because we are leaving tomorrow. Eventually we went out to eat.  We found a small restaurant near our hotel that had spaghetti carbonara. It was okay, not the best we've ever had and certainly not the worst. On the way back from dinner we thought we would get a picture of our friend with us for the blog. 45 minutes later, we took the picture and went to our room. We know more about him than he knows about himself and it was a very interesting, funny and intelligent conversation. He is very much interested in science fiction and good horror movies, not the bloody gory type. You don't get that on no stinking cruise ship. It is 9:29 and the sun hasn't quite set.  More pictures will follow in a couple of days. Ciao

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Top row - Starting street “Hustlers” out early. They played beautifully and on key according to E

3rd Row - St Mary’s 

4th Row  - Green gate Marking the end of the Royal Way. It was supposed to be the residence of kings, but they never stayed in what was a cold and uncomfortable lodge

5th row - ?? Can’t remember

Bottom row - Can’t read Polish, but it is a beautiful metal tree sculpture

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Top 5 rows - St Mary’s Church, the largest brick church in the world. 105 meters long and 66 meters wide and and tower 78 meters high.  No way to get it all in one shot so I gave up trying Bottom row - Beautiful building in Gdansk

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The Iron Age stone circles that no one can yet accurately say what they are except some sort of burial ground

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The “farm house we spent the night at on the way to the Iron Age stone circles.

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Top - What we started with. Can you believe it?

Bottom row - What we couldn’t eat at this sitting.

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Top row - Clock tower

2nd Row - Selfie at dinner time.

3rd Row - Rt 66 is everywhere.  I’ve to the Busted Knuckle Garage

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Rows 1 -3 -Goats butting heads, 12 times at noon each day

rows 4 & 5 - The old town hall that i closed until 2021.  Oh well.

Bottom row - Some really beautifully decorated houses in Poznan

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3 D house

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Three D house in Poznan

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Rows 1-3 - The opulence of the Royal Castle was almost too much. They spent  millions of dollars recreating this, for what?  I guess they get money back from visitors like us.  BTW, Thursday is free museum day for many museums in Warsaw, not the castle and we didn’t get reduced tickets as pensioners because we are not from the EU.  First time I was ever challenged about my citizenship.  Oh well, we’ve been getting in most everything as “pensioners”.  

Bottom row - The Throne room. The silver eagles behind the throne represent the symbol of Poland

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Top row - Left - Field Chapel for the Polish Army                 Right - Camouflage dress for Priest

Bottom row - Left - “Plaque” for the chapel made from the buttons found in a mass grave of Polish soldiers killed by the Germans.  This was a military museum and memorial to all the soldiers from this mass grave.  We actually “stumbled” onto this on the way back to our hotel.

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Top row - Entrance to Jewish Museum.  Not sure if the shape had any meaning other than from the architect

2nd row - Left - Just a block of granite with an inscription in Polish and a date of the Ghetto time

#3rd row - Scene depicting younger generation by sculptor who various works around the world commemorating the Holocaust

row 4 & 5 - More art work from the sculptor 

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Views from the 1000 years of Jewish history museum.  I think most are self explanatory.

4th row - Mock up of a Synagogue inside the museum

Bottom row - Monument to the Ghetto Uprising