An elaborate state funeral for Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, has taken place bereft of many world leaders whose travel plans were paralysed by the plume of volcanic ash that has covered Europe.
The couple's bodies were flown from Warsaw to Krakow for the tradition-laden ceremony and burial in the nearby Wawel Cathedral, the final resting place for Poland's kings, poets and statesmen, including General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War Two leader who died in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.
US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the leaders who cancelled at the last minute because of the expanding volcanic ash cloud, dangerous to aeroplane engines, that has enveloped Europe and closed nearly all of the continent's airports since late on Thursday.
"All the French people will be, in their thoughts, with the Polish people", Mr Sarkozy said in a letter sent to acting president Bronislaw Komorowski expressing his regret for being unable to attend.
The volcanic ash did not deter everyone. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew by plane from Moscow for the funeral. His presence was further sign of the warming ties between the two countries, which had been strained for centuries, and recently because of communism and the 1940 Katyn massacre. Others, including the leaders of Baltic and Balkan states, came by car for the stately event.
Despite the dearth of global dignitaries, no-one said the funeral should be postponed. "I wouldn't move the funeral," said Bartek Kargol, who was among thousands of people waiting for the event in Krakow. "This event is for our president."
The funeral Mass in Latin was held at St Mary's Basilica, a 13th-century red-brick Gothic church set on a vast market square in Krakow's Old Town. Inside, scores of Poland's political elite were seated in the ancient pews, shoulder to shoulder with leaders from Estonia, Belarus, Armenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine.
The Mass was led by Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz. The Kaczynskis' daughter, Marta, and the president's twin brother, Jaroslaw, sat in the front row as Mozart's Requiem was played.
After the Mass, the bodies of the first couple were carried in a funeral procession across the picturesque Renaissance Old Town and up the Wawel hill, the historic seat of kings where a fortress wall encircles a castle and 1,000-year-old cathedral overlooking the Vistula River.
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The funeral was eight days after the Polish Air Force Tupolev 154 crashed on approach to Smolensk, Russia, killing the first couple and 94 others.
