This whole trip is about choices. Where will we go and what will we do there, what will we do on weekends when archives are closed? Which archives do we need to be in ourselves, which ones will we leave for our onsite researchers? Every time a choice is made, we review it endlessly, wishing that we had 3 months rather than 1 so we could do all these things ourselves. I think delegating is the most difficult thing we have to deal with. This day was one of those choices. We could not possibly research in Przemysl, Sanok, Rzeszow and Krakow in two days was physically impossible. We decided that we would stop in Przemysl but not go to the archives there on this trip. We knew that material in all of these areas is scattered among many repositories. In future trips we will spend more focused time. We are planning for three of us to spend two weeks next spring, after the snows,  just researching in Przemysl, Sanok, Rzeszow and Krakow.

Our first stop was Przemysl. To get there, we drove from Hungary through Slovakia into Poland. We thought about stopping in Sanok on the way there to stop at the hotel, but decided it was more time effective to just go straight to Przemysl. Given the unexpected mountain roads, we were glad we did it this way – I can’t even imagine how we would have maneuvered the sharp blind turns after dark.  Przemysl was amazing. I wish we had had several more hours to spend there.

The streets were beautiful. The old buildings were breathtaking.

As we walked through the streets on a very chilly, rainy, late afternoon and wandered past a church, we saw nuns hurrying to a church and were privileged to hear wonderful sounds coming from a church as the service was sung.

Our trusty EuroStyle van was a welcome sight – we were all chilled to the bone – definitely weren’t dressed for the extreme difference in the weather in Poland from the hot, humid day in Hungary.

I’m glad that Marek didn’t listen to me when I said we should just go to Sanok and not try to find the remnants of the synagogue. We were all cold and tired, but Marek, the driver, was being more sensible than I was.

Przemysl will certainly be revisited by us and the archives here will be explored on our return trip.