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Post by kaima on Dec 3, 2012 22:47:59 GMT -7
I caught Rick Steves in Poland today on PBS television, and thought the program was quite good. He avoided all of the historical and stereotypical falsehoods I have come to expect in many travel writings on Poland. This episode was entitled Charismatic KrakówTravel to Kraków, Poland with Rick's advice on the best sights to see, including the medieval city center, Wieliczka Salt Mine, a day trip to Auschwitz, and much more. The full article is at www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/east/krakow-poland.htmTo locate a video I had to google rick steves krakow, and happily came up with these two links. and this on hulu www.hulu.com/watch/90684which is titled Rick Steves' Europe Poland Rediscovered: Krakow, Auschwitz and Warsaw
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Post by Jaga on Dec 3, 2012 23:39:16 GMT -7
I saw parts of Rick Stevens in Poland some time ago. Just yesterday or two days ago we saw parts of Rick Stevens in Czech Republic! He was in Bochemia and taking a bath in a healthy mud. Then they were showing Weltawa....
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Post by Jaga on Dec 3, 2012 23:40:06 GMT -7
Kai,
how is it possible that you have not been in Krakow yet?
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Post by kaima on Dec 4, 2012 0:11:28 GMT -7
Kai, how is it possible that you have not been in Krakow yet? That is a darned good question, Jaga. I was thinking about some other things I have done in life, and I am happy about what I did do, and do wonder at some things that I did not do that were quite possible. Getting to Krakow is one of those things that I must wonder: why haven't I been there? It sure would be nice if all Poles spoke Slovak! Kai
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Post by pieter on Dec 4, 2012 5:24:50 GMT -7
Jaga,
Emotional and in the sense of bloodlines (familiy) I feel connected to Poznan and Warsaw, but the most beautiful city I saw was Krakow. I really felt at home there. My (Varsovian) mother told me Krakow is the most beautiful Polish city (in her eyes), it is the old Polish capital, and qua architecture, culture, art, sciences, literature, poetry, theatre, music very interesting. It has one of the oldest European universities. And I was amazed how big that University was qua students in 2004. I read back than then that 126.000 of the 800.000 Krakovians were university students of the The Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagielloński). Krakow has the multi-layered essence Poznan and Warsaw doesn't have. The old Polish romanesque and typical Polish Gothic buildings, castles, churches and cathedral, the Italian Renaissance element (Italian artist and architects worked for Polish kings), the Austiran-Hungarian Habsburg element (of the Austrian occupation period), and the classicism and Jugendstil of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the modernism of pre-war Poland and communist Poland. I was amazed when we entered the city that we saw modern business district area's with exellent infrastructure, car parks, research institutes, McKinsey & Company and Ernst & Young and Deutsche Bank like companies. Back then (ridiculous but true) it was the first time since 1987 that I was back in Poland (16 1/2 years) I was surprised how much Poland had changed. Krakow was modern in it's shops, public transport, horeca (quite international with Italian and French restaurants and Irish pubs next to Polish restaurants and bars), museums and infrastructure. I loved the park Planty, the river banks of the Wisla (with romantic Polish couples walking by or sitting next to the river and girls -sisters- collecting flowers and putting flowers in their hair), the National Museum, Bunkier and ofcourse Wawel castle with the wonderful church. I was early spring (April) the weather was good, and so was my company (of Dutch, Dutch-Polish [like me] and German/Polish-German [Germans with Polish parents who were billingual like Jaga, and connected to Poland] art students) of our Art student (large bus) tour. (I visited three cities with this art academy bustour art week trips: Prague [1994], Budapest [1995], Krakow [2004]: during these art weeks we visited the art academies of Prague, Budapest and Krakow. We met with Czech, Hungarian and Polish art students, visited their various departments and saw several disciplines. Sculpture, traditional oil painting, acrylic painting, model [nude and dressed], the graphical department, and the way they worked. Their way of education and thus educating. And they were interested and curious for these Western-European art students [of whom to their surprise many had Polish roots]. The Krakow art academy was a large old fashionate [beautiful] classicist building with large rooms with beautiful light.). In Krakow due to A Dutch-Polish art student, who spoke both Dutch (he is Dutch with two Polish parents) and perfect Polish (ofcourse he is Dutch like I am, only he has two Polish parents and I only one. So both his parents speek Polish at home) we were introduced into non-touristic, authentic, original Polish places, like real Polish traditional restaurants and bars and Polish student clubs (with music, cabaret and a Polish version of disco -dancing-) and the actually really good Polish jazz pubs in basements. (The sound of these bands was equal to professional jazz bands from New York, New Orleans or Chicago; the country of jazz itself.)
We had a wonderful time in Krakow. I made new friends with some people of the bustrip I did not know. And every now and then when I meet them or suddenly bump into one of them, this brings sweet memories of Krakow back.
Kai, Krakow is a wonderful, romantic, vibrant, civilized, pluralistic city which has attractive things for any kind of people. And ofcourse it has the benefit that it lays near to Slowakia.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Dec 4, 2012 5:39:08 GMT -7
Kai, how is it possible that you have not been in Krakow yet? That is a darned good question, Jaga. I was thinking about some other things I have done in life, and I am happy about what I did do, and do wonder at some things that I did not do that were quite possible. Getting to Krakow is one of those things that I must wonder: why haven't I been there? It sure would be nice if all Poles spoke Slovak! Kai Kai, In the ninetees I spoke with the old mother of a Hungarian friend from Amsterdam (a woman), who stayed in her apartment. She was very interested when I told about my partly Central-European (Polish) background. I found out that she was actually not ethnic Hungarian, but Slovakian. She told me that her family came from an area near Poland, where a lot of Polish travellers or merchants came. She was positive about the Polish people she met and told me that the Slavic culture of the Poles was very near to the Slavic culture of the Slovaks. Like with the Czechs the Slovakian language is ofcourse different than the Polish language, but there are simular words and there is a kinship. I don't know if it is like with German and Dutch. Even when you haven't learned German as a child or adult, you can to some degree understand German, because the kinship. And with you slav roots will feel at home in Krakow, like I felt at home in Prague, due to my Polish roots. I hope you will have the chance to visit the city some time. Cheers, Pieter P.S.- My mother told me that to Poles the Czech language sounds a little bit childish, with a lot of 'little' words, like a gnome language. (This is the same way old fashionate Flemish sounds to Northern-Dutch people, a little bit archaic). I don't want to offend the Czechs by the way, because I love Bohemia, Prague, and admire the Czechs for their culture, their independance, their economical achievements (Skoda and etc.) and pleasent lifestile. I don't know Slowakia by the way. I have never been there. So I don't know what the differences or simluarities are between the Czech republic and Slowakia?
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Post by kaima on Dec 4, 2012 11:09:15 GMT -7
Pieter,
Yes, everything I have heard and experienced fits well with your descriptions. My mother was born and raised in America, so learned the Slovak of the 1890's when her mother was growing up in south eastern Slovakia, near today's Hungary. When we visited Slovakia together in 1982 she had an easier time speaking with Poles than with Czechs, and it was interesting to see a cousin's face when he realized she spoke domestic Slovak fluently but lacked the words for modern technology.
Yes, in the northern area where my father's family comes from on the Polish border the languages are a bit blended from the hundreds of years of life and commerce. Today the area (just east of the Tatras, south of Krakow) is populated with Gorals ans Rusyns along with the majority Slovaks. Poles are surely there as well, but many have joined the mixture of peoples, adapted new identities - assimilated, presumably. The Poles settled the area along with the other peoples; who came when, and who adapted which modern identity is ... speculative. Germans and Jews were there for a long time, but that largely came to an end at WW II. There is still a very substantial Gypsy population in Eastern Slovakia. Hungarians were few in the 1800's, and they were late to arrive. I laugh at maps of early Hungary showing Hungary extending to the modern Polish border in year 1100 or 1200; the Hungarians arrived historically around 896, but the border area was an 'unoccupied' area for centuries after. Poles were settling southerly, Rusyns westerly, and no one can firmly determine the extent or identity of the 'native' population at that time. The border with Poland was still disputed at least until 1400.
This summer when I was in rural Poland for a few days the local woman running the Agrar Touristika could understand very, very little of my Slovak, but I ascribe that to her isolation in the country and particularly to my heavy foreign accent and poor command. There is a talent to speaking and a talent to listening as well! I have difficulty understanding Polish as well, but that certainly is my personal problem, first in hearing (I can separate the words in hearing Slovak and Czech, then it is a matter of knowing the words. Polish is more of a challenge). Slovak I find smooth and melodious, perhaps truly a Mother language for me. Czech harsher and rat-a-tat-tat to me, with no warmth. Polish is a warm language but with so many szch and sh and soft endings that I am not accustomed to, with my limited experience.
People always give their own language positive descriptives, and Slovaks often claim to the the middle Slavic language, and others claim it is the closest to Old Slavonic (the Rusyns sometimes claim the same).
Now I face the personal quandary of needing to study and practice Slovak, but I have a wish to get into the beautiful area from Krakow and southeast of there! I would happily short-change time in Germany but my God Daughter is getting married next summer and I must interrupt my Slovakia time to participate. So after school is completed I anticipate rushing west, then rushing back to use what I studied and try to drive it home in my head.
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Post by pieter on Dec 4, 2012 16:26:51 GMT -7
Kai,
I read your reply with great interest and learned something from it. I know little about that region, accept from Krakow. I can explain it. In the European context I am really a product of an Urban agglomeration, towns and city. My parents and grandparents were city people (Rotterdam, Warsaw), and I was raised in a town that was part of an Urban agglomeration. In my youth in Zeeland I knew about my Peninsula a little bit, but lived, went to school and worked in the two towns of that an Urban agglomeration. After that I moved to Amsterdam to study and live there. From Amsterdam I studied one year in The Hague (living in Amsterdam and studying in The Hague) and after that I moved to the city Arnhem, where I stil live (from 1992 until now). In the town where I grew up I was import, because I was born elsewhere (Apeldoorn, Gelderland, Januari 21, 1970). When I was three months my parents moved to Vlissingen (Flushing in American English, Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York, is named after Vlissingen), so in Vlissingen I was import, with a city family background, in Amsterdam I was import and in Arnhem I am import too. That is what we call in the Netherlands people who come from another part of the country (and often this are not countryboys or girls, but city people). In Vlissingen, Walcheren, Zeeland, I was not aware of the other Islands of the Province, and did not know the names of many villages and parts of the Walcheren Peninsula where I lived on. In Amsterdam I did not know the environment very well, the surrounding towns, villages and an Urban agglomerations around Amsterdam. If people would ask me I wouldn't know what lies exactly North of Amsterdam, and in the South, West or East. I was focussed on the centre and the neighburhood where I lived. Knew and know the city very well. The same with the Hague, I know the city, but not South-Holland, the province the city is lying in. In Arnhem for a long time I did not know the environment, the surrounding towns and villages. Due to my jobs I learned to know that environment for the first time, because I had to write about it or do interviews (radio) that crossed the city border.
So in Poland I know Poznan, Warsaw and Krakow, but not the country, not the towns and villages around it. I know that as a boy we went to the countryside, to a lovely lake district, to the family vacation house South of Warsaw in the tiny village Wielga, and to the mountains South of Poznan (probably near the Czechoslovakian border of that time). But I never was aware where that excactly was, what kind of local people were there and if they were different from other people (in Poznan or Warsaw for instance). Later you think of these things, about cultural differances, ethnic diversity, linguistic differances and different people.
I agree with your description of Polish, but can't judge about Slovak and Czech, because I heard Slovak to little (seldom) to be able to have a judgement about that language and the possible differene with Czech. I tried to learn Polish in the ninetees, took a serious language course, learned words, verbs, sentances, grammer and orthography. But it was to difficult for me, because I had not basis in Polish, no reference point. I had to start from nothing. Ofcourse my mother tried to learn us Polsh as a kid, but there was to little time back then to focus on that. There was the Dutch education and my parents had to work hard. I had a Dutch centric upbringing unfortunately, and therefor grew up with one language, Dutch. English and German became my two foreign languages. I know french a little bit, but am not able to have a serious conversation in French.
Again Kai, Krakow is worthwhile for a visit, because it has something to offer from historical perspective, culture, art and tourism. Krakow has an atmosphere which is attractive, a little bit melancholic (or nostalgic), romantic, old (medieval, renaissance, baroc, classicist), welcoming (you feel welcome overthere), relaxed, cosy and fine. It is less large and fast like Warsaw and less commercial and technological than Poznan. It is a city where the right ballance or mix of old and new exists.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Dec 5, 2012 16:33:31 GMT -7
Yes, in the northern area where my father's family comes from on the Polish border the languages are a bit blended from the hundreds of years of life and commerce. Kai, excactly the same situation exists on the German-Dutch border and the Dutch-Belgian border with Flanders. On both sides of the Dutch border people speak the same low saxon dialect for instance. And I have heard several times from Dutch people that some Germans on the other side spoke Dutch. In the same time many Eastern-Dutch are oriented on Germany and thus speak German, because they are used to go shopping, go out and have holidays in Germany. Dutch people love to visit Germany and buy things there which they don't find in the Netherlands or which are less expensive over the border. In the Dutch-Flemish border region, you have Dutch area's where Flemish is spoken or Brabant or Limburg dialects which are close to the Flemish Brabant and Limburg dialects. The Southern-Dutch are close to Flanders (Dutch speaking Belgium). In Dutch Limburg which has borders with both Belgium and Germany there is a heavy border dialect which is more German than Dutch in sound, grammer and speaking, it is called Kerkraads in Dutch and Kirchröadsj in the Kerkraads (Limburgian) dialect ( Karkraods in the low saxon dialect). The dialect is spoken in the Dutch town Kerkrade and the German town Herzogenrath. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandic_Flandersde.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeuws_Vlaanderenen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandicpl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialekt_zelandzkide.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeländisch
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Post by pieter on Dec 5, 2012 16:36:50 GMT -7
Dutch regional and local languages and dialects which aren't Dutch:
This woman speaks a heavy West-Flemish dialect which is very different from the general Dutch which is spoken in the Netherlands
It is a little bit more than the Polish, Rusyn, Goral and Slovak languages you talked about in the Polish-Slovak border region, but there are simularities. It shows that there are languages and dialects between languages and languages or viarieties within a language.
The Netherlands, Flanders and the Afrikaanse speaking part of South-Africa has an enormous variety and pluriformity in languages (regional languages) and dialects (often a sort of city or local languages).
(The Czech flag in this youtube is wrong!)
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