Wrocław and the little people

Cześć! (Hello! You say chesh-ch. mash the sh and ch together, and spit a little). We are in Wrocław (you say vro-tswav), about 3 hours south of Poznań and 3 hours west of Dresden. Here's a map (I wish we could travel by map, a la muppets). You'll see that I've marked some things for you (like you can't find things on your own) to show where we've been and where we're going next.

Wrocław is a wonderful city, with a massive town square (second only to Krakòw), and lots and lots of bridges spanning rivers and canals. It's history, like the rest of Poland's, is a story of changing nations, destruction and rebuilding. First established in 990 as part of Poland, it was eventually part of Bohemia, Prussia, and the German Empire. Napoleon even captured the city once. And now is in Poland again. After WWII, there was a great effort to rebuild Wrocław, though some of the Polish higher-ups arranged to have as many as 200,000 bricks a day sent from Wrocław to help rebuild Warsaw. And! The Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen) was born here - then called Breslau.
Some shots of the Rynek, just a few steps from our hotel:

We visited Wrocław University today, where the main building (nice baroque feature built by the Jesuits) sports an unbelievable ceremonial hall and a nice observation tower. The 51st parallel runs through the building as well. The university has graduated 9 winners of the Nobel prize since the 20th century, and has about 40,000 students.

The ceremonial hall:

Kristin, recently (formally) promoted to full professor, has requested that CP570 (her office suite at CSUF) be redone as a ceremonial hall. She'll need a portrait like this outside her office. And a scepter, I expect.

Then from the observation tower:

Ostrow Tumski, or cathedral island, is not far from the university, featuring a giant cathedral that was destroyed and rebuilt a couple of times....and an elevator to the viewing platform. There's a charming, round Polish man who looks like Jonathan Winters that will handle the elevator for you.

This is a giant market building where you can buy food, flowers, undergarments, luggage, have shoes repaired, make copies, etc.

And, there are gnomes. Little metal ones. They started as a somewhat satirical statement about the communist efforts to control public spaces, and are now quite the tourist attraction. Here are just a few. Madeline can show you her map of various gnome locations around the city.

And, a couple of portraits of my travel companions. The first, an outright eye-roll for daddy.

Tomorrow, we drive to Dresden and start using euros. Ouch! We much prefer the exchange rate for Złoty.