As I've described earlier, gnomes in Wrocław represent the historical "Orange Movement" in which students protested the communist regime by adopting a symbol that would make police appear silly for arresting a bunch of people dressed up as gnomes. But everyone knew what the gnomes represented. There's a lot of plain concrete surfaces from the Soviet Era buildings, and some have very interesting graffiti on them.
@maggiemae Thanks for appreciating the commentary . . . I love knowing the history of what I'm seeing. @joansmor I feel like living abroad is the opportunity to dig into the history of a place to find out why and how it became the way it is.
There are "free walking tours" (for tips) several times a day, but my favorite are the Sunday specials where each week they pick a very specific aspect of history. The one called "Festung Bresslau" was particularly interesting in learning about how upon the end of WWII the redrawn country borders meant that Poland shifted by a third from east to west, and the townI live in used to be German.
@joansmor The tours are led by people who grew up here, and are typically phd students in history, and passionate about telling the stories of history.
@joansmor I feel like living abroad is the opportunity to dig into the history of a place to find out why and how it became the way it is.
There are "free walking tours" (for tips) several times a day, but my favorite are the Sunday specials where each week they pick a very specific aspect of history. The one called "Festung Bresslau" was particularly interesting in learning about how upon the end of WWII the redrawn country borders meant that Poland shifted by a third from east to west, and the townI live in used to be German.