"Anybody home?" a Staniatki Travel Page by acemj

Staniatki is a small village about 15 miles southeast of Krakow. Maciek, Urszula and I visited the town in October of 2005 in hopes of visiting the Convent and Church of the Benedictine Nuns. Maciek had read that a visitor can just ring the bell outside the convent and the nuns will show you around the place. However, we rang and rang and rang and finally, after about ten minutes, a nun slid open the tiny peephole and told us that the nuns were deep in prayer and that we would not be able to visit. Oh well, we did get to see the church, which is the oldest hall church in Poland and has an interesting interior.

While we waited, I watched two kids kicking a soccer ball around on the field in front of the convent. They were practicing passing the ball back and forth while running upfield and it really made me want to play! Strangely, that might be the image I remember most when I think of Staniatki, which just goes to show that traveling isn't always about the tourist sites you came to see.