Our trip has finally come to the day I had planned around for many months.  We were meeting our driver and going outside of Krakow to Rudy Rysie.  Josef Zurek had left his home and village of Rudy Rysie in probably late 1912 or early 1913 to make the journey to America.

The family stories are that he was poaching deer in the local woods.  He wasn’t caught red-handed, but they knew it was him.  He had made a gun illegally and was hunting.  Joe told his mother good-bye and left the village for Krakow.  From there, he made his way to Bergen, Germany and boarded a boat for New York.  He arrived in New York in August of 1913.  His final destination was Chicago where he made his life.  He died in 1949.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve collected information for Joe Zurek through my efforts to map out Rich’s family.  I had several pieces of information showing his home village as Rudy Rysie.  This location matched up with the family stories.  When I had this information confirmed, I asked Rich if it was time to go and see this village.  This year’s Zurek Family Vacation was planned for Germany and Poland.

Today, we made the journey out to Rudy Rysie.  We came down to breakfast to find one of the drivers waiting for us.  We had not expected him until 10:00 and it was only 9:00.  He explained he was having car trouble anyway and would have another driver pick us up for the trip.

At 10:00, David met us outside of the hotel.  He was a young student working his way through college.  We walked around the corner to the van he was driving.  We talked about Krakow, our purpose for the trip today, and how college was different in Poland from the U.S.  David is completing his last year at the university for a Master’s in Finance.

I don’t think he was too sure about what we had planned for our journey.  I explained how I saw the village on Google maps.  I planned to go out to the cemetery at the end of the village first to look for the Zurek name and just to walk around.  Then I wanted to go by the church in case there was someone there we could talk to about the village.

The trip was only 45 minutes outside of Krakow to the west.  It went by pretty quickly.  There was construction as we entered the town and couldn’t stop for the sign to get our picture.  I directed David to the cemetery first.  He was a little worried about walking around and finding anything.

We started sweeping the grounds and found 5 or 6 Zureks buried there.  Most of them were of Joe’s generation or later.  Rich did find a grave for Marjanna Zurek who died on 22 Jan 1922.  The age would possibly be correct for our Marjanna.  We took pictures and David translated the grave stone to read Rest in Peace.  It was amazing that there would even be a stone here for her.  We wondered if Joe knew she had died and managed to pay for a simple marker.

David drove us out of town to the north where we found one of the other town signs.  We got out and took our pictures under it.  This was just to prove we had been there.  I felt like we were putting our feet on the same ground that Joe and his mother had walked in the village.

We drove back to the church and parked in front of a wooden structure.  David translated the sign for us.  This was the site of the original wooden church that had been constructed in the 1600s, but had burnt down in 1978 after being struck by lightning.  This answered one of my questions then.  I wondered where the original church had stood.  This gave us another location where we could stand and know Joe had probably been.

No one was at the church and it was locked.  David looked up the number for the rectory, but the phone only rang and rang.  After some discussion of what to ask, David knocked on the rectory door.  An older lady came to the door and talked with David.  She was the current priest’s mother.  She helped around the rectory.  Unfortunately, the priest was at the school teaching and would not be back until after 3:00.

David had asked her if there were any other Zureks in town.  She only knew of a lady in her 70s.  I assume Zurek was her married name and she probably didn’t have much history for her husband’s family.  We had seen a Josef Zurek in the graveyard that would fit the age group and was probably the lady’s husband.  The mother was not from the town and didn’t know much of its history.

The priest’s mother attempted to talk to Rich in Polish, but Rich didn’t understand her.  David explained that we didn’t speak Polish.  She seemed a little sad about that.  David thanked her for all of the information and we went back to the van.

At that point, there wasn’t much left to see in town.  The corner store was closed or I would stopped to talk to someone about the town.  I wanted to drive by the fish ponds on the edge of town just to see them.  It turned out to be private property and set up high so you could see them easily.

With that, we decided our visit was over.  It was time to head back to Krakow.  David was a wonderful translator and helped us by providing details that he knew on small town life and Polish habits.  It was the type of help I had hoped for from the car service.

Back in Krakow, the traffic was pretty heavy and it took a bit to get back to the hotel.  Once there, I got my picture taken with David so I’d have a record of the young man who helped us on this leg of our journey.  I think he was a little bit shy about doing that.  I tipped him for helping and I think he was happy with that.

Now that we were in town, it was time to eat lunch.  It was 1:00 and I hadn’t eaten since 9:00.  We wondered down St Florian Street looking at the menus for each restaurant.  The first one was too American for what we wanted.  Finally, we talked to one of the barkers dressed in a military outfit and viewed the menu.  It had Zurek soup and pierogi, which is what we wanted.  He led us into an alley and down a flight of stairs to a vault under the street.  This was beginning to be very familiar.

Once inside, a waiter led us to a table.  The place was small with brick walls as part of a vault.  Once we ordered, the waiter explained that we were sitting in what was once the stable for the horses of the guard at the Florian Gate.  The level of the street at that time was down this far.  He took us into another room further back in the restaurant.  This room was directly under the current street and would have the street level in 980 AD.  How cool is that?

We got our soup, which was so delicious.  We shared a plate of mixed pierogi, which were boiled and then butter with bacon had been drizzled over the top of them.  It was the best way to serve the pierogis.  I’m not going to fry mine anymore.  This was so delicious.

The waiter talked to us about our journey out to Rudy Rysie.  He explained that he had a couple from Chicago in earlier in the day.  The man’s father had come from the same village as the waiter’s grandfather.  The waiter had called his grandfather, who remembered the man in question.  It is a small world sometimes.

We finished our lunch and we headed back up to the street to explore the town some more.  We went out the Florian Gate and paste the Barbican with is moat clearly marked.  Across the busy street, there was a monument for the Battle of Grunewald in 1410.  This commemorated the battle between the joint Polish and Lithuanian armies and the German Teutonic knights.  It was massive.

There was a model showing where the statue was in relationship to other structures in the local streets.  We saw that another market existed on the next street over.  We decided to explore that market and see how it differed from the main square.  It was simply amazing.

From the outside, it appeared to be a set of poor shacks.  Once inside, you were in a maze of color and smells. There were butchers, grocers, and lots of produce of all kinds.  It was an open air market under one big tent.  We walked up and down the aisles looking and smelling.  It was so amazing.

We were so tired at this point.  The decision was that we were low on caffeine and we headed to a little coffee shop we saw in the Planty.  It was sitting out in the path.  We went in and sat down.  The lady running the shop came out and took our order.  She asked if we wanted black or white.  That’s with or without cream.  The kawa came out and it was delicious.  We watched people with their dogs.  There was a beagle with a large flag.  A small Yorkie came into the area and I was allowed to pet it.

The path on the Planty is always full.  There are students who seem to be hurrying off to classes.  We see several of them with instrument cases strapped to their backs.  We assume they are headed to a music class or rehearsal.  There are people on bicycles or roller blades, people pushing baby carriages or strollers, and even people pushing suitcases leaving or heading to a hotel within the old city.

After sitting and talking for a while, we decide to walk back to the hotel.  We find the lady and pay our bill.  As we walk back through the Florian Gate, Rich tells me to get a picture of the three men in traditional Polish dress and playing music inside the gate  As I do that,  Rich drops money into their basket.  There is a trumpet, accordion, and a percussion player.

We walk past the hotel and around the corner.  We decide to look for the restaurant that Pawel was telling us about with the traditional Highlander foods.  We know that it is down St. Thomas Street, but it looks like it is in an alley.  When we get to the spot where the map says to turn, we discover we are in another smaller square.

We find Morskie Oko on the square.  There are some huge metal sculptures of clowns on wheels in the square along with a very nice fountain that uses colored lights.  We find out later this is St. Stephan’s Square.  We walk back up to the main square and wind our way back to the hotel.

I’m tired and think about taking a nap.  But if I lay down now, I might just sleep through the evening.  Marcin contacts us about dinner.  We agree to meet at Morskie Oko at 6:00 for dinner that evening.  Rich and I can walk there.  Hopefully, Marcin and Aneta can find a parking space.  Cracow is always so busy down here.

At 5:30, we leave to walk to the hotel.  It really only takes 5 minutes to get back to the square.  We sit outside to wait for time to get closer.  Everyone around us is eating ice cream, or lody.  I have to say that ice cream is a really big thing with the Cracovians.  There are two or three places on each block to buy lody.

About 5 minutes until 6, we go into the restaurant to get a table.  To sit inside we have to walk all the way up to the top floor.  The rest of the restaurant has been reserved.  Up here, there are three tables available.  We pick out one table and wait for them to arrive.  Rich gets a text from Marcin that traffic is bad and they will be about 15 minutes late.  About 20 minutes later, Aneta appears to let us know that they are having trouble finding a place to park.  Because we are so high up, we see a little yellow convertible go by on the street.  Rich guesses that Marcin drop his latest toy today.

About 10 minutes later, they are back and join us for dinner.  Most of us order potato pancakes and goulash.  Rich has veal medallions with mushrooms.  Rich also has to try their version of Zurek soup served in a rye bread bowl.  He says it’s not the best he’s had on this trip, but he would still eat it.

We talk and work our way through dinner.  Marcin starts bringing up pictures of places and things on his phone to show us what to expect in Zakopane.  He talks about the cheese ladies and all the wonderful things in the local market.  He tells us about walking in the tunnel under the road to get to the local market and not just the tourist shopping streets.  We continue to talk about what to do and see when we are in Zakopane.  It’s nice to have some idea of what we should do before we get there.

Pretty soon, it’s time to leave the restaurant and find out that it has rained since we entered.  We turn to go back toward the main square when Marcin stops and goes into the Alkohole store.  This is the name of the liquor store.  He is trying to make sure if he can buy a specific liquor before he comes back to the States in October.

We head down St. Thomas to one of the cross streets and make our way to the main square.  We walk around the square as Marcin and Aneta tell us things we didn’t know.  We walk down Grodeska so that we can go over to the street where John Paul II stayed in Krakow.  There is a picture in the window where he would say good night to the crowds.  He would joke with them that he was old and needed to sleep, but he would continue to talk to the crowd.

We walked back toward Grodeska and beyond to a smaller church that was open.  There was a youth mass in progress.  We went in to look at the beautiful sanctuary.  Back out on the street, we went by the American embassy, restaurants, and a smaller local market.  Near the corner, there was a pub with a sign over the door that literally said, “Pub on this street on the left side”.  That was the name of the pub.  I thought it was kind of catchy.

We walked on around until we got to the place where Marcin had parked his little yellow toy of a convertible.  It was really nice looking.  The lines were very clean.  I was kidding with Aneta about driving the car.  She had driven it and said it was a lot of fun.

We walked back to our hotel to show Aneta and Marcin where we had been staying.  The room was small, but we really only needed it for sleeping.  It served us well for the price and location.  Downstairs, I said good-bye to them.  Marcin would be in Schaumburg in October.  I really hoped Aneta would be able to join him there also.

Boy, was I tired.  I still had blogs and pictures to post.  I worked on this until about 11:30 when I just couldn’t take anymore.  Time to call it quits and hit the pillowcase.