“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” St. John Paul II
After yesterday’s Auschwitz post I think I need to cheer up my blog a little bit. I know it was a lot to take in and read if you were able to sit down and read the whole post, so for today I want to share a happier moment in our vacation spent in Poland. We actually visited this town on our way back from Auschwitz. Keep scrolling to also see the inside of the church, it was so beautiful.
Wadowice is located in southern Poland about 30 miles away from Kraków. The city/town is smaller, however what I love about Polish towns is a lot of them have a main square and it’s always so beautifully done. The reason why we went to Wadowice is because this is where our previous Pope and now St. John Paul II was born and lived. Polish people are extremely proud of our previous Pope. We were proud that he was Polish and proud of what he had done. When you visit Poland don’t be surprised if you see pictures of St. John Paul II in a lot of buildings. As I said we are extremely proud. If you look in the above picture the big white building is a church. Another thing you will notice is Poland takes great pride in their churches. You can be driving through a small town in the country side and 9 times out of 10 their church will be beautiful. Since more than 90% of Polish people are Catholic, this is why. Now, do you see the smaller building to the right? That is where St. John Paul II lived as a child. Of course it was an apartment, but they turned this building into a museum. Unfortunately the fiance and I were not able to go inside because by the time we got there tickets to go inside were sold out for the rest of the day, but at least we could see it from the outside, and at least we were able to go into the church.
Do you see the Kia parked in the basically the first spot? That was our parking spot. When we got there I actually wasn’t sure if we could park there so I saw a Police Officer walking and I asked him if it was ok that we park there because I just couldn’t believe how close we got. Usually parking in the cities of Poland can be tricky. We lucked on for this trip though!
This is the museum and childhood home for St. John Paul II.
Then we decided that we were starving because we didn’t eat much while we were visiting Auschwitz. I honestly didn’t have much of an appetite once we got our break in between Auschwitz 1 and 2 so by the time we got in the car and started driving to Wadowice, I was ready to eat by the time we got here. The above and a few of the below pictures are from the place we went to. The fiance and I thought the architecture of the building was beautiful because this is all wood. It’s crazy with the craftsmanship that is invested into some of these buildings.
This wall was really cool, it was actually 3D. So cool!
Naleśniki! These are one of Joey’s favorite things to eat and I also love them. They’re basically a crepe. So so so good.
Since the fiance fell in love with lattes this was the view at almost every meal haha!
I wish this is something they had more of here in America. I know that it exists mostly in NYC or major cities, but smaller towns need something like this too. The restaurants branch out to being outdoors too, and it’s just such a pretty atmosphere. Yes, sitting outside can sometimes be annoying, but the atmosphere is so much better.
We walked into a Tmobile store because we wanted to get better cards for our phones and there’s just a random beautiful wrap around staircase in the store itself. I’m not sure if it was there in the building originally and they just built renovated around it or if they added it, but it was so pretty!
Here are some pictures of the main square in Wadowice. It’s just so pretty there and the pictures don’t do this town justice.
The next set of pictures are inside the church that’s located next to where St. John Paul II used to live.
My dad was telling me (I actually didn’t know this) that in the Polish tradition when you participate in something called a pilgrimage you leave your rosary at the church. This wall in the above picture was filled with rosaries. It was absolutely beautiful.
That concludes my post about Wadowice. I wish we could’ve gone into the museum but unfortunately we lucked out. Maybe next time we can reserve our tickets ahead of time.
