October 2, 2014: Day 5 in Krakow

October 2, 2014

Today was a very relaxing day with no travelling and a free afternoon.  We gathered at 10 am to walk to the Jagiellonian Pharmaceutical Museum.  In this museum are displayed old apothecary laboratories, equipment, jars, retorts and alembics, filters, crucibles, presses for extraction of juices and oils, mills, etc. - in other words, all the equipment used to make medicinal substances.  There is a very nice collection of table balances and apothecary vessels made from a variety of materials.  On the walls of the stairways for the five floors of the museum are portraits and diplomas of numerous Polish pharmacists who were awarded honors.  In the attic, is hanging a large collection of medicinal herbs.

We then proceeded to lunch at a nice restaurant (Wesel) on the Rynek square for our main meal today, because this evening we will go to a concert at 20:00.  After lunch, I headed to the Krakow Archeological Museum where there were displays of Egyptian objects, artifacts from Peru, a collection of papyri, and many objects from lesser Poland that were coordinated with the development of civilization in this region.   The museum contains the 10^th Century Slavonic idol of four-faced Svatovit, which is an eight-foot-tall stone etched on four sides.  This was found in a Ukrainian River in 1848.  There was also an anthropomorphic stone figure from the 12^th/13^th Century also found in Ukraine.

This evening’s concert at the Church of St. Peter and Paul was “Classical and Film Music” athat included such selections as Corelli’s “Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No 9,  Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3”, Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow”, Mozart’s “Divertimento III”, J. William’s “Schlinder’s List”, and Vivaldi’s “Winter” from “The Four Seasons”.  We had quite an unusual ambiance for almost the entire concert.  After the first piece, all the lights went out in not only the church, but the entire section of that area.  After about 5 minutes the concert resumed, but with light from phones and votive candles.  Then after another 10 minutes they ran connected extension cords from a closest power source that was still operating into the church and connected it to some stage lights.  This provided enough light for the musicians – two violinists, a violist, a cellist, base player, and the harpsichordist -- to play the remainder of the concert.  All were young musicians and graduates from the Music Academy in Krakow and international winners.  They did a marvelous job.  Getting down the darkened street to the main lighted street about 3 blocks away was somewhat of a challenge.  

Tomorrow we leave for Bratislava.