The Rest

I thought today might be a day of rest but I'm really not good at that sort of thing...

I walked to the main square to see how Easter happens and very soon found myself in a queue for the next of the back-to-back Easter masses in St Mary's basilica. Having been at the side door, my seat was close to the altar but even so the stained glass behind it was fugged from the incense of the earlier masses.

I recognised from the crosier as he walked in that I was in the presence of the archbishop, then I saw his red zucchetto and realised that he is also a cardinal - one of the 115 worldwide, Google later informed me, entitled to vote for the next Pope. Not a circle I normally move in.

One of his entourage looked almost exactly like Yoda, ears and all. I wish I'd had the nerve to get out my camera but it felt disrespectful, even though lots of the Poles around me were taking phone pictures of the cardinal while a rope-waisted monk was wandering round photographing the congregation.

Back in the main square some of the stalls were different today and under the sun the colours were bright: painted wooden eggs (extra), masses of flowers, and this curious set of 'totem poles' made out of baskets of flowers piled on top of each other.

Absolutely everything was closed today apart from churches, food and Easter stalls, and places catering only to tourists so, having done the first, I signed up for the last and spent this afternoon learning how to drive a Segway by going on a tour of Kazimierz. I've walked in Kazimierz quite a lot over the last five days but we ended up on the riverbank where I haven't been. It was great fun apart from the one member of our group who complained that she hadn't been given the Segway she was taught on, then asked for an antiseptic wipe to clean the hand grips (I'm aware of that as an issue, but surely she should be carrying her own?) then moaned that she'd been left behind at a junction. Whenever the guide was telling us what we were seeing she was on her phone, and when we set off again she found more things to complain about: her Segway wouldn't stop, the road was uneven, she was being treated badly... Inevitably she slipped as she was getting off it (it wasn't easy - I needed help the first three times) and damaged her foot - so badly, she said, that she couldn't continue. Nor, allegedly, was she capable of walking, so another member of staff had to be called out to collect her. The mood lightened after she left.

I spent the rest of the afternoon finding which streets in the Old Town I hadn't already walked along, and making up for the omissions. Apart from the Wawel Castle area, saved for tomorrow.