roaming the streets, part 1

this is the view from outside our hotel

we bought a really cool bird whistle from this gentlemen. you place water inside and it makes the sound of a real bird chirping.

many places in poland are covered in paper ads.

kfc, subway, and mcdonald's are seen throughout poland as well. 

even in a place as historical as this one.

this is another store seen quite often.

poland is known for their amber. you see it sold many places. 

this was my oldest daughter's request for a souvenir. she wanted some earrings.

as i mentioned in an earlier post, we had just taken the kids to see jurassic park the weekend prior before our trip, and i told chad that the amber reminds me of the stone that the mosquito was in. it wasn't but a few minutes later, we came across this display.

you could purchase a piece of amber with a mosquito in it, but they were very expensive. 

our youngest daughter would have loved it!

as you will see in more pictures, there were street performers everywhere.

probably 9 out of 10 women were wearing scarves during my stay in poland.

if you know me then you know my love affair with scarves!

they had shops like this one everywhere and they were always busy.

mustaches are even a craze in poland.

 we came across some really beautiful doors.

i took this picture for a friend of mine whose daughter's name is summer.

she was turning 1 that week and we were missing her first birthday.

the father's family is from poland and we were on the hunt to find his last name, 

but surprisingly came across this window display instead.

this is the beautiful church of st mary. the facade of this church has for centuries stood as the symbol of polish architecture.

every hour a man would play his horn out the windows of this church.

he would face every direction and play a beautiful melody.

 

 

the building to your right is cloth hall. this beautiful renaissance building replaced an earlier gothic market hall. the upper floor houses part of the national museum. we would discover shops lined up at the bottom floor later in our stay.

there were beautiful flowers everywhere you looked. 

this was a beautiful day inspiring the people that spring was finally on its way!

flower shops were clustered throughout the market.

these willows grow wild in many places.

tulips and lilies were stunning!

they even had a large selection of faux flowers for sale.

these wreaths were so sweet.

this monument is a memorial to adam mickiewicz, poland's national poet. it is located outside the cloth hall in the main market square right down from our hotel.

these dragon puppets were very popular.

it was common to see people holding signs in the direction of their restaurant.

there were many beads for sale.

we kept seeing dragons with graduation hats on.

carriage rides we happening all day long. their clip clop sounds heard as a warning to move out of the way.

this guy walked around entertaining guests with pictures and theatrics.

i think he is dressed like cavalry men of europe, called hussars.

their greatest victory was against the turks at the battle of vienna (1683)

they decided the outcome of many battles.

i don't know the history behind this woman's story, but she was completely covered in silver. i'm sure she was replicating a famous statue of some kind.

this woman reminded us of the wizard of oz. 

she was very tall and we saw her take many pictures with people.

this guy was frozen.

we watched as someone put money in his jar and he came to life.

i guess he was a business man on the go or something.

 

there were many people riding bikes along the street. 

you could never hear them come up behind you, but you better be ready to move to the side if they do.

their chains surrounding certain buildings were gigantic!

we visited many shops that sold handmade things.

this store was pretty unique.

they had many special gifts for sale.

they even had samples to try.

this was one of my favorite centerpieces i saw on the outside tables.

they had fresh flowers in tea pots.

this was a really cool wall mural.

they had so many beautiful window displays to peek in.

pretzel carts were very common and found on every street corner.

birds, of course, were also found at every street corner and fountain around.

chad was also weary every time we walked near a building afraid he would get bombed again.