Saturday, June 10, 2023
Today was a day of travel and some sightseeing.
We visited the Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul in Poznań. The Archbishop is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his ordination. There was going to be a mass that was to be broadcast on TV, but we had just enough time to visit. We visited the crypt with the burials of past bishops and archaeological remains of the first three churches that were on site, including the mission of Saint Jordan dating to the beginning of Poland in 966. Soon after, they built a pre-Romanesque church in the 10 Century. In the 12th Century, they built a church in the Romanesque style. The current church was built in the 14th Century in the Gothic style.
We went to two museums on our slow drive to Toruń. The first was the Wielkopolska Ethnographic Park in Lednogóra. A great lunch of szagówki (kluski and sauerkraut – some of the best sauerkraut I have ever had) for Zbigniew and me, potato pancakes and beef stew for Dad.
We then went to the Museum of the First Piasts in Lednice. The Piasts were the first royal dynasty of Poland. The museum has an impressive collection of archaeological artifacts dating from as early as the 10th century. Most (all?) were collected in the museum’s backyard on Ostrów (Island) Lednicki. I was especially impressed with the introductory video showing how some of the recovered artifacts were used alongside their modern equivalents.
Zbigniew and I spent some time at the hotel in Toruń researching archives using Polish databases. Again, prior to this trip, I knew nothing about the Więczkowskis so everything was new. We found some records. This branch of the family is from the Russian Partition, so the records are in Russian, which obviously I can’t read but Zbigniew can. Interestingly, the records give dates according to both the Gregorian calendar (which Poland started using in 1582) and the Julian calendar (which Russia used until 1918)!
We then had dinner at a restaurant named Pierogarnia in Toruń!
About DAY 6 you can read HERE.
Julie