Clarks in Poland

Zac, Andrea, Damion and Will flew out for a 2 week visit the end of April.
We took them to see dragons...

and castles, the Krakow zoo, Auschwitz.

Ojców National Park


Went to all the playgrounds Evie could find in Krakow, the botanical gardens, walked to the square and fed the pigeons and went on a tour to a farm/horse ranch.


I think everyone's favorite was the farm, it was much more than a tour. We saw horses, a pig, a cow named Matilda, chickens, a rooster that climbed a tree, ducks, cats, dogs, visited with the owners of the farm (there were some English-speaking people there to help out), and went on a hike and took horse and buggy rides.

Hiking at the farm

Had a great home made lunch with the best szarlotka (Polish apple dessert) ever.

Andrea getting the recipe for the szarlotka ...

On a buggy ride at the farm...

Venice, Italy

We are taking every chance we get to visit new (to us) places in Europe while we are living here. Venice was by far the most romantic city we have been to since we've moved here and the architecture---wow, every where you looked there was something to take a picture of.

San Marco Basilica
Burano Island - makers of lace

Bells near our hotel

Clock tower - San Marco square

Gondolas with San Marco square in the background

Our hotel 3749 Ponte Chiodo named after the bridge it is next to.
Rialto Bridge
Wes at Campo Giovanni Paolo (in the yellow coat)

Evie with Santa Maria della Salute in background

Spring is here!

Wawel castle from the Vistula river

Spring has begun to show itself. I have taken these photos in the past few weeks.

The planty around the centrum of Krakow.


Palm Sunday

The above photos is of Polish "palm" branches - since actual palms were not readily available long ago, other means were used to create palm branches from many types of dried and silk flowers.

Polish dancers at a celebration on Palm Sunday

A 2 story high picture of Pope John Paul II was put up a few days before the anniversary of his death. On April 2nd many people honored his life with the memorial candles seen below.

Kopiec Kościuszki

We took a walk to this historic monument of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish and American war hero. There are 3 other similar mounds (though not as famous as this one) around Krakow that we plan on visiting as well.






You can read Tadeusz' story at:
http://www.kopieckosciuszki.pl/
























There are many wooden chapels in Poland, this one is on the way to the mound...

Frankfurt trip

We took a quick trip to Frankfurt last weekend, it was a neat city to see...it reminded us of Seattle a bit other than it was flat. Evie found out her raincoat isn't waterproof, now what's the sense in that?!

They call Frankfurt's skyline a German Manhattan, I didn't take the picture above, we must not have gone to the right place to get this view of the city.

It rained on us a good portion of the weekend (see the above reference we make to Seattle), but it cleared up long enough to get a few pictures with blue skies

Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral was by far our favorite site. This church was built in the 14th and 15th centuries, and it was mostly spared when the city was destroyed during WWII. Frankfurt's "old" buildings were rebuilt in the 1950s.

The Cathedral area after WWII

Frankfurt is a major financial district

Römer - the old town hall and square

From across the river we thought this was riverside cafes, we found out it was really just a flea market with an amazing amount of junk

The city seemed very empty for a Saturday.

We wandered around the suggested tourist routes and ended up here and decided to find a place to eat.

This is the place we decided to try for lunch, looked kinda scary,

but we were getting pretty hungry.

We were relieved to find that inside it was cozy and there
were actually quite a few people there.

On the way out we exited the front door...
and the food was really great - sausages, sour kraut, etc.

Some other cool buildings we saw

We apparently visited on a very controversial weekend. Saturday night there were police dressed in riot gear everywhere. We asked one of them what was going on and she said that that people were demonstrating against the ball that night (people had been throwing rocks and chairs at the police who were guarding the people going into the opera house). The ball is held every year at the opera house and is very expensive and the taxpayers have tired of paying for it. Other than police squadrons marching through the city and police vehicles and a helicopter it was very calm. Wes did see an arrest taking place, but no violence.

There is a Greek verse from one of Homer's Iliads spanned across a walking bridge, saying: "ΠΛΕΩΝ ΕΠΙ ΟΙΝΟΠΑ ΠΟΝΤΟΝ ΕΠ ΑΛΛΟΘΡΟΟΥΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥΣ", which translates into something like 'sailing across wine colored seas towards people of different tongues' - but the banner is not old, it is from one of the museum festivals. It looks cool anyway.

A view across the river