Parthemores in Poland

We will return to our regularly scheduled blogging about the Norway Cruise later. 

There were twice as many Parthemores in Poland for the past week and a half as we hosted Eric’s parents, Eric and Kay.  When we asked them a few months ago what they would like to do on their visit, they suggested maybe Belgium or Monte Carlo.  Instead, we took them to Lithuania. 

Our first stop was the small city of Reszel in northeastern Poland, where we stayed in the castle hotel.  We heard it described as “long on character, but short on amenities.”  The castle was somewhat restored, but still felt authentic.  There was a beautiful view of the whole valley from the tower and our two bedroom, two bathroom (!) hotel room looked over the courtyard of the castle. 

“Where are the pictures?” you say.  Well, I forgot the memory card.  And when you show up in a tiny Polish village at 7 pm, you are SOL. 

The next morning we stopped at the Wilczy Szaniec (the Wolf’s Lair), which was Hitler’s eastern headquarters and where he spent about 800 days in residence.  Anyone who has seen the movie “Valkyrie” will be familiar with this as the location of the failed assassination attempt.  All of the bunkers have been basically destroyed, but the place is still pretty impressive.  There are huge, thick, concrete buildings just sitting in the middle of some fairly dense forest.  (Note that we have pictures…guess what the gift kiosk sold.) 

Onward to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.  I had not printed out any phrases in Lithuanian (like I usually do) since I figured it was a Slavic language and I could kind of figure it out.  Wrong!  Not Slavic.  Not Germanic.  Not a romance language.  It reminded me of Hungarian in the sense that it looks completely crazy.  And that the young people all spoke perfect English. 

But I would at least like to be able to say thank you.  Here it is:  AH-choo.  Seriously.  I had a hard time saying it for fear that people would either a) start laughing at me or b) say “bless you.”

We had a nice apartment right on the town hall square, which seemed like a great location.  And for 18 hours of the day, it was.  But between midnight and 6 am, when we were trying to sleep, the Lithuanians were still out partying.  This came as quite a surprise, since I didn’t realize that Vilnius was such a party town.  Being there on Friday and Saturday night didn’t help.  We did see no less than five bachelor and bachelorette parties.  They were all in some level of costumage:  devil horns for the girls and a variety of get-ups for the guys, to include mouse outfits, nun costumes, and the crew parading around with the “chubby” blow-up doll.  Classic.

Despite our lack of sleep, we had a great time walking around Vilnius.  First on our agenda was a 10-minute hike up a hill to the Gediminas' Tower, the last remaining part of the Upper Castle. 

It was only after we got to the top of the hill that we realized there is a cable car.  Darn.

From the top of the tower, the view includes both Old Town with its baroque and gothic buildings as well as the brand new skyscrapers across the river.  It’s an interesting contrast.   

We went to the National Museum as well as the KGB Museum.  I thought the KGB Museum would be a bunch of spy stuff and things like that.  Turns out it’s really called the Museum of Genocide and contained not only information about the Lithuanian resistance movement during their time as a Socialist Republic, but also the actual prison where the KGB held, tortured, interrogated, and executed people as recently as the late 80s.  Definitely creepy.

Another interesting note about Vilnius...it was actually part of Poland for about 20 years between the World Wars.  Lithuanian and Polish histories intertwine over the past several hundred years, but most recently, following the Polish-Soviet War (immediately after WWI), Poland reclaimed a significant chunk of historically Polish/Lithuanian territory, including Vilnius, from the new Soviet Union.  In the KGB Museum, the English text of a few exhibits referred to “the Polish occupation.”  Many people in Vilnius still speak some Polish.

After Vilnius, we headed to Warsaw.  We saw many of the same things as our trip in April, but we also checked out Łazienki Park, home of the famous Chopin monument. 

There is also a really cool palace there, but unfortunately we were there on the one day it isn’t open.  Darn.

Everyone seemed to love the two peacocks running around the park.  Here’s Kay walking her newest pet:

As a final note, I’ll leave you with something every group of three or more Ohioans must do:  the O-H-I-O.  I’m just glad I’m not forced into participating…