Our Route through POLAND. Covered approx. 2350km with the Toyota Landcruiser and 650km in 2010 on the motorcycles.

August 17, 2012. Our first night in Poland is near Torun, where Mike fries up some Schnitzels.

August 18, 2012. The old town of TORUN. We enter through the Holy Spirit Gate...

...and check out the Crooked Tower with its 1.4m vertical deviation...

...followed by the Holy Spirit Church...

...and the Nicolaus Copernicus Monument, the famous astronomer and born in Torun.

The streets are lined with beautiful restored Baroque facade houses. This is the House under the Star.

The Wilam Horzyca Theatre.

The old market square and the Dambski Palace.

We exit through the Sailors Gate.

As we cross the road a bunch of well restored Polish minis come driving by.

The Swedisch Granary with the gable still intact...

...a large two-wing baroque granary from 1719.

The Bridge Gate. Another one of the 8 Gates of the old walled town.

Torun is also famous for ginger cake...

...a souvenir we could not resist.

Another reason for us to visit Poland was to track down where Ruby's Grandfather came from...

The origin of his name Lipinski, which is the habitational name for someone from Lipnica or Lipienice, led us here.

We found both villages. Ruby's Uncle also had provided the German name Damsdorf (today Niezabyszewo)...

...where Ruby's grandfather grew up prior to moving to Frankfurt.

It was quite exciting to finally arrive at the village...

...and to see the old church...

...our starting point...

...to see if we could find some more information.

We leave the church and drive along the main street lined with old farm houses...

...to the cemetery...

...and wander among the tombstones...

...amazingly there are many with same...

...or similar name shakes...

...it was definitely worthwhile to come here.

With some daylight hours left we continued onwards to see MALBORK.

Malbork is probably one of the best...

...preserved Teutonic Kights Castles in Europe.

It was built between 1398 and 1405.

The main entrance...

...and massive gate.

After first gate and protected walls lies the moat, which can only be crossed over a draw bridge...

...followed by another heavy gated entrance and protected walls.

Lots of the artifacts found during the restoration after the WWII...

...are on display.

Its brick and stone walls and defensive corners.

The flour mill room still displays a pounding machine...

...and grinding machinery...

...in very good condition.

Further artifacts, tombstones from the Teutonic Knight era.

The Golden Gate with its elaborate carvings is...

...the entrance...

...to the Chapel of St. Anne.

The Chapel of St. Anne used to contain the tombs of (11) Grand Masters...

...of the Teutonic Order, however only (3) have survived from the Middle Ages.

The beautiful refectory.

The interior of the Church of St. Mary...

...which has only been partially restored.

Inside the Palace of the Grand Master...

...showing how the rooms were decorated...

...and where the meals were taken...

...and prepared.

An overview of the size of the kitchen and eatery.

One last departing picture from the moat looking at the draw bridge.

Camping virtually right across from the Castle.

This BBQ was definitely a good investment.

August 19, 2012. From Malbork we take...

...scenic country back roads,...

...past Elblag and...

...the great Mazurian Lakes,...

...through little villages...

...more great tree lined roads...

...to Augustow and entered Lithuania on a minor road close to Kaunas.

August 23, 2012. Back in Poland we head for the historic center of WARSAW and Old Town Square.

Warsaw is the captial of Poland.

We enter through the Barbican and City Walls..

...and take a walking tour past historic sites. This is the facade of the Church of St. Martin.

Old town houses, restored after WWII line the streets.

The Gothic style Cathedral of St. John...

...and beside it the Mannerit-Baroque Church of Jesuit.

At the centre of Plac Zamkowy...

...stands the Zygmunt's Column with the Statue of Zygmunt III Vasa.

From the old town we follow the Royal Route...

...the most impressive buildings are along the Krakowskie Przedmiescie.

It also looks particularly beautiful with baskets of flowers everywhere. The Statue of Adam Mickiewicz is the first focal point we reach...

...followed by the Neo-Classical Facade of the Carmelite Church.

The interior of the Baroque Church.

Further along is the Church of Visitation.

Diagonal and opposite stands the Church of the Holy Cross.

The altar of the Church of Holy Cross.

At the southern end of the Krakowskie Przedmiescie is the statue of Nicolaus Copernicus.

On the way back to the old town we had a look inside...

...the Church of St. Anne.

Enroute to Krakow we detour to the small village of ZALIPIE.

We stop at the museum and pick-up another polish souvenir.

What makes this place unique, besides being way off the tourist path...

...is that anything made out of wood is decorated with colorful foral,animal, geometirc and other motifs.

This includes the inside as the outside of the houses/fences.

90km from Krakow, in Tarnow, we set up camp.

At the campsite we enjoy (with Polish Beer) some Borscht...

...and Perogi.

August 24, 2014. We arrive in WIELCZKA early morning...

...and are on the 8:30am 2-hour tour...

...of the famous and very unique salt mine.

By wooden steps we descend 135m into...

...a network of underground galleries...

...and chambers.

The mine opened 700 years ago.

Sculptures carved out of salt are found...

...in several chambers. Salt deposits clearly can be seen.

Old wooden supports hold up the ceiling and prevent cave ins.

Several displays have been set up to show how the mine was operated.

Another sculpture carved out of salt.

Wooden Mining Machines.

Fresh Water supply.

The highly anticipated Chapel of St. Kinga.

The salt carvings are amazing.

Here are just a few pictures...

...of the carvings.

...more sculptures.

Our favourite part are the chandeliers and altarpieces...

...which are also made of salt.

Even the stairs leading out of the Chapel of St Kinga are carved out of salt.

Close up of the chandeliers.

One of the saline lakes.

This wooden structure provides a scale to the size of these chambers.

A salute to the Mine Workers.

Statue of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The Jozef Piesudski Grotto is our last stop before exiting the mine.

Our next stop is the historic centre of CRACOW...

...and the WAWEL.

Walking along the fortification...

...we enter the premises of the Wawel...

...the buildings now house the Cathedral Museum.

At the centre of the fortification is the Gothic Cathedral...

...and adjacend the Wawel Royal Castle...

...with its enclosed courtyard. We also visited the "Lost Wawel" Exhibition.

From the Wawel hill we walk over to the main market square.

Here we are gazing up at the facade of the Jesuit Church of Saint Peter and Paul.

The Cloth Hall stands proudly in the centre of the market square (Rynek Glowny).

The other end of the market square is dominated...

...by the Church of St. Mary.

Inside we find the large sandstone crucifix (15th century sculpture).

This church always had to rival the Royal Cathedral on Wawel Hill.

The Altar of the Virgin is 12m long by 11m high and was carved by Veit Stoss.

Great detail has been shown.

View of the elaborate wall and ceiling paintings.

The pipe organ.

The grand view of the nave, the pulpit to the left and altar at the end.

The huge market square is surrounded by Renaissance...

...and Baroque houses.

SW of Cracow lies the oldest Calvary in Poland...

...called the KALWARIA ZEBRZYDOWSKA.

The calvary consists of 40 chapels,...

...with the Monastery at its center.

To this date it is a major place of pilgrimage.

The main altar in the Sanctuary.

Our last visit of the day is to the Parish Church of St. Erasmus in Barwald Dolny.

We set up camp approx. 230km from Chorzow...

...at the 101 Campsite beside a major overpass.

August 25, 2012. We are on our way back to Germany and enroute stop at the former Century Hall in Wroclaw.

The real highlight of the day is our visit to the Churches of Peace in Swidnica and Jawor.

We first explore the Church of Peace in SWIDNICA.

Both Protestant churches are some of the largest wooden timber framed churches...

...still surviving in the world.

They were built marking the Peace of Westfalia...

...(the end of Thirty Years' War 1618-1648).

The interior is two tiered gallery..

...with paintings and...

...decorated furnishings.

This church was built in 1656-7...

...by Albrecht von Sabisch.

We took a lot of pictures,...

...but the detail of the wood work...

...paintings...

...are truelly mind blowing.

Definitely one of the highlights...

...of Poland in regards to architecture.

The other surviving Church of Peace is JAWOR.

The church seems significant larger than the one in Swidnica.

At a size of 43.5m long x 14m wide and 15.7m high...

...it can hold up to 5500 people.

It was also designed by Albrecht von Saebisch...

...and completed in 1655.

The organ were replaced in 1856.

Georg Fiegel did 200 paintings inside the church.

Yet again the detail is awe inspiring.

The altar by Martin Schneider dates to 1672.

The church is multi-tiered gallery.

As another trip draws to an end,...

...we realize yet again, as so many times, that we only had a glimpse...

...at Poland (covering the main highlights). Another country we would come back to.

We reenter Germany and stay 20km north of Gorliz at the Quitzdorfer See.

Our last night of a perfect trip we celebrate over a bottle of Bordeaux and BBQ'd German Sausage.