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selenakAs I'll have to give a speech today, I thought a few opening words in Polish would be nice and had asked someone to translate them for me so I could practice, but whe I tried them out yesterday on my main contact in Krakow, he looked horrified and declared I sounded like the Pope (the current one, not the last one, whose image is everywhere in this country, btw) which I must not. I could have protested that while me might both be from the German South, he's a Bavarian and I'm a Franconian and so the accent is totally different, but instead I asked for a redraft and some more practice, and so I hope I'll be able to say hello without sounding too papal.
Thursday had a learning theme anyway. You'll see what I mean.
The oldest university college in Poland, the Collegium Maius, is here in Krakow, and the courtyard reminds one of Oxfordian ones. Also, I love my parents.
Looking up from the courtyard, one sees the library door:
Above which the founders of the university and some professors come out to play at 11 o'clock:
The library rooms can be visited, but only on a guided tour. Actually, the rooms they show you aren't really of the library but amazing enough to behold and carry a lot of history. Here's where the professors and administration meet:
The busts are of former famous professors, by the way. Below you'll see something used to place and read opened volumes of books in, turning it as one goes from volume to volume:
And here it is again in front of busts of famous students of the university of Krakow. Their most famous student of all time was Kopernikus. (Aka the bust in red.) They also have Kopernikus' registration as a student in Krakow and his most famous work as a hand-written manuscript, but you're not allowed to take pictures of that one, for understandable reasons.
Here's where the big honchos of the university plus visitors of state still dine. Even the stairs are still in use, despite them being an antiquity.
In the corners of the same room:
In another corner, you see a statue of the founder of the university, King Casimir, who died only ten years before the statue was made, so the sculptor might actually have seen him when alive, which is rare in medieval art.
Something not allowed to photograph but unforgettable anyway: the first globe made in Europe to show America. Sort of. As it actually shows South America and North America as two separated land masses. South America is roughly where it's supposed to be, but the North American land mass is where Australia should be.
The oldest lecture hall:
Which you enter through this entrance (the Latin means "more with reason than with violence"):
and leave through this:
At St. Peter's and Paul's, the scientific theme continues, as you'll see in a moment. First have a look at the outside, though, as it is a beautiful Baroque church:
With a nunnery next door:
The inside contains yet another homage to the city's most famous scholar. Indirectly. As Kopernikus provided the mathemathical proof the Earth rotates five hundred years ago, Foucault provided the mechanical one, and St. Peter's and Paul's contains one of Foucault's Pendulums:
(Foucault's Pendulum: starts out on a straight line, but then due to the forces of Earth rotation ends up drawing a circle.)
The oldest church in Krakow, St. Adalbert's, which started out as a round church made of wood, got an overhaul in Baroque times as happened to a lot of churches, and the result looks like this:
While the Dominicans went for the strictly Gothic (this church burned down in the 19th century and had to be rebuild, but the result looks amazingly authentic):
Later on Thursday afternoon, we made a trip to the countryside, so to speak. About 10 kilometres away from Krakow lie the salt mines, who stretch for 300 kilometres underground, so they swear (though tourists of course are shown only a small percentage). I'm not kidding about the mines of Moria comparison. I mean:
What they're mostly famous for are the sculptures the miners carved out of salt. Here's Kopernikus again (he visited the mines when he was in Krakow):
According to legend, salt was first found when the Ungarian Princess Kunigunde, coming to Poland to marry the king, through her diamond ring down a cliff and said below they'd find a treasure, which they did. Salt was, after all, called the "white gold" in the middle ages. (The guide said that while she might not have thrown a ring, Kunigunde did support the mining via donations, so there is a basis for the legend.) This scene is depicted via salt sculpture as well, of course:
Then there are sculptures depicting the earliest form of "herding" salt from salt stalactites:
More one of Snowwhite's dwarves than Gimli, but:
Something else they make out of salt: all the crystal in this chandelier:
And of course there is a gigantic underground salt church:
There is an older depiction of the Kunigunde-is-handed-back-ring-and-newfound-salt-by-worker scene which is why it's behind glass (with so many tourists breathing in and out, the salt sculptures are decaying). When I took the picture I noticed my reflection as well:
And here's another prominent visitor (who'd have loved the idea of a salt sculputure, as geology was one of Goethe's passions):
And a salt miner bids you farewell for today:
Thursday had a learning theme anyway. You'll see what I mean.
The oldest university college in Poland, the Collegium Maius, is here in Krakow, and the courtyard reminds one of Oxfordian ones. Also, I love my parents.
Looking up from the courtyard, one sees the library door:
Above which the founders of the university and some professors come out to play at 11 o'clock:
The library rooms can be visited, but only on a guided tour. Actually, the rooms they show you aren't really of the library but amazing enough to behold and carry a lot of history. Here's where the professors and administration meet:
The busts are of former famous professors, by the way. Below you'll see something used to place and read opened volumes of books in, turning it as one goes from volume to volume:
And here it is again in front of busts of famous students of the university of Krakow. Their most famous student of all time was Kopernikus. (Aka the bust in red.) They also have Kopernikus' registration as a student in Krakow and his most famous work as a hand-written manuscript, but you're not allowed to take pictures of that one, for understandable reasons.
Here's where the big honchos of the university plus visitors of state still dine. Even the stairs are still in use, despite them being an antiquity.
In the corners of the same room:
In another corner, you see a statue of the founder of the university, King Casimir, who died only ten years before the statue was made, so the sculptor might actually have seen him when alive, which is rare in medieval art.
Something not allowed to photograph but unforgettable anyway: the first globe made in Europe to show America. Sort of. As it actually shows South America and North America as two separated land masses. South America is roughly where it's supposed to be, but the North American land mass is where Australia should be.
The oldest lecture hall:
Which you enter through this entrance (the Latin means "more with reason than with violence"):
and leave through this:
At St. Peter's and Paul's, the scientific theme continues, as you'll see in a moment. First have a look at the outside, though, as it is a beautiful Baroque church:
With a nunnery next door:
The inside contains yet another homage to the city's most famous scholar. Indirectly. As Kopernikus provided the mathemathical proof the Earth rotates five hundred years ago, Foucault provided the mechanical one, and St. Peter's and Paul's contains one of Foucault's Pendulums:
(Foucault's Pendulum: starts out on a straight line, but then due to the forces of Earth rotation ends up drawing a circle.)
The oldest church in Krakow, St. Adalbert's, which started out as a round church made of wood, got an overhaul in Baroque times as happened to a lot of churches, and the result looks like this:
While the Dominicans went for the strictly Gothic (this church burned down in the 19th century and had to be rebuild, but the result looks amazingly authentic):
Later on Thursday afternoon, we made a trip to the countryside, so to speak. About 10 kilometres away from Krakow lie the salt mines, who stretch for 300 kilometres underground, so they swear (though tourists of course are shown only a small percentage). I'm not kidding about the mines of Moria comparison. I mean:
What they're mostly famous for are the sculptures the miners carved out of salt. Here's Kopernikus again (he visited the mines when he was in Krakow):
According to legend, salt was first found when the Ungarian Princess Kunigunde, coming to Poland to marry the king, through her diamond ring down a cliff and said below they'd find a treasure, which they did. Salt was, after all, called the "white gold" in the middle ages. (The guide said that while she might not have thrown a ring, Kunigunde did support the mining via donations, so there is a basis for the legend.) This scene is depicted via salt sculpture as well, of course:
Then there are sculptures depicting the earliest form of "herding" salt from salt stalactites:
More one of Snowwhite's dwarves than Gimli, but:
Something else they make out of salt: all the crystal in this chandelier:
And of course there is a gigantic underground salt church:
There is an older depiction of the Kunigunde-is-handed-back-ring-and-newfound-salt-by-worker scene which is why it's behind glass (with so many tourists breathing in and out, the salt sculptures are decaying). When I took the picture I noticed my reflection as well:
And here's another prominent visitor (who'd have loved the idea of a salt sculputure, as geology was one of Goethe's passions):
And a salt miner bids you farewell for today:
