DAY 4 - Lodz

Mariona's visit was a great opportunity for me to visit the places in my city I've never visited before, or I visited many years ago. That motivated me to read about these places and know them better, so few more visits of foreigners and I will be a very good guide :)

The Faculty of Management
The University Library

The Faculty of Geographical Sciences
Inside The Great Theatre
Street Market :D

Poznanski's Palace

Inside the palace

Backyard of the palace

Manufaktura - the greatest shopping mall in Poland, situated in the revitalised textile factory.

Manufaktura - there are not only shops, but hotel, cinema, restaurants, pubs and clubs, sport centers. In the middle there is huge square, when the weather is nice, it's great place to hang out.
Inside the mall

The special "trams" are running, as the market in manufaktura is very vast. Some prefer not to walk to much :)
Mariona laughing at our fake palm trees :)
We ate polish dumplings - Pierogi in a restaurant which specializes in making pierogi. Cooks can be watched during their work.

Later on we watched the exhibition "Earth from above", pictures made by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.



standing on our countries :)

Below - photos from the main street in Lodz, called Piotrkowska (during occupation the street was called Adolf Hittler's Street, and the city was called Litzmanstaadt).

Maria and Me sitting with the Fathers of Lodz :)
The peculiarity of Piotrkowska Street - rickshaws :)

Yes, that's what was some time ago in our Mc Donalds - to go to the toilette you had to be a client of fast food.. quite funny :)

The pianist Artur Rubinstein's Passage - and his monument.

One of the pubs
Famous Writer, Julian Tuwim's Bench - to touch his nose is lucky, no wonder why his nose is golden :)
B-boys, performing on Schiller's Passage.
Mariona with W. Reymont - another famous writer from Lodz.

Old, legendary Fiat 126 p ! :D
Another sculpture..

The Philharmonic

To BE CONTINUED

DAY 3 - Auschwitz and Lodz

We couldn't believe that everything went ok and we were on time with everything.

In Auschwitz we took a guide and travelled around the camp with a group of tourists from different countries.

It was the first visit for me, although I always wanted to go there. It was really shocking, especially when I red many books with reminiscences and stories of people who survived this hell...

The death camp consists of two parts - Auschwitz and Birkenau, which is 3 km far from Auschwitz. We spent there only few minutes, otherwise we wouldn't make it on a train to Lodz.

Not much to say - it's all about to see, how people could harm other people in very brutal way. Unbelievable :(

"Arbeit macht frei" - the work sets free. The death camp is full of cynical sentences...

barbed wires were everywhere
even double...
Those who managed somehow to overcome this barrier was shot down immediately by SSmen.

Crematorium (up). Corpses of dead people were burnt and often used as a fertilizer on the fields...
CAUTION - High Tension

STOP !

In Birkenau the internal railway was built, where massively Jewish and polish people were arriving. They were either killed immediately or taken to the sheds, as a labour.

The plan of Birkenau - from dozens of buildings, only chimneys remained, the rest was burned by germnans, just before the Red Army was to arrive.

The shed inside, originally built to store aabout 50 german horses, was a room for 400 people.
"history provides opportunity to learn, however this is the lesson that never need be taught"

The beds
cynical: "Tidiness is healthy", just one of many sentences written on the wood.

Neverending rows of sheds...
The entrance to Birkenau ^
the territory of birkenau ^

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The train turned out to have an hour delay, and the weather was becoming worse and worse. In the end, we got to Lodz, sitting in the corridor in the train because of the lack of free seats. We had fun though.

Mariona brought a lot of spanish specialities from home, the best gift I could get :) mniam mniam :)

In the evening, really late (about 00:30) we went to a pub, being quite tired.