Poland Trip: Krakow

This was supposed to be our Divine Mercy day and a little bit of Krakow too.  Our friends wanted to go to the shrine of St. JP II, but it ended up not fitting in our day because, well, with thirteen kids and six adults (on mom had to stay in the hotel with two sick kids) it just takes a long time to do anything.

Just a beautiful church we passed by on our walk to the castle.

We first got up and walked about 25-30 minutes to the castle and met up with all our friends.  It took the men a long time to get tickets and be ready to actually go into the museums, treasuries, and the church.  The kids ran around and played with their friends and again, I hardly heard a word of complaint.  The tour had an audioguide which Bobby liked.  I enjoyed the cathedral and the museum/castle tour where the architecture was beautiful as well as the paintings, but the treasury and armory were not my thing.  In one room, the ceiling had a bunch of head statues looking down at us.  I guess many of them had not survived the time, but there were still a good number.  I just wondered how they "didn't make it."  Did they just crash to the ground?  Could the ceiling just start raining heads one day on unsuspecting visitors to the museum? 

Because of traveling with such a large group, we took entirely too much time to do the castle and it was then past normal lunchtime.  We decided to all find our own quick food for lunch near the main square and then meet up at a coffee shop for some delicious Polish hot chocolate.  I had a coffee with a chocolate spoon instead, because my dear, sweet Bob was having nightmares and waking up a lot every night.  The kids' hot chocolate was delicious though, thick and more like drinking melted chocolate than a chocolate milk based drink.  So good!

This is the point when we realized that the St. JP II shrine was not going to happen in order to make it to the Divine Mercy church before it closed.  We went straight to the train station and took a train there.  We went to look in the larger (more modern) church first.

The celebrant's chair at the Divine Mercy Cathedral

The larger church with a copy of the Divine Mercy image.

Most of our group, but not all

And then the smaller, more beautiful church with the original image of Divine mercy.  We were about 15 minutes before time for Mass and some of us went to confession afterwards.  Right as we got situated on our pew, Drew had to go to the bathroom.  You know, soooo bad, riiiight now kind of deal.  So I took him out and looked for a bathroom which took us quite far.  We made it just in time for Mass to actually start, only to realize that while I was away Bobby had filled his diaper with a smelly one.  Too smelly to wait until after Mass.  I gathered my things, but wasn't about to walk all the way back to the bathrooms.  I was going to change him outside.  This was probably a stupid plan because it was really cold outside and windy.  I wrapped him up in my coat and started to walk outside when a nun stopped me and gestured for me to sit inside with the baby.  I think she thought I was taking him out for being disruptive.  I showed her the diaper.  She led me through a locked door to the side and into the secret nun place and gave me a tiny room telling me to hurry.  I changed his diaper, but then had to find an acceptable place to put it.  A lady was cleaning in the opposite direction of the door that I was supposed to go back through to return to Mass, so I motioned to her to ask if she had a trash.  The nun came back and kind of panicked that I was walking away from where I was supposed to be and took the diaper from me.  She escorted me back to Mass.  How fun, Bobby, you've had your diaper changed in some pretty cool places, huh?  Does this beat next to Charlemagne's throne though?  That is the question.

Aaah, this is how it's supposed to be!

The original image...no flash allowed!

After that we were all so refreshed and we trained back to Krakow and went to a restaurant that Godfather had been to before and recommended for families and big groups.  They serve family style and we got some big meat and vegetable plates.  Other than a couple of weird meats, like liver, heart, and blood sausage, the rest were delicious.

Our two meat plates are visible here, but you really have to look.  The one in the foreground is easy to spot.  The other one is behind the beer and to your left a bit on an elevated wooden board with a skewer leaning on it.

We just barely missed hearing the trumpeter of Krakow (who plays every hour in the main square) every single time he played the whole day.  So I was coaxed and cajoled into hanging out in the square until 11pm when he would play next.  I was tired, but how can you resist that (and a Gluhwein) when you're only in Krakow once...probably.

Waiting for the trumpeter

She had the best time.  Hannah is our worst traveler because she just doesn't want to do any of it, as I've mentioned before, BUT bring along a friend and the world is a brighter place.  She smiles, she laughs, and she doesn't complain.  Night and day difference.  I wish I could have this version of her all the time. 

The next day we drove straight home, leaving at 7:30am and arriving home at 7pm.  We make good time since Brian never lets us stop.  :)  Poor Bob doesn't even get to get out of his carseat unless he needs a diaper change.  You'd think he'd catch on and potty train himself so he could get out and go with everyone to the bathroom and stretch his legs.