Curious Traveler

- Where can you find a throne that was never actually sat in by a king or queen, a palace that was once the home to an aristocratic family who had a super-sized work of art, and the exact spot where some brilliant mathematicians helped to solve one of hist history's biggest puzzles?

Where else could we be but Poznan, Poland.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) "Curious Traveler" is made possible by the following.

(train rumbling) (rhythmic music) (lighthearted music) (lighthearted music) Picture-perfect Poznan lies in west-central Poland and was once the capital of Poland.

It has one of the largest and most colorful market squares that you will ever have the pleasure of whiling away an afternoon in.

Trust me, this place is gorgeous.

But Poznan has a pretty hefty history too.

In fact, it is considered the birthplace of Poland, because in the 10th and 11th centuries, the founder of the Duchy of Poland, Mieszko I, and his son, BolesBaw I the Brave, the first king of Poland, both ruled from here.

And their burial sites are both here in the oldest cathedral in Poland, Poznan Cathedral, right next to the old foundations of the city.

- [Tour Guide] Foundations of the walls, founded by... - During the Renaissance, Poznan establishes its first university and thrives as a major European trading center.

Then in the 18th century, it was annexed to Prussia, and the Germanization of the city intensifies and is renamed Posen.

And tragically, in World War II, much of the city was devastated.

But after the war, Poznan rebuilds in its original Polish style, including its glorious Old Market Square.

(lighthearted music) So here's what I'm curious about in Poznan.

Who built an entire art museum in his castle's backyard?

What is the meaning behind the number of windows overlooking Old Market Square?

Where can you find two goats forever butting heads?

(bell tolling) Why was this beautiful library torn down?

When did some young math students help crack one of the most complex codes in history?

And how did a saint inspire this uniquely polish pastry?

Who, what, where, why, when, and how, so much to be curious about in Poznan, Poland.

(lighthearted music) We begin our curious exploration into Poznan in the Old Market Square, full of color and full of curious history, with flowing fountains marking each corner, Apollo, Neptune, Persephone, and Mars.

The Old Market Square was the original center of town and was established here in the year 1253.

This is the beautiful and colorful Stary Rynek, or Old Town.

And it's had a couple of changes throughout the years because it was first built in the Middle Ages.

As we look around here, you can see these gorgeous, colorful buildings.

This is where the market would happen.

And each of these stalls would sell a different good.

And in fact, there's a little bit of a tribute to at least one of those stalls.

If you look at this green and yellow building over here very closely, you'll see the symbol of a fish.

So that way, we know this is where the fish mongers were.

Now look back again up at this, we'll pick a green one as well.

And if the decoration here looks a little bit Art Deco to you, well, that's because it is.

All of this was rebuilt after the demolition in World War II, so then the style was again a little bit Art Deco and a little bit fun.

But there are still tributes to the original Middle Age buildings.

So if you kinda look down to the bottom here and you see these columns and they look really nice and old, well, that's because they are.

At least the base of them all trace back to the original building of the square.

Now look back one more time.

So as beautiful as they are, as colorful and as bright as they are, don't they look a little bit narrow?

Well, there's a reason for that, because back in the Middle Ages, the wider your building was, the more taxes you had to pay.

So that's why a lot of these buildings here are only wide enough for one window.

Now, by contrast, look all the way at the end of the square and you see these big, gorgeous mansions, some of them wide enough for three, four, or even five windows.

And that continues around here.

So you can see maybe the poorer merchants lived on this side and then the wealthier merchants lived on this side and built their grand mansions.

Mm, I think I'll take that one right there.

(lighthearted music) And as you can see, between the skinny market buildings and the grand, wide merchant mansions, the Old Market Square is ginormous, including one soaring gothic icon which proudly sticks out of the skyline.

And it happens to have a curious connection to a rather humble creature.

Goats, goats, and more goats.

Wherever you wander here in the Old Town, you cannot help but notice there's gotta be a connection between Poznan and goats.

Well, it's all because of the legend of the goats, which has a little something to do with the beautiful town hall here.

So once upon a time, sadly, the town hall burnt down.

And the mayor decided we're going to build a new one, a more beautiful one, with a gorgeous clock at its center.

And for this event, he decided to invite all the important people of the town and host a party with a wonderful banquet.

And he hired a chef.

That chef made this beautiful banquet, but unfortunately burnt the banquets, so had nothing to feed all of these important people.

So he decided he was going to run around the town and find something else to cook.

And guess what he found?

Two goats.

So he picked up the goats, came back here to town hall, but guess what?

Those goats had another plan in mind.

They ran all the way up the staircase up to the very top and poked their heads out right where you see those two metal doors above the clock today.

So they came out to the front and they started butting heads, as you know goats really liked to do.

Now, down below, all the guests were assembled.

And they looked up, and they thought this was hilarious.

So they clapped, and they cheered.

Then the goat's lives were spared.

The chef's life was spared.

And the mayor decided to make the two goats kind of the honorary mascot of the town.

And to this day, up in that little spot above the clock, every day at noon, you will see two goats butting heads.

(lighthearted music) And inside town hall is Poznan's history museum, full of treasures.

The town hall itself dates back at least to the year 1310.

And the history museum is in the oldest part of the building, the lower floors and the cellar, with these beautiful early gothic ribbed vaults.

The exhibits show the history from the 10th century onward, and the tiniest little treasures are some of the most important, these old city seals with the coats of arms of Poznan.

(lighthearted music continues) Next, we visit a museum of a different sort, in the nearby village of Rogalin.

Because this museum happens to be an entire palace, with acres of gorgeous parks and gardens, with protected old oak trees, some of the oldest in Poland.

(majestic music) Yeah, twist my arm.

I think I could force myself to sip my morning coffee out here on the terrace each day with this view.

This is the regal Rogalin Palace, and is one of the most treasured palaces in all of Poland.

It was built in the late 18th century for the aristocratic RaczyDski family, with a family tree full of knights, counts, senators, even a president of Poland.

And fortunately for us, the RaczyDskis were also great supporters of the arts.

And today, their magnificent dream palace is a museum open to the public, with another museum in the backyard, but we'll get to that in a minute.

Here, we find chamber after chamber of splendiferous beauty, elegant sitting rooms lined with fine paintings and classical sculptures, and a pretty and pink princess room just for the lady of the manor.

(majestic music continues) And throughout the rooms, you will also see a little clue to the family's history.

This, a little scarf on the family coat of arms.

Its meaning is because of a legend of a king handing a scarf to a soldier in battle.

And you can find many of them inside one of the palace's prettiest chambers.

Okay, all the rooms are spectacular, but this one really takes the cake.

Be prepared to be amazed.

And voila.

Have you ever seen a library as beautiful as this?

Look at all the intricate woodwork.

You've got little flowers and little leaves and things kind of growing out from the ceiling here.

All kinds of wonderful details to explore.

The first ones are really tiny ones, so you have to look closely.

But right here, over the mantle piece, taking pride of place, you can see just above the portrait and just under the crown, we have another one of those little scarf symbols, again, a symbol of the family.

And as you look around here, believe it or not, none of this was here after the war, during the time when it was decided that this was going to be a museum.

So actually, all of this beautiful woodwork, it was just bare walls.

But the good news is that the original sketches were found so that everything could be recreated to look like the original.

And once again, my favorite thing here, it's kind of like an Easter egg hunt, you get to find all of those little family symbols.

Again, you can see another little teeny-tiny one right there.

But the one thing in this room that I think I love the most really has nothing to do with the library itself.

It is this beautiful work in gold.

So take a look at it, and I'll give you three guesses as to what it actually is.

So is it a little golden bathtub?

Is it Santa's sleigh?

No, actually it is a cradle, but not just any cradle, a very special cradle.

Because anytime a new member of the family was born, he or she was presented in this during a big party.

So yeah, it would've been pretty good to have been an aristocratic baby.

(lighthearted music) And in those decades, when Rogalin Palace was a private residence for the RaczyDskis, many family celebrations would've been held here.

But many important political upheavals mark the palace as well.

Soon after the palace was built, it became a center for politics.

Polish leaders met here to help support the last Polish king before Poland was partitioned.

And then in World War II, the palace was seized by the Nazis and goes from elegant residence to something quite, quite different.

What happened here inside the palace During World War II?

- That's right.

This beautiful library that we just visited was actually completely torn down, all this wooden details stripped off and either destroyed or hidden away.

Fortunately, before the Nazis took over the palace, the RaczyDski family moved much of their artwork and furnishings to safer locations.

Art historians are still trying to track it all down and retrieve it.

They had bare walls, and they had sketches, and they had stories.

Everything that we see today, that's a huge project.

- [Christine] But some pieces are still lost, just waiting to be brought back home, like some missing suits of armor from the ballroom.

- And tracking down all that art really came into play in one section of the palace, a unique space that once held 500 works of art.

Where is there a space large enough for that?

Well, follow me to this one of a kind art gallery built right here on the palace grounds.

(lighthearted music) In the late 19th century, one of the family members, Edward Aleksander RaczyDski, loved the art so much that he built an entire art museum right here on the palace grounds.

All these years later, the purpose of the gallery remains the same, to feature, highlight, and support great Polish artists.

(lighthearted music continues) RaczyDski really wanted to support the local Polish artists of the time, which is why you will see so many of these beautiful impressionist works of art, because of course impressionism was so big during this time period.

But the next piece I'm going to show you is not impressionism at all.

In fact, it is highly realistic.

And you can't miss it because it's taking up the entire wall.

This was done by one of the most famous Polish artists in history, Jan Matejko.

He did this in 1886.

And as you can see, it is of the very famous Joan of Arc.

You can see her there at the center, holding her flag, and with her halo over her head, being guided by the angels.

RaczyDski said, "I will take the painting and I will be very thankful for it."

And he happened to be building this art gallery at the time.

So you wanna guess what he did?

He built this whole wing and this whole section specifically to hold the dimensions of this huge painting.

Isn't that incredible?

And with hundreds of other paintings to explore, it's wonderful to remember one final note.

This gallery, even when it first opened in 1910, when the palace was still a private residence, has always been open to the public.

(lighthearted music) Next, we go from palace to castle and back to the center of Poznan.

This medieval-looking castle is today called the Zamek Cultural Center.

But when it was first built in the early 20th century, it was called the Imperial Castle.

Built in a medieval style to look like it had been here a lot longer, it wasn't built by Poland, it was built by the Germans.

(rhythmic music) In fact, it was built for German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm when Poznan was part of Prussia as a sign of German dominance over this Polish city.

The exterior is even decorated with German fairytales, like "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Hansel and Gretel."

And to make it really clear about who was in charge around here, there was a marble throne installed inside the castle.

(rhythmic music continues) Poznan's old city walls were torn down to build the castle, but the plans didn't stop there.

An entire castle district was built with the intention of Germanizing the city, complete with theaters, museums, schools, banks, a post office, even the creepily named Settlement Committee Building, whose purpose was to purchase lands from the Polish people to then turn it over to German settlers.

Then in the 1930s, the castle is redone to become a residence for Hitler.

This room used to be a chapel but was dismantled to be Hitler's office.

(rhythmic music continues) But even with this history, after the war, the Polish government decides to keep the castle district and repurpose the buildings for educational and cultural use.

In fact, in 2008, the Polish president declared the district a monument of history.

And there is one more bit of curious history here to the castle.

In between World War I and World War II, some of the rooms were used by Poznan University.

And it was here that three young Polish students made history.

(lighthearted music) To find out what that history was, we crossed the street and enter a very unique museum.

This is the Enigma Cipher Centre, dedicated to the history, art, and science of codes and code breaking.

Throughout human history, somebody has always wanted to keep a secret from someone else.

In ancient Greece, codes were passed through a Scytale, where a long strip of leather or paper would wrap around a rod of specific dimensions to reveal a code.

In more modern times, codes and ciphers of all kinds, including the simple one, where a punctured overlay reveals certain letters or numbers, all help to pass secret messages.

And then we get to the main exhibit, the Enigma.

During World War II, the Germans used the Enigma, a cipher machine, to develop nearly unbreakable codes.

Cryptologist Alan Turing and the British mathematicians have largely been credited with cracking the code.

But the lesser known history of the contributions of three young Polish mathematicians is the focus of this museum.

(lighthearted music continues) This is the main event.

This is one of the original Enigma machines.

Kind of explain to us how it actually worked.

- The way it worked, it's the way it looked, like a typewriter.

A person on the sending end had to press the key.

The key initiated the electrical current going through the machine, which in turn produced another letter.

So let's say somebody pressed A, the letter came on the other end like any letter of the alphabet.

And the important thing here that I would like everybody to know is that the reason Enigma was considered unbreakable is because of the number of combinations that were possible on it.

The number of combinations was larger than the number of atoms in the universe.

- In the universe.

- You know, that does not even fit into our brains.

- That's incredible.

That's incredible.

And I know the codes would change daily.

- Daily.

- Which made it even more difficult.

- Exactly.

The position of the rotors was being changed daily even though the Germans did not know that they have been read already, that their secret has been discovered.

They were changing the positions of the rotors and also adding additional rotors practically daily.

- So the whole reason for having this museum here and in this spot, it's to recognize the three primary mathematicians, there were other mathematicians as well, but the Polish contribution to this well before Britain became involved, 'cause a lot of people know the name Alan Turing, but they may not know the name of the three mathematicians.

- Right.

The intelligence bureau of the Polish Army organized a secret course for the best mathematicians who were studying pretty much across the street here.

And out of those best mathematicians, three were chosen as the super best here, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, and Jerzy Rycki.

And it's worth noting that these guys were only in their early 20s.

I believe Rycki was only 19 when he graduated from that course.

- And the story gets even more curious from here, because the Enigma was originally invented to use as a banking machine, not as a secret code machine.

There were actually several of them in use across Europe.

So in the 1930s, Polish spies were able to simply purchase one from a trade fair, which they then brought back to the mathematicians to work with here in Poznan.

That's when our three young students made great progress in cracking the code.

But in 1939, when Poland was invaded by Germany and overrun, the mathematicians handed over their work to their allies in England.

The hope of this museum is that the credit can be shared.

We cannot overemphasize how their contributions helped to possibly save thousands or billions of lives and maybe even end the war earlier than it could have gone on for.

- Absolutely.

The breaking of the Enigma code helped the outcome of the World War II.

Most likely, without it, the World War II would have lasted much longer and would have produced more damages, and more suffering, more victims.

(lighthearted music) - For our last stop, we lighten things up a bit with a visit back to Old Market Square, where overlooking town hall is a tiny little museum which smells like a bakery, for a very curious reason.

This is the Poznan Croissant Museum.

And in addition to making the most delicious of desserts, it celebrates a wonderful Poznan legend.

(lighthearted music) It all starts with St. Martin, known for cutting his cloak with his sword to give to a poor man.

So once upon a time, on St. Martin's Day, which celebrates giving to the poor, a Poznan baker had a dream.

And... - And during his dream, St. Martin visited him.

And St. Martin's horse lost something.

What this horse could lose?

- A horseshoe.

- Of course, a horseshoe.

I got it here.

- Ah, oh, the shoe.

That's the one Walenty found, and that's the original St. Martin's horse horseshoe.

- Cool, okay.

Same beautiful shape.

- That's the same beautiful shape.

- One's tastier than the other, but it's the same shape.

- Yes, so here we can compare the shape.

(Christine sighs) So it's more or less the same.

- [Christine] So let's get to work.

First step, roll out the dough with a rolling pin of your choice.

- We also have something like this.

- Oh, that's so, I'll use this one.

- So you can try this one.

- [Christine] Then after the dough is rolled out, the folding begins to create all those tasty layers, a specific number of layers, in fact.

- And then we have to repeat this pattern a few times until we have 81 layers, because there are- - 81?

- 81, so they are multiplying.

- [Christine] Yep, in order to be a true St. Martin croissant, it has to have 81 layers.

This recipe is so cherished it is actually legally protected.

Then it's time to cut the triangle shapes.

And for that, we need St. Martin's sword.

- Using something else, a bit bigger and a bit more dangerous.

- And a little dramatic.

I think I know what's coming next.

- Yes, it is a bit- - Oh my God.

(laughs) - A little dramatic.

- Get outta here.

Get out, that's what you use?

- Yes, that's what we use.

Oh my God.

(laughs) - You came here to Poland to meet Polish culture, so here you've got the meeting with our culture.

Please, fingers up.

Do not grab the blade like this, okay?

- Good tip, good tip, - And it'll be fine.

- No fingers were lost in the making of this segment, so I consider that a success.

Next step, add the tasty filling of sugar, walnuts, white poppy seeds, and a hefty helping of crumbled sponge cake.

Yes, my friends, there is cake within this cake.

Oh, I get to be a real pastry chef, all right.

- Do you have an experience with pastry bag like that?

- Not even a minute.

- All right, which makes both of us with no experience.

- [Christine] And then time to roll them up and create that signature horseshoe shape.

- Those parts on the side, so the narrow- - Oh, that's so cool.

So we have the comparison right here.

- Yes, and we have comparison.

- The French way and the Polish way.

- The French way and the Poznan way.

And now we will bend the wings to make horseshoe shape of course.

- Like the horns, okay.

- And the last thing we can do- - (laughs) That's so cool.

- [Chef] And they usually do, we have to twist those parts to open them.

- For when it cooks.

It looks like an angry crab.

Is that what I was supposed to be going for?

- Of course.

And yours is actually better than mine.

- Yes.

That's what usually happens.

- I'm not competitive, I swear.

- That's what usually happens here.

- Finally, we bake them and just add some powdered sugar and almond flake icing to the top.

And ta-da, we have our St. Martin croissant.

So you told me that there's 81 layers, and I believe you.

(laughs) - You have to believe me, yeah.

- All right, let's see what we got here.

I know the whole point of this treasure treat is to share in the spirit of St. Martin, but I'm not sure going to be possible.

Delicious.

(Christine imitates munching) (Chef and Christine laughing) (lighthearted music) So from a cathedral, and a duke, and a king, and a fortress, which all mark the beginnings of Poland, to a cheery, colorful square, where the number of windows told your wealth, to a grand palace for a grand family who lived through so much history and shared their love for the arts in a supersized way, to a medieval-looking castle that was once a statement of German oppression, which is now used to support Polish culture, and was where some young math students quietly helped to change the course of history, all topped off with the sweetest of legends, which encourages us to share even when it's really hard to.

It's so good.

Poznan has so much to be curious about.

(lighthearted music) Thank you for joining us on our educational journey.

And hopefully, now, you're even more curious about the who, what, where, why, when, and how's of beautiful Poznan.

As they say here, (speaking in foreign language).

(lighthearted music) "Curious Traveler" is made possible by the following.

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