Destination Poland by Eirin Thompson

Jean and I decided it was time we were off on another adventure . . .

JEAN and I had decided to go away on a proper holiday at least once a year. By this we meant leaving the British Isles and trying something different.

“Peggy Armstrong told me that once you hit your eighties, the cost of travel insurance sky rockets,” Jean informed me.

Even though I didn’t know if this was true, I thought it was a good incentive to keep us going on new adventures now.

We were sitting in the waiting area at the health centre one day, having arrived a little early for Jean’s podiatry appointment, chatting about the possibility of Paris.

Niko, the nice young man who worked as a translator for patients, interrupted.

“I couldn’t help overhearing you considering your holiday options,” he said.

“Have you ever thought about Poland?”

Jean loves it when people take an interest in her, especially young, handsome men like Niko.

“That’s an idea!” she replied immediately. “Tell us more. Where do you come from exactly? Is it very beautiful?”

“I was born in Warsaw,” Niko explained. “But I was going to suggest Krakow.

“It’s pretty, has lots of history, is easy to reach and is well set up for tourists.”

“But is it pricey?” Jean asked.

“I’d say not,” Niko answered. “You could find a small apartment very reasonably, and eating out is fairly cheap, especially if you leave the main square.”

“Sounds perfect!” Jean exclaimed.

I was intrigued, too. I’d never been to that part of Europe, so it would definitely qualify as an adventure.

Our apartment was in a grand older building up a small courtyard. Though it had high ceilings and tall windows, the décor was contemporary and it had all mod-cons.

We tossed a coin to decide who got which bedroom.

Jean, who called heads, chose the double and I took the twin.

“Do you want a lie-down before we go out?” I asked.

“Only if you do. It was a short flight and I can’t wait to have a look around.”

“Fine with me. I thought the first thing we should do is find somewhere we can buy milk, bread and coffee,” I suggested.

“Sure. Let’s go and explore.”

We found a supermarket on the next block and put a few basics in a basket.

“I can’t see anything that looks like decaff coffee, though,” Jean remarked.

Jean had to be careful what she consumed, after too much coffee had precipitated a tachycardia episode last year, scaring the wits out of both of us.

“Ah, I know!” she suggested.

She began typing “decaffeinated coffee” into Google Translate on her phone, then presented it to a cashier.

The cashier smiled with understanding, but indicated that they didn’t stock such a product.

“I suppose it’ll just have to be wine, then,” Jean said, not sounding remotely put out, pointing to the bottles of white behind the counter.

We dropped our purchases back at the apartment, then decided that the next thing to do was find a tourist office where we could pick up a map of the city and get some ideas about things to do and places to see.

Crossing the road turned out to be a little more of a challenge than we were used to, for as well as the usual motor cars, there were silent trams to look out for and little electric buggies that crept up stealthily.

Successfully across, we found ourselves in a broad strip of green parkland that stretched as far as the eye could see.

A footpath ran the full length of it, though pedestrians were joined by people whizzing along on Segways and electric scooters.

“Isn’t this lovely?” Jean observed. “So leafy and lush on a hot day. Why don’t we just sit here and watch the world go by for a bit?”

I agreed, but a few yards away I could see a sign denoting a tourist office, so we decided to pop in and pick up our map so that we could get our bearings while we rested.

“This park is called the Planty, from what I can see,” I informed Jean. “And it seems to enclose the centre of Krakow in a sort of horseshoe shape.”

“How very civilised,” Jean declared. “I do like an urban park.”

“Looking at this map,” I continued, following my finger with my eyes, “I think we’ve got ourselves an apartment in an extremely good location.

“If I’m reading this correctly, we’re just a stone’s throw from the main tourist square.”

Of course, once Jean got hold of this information, all ideas of lingering in the Planty were forgotten as she was immediately impatient to see what lay ahead.

We walked up a narrow street lined with bars and cafés, bustling with people of all ages.

We passed an eaterie that boldly declared in its window that it served the best dumplings in Poland.

Then we made one more turn up an even busier street and

stopped in amazement.

After the narrowness of the cobbled streets, here was a huge, open square.

We would later overhear a tour guide tell his group that, at over nine acres, it was one of the largest mediaeval town squares in Europe.

“Talk about the wow factor,” Jean murmured, taking in the vast market hall, the fountains and flamboyant horses and carriages lined up ready for tourists.

The entire square was edged by tables under parasols, where food and drink were served.

“I think we could do with getting out of the sun for a bit,” I said. “Why don’t we sit down and get ourselves that decaff coffee?” “Sounds perfect.” From our spot under a large orange parasol, we observed the families and young couples who were clearly here on holiday.

We heard Italian spoken, plus Spanish and German, as well as other languages we couldn’t identify.

“Have you noticed how beautiful the young waitresses are?” Jean asked me in what she imagined was a whisper. “They could all be models.”

“Perhaps they don’t want to be models,” I pointed out.

“Perhaps they’re working their way through uni so they can be surgeons or nuclear physicists or captains of industry.”

Jean tutted as though I had deliberately misunderstood her.

Just then we saw a small crowd gathered round the foot of a tall building nearby. They were all looking up.

“Keep watching and listen,” a waiter beside us said.

To our surprise, a trumpet appeared at a high window and began to sound.

“It’s the St Mary’s trumpet call. The melody will be played to north, then south, east and west,” our helpful waiter told us.

“This happens every hour. It has been so for hundreds of years.

“Legend has it that it began as an instruction to open and close the city gates, but then became a message to the people of Krakow that no marauders were in sight and they were safe.

“The melody is dear to the hearts of all the people of Poland.”

When the performance

I’m not quite sure what we expected, but it wasn’t this

concluded, we spread out our tourist leaflets on the table.

We agreed we’d like to go to an evening concert of music by Chopin, because of his strong association with Poland.

And everyone to whom we’d mentioned our trip had said we must see the salt mines.

But there was somewhere else we were contemplating, too.

It wasn’t a tourist attraction, although it was of great historical gravity, yet there were numerous companies around the city centre offering transport and guided tours.

It was Auschwitz, the notorious concentration camp.

I’m not quite sure what we expected, but it wasn’t this. At least not this initial impression.

I’d only ever seen black and white footage of the place, yet here, on a warm summer’s day, with blue skies and bright sunshine, the camp looked almost pretty.

Perhaps it was halfway decent-looking because it had originally been Polish army barracks, before what it eventually became.

It was laid out along little avenues lined with trees.

But it was the strangest thing – we didn’t hear a single bird.

We saw the very basic dormitories, where many slept in a single bunk.

We saw the yard where those who transgressed were lined up and shot.

Despite the warmth of the sun, it was chilling.

One museum exhibit was a room full of shoes – hundreds of them, piled high and deep, stretching back and back.

A woman’s blue leather shoe with a modest heel, chosen because it was stylish, I dared say, but comfortable enough to walk in.

A little girl’s pink canvas summer bootee, with a bobble fastener.

“Oh, Maureen. A baby’s shoe.” Jean sighed.

When we were driven the short distance to a sister camp, Birkenau, the day grew even grimmer.

This flat, barren place was exactly what we’d seen on television footage.

Here, the dark, lowceilinged dormitories had been built for only one purpose, and we were encouraged to picture the hundreds of people who were stacked in the rough bunks, three deep.

“They were freezing in winter, but in summer it was even worse, and no matter how hot and airless it grew in there, they couldn’t open the windows,” our guide explained.

On the minibus back to Krakow, no-one spoke.

Later that night, I turned to Jean.

“Do you wish we hadn’t gone? Did it spoil your holiday?”

“No,” Jean admitted. “It’s a terrible place, but it’s right that it be preserved.

“Who was Churchill quoting when he said, ‘Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “But surely we’ll never see the like of that again.”

“You always think the best of people, Maureen. If you ask me, everyone should see what we’ve seen.

“It’s one thing knowing the history – it’s quite another to see it with your own eyes.”

And, of course, she was right.

We had one last day before flying home, and we ambled around the city centre.

We each bought a pair of earrings in the market hall and a decorative tile depicting the city’s mediaeval buildings.

“I’ve been promising myself those ‘world’s best dumplings’ ever since we got here,” Jean reminded me. “So that’s lunch sorted.”

We reflected on what a fine adventure Krakow had been, though not without its challenges.

It had been quite a climb in the hot sun to reach the palace on the hill, and there had been literally hundreds of steps to descend to reach the salt mines. But it had all been worth it.

“Just like it’s worth it to remember to treat every single person you encounter with respect,” Jean remarked.

“I know you’ve heard me complaining about all the extra patients at the health centre these days, with names I can’t spell and can’t pronounce.

“I have to stop that. We’re all human, with the same lumps and bumps and aches and pains.”

“OK,” I replied. “If it weren’t for those new people, we wouldn’t have met Niko, and we wouldn’t have had this holiday.

“Isn’t it funny how everything joins up?”

“The world’s meant to be joined up, isn’t it?” Jean asked thoughtfully.

“People and places, history. It’s when we fail to make connections that we run into all kinds of trouble.”

“‘Only connect,’” I mused, thinking of the E.M. Forster epigraph at the conclusion of “Howards End”.

“Oh, the BBC2 show with Victoria Coren Mitchell? I like that, even though I can never get any of the answers.”

“Yes, Jean. That’s what I meant.” ■