Home again

I'm back home. :-) I can definitely recommend the Sofitel at Terminal 5 at Heathrow. There was a tv in the bathroom. I got to watch a documentary on Robert the Bruce on BBC-2 while I took a bath. :-) My flight home was great because the plane was only about 2/3 full and I had empty seats around me. That certainly makes all the difference in a 10 hour flight.

My camera decided that Polish winter weather doesn't agree with it, and a lot of my pictures turned out like this, or worse:

Oh well. At least some did turn out. Here's the mermaid statue in Old Town in Warsaw:

Old Town isn't really old, because it was completely demolished during the war. They rebuilt it to look like the original, though, and it's very pretty. And here's the main square in Cracow:

Cracow wasn't as badly damaged, so the square, one of the largest in Europe, is authentic. That pretty building on the right sits dead center, so this pic shows only half of the square. We had a wonderful dinner on the square at a place that's been a restaurant since the 1790's.

This is a pretty town I saw from the train. I have no idea what it's called:

And this is Nowa Huta, which is just outside Cracow, and which we visited with the Crazy Communism tour:

It was built by the Communists as a steel mill town, and intended as a centerpiece of Communism. It ended up becoming the site of protests and an active location for the Solidarity movement. The square to the left is Ronald Reagan Square. Really:

Here's the view from my friend's apartment in Warsaw:

It's a great place in a perfect location. Thanks for letting me stay with you, Agnes! :-)

And finally, a sad picture:

This wall is outside a 17th century synagogue in Cracow. Another part of the wall had graffiti which said (in German, interestingly) "Jews out of Palestine." Some things never change.