Wroclaw, Poland

Mike and I had a lot of fun (and trouble) trying to say the name of this Polish town.  In Polish, the 'W' sounds like a 'V' and the 'C' sounds like an 'S' so the town we were pronouncing roe-claw was really "Vro-slav."  You learn something new every day.

We spent two days in Wroclaw and had the same sentiments as we did about Poznan.  That was basically our sentiment about Poland in general.  Nice, but nothing too exciting.  The most exciting thing about Wroclaw is the gnomes! They're everywhere!  Gnomes are apparently huge in Polish history and culture.  The gnome became the mascot of the anti-communist movement in Wroclaw and the anti-communist group would go around painting graffiti gnomes everywhere in protest of censorship in public space.  They stuck around and now there are over 300 little gnome statues all around the city.  It was a great way to see the city and do some gnome hunting.  I'm sure kids would have loved this activity, but we definitely got a lot of enjoyment out of it, too!

Me in gnome form. Map in hand.  Camera around neck. The ultimate tourist.  

This one's for you JP!

We found about 35 gnomes over the course of our two days, but there were tons more out there.  They even have an app that lets you know the locations of all of them.  Other than the gnomes, we felt the same sentiments about Wroclaw as we did about the rest of Poland.  We ventured out to the UNESCO sight and it was nothing.  It looked like a big building with no historical or cultural significance.  Wroclaw was a beautiful little town with not a lot to do. We spent a couple of days walking around before bidding farewell and heading back to Berlin.