I might well be posting photos of random artefacts from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens for many more days yet, there was much to see.
Anyway, this is a hippo dating back to 3,000BC, made from granite and found in a temple at Abydos in Egypt. It’s apparently a particularly rare find given the large size of the hippo. I imagine that creating this would have taken many hours of chipping away at granite, but it still seems to be in reasonable condition even given its great age.
This seems a retrograde step to me, it’s the Polish Government’s plan to bring Sunday trading to an end in 2020, other than for a limited number of businesses. There’s a compromise arrangement in 2019 where Sunday trading is allowed on the last Sunday of each month, meaning that shopping centres and the like have to produce these reminders of when they’re allowed to open.
This large sculpture, located in the National Archaeological Museum, of a horse and young jockey is made from bronze and dates to around 140BC. Strangely, the statue likely only survived as it was on board a ship that went aground off Cape Artemision in Greece, otherwise it might have been melted down. It’s not known who the creator was, but it’s thought it might have been dedicated to the Gods as thanks for the horse winning a race.
Known as the Jockey of Artemision, the sculpture is carefully crafted and has plenty of detail, particularly on the faces of the jockey. The sculpture wasn’t found in one piece and was instead brought up from the sea floor over a period of 11 years. Only in 1972, nearly fifty years after the sculpture was initially discovered, were the pieces all put back together again.
When I went to Krakow a couple of years ago I visited Płaszów concentration camp and meant to come to the neighbouring quarry where Schlinder’s List was filmed. However, the rain became torrential and made a visit down to the quarry rather less appealing. On my latest visit to Krakow, it seemed an appropriate time to go and explore the site.
Liban Quarry has three periods of use, the first was when it was used as a limestone quarry, the second when it was used as a labour camp by the Nazis and the third when it was used as a film set by Steven Spielberg when he directed Schindler’s List.
The above photo is of the mining equipment from that first period of the site’s use. The quarry was established by Bernard Liban, hence where it got its name from.
A view from the base of the quarry.
The site is bigger than it looks from above when exploring it from the ground, making it easy to get just a little lost. There isn’t much obvious evidence of when the site was used as a labour camp, although it’s hard to establish what is original and what has been created during the making of the film. It’s also difficult to ascertain what exactly took place in this part of the site during the Second World War, as it’s not part of the main concentration camp, but does appear to be a site where individuals were required to work.
This road of smashed up Jewish gravestones isn’t real and is from the film.
Two close-ups of the recreated road.
This is also from the film and is a recreated paid of barriers with electric fences.
A close-up of the film prop.
This is a fascinating site and although the film set sections are fake it’s still a sobering scene, especially as one of the largest concentration camps in the area borders this quarry. It was easier than I expected to get down to the quarry (I’ll put that on my list of things to write about in the future) and it was a larger scale site than I had been expecting.
I keep saying that I won’t use Flixbus again, but I’ve decided that I think I might. They’re so bad that their incompetence is proving to be quite amusing and I rather like the challenge of guessing where their bus might leave from. The element of jeopardy makes for a much more exciting wait for the bus.
Actually, to be fair, the initial instructions in the bus station say to go to stops G14 or G15. This isn’t really difficult at Krakow, as the Flixbus stops are all together. However, obviously they’re not actually going from the stop they say they will, it was instead going from G16. This isn’t a problem, it’s the next stop along and is clearly signed.
Anyway, who needs that level of certainty? Of course the driver decides he’ll leave from another random platform where there are precisely no other passengers waiting. Fortunately he drives by the correct stop so that everyone can see they’re waiting in the wrong place, I consider that quite thoughtful to be honest. In Katowice the bus driver didn’t do that, he just parked in the wrong place and was quite subtle about it.
One thing I quite like about Flixbus is that most of their buses seem to be empty, which is primarily probably because most of their passengers are still likely standing at the platform or are actively trying to find the bloody bus. I think I’ll use Flixbus again, it’ll give me more to blog about.
Located in the National Archaeological Museum, this is the funerary stela (or tablet) of Amenemhet.
And this one, which is more colourful than the photo suggests, is a funerary stela with a representation of Khenit and her son, Kai.
Neither of these are dated, but both are likely from the Middle Kingdom, so at some point between 1975 BC and 1640 BC.
Located in the National Archaeological Museum, this is a wooden funerary model of a ship and its crew. It dates to somewhere between 2040BC and 1640BC and was a grave good to help ensure that the soul was able to travel on a pilgrimage to the city of Abydos.
This museum within Athens airport was a useful distraction whilst trying to kill time and it’s open for nearly all of the day, is unstaffed and is free of charge to enter.
It’s a well-laid out museum and it contains items found when the airport was being constructed. There’s also some background provided about the local area and how it has developed over the centuries.
A bread stamp, used to imprint designs into bread, from the mid-Byzantine period.
A sphinx from Spata.
Dating from the early Byzantine period, this is part of a beehive. However, it was later repurposed to be used as a cover for a child’s grave.
This marble decorative piece would have been used at a grave and it dates from around the end of the fifth century BC.
A small marble gravestone marker, dating to the Roman period.
Intriguing, this is a landmark from a mortgaged field which gives the name of its owner and also its value. It dates to the fourth century BC.
I know that a few airports in the United States have small museums such as this, and a few others around the world, but it’s a shame that more don’t have something similar. British Airways have a wonderful museum at Waterside, which is only semi-open to the general public, but I’m not sure that there’s anything at nearby Heathrow Airport.
My experiences of Flixbus last year weren’t great to say the least, but I decided to give them one more chance. This is using the logic that an intra-Poland trip might be run along the lines of Polskibus (now subsumed by Flixbus), which used to be fantastic.
The booking process with Flixbus is actually very good, it’s easy to book and my fare was under £3, so that’s entirely reasonable for the journey from Katowice and Krakow. There’s also excellent tracking, so some significant money has been spent on the infra-structure.
There are more positives, the driver on the bus was polite and welcoming, the bus was clean and comfortable, and it’s clear that money has been invested in this too.
However, I find the service entirely unusable. Above is a photo of the bus stop that my ticket says it departs from, bus stop 9. It didn’t, it went from another part of the bus station. The tracking system saved this situation for me as I could see on the app where the bus was, but it didn’t save the trip for others. The bus sailed off leaving some passengers behind (I only realised this when it was too late to stop the driver) at the location it should have done.
It’s fair to say, solely judging on my experiences, they’ve definitely ruined Polskibus. Such a shame.
There are two branches of this coffee shop in Katowice, this is the location at ulica Wawelska 1. Service was excellent and it was a really friendly place, clean and comfortable, although it was nearly empty when I visited. The array of cakes in the display were very tempting, all well presented and it looked like they’d just been put out.
It was too early for cake, but I accidentally ordered the Banoffee pie anyway, and it was excellent. Chocolate on the top, toffee at the base and the latte was at the appropriate temperature and had a depth of taste to it. And they managed some pretty latte art on the top of it as well, something that I’m sure I could never master.
The prices were reasonable, around £3 for the coffee and cake, which is entirely acceptable given the quality of the cake. Poland really can do coffee shops as well as anyone else….
