Krakow Jewish quarter

The Schindler factory

After packing up and storing all our stuff at the train station, we spent our last day in Krakow in the Jewish quarter. We walked through the Kazimierz neighborhood and went to the Old Synagogue where there is a good museum which gave excellent explanations of the lesser known Jewish holidays. Finally I understand Shavuot. T loved taking pictures of the museum displays.

Puppets in a wedding scene

Purim rattles and scrolls, children's amulets

After that we crossed the river to see the site of the WWII ghetto. Each of the thirty three chairs in this memorial represents 1000 Jewish victims. It was strange to see T and L running around, laughing and chasing pigeons, in such a sad place. From there we went to the Schindler factory. The recommended minimum age there was 14, so E decided to take S and the littles for cake while R and I looked around. I think the age requirement was for the sake of understanding rather than horrible images, but I'm not sure. The layout is very maze-like, and R and I came to a dead end and had to backtrack the whole way through the museum to get out in time to meet everyone at the bakery. The museum was very well done, and R seemed especially impressed by a column in Oskar Schindler's office that you could stand inside and read the names of the workers.

It was raining when we came out of the museum, but R and I foolishly decided not to hire a ride to the bakery. Instead, we walked and the rain increased. We weren't soaked, but it was raining hard enough for us all to decide to have an early dinner. We ate at a pizza place back in the Kazimierz neighborhood. By the time we were done the rain had pretty much stopped. We walked through the neighborhood some more, saw the old cemetery, and took the tram to old town. Later R and I realized it was the same tram line that used to go through the ghetto.

We were on two missions in old town. First, to see the bugler in the church tower and second, to get R some earrings from Poland. She is collecting from each country. Both missions accomplished!

You can see the bugle in the open window. Afterwards the bugler hung out the window and waved to the small crowd.

Just a small church we came across - a typical old town view.

E and R stock up on Bragels (bagel/bretzel hybrids) for the train while L twirls around the lamppost

We spent some time in the train station mall, trying to use up some of our Polish money, before catching another sleeping train - to Budapest.