Krakow before the Night Train to Prague
With most of the laundry done and one in the washer, we headed into Krakow for one last time to see the opening of the St. Mary's wooden altarpiece constructed by Veit Stoss in the 15th century AFTER our morning coffee...Our French press coffee press! I got the hang of this in Copenhagen after doing research on the net to know how to use it! I kind of like a lot but Poland doesn't have decaf so a little goes a long way.
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He trumpets on every hour.
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We bought our tickets to enter the church and paid for our permission to use our cameras. Then we shopped in the Cloth Hall one last time. I had to get control of myself when I saw an artistic setting of a green amber ring that would have set me back $500! It's the classic stone of Poland. Here's some pictures of the stones.
It's now 11:40 and time to enter the church for the opening of the Veit Stoss altarpiece. We made it just in time. During our visit, we took a lot of pictures and there were many "guards" walking through the crowd to stop those without a sticker from taking photos. Good grief! It's only 5 zloty for the permission sticker! Roughly $1.50!
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| Not a good, clear photo but we pondered whether these were arm rests or something to keep their heads from bobbing when they fell asleep during services! Melodie is NOT hunched down but sitting upright in this seat so that's pretty high as an arm rest for people of yore who were short. |
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| Open |
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| View from the cheap seats...the prayer section was roped off for those wanting to come in and pray. Tourists needed to pay 10 zloty plus 5 zloty to take photos but we could walk all the way up to the altar. |
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| The organ in the back of the church. |
I got my "Papa" (Pope John Paul II and Black Madonna on the other side) charm for my necklace and we returned to the flat by 2:30p. Making the beds and mopping the floors, Monika and Stasia showed up promptly at 6:00 as they had said and brought Packi (pronounced PAHNCH-key). THESE tasted just like Busia used to make. So we had tea and sweets and chatted until 8 when these two sisters volunteered to take us to the train station.
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| L-R: Stasia, Monika, me and Melodie |
Not only did they take us to the station but they stayed with us until we were on the 9:50p Schlaffwagen train and in our sleeper cabin.
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| Monika and Stasia hamming it up for us outside our train's hallway window. We're going to miss them! |
They are so much fun and truly eased our transition into Polish ways and its transportation in so many ways which made it easier for us as we journeyed throughout Poland over these three weeks.
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| Equiped with water above the sink for use in washing and brushing our teeth as well as two bottles of water for drinking. The two croissants on the right side of the sink were for breakfast and the steward brought butter and jam with our coffee in the morning. |
Our Steward was personable and stopped by the cabin before departure to take our tickets, our coffee/tea order for the morning wake-up call, and to remind us to keep our door locked by showing us how to secure the door once it was closed. He told us he had a cabin at the end of the hall if we should need him during the night. There was no dining car but he had some ready-made food if we should become hungry.
No worries here. Melodie took the top bunk and climbed the little ladder like a kid. We left the ladder up through the night in case she needed it and even put up the little "guard rail" so the train motion wouldn't throw her out of bed. The beds were a little narrow and the train a lot noisier than I remembered the Swedish train so there was little sleeping involved in this night. But the AC worked wonderfully to cool down the cabin once the train was in motion. It made multiple stops along the way which changed the rocking motion lulling me to sleep.
And, as promised, he came with coffee about 6am for our 6:40a arrival into Praha Hlavni Nadrazi, the Main Train Station.
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