Rambles around Poland (and the Lands Beyond): Cieszyn
Cieszyn is really nothing to write home about. It’s a pretty town, especially the Polish side, and had a nice rynek and a few cool main streets. The boarder crossing is popular with foreigners too lazy to get a visa, who join the masses of Poles and Czechs in boarder hopping although instead of doing it for the shopping, they do it to get their tourist visa extended. Bad, bad, bad. Ilissa and I walked across the boarder, though we spent some time standing in no-man’s land (aka passport control) because we actually had to get stamped. The guards even asked us if we wanted a stamp or not (I wasn’t stamped into or out of the Czech Republic on my Christmas Break Adventure), and Ilissa of course wanted one. We got the really old-school, pre-EU stamps and continued on our merry way. Cesky Tezin is drab and ugly, attributes I tend to associate with the Czech Republic because of my attachment to Poland. There wasn’t much to see, so we sat in the square and talked for a bit before going back to Poland. We met back up with Luke and Emma and hiked up to see the Jewish cemetery. It was an absolute overgrown mess, with tombstones scattered around broken or toppled. It looked like someone had tried to at least account for the stones, because we saw a few that had been numbered, but the place is in complete disrepair. A gutted building that looks like a small synagogue stands guard over the cemetery, but it also in ruins, with holes in the wall and broken windows. A plaque in Polish and Czech commemorates the community and a group of men executed (or something) there in 1944. It was a rather depressing way to end our visit.