29 September 2023 Poland

 

29 September 2023       Poland

After enjoying Octoberfest, we are taking a week to visit Poland.  We will be visiting Warsaw, Poland’s capital, and Krakow, Poland’s center for arts and culture.  In the morning we flew from Munich to Warsaw to begin our visit.

Polish history began with the migration of the Slavs into what is now Poland during the Middle Ages, establishing the first permanent settlements in this area.  They arrived in the latter half of the 5^th century AD, replacing the nomadic Germanic tribes that had fled from the Huns.  Poland was ruled by several dynasties, beginning with the Piast Dynasty during the 10^th century.  Its first ruler, Duke Mieszko I is generally thought to have established the Polish state and ordered the adoption of Western Christianity.  The last Piast king, Casmiri III the Great (1333-1370) was the most successful of all the Piast kings, leading his citizens into a period of economic prosperity and doubling the size of his kingdom.  Without a male heir, the kingdom passed to the Jagiellonian Dynasty after Casmiri’s death.  This dynasty saw the continued territorial expansion, a cultural renaissance, and the establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569.  This resulted in Poland becoming the largest state in Europe and perhaps the continent’s most powerful nation.  Its constitution, written in 1791, is the oldest in Europe.

However, this united Poland was not to last very long.  Beginning in the late 1700s, Poland became a ping-pong ball, bouncing between other dynasties and countries.  Invaded by the Swedes, this was followed by an invasion of the Ottoman Empire.  Then, in the late 1700s, came what is known as the Partitions of Poland where the Polish territory was divided up among the Russians, Austrians (Hapsburgs) and Prussia – the first European country to meet such a fate.  Following WWI, Poland again became an independent republic, but was overrun by the Germans and Russians during WWII.  Following WWII, Poland became a satellite Russian state until it became an independent nation again in 1989.  In 2004 it joined the European Union.

WWII was devastating for most of Poland.  When the Nazis invaded, they killed 3,000,000 Polish Jews and about 2,770,000 non-Jewish Polish citizens.  Many cities, including Warsaw, saw extensive damage due to Allied and Nazi bombings.  Only Krakow escaped this destruction.  However, the strong will and spirit of the Polish citizens has resulted in the restoration of Warsaw (and other cities) to its pre-war beauty.

We will begin our Polish journey in Warsaw and then travel to Krakow.