Krakow
Krakow was a 10 hour bus or train ride from Prague, so I decided it was
worth flying; so much faster! In each country I had to change money and it was
confusing to keep up with the different exchange rates. And should I think in
dollars or euro? In Budapest (Hungarian Forint) it was 283 HUF to $1. Prague
(Czech Koruna) was 24.42 CZK to $1. In Krakaw, 3.99 PLN to $1 (Polish Zloty).
I didn't even try to figure it out when I changed from HUF to CZK to PLN. In
the Prague airport I had quite a bit of coin left, which you can't usually
change, so I bought some kid lunch. The guys working in the restaurant had a
really hard time understanding what I was trying to do. The understood English
just fine, it was the concept they had a hard time with. The young man was
trying to buy lunch but he only had a credit card, which kept rejecting. He
went to find an ATM machine and I told the cashier that I wanted to pay for his
lunch, as well as mine. He thought I meant his (cashier) lunch. I said no, the
kid who just went to the ATM. He said, oh my colleague? Again no, the young
man who was just there, who's credit card didn't work. They seemed totally
baffled, but I handed over my pile of coins (about $15) for both our lunches and
hoped it all worked out. Either way, I got rid of my change and someone got
lunch.
I booked an apartment, just a block away from the main train station, for
about $120 for 4 days. There were several messages back and forth about when I
would arrive, in fact, they told me what time the bus left the airport, how
long the ride and subsequent walk would take and my estimated arrival time of
6PM. Pretty accurately I would say, as I arrived just 5 minutes earlier than
projected. Much to my dismay, there was a big sign on the door telling me to
call their mobile. Calling would be fine except with no local SIM card, I had
no phone service. 45 minutes later, just when I was ready to head back to the
train station (free WIFI) and book another room, a young girl showed up. If she
had some reason for not being there, I would have been OK, but she just breezed
past me sitting on the steps, with a half assed sorry tossed over her shoulder.
I had already composed a scathing Trip Adviser review in my head; at this point
I was ready to demand a refund and go elsewhere. Just then, an older woman came
up. She took one look at the situation, me standing there scowling and the girl
trying to unlock the front door, and laid into the young girl. It could have
been her boss or her even her mother, but she was as mad as I was and the young
girl looked totally confused as to what the big deal was. The woman apologized
profusely and just handed me my key. No check-in, no passport check or
anything. In the end, it was all kinda funny, so I didn't actually leave a
review. The apartment was nice enough, with a bed, kitchen and couch in one
room and a separate bathroom. The building was old, but charming with probably
about 10 apartments all together. Although the office was there, I almost never
saw anyone. It looked like a family business, which is why I thought the older
woman might be her mom and not her boss.
At the train station I had noticed a huge mall next door, with a Carrefour
grocery store, so after a quick unpacking, I went to check it out. Now that was
a proper mall and a proper grocery store! Both were huge and I was in heaven.
I spent at least an hour just wandering up and down the Carrefour aisles,
checking out all the food choices. One thing that surprised me over the course
of my 2 week trip was that there was Mt Dew everywhere. Why it was so prevalent
in this part of the world and never heard of just next door was a mystery, but I
was happy. Out in the mall, I found a little cafe that served fresh made
pirogi; they were awesome!
On Wednesday I had mapped out a route that would take me for a walk around
a huge park in the center of Krakow. Planty Park encircles Stare Miastro or Old
Town. Until the early 19th century, Old town was surrounded by medieval city
walls. The park is 5.2 acres (21,000 SM) and has many monuments, fountains and
smaller gardens. Within the park boundaries are several historic sites, the
first of which is the Florian Gate with the Barbican. This is one of only 3
fortified outpost that still exist in Europe and was originally part of
the defensive wall. The Florian Gate is a stone tower, built in the 14th
century as part of the fortifications guarding against attacks. The Barbican,
which adjoins the Florian Gate, is a huge, round fortress built in 1498. This
one time city gateway has a moat, an inner courtyard and seven turrets. I was
really impressed with this park, there were many large green spaces, nice shady
tree lines pathways and fountains everywhere. The park basically circles Old
Town so once you come out of the green space, you find yourself on cobble stone
streets and some truly beautiful old buildings.
Krakow managed to avoid the wide spread destruction of WWII and is said to
have some of the most beautiful architecture in eastern Europe. At the center
of Old Town is Rynek Główny or Main Market Square. Krakow became a city in 1257
and this square has been the city's hub ever since. It's not only the largest
medieval plaza in Europe at 5-10 acres, depending on which guide book you look
at, it's often said to be the most beautiful. One thing that set this apart
from many other squares I'd seen; there were no hawkers selling things like
selfie sticks, sunglasses or the ever present blankets spread out with purses
and tennis shoes. In fact, now that I think of it, I don't think I saw any of
this in the 3 cities I visited. What I did see, were lots and lots of bubbles.
They had made huge nets with many holes, tied between two sticks. You dip the
net in soapy water and swing it around, it blankets the area with thousands of
bubbles of all sizes. The kids just loved it and I must admit, even I stopped
to watch once and a while.
At the center of the plaza is Cloth Hall (Sukiennice), built in the 14th
century. This was the worlds first shopping mall. Even today, the long narrow
building is still crammed with merchants selling all manner of goods, from
woodcarvings, glass, souvenirs, lace, pipes and more. There is also an
underground museum on the history of Cloth Hall and the city of Krakow. I never
made it to that, or the underground city tour. I did notice big underground
shopping areas at all the metro stations. Most of it was fast food kiosks and
convenience stores, but there were a fair amount of souvenir shops too.
The Gothic Town Hall Tower, built in the 13th century stands to the left of
Cloth Hall. The tower has been a leaning since 1703 when high winds pushed it
55 centimeters out of aliment. It's mechanical clock dates back to 1524. Like
the nearby Cloth Hall, the tower has a vast underground cellar that now houses a
cafe and theater. In the past it was a torture chamber and a popular beer
house. To the right of Cloth Hall is the 14th century Church of the Virgin
Mary, one of the most famous churches in Poland because of its giant carved
altarpiece. The greatest sculptor of the Gothic era was Veit Stoss or Wit
Stwosz (1440 to 1533) It took him 12 years to carve the 3 story wooden
altarpiece and it was his greatest achievement. Also in the square is the
tiny St. Adalbert's church, which was built in the 11th century. I basically
spent my time just walking around Old Town, Market Square and the surrounding
Planty Park. It rained off and on and the afternoon seemed to be more on then
off, so I called it an early day.
Thursday I went to Wawel Castle, clearly not an original idea as it was
packed! The castle sits on a hill overlooking the Vistula river. Built in
1138, what was once called Wawel's Cathedral was the residence and
coronation place for the kings of 3 Polish dynasties. After fire destroyed much
of the castle in 1499, several architects were invited to rebuild it. They
included Polish, Italian, German and Dutch artists and you can see their
influence today, if you know anything about architecture, which I sadly don't.
The castle didn't really look like a fortress, except for the huge torrents in
the corner. Wawel’s Cathedral is a beautiful church, built in 1320, that takes
up one corner of the grounds. I went in, but it was too crowded to even move
around. There were many adjoining chapels, added on as the church was renovated
over the years. I tried looking at them, but there was such a crush of people
you could hardly move. One thing I wanted to see were the church bells. You
had to walk up several stories and the staircase was very narrow and steep. We
started seeing bells on the 4th floor and each time we went up another level, we
were met with more bells. They were massive and I couldn’t even imagine what it
sounded like up there when they were all ringing. At the top of the bell tower,
we were rewarded for all our hard climbing with a beautiful view of Krakow. Its
so different looking at these cities, then in the US for example, or even the
more modern European cities. Take away the cars and power lines and you can
imagine this is exactly what the city looked like hundreds of years ago. There
are no glass enclosed, steel skyscrapers, in fact, there are hardly any
buildings over a few stories tall. You can see the red tile roofs and church
steeples that have turned green over the centuries of oxidation. There are
green spaces everywhere you looked.
Instead of checking out the rest of the overcrowded castle, which
included the royal apartments, treasury and armory, I decided to focus on the
outside gardens, which were alive with colorful blooming flowers. There were
walls covered in ivy and some really pretty arched doorways leading to who knows
where. Underneath the castle is the Dragon’s Cave (Smocza Jama). There are
several caves in the hill the castle is built on. Legend has it, a huge fire
breathing dragon lived in the largest one. He liked to terrorize the people of
Krakow, until one day the shoemaker's apprentice gave him a sheep
stuffed with sulfur. The sick dragon drank crawled back into his cave and
died. The apprentice married the princess and they lived happily ever after, in
the Wawel castle. You can go from the castle down to the river by way of this
cave. I didn't see any dragons but it was a cool little cave. At the entrance
was a huge iron statue of the dragon and it actually breathed fire. I wanted a
picture of it, but sadly, there were kids climbing all over it. He did
occasionally breath fire way over their heads, but unless it actually ate one of
the little climbers, there was really nothing to see.
Google Maps once again was on the fritz, but I found a city map and
plotted the course to my next destination, the Jewish Quarter. I wanted to go
on a tour of Schindler's factory, but I realized too late that these were two
different destinations. Where I ended up was the Old Synagogue or 'Stara
Synagoga'. It's the top Jewish monument in Krakow and one of the most ancient
places of worship for Jews in Europe. Built in the 16th century, it was
destroyed by fire shortly after. It was reconstructed but destroyed again by
the Nazis during WWII. It was rebuilt for a 3rd time in the 1950. The problem
with this Synagogue was that it looked more like a factory then a church, which
is why it took me a while to realize why there were no signs saying Schindler’s
Factory. Instead, it now houses the Jewish Museum. After walking around the
Jewish Quarter, I found a nice little cafe serving traditional Polish food. I
had the absolute best Polish pancakes or Placki ziemniaczane, along with more
pirogi. It was way too much food to eat, but it was so good! With my belly
full from an early dinner, I was glad I had such a long walk to get back
home.
By Friday I had seen most of what I wanted to see, so I just wandered
around town a bit. I had seen St. Joseph's Church (Kościół św. Józefa) in
the Podgórze district from a distance and it was even more beautiful up close.
It had so many spires and the brick was several different shades of red. Compared to the other churches I had visited, this one was very
modern, it was built in 1905.
The next church was a very simple white structure. The
Church of St. Stanislaw (Kosciól na Skalce, "Church on the Rock") is a Paulite
church and monastery near the river. It's named after a bishop who
excommunicated King Boleslaw. The king didn't care for that, so he had him
beheaded and dismembered, inside the church. Very Game of Thrones I thought.
According to legend, the bishop's body somehow miraculously put itself back in
one piece. St Stanislaw was canonized by the Pope in Assisi in 1253, becoming
the first native saint. He's still the patron saint of Poland.
Under the
church was a simple chapel with multiple crypts in a row on each side. The church upstairs was almost over the top ornate on the inside, very 'busy'. There were at least 5 different alters. A bit much for my taste, I thought the outside was much prettier. On the
grounds was a very nice fountain near some statues of who I guessed to be
former bishops of the church. I thought the chapel and
grounds were very pretty and a nice peaceful place for contemplation under the
huge shade trees.
And just like that, my trip to Eastern Europe came to a close. It was time
to head home, although I admit I was very tempted just keep traveling. I was
having such a wonderful time, I wanted to see more of this part of the world.
The cities were absolutely beautiful, the people were very friendly and
everything was really cheap. I paid on average about €30 a night and that
includes the two apartments I rented. I definitely will go back, I would love
to see some of the smaller villages that are so rich in history. Another reason
I was reluctant to return to Malta; they were having a terrible heat wave! The
heat combined with the high humidity and the lack of AC makes it nearly
unbearable, which is why anyone who can, leaves for the months of July and
August. But of course Mic was there, and I missed him. As you may recall, his
mom Tove was visiting from Denmark. I had timed my travels so I would be home a
few days before she left, so I stuffed all my dirty laundry in the suitcase one
last time and headed home.
Link to pictures
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