St. Elizabeth's, Wrocław, Poland

 

 St. Elizabeth's Church

I missed this church on my first visit to Wrocław in 2009, so I made it a priority on my second stay. I climbed the lung-taxing tower, and surveyed the view from on high, in April 2015. Consider that your złotys to get in admit you to a tight spiral of hundreds of small stairs, with no real landings. So if you have any physical condition precluding exertion, avoid this activity.

 I surveyed the view from above for some time, looking down to the city where some of my ancestors resided, noting the shores of the Odra and the scallops of the town square.  A woman wrote her name on the sheet metal protecting the tower's top. I heard some German spoken.

 

A view from the tower

 On the street in Wrocław

Photos by JF, April, 2015

Busker Du?

 

Buskers in Wrocław, Poland. I gave them a few złotys, as I did with the man playing a guitar and singing "Yellow Submarine" in Ostrów Tumski.
 

Wrocław Days

 Sculpture group by Jerzy Kalina.

Wrocław Market Square

Breslau the Wrocław

Jahrhunderthalle, Breslau 1937

 

 

 

link:  Jahrhunderthalle

Cathedral Island, Wrocław

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is no longer an island: Ostrów Tumski.  The time when I was there, a flautist played Bach as I walked the Tumski Bridge.  The notes faded into the bricks and stonework of the ancient fanes and houses.

 

The postcard looks to date from communist- era Poland, maybe 1950s or 60s.  The language, not surprisingly, is Polish, and the sender appeared to have forgotten to bring the recipient's address. 

Wyspa Tumska is an alternate form of Ostrów Tumski -- Dominsel in German, or Cathedral Island in English.

 



Breslau 1937

 

 

"Wroclaw not Breslau" doesn't have quite the same ring as "Istanbul not Constantinople."