Fifteen people met in Krakow to start on a PolishOrigins / Polish Genealogical Society of America Galicia Tour September 22 – October 3, 2019. Reflecting Galicia’s complex history, some ancestors identified as Polish, others as Ukrainian. The group included a mix of people at the start of their genealogy quest as well as others filling in some missing details. Below are short summaries of our 12 day trip experience which we share to encourage others to follow in our path.
When my cousin Andrzej e-mailed me and asked if I would like to accompany him to his goddaughter’s wedding in Poland, I accepted immediately. What could be better than traveling with a native son, who spoke the language and knew the relatives? I soon found out.
Ss. Simon and Jude Thaddeus Church, the 17th Century church in Dobra-Limanowa where my great grandparents were married in 1883.
We took a short ride to another section of Krakow to see the Ethnographic Museum which presented the everyday life style of the Polish people. Now, you may be thinking ?How many museums could we be interested in?? Each museum had a different presentation of homes, clothing, tools, occupations, etc. and was set up to keep you interested in each aspect.
Traditional clothes from Podhale region in Ethnographic museum in Kraków.
After breakfast we headed to the Salt Mines. Lots of stairs going down, but the views are worth it. Don’t worry there is an elevator that takes you back to the ground level. Zenon dropped us off to go shopping in Old Town after which we walked back to the hotel to rest.
Today we head for Krakow. We didn’t have to get up too early, but we had a full day. There was a Folk Festival this weekend just outside of the city so we headed on over there.
Great breakfast. The morning meal changes each day so it was always something we looked forward to. Today we went to Dunajec Castle. This was a large castle partly surrounded by a beautiful lake. It was very well reconstructed with a lot of the rooms containing furniture.
This was a fairly new hotel, with balconies in all rooms, overlooking the mountains. The restaurant downstairs was surrounded with windows which afforded us a wonderful feeling each morning.
Today we were off before 8 am and heading to Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains. We had to be packed because we were going to be staying in a new hotel.
On our way we visited Carpathian Troy, an archeological site dating back to 2000 BC. We started with a short movie and then our guide took us through the large site detailing everything we saw.
Nobility day. We left the hotel before 9am and headed to Lancut Castle. We arrived to find a large three story building beautifully decorated, wonderful grounds, a solarium and a carriage house.
My sisters and I met for breakfast and were joined by Zenon for our next day of adventures. We took off to see the Open Air Ethnographic Museum. This was our first experience in seeing how our ancestors lived. It showed the types of homes (from different eras) people lived in, stores, schools and churches they would have utilized. Zenon arranged for a guide who took us around the entire area and explained what we were seeing as well as answering all our endless questions.
