Poland - Krakow

Its hard to believe that just last week I was eating dumplings in cold and rainy Poland. It was quite a shock to the system after the Middle East and Greece, my first reminder of the general climate of Northern Europe that I was raised in. The sun surprisingly has decided to show itself again in the UK where I am now. It comes across as a pretty prosperous and livable city and I enjoyed spending some quality time with my parents there.

Krakow is one of only a handful of cities in Europe lucky enough to emerge from the war, architecturaly (if not emotionaly) unscathed and has an extremely well preserved medieval old town as well as an impressive hilltop castle - the 'Wawel', seat of the Polish kings and site of thier coronations and burials. We did also manage to get out of the town and visited Czestochowa monastary, home to the much 'Black Madonna', so much revered in Poland that it was officialy crowned Queen and Protector of the Polish Nation and is believed to be responsible for several miracles. Despite the years of Communist rule, Poland came across as fervently and devoutly Catholic, no doubt partly due to Pope John Paul II being from here - something they are clearly very proud of. I had a momentary panic while taking my turn to file past the icon when everyone in front of me decided to get down on their knees and proceed to work their way round the chapel like that. I wasnt quite ready to join them. On the way back from Czestochowa we stopped off at Pieskowa Skala Castle which has a section of the Wawel museum based there and an interesting collection of historical furnature (doesnt sound that gripping I hear you cry! - I really am quite a nerd at heart.)

Heres the pics..

Travel Philosophy Number 8 - A Thirst for Knowledge

Broken Jewish Tomb Stones - Kazimerz Cemetary


Without trying to be too preachy, not everyone has the opportunity to get out and see stuff in the world, sometimes people have not been able to travel outside their own town, and perhaps due to the media they are fed by which ever governement they live under (North Korea's been popping up on BBC World alot in the last few days), they may have a pretty limited understanding of the larger world around them. I always feel a certain responsibility to myself to learn as much as I can while I'm traveling. A good day is a day that sends you to Google to research something further.

Without setting out for it to be that way, this trip has been quite a religeous education for me. As I've said previously, I dont hold any strong religious beliefs, but at the same time, the concept, culutural traditions, shared beliefs and historical backgounds of the major religions is fascinating and learning more gives you a much deeper understanding of the world today. It just so happened that Ive ended up travelling through Biblical lands and Muslim countries and now in Krakow I am in what was once one of the most important centres of Jewish culture in Europe. I say 'was' in that there are now only approximately 200 practicing Jews in the city following the devastation of the war, but then it is still a major site of Jewish pilgrimage and has the grave of a prominent Jewish holy man. We hired our own local guide to give us a walking tour of Kazimerz, the historical Jewish disctrict. We visited Synagogues and learned alot about Jewish culture and traditions.


Learning stuff is not neccesarily always a fun experience either - our next stop was the site of the wartime ghetto, where the local Jewish population were moved into and literally walled in - a starting indication of the deliberate cruelty was the fact that the ghetto walls were made in the shape of Jewish tombstones. Close to there was the Oscar Schindler factory. with an excellent newly completed exhibition on Nazi occupied Krakow. Not an easy exhibition to go around, even though it was housed in a place linked to an uplifting message - i.e the thousand or so jews on 'Schindlers List' who he managed to save.

Finaly an experience which is hard to describe and whilst certainly not being enjoyable, was profoundly moving and again a travel experience to learn and take something away from - Auschwitz.

I found the diverging train tracks at Auschwitz II - Birkenau, where someone had left flowers at the junction quite symbolic as essentially when people arrived at the camp and got down from the trains the first thing that happened was the 'selection' where they would either go to the left if deemed fit enough to work or to the right - straight to the gas chambers and cremetoria if not.

Also very effective for putting things into perspective were the collections of possessions found in warehouses on liberation of the camps. When you look at the piles of shoes, shaving brushes or suitcases and really imagine each one belonging to a different person, and that these were just a tiny proportion found there at the end, it gives you some idea of just how many people passed through these camps where in the words of Rudolph Hess, the only way out was through the cremetoria chimneys. And then of course this collection of 3 camps was not the only one in operation in Europe.

I've been joined in Krakow by my 80 year old parents who were in their early teens during the war. My mother found the Auschwitz camp experience particularly unsettling I think, as she remembers very strongly feeling petrified as a girl of the Germans being succesful in their attempt to invade Britain and what would happen to her if they did. As it was they lived through the air raids and remember the bombs. It does make you think how lucky you were to be born in a certain place though - i.e on an Island as opposed to just over the border from Nazi Germany.

Wrapping up Turkey - The Hagia Sophia

Before we get too Greekified, lets go back and take a look at the 4th Great Architectural monument in that small area of Istanbul around Sultanahmet - The Hagia Sophia. Built around 400 or so AD under Emperor Constantine of the Eastern Roman Empire which became Byzantium, expanded under Emperor Justinian, - the spiritual heart of the Byzantine Empire until it was turned into a mosque under the Ottomans in 1453. From The outside standing next to the Blue Mosque it looks very Islamic with its minarets and multiple domes, once inside though it still remains very much a Byzantine Basilica at heart, especially since they have painstakingly removed the layers of plaster to reveal the incredible Byzantine mosaics once again. Once more we took an audio tour - had fun trying to find the numbers to plug in. What a way to finish up Istanbul, an incredible building.

Turkey - Goreme

I'm writing this from fabulous Istanbul, lapping up the cosmopolitan atmosphere, but as usual Im several days behind in my blog updates what with needing to edit photos as well as find enough time somewhere with a decent internet connection to upload.

Turkey has been a great place to travel to and I will definately be returning at some point. Its a breath of fresh air after shiny suited Syria and its slightly backward ways in terms of ease of travel. This trip has not allowed time for seeing too much of it, it is definately kind of tagged on the end with some long travel days to hoon on up to Istanbul all the way from the Syrian border. The only stop of note that we made was Goreme in Cappadocia. Here we spent 2 and a half days and it proved to contain a couple of real highlights.

The area is famous for its unusual rock formations and 'fairy chimneys' with cave dwellings in them. I was well aware of the rock formations and to be honest, after a bit of a look around, its a bit like 'OK nice rocks, whats next then', in the wrong light it can look like a big slag heap rather that a spot of scenic beauty. What I wasnt prepared for, however, and what our tour leader managed to almost forget to tell us, was that the area is rammed full of rock cut churches and monastic cells dating from the 9th and 10th Centuries covered with beautifully painted frescoes. These were really stunning and Nat and I spent a good few hours wandering round the open air museum with our audio guides on taking it all in. To my mind it was an experience that easily rivals the Valley of the Kings for colourful rock painting and a much more pleasant experience. We were a bit stunned that we could almost have left the area without knowing what was a 20 minute walk from the hotel because the guide was too busy trying to push his carpet shop enterprise. Ah well..

On the travel day arriving into Goreme from Nidge, we saw another monastary and also spent some time exploring an underground city which stretched to 8 levels deep and 70 metres of tunnels rooms and passageways. Not much photographic potential down there but an interesting stop. Apparently used for local villagers to dissapear down into for months on end when invading hoardes would periodicaly come through the area. Thousands of people could live down there undetected.

We also took an easy hike through a river valley and had a great riverside lunch lounging in a cushioned pavillion.

Goreme was a really pleasant town in itself - we spied some great looking rock cut boutiquey hotels on our walk up to the sunset point, including This one. Wouldnt have minded an upgrade there!.

When photo browsing perhaps ponder over the question - was Southparks Jesus inspired by early Byzantine Christian art or is this just a bizarre coincidence!
Again, even from an agnostics point of view its impossible not to be awed by the stories depicted on these walls which have been passed down since the death of Jesus to the present time, you can imagine priests with followers sat around them as they pointed to the niches in the walls and ceilings and passed on the stories contained in them. As someone who has had no in depth religious study other than RE at school that I barely paid attention too, I was actually quite amazed at just how much of what was depicted had been drummed into me just from growing up in a Christian country. Once again, Im going to be on a mission to find some kind of Biblical mythbusters to find out more of whats historicaly documented of what actualy happened in these lands, how it affected people and how it spread from the holy land. It was interesting to be in an area where you really could see that disciples of Jesus could have spread the word up in this direction, its no further that we have travelled ourselves in the course of this trip. Other religious observations on this trip which for the last week or two has been through outposts of the Ottoman empire is the shared Old testament stories between Islam and Christianity.

One thing though... Mathew, Mark, Luke and John - what were their real names? Surely these are made up for the latin speaking mass market, these people lived in Palestine and Judea for goodness sake, where the King was called Herod etc etc, facts.... I need facts!

Its certainly the greatest story ever told. And that's not said with a note of sarcasm. I dont dispute that something of truly epic historical significance happened, and I find the spread of its message and its effect on world civilisation truly fascinating regardless of what you choose to believe as its true meaning. I have no judgements about peoples belief sytems even though I have not personaly been touched in the same way. Perhaps I will have an epiphany. One thing though - I dont think that its possible for there to be just one 'God' or true Religion. Surely it could not be right that you have the true faith just because you were lucky enough to grow up in the right part of the world in a Christain culture as opposed to in the East raised as a Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim, could they not all just be different paths to the same end? Hmmm...deep head scratchy moment, time to head out!

Roman Stuff

Todays post is brought to you by Jonathius VI, Governor of Jerash. Its been a plethora of collumnii. We took taxis to Jerash this morning, apparently the second largest Roman site after Ephesus in Turkey. It was slightly marred by some large Italian coach parties but once you found a bit to yourselves quite atmospheric. I had to place a self imposed ban on more pics of rows of columns after a while but they were quite impressive. Again, quite easy to conjur up carriages trundling along and performances in the theatre.

We then went to Amman citadel, crowned by more ruins and a museum containing a couple of the dead sea scrolls. As well as the days mind meltdown - brain couldnt compute with these statues being 9000 years old.


Retracing steps back to Petra, we made a stop at a crusader fort yesterday and then a crazy time at the dead sea - floating in 90% salty sea water at the lowest point on Earth having another mind meltdown at being able to see Jericho over the other side and being withing 20k of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and having passed through Sodom and Gomorrah and been up Mount Nebo where Moses apparently saw the promised land and is buried. Random Bible places all over here. Still in need of some unbiased info getting to the bottom of what really went on round here that influenced our civilization so much. Google Research tends to bring up stuff along the lines of 'Shocked by the Bible! The most astonishing facts you've never been told'.



Tomorrow its a new country - we cross over into Syria and spend the night in Damascus

Sinai

Nat and I were saying earlier that Egypts one country were not sorry weve left - even though theres amazing stuff to see there that I wouldnt have missed for the world, the hassle and various methods of trying to make a fast buck combined with the heat and dirt wear you down after a while.


We spent the last couple of days in the Sinai peninsula. Nat and I opted not to climb Mount Sinai itself, no regrets there. St Catherines Monastary, however, really was worthwhile. 1700 odd years of continuous useage and a charter from Mohammed himself protecting it, presumably because the pilgrimage sites are sacred to Muslims as well as Christians. The Burning bush is still alive if not burning within its grounds, apparently its the only one of its species anywhere in the world. There were hoardes of tourists at first but they did trickle away leaving it a bit quieter. The museum contained icons and bibles dating right back to 6th and 7th Centuries. Again despite not holding strong religious beliefs myself you cant help but be moved by such a long period of devotion and feel the aura of the place. Where does fact and fantasy diverge though - do they really still beleive that St Catherines body was brought to Mt Sinai by angels after her martyrdom in Alexandria. Surely its more than possible she was taken there by someone but not on flights of angels wings. It made an intreresting contrast to muslim Egypt and the level of devotion to Islam shown by everyone. Its hard to comprehend as an outsider to both faiths and raises questions of how much upbringing and indoctrination by the state influences your belief sytems. Im actually very curious now traveling through this region to find out the actual facts of what is documented historical fact about the events relating to both Jesus and Moses'lives - which actually seems easier said than done, as if you google just Jesus Facts, at least the first 2 pages are still religious sites with their own spin. Im sure with more perseverence ill find some good info.

We drove through some dramatic mountainous scenery, we also spent a night at a basic but relaxing beach camp by the Red sea where I spent half the night sleeping under the stars and full moon to catch a bit of breeze. Im struggling quite a bit with the heat. I can just about manage if I can escape into some air con, but if dodgy air con or none I really struggle.



We have now taken the ferry across to Jordan - i did have a small panic, switching between being British to Australian in order to be in Jordan using the passport which has my Syrian visa in but so far so good, hopefuly they let me into Syria ok! Dont fancy being left behind when they dont understand someone with dual nationalities. Jordan allready seems really nice - i think Aquaba might be a little bit of a special case but so far its very relaxed and friendly.

Wadi Rum tomorrow and then Petra, Hurrah!