Poles bid farewell to first couple in enforced absence of world leaders

The couple's bodies were flown by military transport from Warsaw to Krakow early in the day for the tradition-laden ceremony and burial at Wawel Cathedral, the final resting place for Poland's kings, poets and statesmen, including General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War Two leader.

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 event.

In spite of the dearth of global dignitaries, no one said the funeral should be postponed.

A 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.

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. Investigators have said it was likely caused by human error.

After an all-night vigil at St John's Cathedral in Warsaw, the bodies of the couple were driven slowly through Warsaw.