Castles, Cake, and Open Road

I guess we didn't spend enough time in Krakow, but that's my fault because I did no research before we left. There is so much to do there and there are so many restaurants wafting delicious smells, and I especially would like to visit the pharmacy museum and the stained glass workshop (where you make your own small piece of stained glass). So we'll just have to come back. One thing we did do was walk the grounds of Wawel Castle, built by Casimir III the great and dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries (though the hill has been settled since the Paleolithic era); it was transformed into a Renaissance palace in the 1500s. The castle is comprised of a number of architectural styles now, but most importantly it's lovely. Also lovely is eating regional specialities, like the below rose glazed donut filled with rose jam. Floral and sweet, about half of the jam ended up down my purse when I took a big bite. Krakow is also very fond of its pigeon p...

Thanks to jet lag and a surprisingly early sunrise, I popped out of bed at 4:30 a.m. ready to go. (I'm a delight to travel with.) So, after a quick breakfast we were out the door for adventures. Out of order adventures, since I have once again uploaded the pictures totally without regard to sequence.     A wooden church from 1904 near a castle.   The tower pictured up to the right is Ojcow Castle, one of the castles on the Trail of the Eagle's Nest, which is a 101 mile stretch in Poland with 25 castles in various states of ruin. The castles protected the southern border of Poland, and this one was built in the second half of the fourteenth century. The tower is really all there is, but at $1.20 to get in I guess I can't complain too much (though my calves were screaming from the climb up there).   More impressive was Ogrodzieniec Castle, built in the 14th to 15th centuries and located high on a hill. It's rumored to be haunted by a black dog...

This blog entry is going to move backwards, because I uploaded my pictures in the wrong order...and I am too lazy to drag them all into the right order. So, starting with dessert our first night in Krakow! We're staying at the Sheraton right across from Wawel Castle (which we will visit tomorrow), and it's chockfull of Americans attending a variety of conventions. If I got sent to Krakow for a convention, maybe I would like my job a little better? No, probably not. Anyway, I had an orange crème meringue and an ambassador cake, which was a layer of cream and a layer of chocolate, topped by coconut. They were good, though I remain dismayed that they basically just sit in the glass case until someone eats them (for days so far). Before dessert, we went walking around the city after dinner and found the statue of the Wawel dragon, below the castle. According to legend, the dragon had a lair in the cave under the castle in the 13th statue and demanded weekly cows so ...