Krakow, Poland

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I thought I would give a report from Krakow.  I think the last I wrote we were in Cesky Krumlov, a small town on the Vlata River in the Czech Republic.  What a wonderful place to relax and enjoy nature.  Highly recommend. From Cesky Krumlov we spent a few days in Prague, city of a 1000 spires and perpetual graffiti.  After Prague, we came to Krakow. Many people gush about how wonderful Prague is, and we wanted to experience it for ourselves.  Every city has its charms, including Prague, but overall we were glad to leave Prague behind us.  Instead of listing a dozen annoyances that overall left us wondering what the hype was all about, I would instead sum up Prague thus:  It has a lot of beautiful architecture - every building, every bridge, every corner has received a lot of detail by some ancient craftsman.  Gratefully, it all survived WWII.  But unless one enjoys looking at a statue of a nobleman made anonymous by centuries of grime and soot, the overall impression is that the entire city needs a good scrubbing.  It is really unfortunate. Krakow, on the other hand, is everything Prague was not.  It is clean, it is a manageable size and you can by a train ticket without having to stand in the information line, followed by the reservation line and then the purchasing line.  It is every bit as historical, with beautiful architecture and character to boot. One thing we really enjoyed near Prague was The Church of Bones.  In the 13the century a bishop went to Jerusalem and came back with a little bit of soil from Golgotha.  For centuries people wanted to be buried there because of the Holy Dirt.  In the mid 1800s and artist took all the bones from the centuries and decorated the church with them.  It is a little macabre, but when the kids heard about it, they just had to come.  I am uploading photos to higham.smugmug.com as I write this, so if anyone wants to see a chandelier made of every bone from the human body, it is just a click away.  http://higham.smugmug.com/Travel/76311 While we are on the subject of bone chilling subjects, Auschwitz is 60 km away from Krakow.  I have heard it gives adults nightmares, but it history and we are not going to shun it.  We will be going in the next day or so. Katrina is 2 weeks in to her 6 week sentenced of a full cast.  We found a water park in Krakow that has rock climbing that rises from the edge of the pool so you can climb up and then jump and or fall in to the water.  We couldn‚t even bring ourselves to tell Katrina about it. Jordan is sad to have a sister that can no longer bounce and pounce and play hard. Through thick and thin, we are still dedicating an hour and a half every day for homework.  Katrina is a good student.  Jordan is full of energy. September and I are still speaking to each other, no small feat considering I can be every bit as energetic as Jordan, but we are no longer cycling everyday.  This coming Tuesday I turn 45, which the kids remind me is half of 90.  They enjoy finding gray hair on my head.  I enjoy telling them they are the root cause of it turning gray. At the moment Krakow is suffering a heat wave.  I feel like the Wicked Witch of the East when Dorothy douses her with water toward the end of the movie „I melting, melting, mel.....ting.....‰ I think that about sums up our week.  I hope everyone back home is just as grooovy as we are.  Thanks to all who write.  I like to hear about your lives, and like to reminded that the world continues on without us.