Wrocław…Day 2

Day 2 in Wrocław began early for us….breakfast at the hotel, and then we were ready to explore more of this Polish city. We first walked over to this chair near our hotel, and took a few pictures…

This is a HUGE chair! We were curious to "Why was this chair here?" and "Why was it so big?"….questions that were never quite answered…though the receptionist said she thought it was an artistic expression of some kind. 

We rode the tram over to Wrocław's beautiful main railway station…in order to purchase tickets to go to Bolesławiec the following day. We had originally thought of renting a car for a day…but it would have cost over $150…so we opted for the economical alternative, though it would take us a bit longer to get there.

We have been in a number of railway stations in Poland…and this railway station was very clean, bright and easy to get around. It smelled clean too!

After purchasing our train tickets we walked through a lovely park…

... filled with beautiful fallen leaves.

Our real destination in the park was the round Panorama building with its 360-degree mural inside.  The mural is one of Poland's national artistic and historical treasures.  

The mural depicts the Polish victory over the Russian army in 1794 in the Battle of Racławicka (pronounced "rahts-wah-veets'-kah").  The Poles were commanded by General Tadeusz Kościuszko (pronounced…oh, never mind), who had gone to America 20 years earlier to help the Americans fight the Revolutionary War.  

The mural is presented so as to make observers feel that they are in the center of this battle…the painting is about 15 feet from the round viewing platform in the middle of the room, and made to feel more realistic by real dirt, sagebrush, fence rails, etc. in the foreground at the base of the mural.

We were given headsets in our choice of language, which provided a narrative of the scenes surrounding us.  We took a series of pictures to capture the entire vista….but unfortunately these small images do not do the display justice.

The Panorama was painted in 1893 in Lviv, a Polish city until the end of WWII, when the Soviet Union gave Lviv to Ukraine and took Wrocław from Germany and gave it to Poland.  After Lviv became part of Ukraine, the Panorama painting was moved to Wrocław in 1946.  The round building to display the painting was ready for use in 1967, however the communists were afraid that it elicited too much Polish nationalistic sentiment.  So the Panorama was not allowed to be displayed publicly until 1985.  Since then, millions have seen it in 30-minute tours that accommodate about 1,600 people daily. 

A few summers ago we visited Gettsyburg, where there is a similar circular mural that makes one feel at the center of one of the battles.  

The narrative took most of the 30 minutes of the tour, and we wish we had more time to linger and view the painting.

As we left the Panorama we noticed the fallen leaves on the ground and were amazed by the size of some of them.  I asked Mark to pick up a standard leaf (the orange/gold one) and then one of the bigger leaves we saw…it was huge in comparison!

Here's Mark cracking himself up…doing his fully clothed impression of Adam….lol!

We were going to meet a former business associate of Mark's for dinner on Friday evening…so another phone call was made during our walk.

Lunch time…we went back to the Rynek and ate at a Polish restaurant that we had seen earlier. The decor was beautiful, food delicious…and as an added bonus they had a beautiful Polish pottery shop next door.

Fall decor was in abundance...

Another business call during lunch, and afterwards also….in Mark's defense, he had been assigned to coordinate a project with a tight deadline that involved working with representatives of other oil and gas companies in Poland.  Unfortunately, the majority of the work had to be performed over this holiday weekend.

Lunch…I loved my fresh Polish salad...

and Mark loves bigos - a Polish stew comprised mainly of cabbage and sausage.  Much to Mark's dismay, the Polish business associate and his wife that we had dinner with that evening told him that this dish he loves has a ton of calories!

The beautiful City Hall in the Rynek (Market Square) 

We started finding some of the little gnomes we had heard so much about….and funny thing…we had passed by many of them previously without even noticing them!

People love taking pictures by these gnomes [the Picketts included :-) ]…here we saw a young family taking a picture with their little son mimicking the gnomes.

Here little gnomes are holding up this glass box where people can donate money for a children's hospital and cancer patients. 

We found one of the gnomes by the fountain we saw the previous day…

Here I am with a few Polish pottery purchases….that always makes me smile!

Firemen gnomes…fighting the fire….

….and resting after fighting the fire.

And maybe drinking after fighting the fire?

Sleeping it off...

Later in the afternoon we walked a short distance from our hotel and came to the University of Wrocław...another beautiful area.

Unfortunately some of the university sights I had read about were closed due to the holiday weekend.

The line below marks the 17th meridian.

A well-known landmark in front of the university….a naked swordsman….

….with a real sword - that regularly comes up missing.

It was cold outside but Mark had a craving for a raspberry smoothie.  We found a little shop that was too warm inside, so I convinced Mark we would enjoy being outside…and we did! He was a good sport, bundled up and sipping away at his smoothie!

A gnome at the entrance of a bank close by...

The St. Elizabeth Church close to sunset….it stayed light longer in Wrocław than in Warsaw at this time of year…the little extra daylight was quite nice.

We ate dinner with a lovely couple from Wrocław - Adrian and Beata - and don't know why we ddin't take a picture of them.  This was our view from the restaurant window….the University of Wrocław lit up at night.  It was such an enjoyable evening…eating and visiting with good people from Poland.