Poland at last! The wonderful city of Krakow
March 30th, 2009 by Zofia
Travel Tip #1: When trying to stay awake with your friends before your 2am trip to the airport for your holiday, do not under any circumstances watch a film like Mamma Mia unless you want to spend the whole trip with random Abba songs in your head! This was a lesson learned the hard way during a 4-day holiday to Krakow – just when I thought I had got the songs out of my head one of my other friends would start humming another song from the film and the vicious cycle of having a catchy song stuck in my head would start all over again!
Finally I was making a trip to the Polish city of Krakow, a town that I had wanted to visit since I was a small child learning about my family origins. I don’t specifically have family from the town of Krakow, but it was a town that always sounded so interesting that I wanted to see it before I saw other Polish towns. To make the experience even better I was travelling with three of my friends – Rosie, Shanika and Rachel – and was looking forward to the four of us taking Krakow by storm.
Travelling in March I was surprised when I looked out the window of the plane just before we landed to see Krakow completely white with snow. I had expected it to be cold but I was not at all prepared for just how cold it ended up being! I very quickly got used to wearing tights under my jeans, two pairs of socks at the same time and also at least 4 tops, all finished off with a scarf, a woollen hat, some leather gloves and my woollen coat – and I was still cold when I was outside!
After making our way into the old town we found our hostel – the Flamingo Hostel which was on a street just off the old town square, a perfect location. After we settled in and layered up a bit more the four of us ventured out in search of some lunch and some relaxed exploration of the local area. My first impressions were great, the buildings were so different to anywhere else I had been, so old and full of character. The Old Town Square was so pretty, on one corner stands St Mary’s Basilica which has a tower where a trumpet sounds on the hour every hour to commemmorate a medieval trumpeter shot while sounding an alarm. In the centre of the square is the Cloth Hall, built in the 14th century it is the first shopping centre built in Poland which these days contains a souvenir market .
The wonderful thing about the Old Town in Krakow is that it is completely closed to traffic, there are no cars driving around that you have to be aware of, the only transportation I could see was a horse and carriage, and in this snowy weather it had a magic effect of making the place seem even more surreal a place to be.
On this first afternoon in Krakow we also explored the outside of the Barbican, and Wawel Castle and then made our way to the base of the castle, by the Vistula River, where we encountered the fire-breathing Smok Wawelski standing in front of his lair. The excitement at finally seeing the site of a story I had grown up hearing about was unbelievable. The only thing that really disappointed me was discovering that the dragon’s lair itself was not open in March (but would be open in April!) so I was not able to actually go into the lair.
Travel Tip #2: Many tourist attractions in Krakow are closed in the Month of March. It is always a good idea to plan ahead and make sure the things you want to see in a place are open during the period of time you plan to visit that place.
Since we had not gone to bed the night before in order to make our early morning flight from London to Krakow we were all feeling rather exhausted by the early evening and as such we were all sound asleep in our hostel room by 10pm.
The following morning Shanika and Rachel were up very early to join a bus tour out to Auschwitz but Rosie and I were not going with them so we enjoyed a much desired sleep-in and finally got up for the day after 9am. I had purposefully chosen not to go to Auschwitz for the simple reason that I am fully aware of the horrors that took place during the war here and had no desire to be in such a grim place. Instead, Rosie and I took the opportunity to do something the other two were not interested in doing – visiting a couple of art galleries, in particular, the Princes Czartoryski Museum which houses one of only 3 Leonardo Da Vinci paintings outside of Italy, The Lady with the Ermine. The painting hangs in a room all on its own, dramatically lit and protected behind glass, it is a beautiful painting that I was so pleased to be able to see.
After the museums, and a hot chocolate break, Rosie and I made our way to the Basilica of St Francis to see the Art Nouveau stained glass windows designed by the artist Stanislaw Wyspianski. Lit by the wintry grey light outside these windows were stunning.
We then met up with Rachel and Shanika who had returned from Auschwitz and proceeded to the Jewish quarter of Krakow called Kazimeirz. This place used to be an independent town but is now a suburb of Krakow. This part of town has a completely different feel to the Old Town and there are reminders of the predominantly Jewish history of this area on many of the buildings. It would have been nice to have spent a bit more time exploring this part of town, I particularly wanted to visit the Ethnographic Museum, but we ran out of time.
On the way back to the Old Town we came across a hidden gem of a store which sells wooden carvings of all sorts of things – angels, dragons, elephants, and so on. The man running the shop was the perfect salesperson and all four of us walked out the door with at least one item each.
On the advice of the person behind the front desk back at our hostel we headed out that evening to a restaurant called U Babci Maliny where we had our first Pierogi of the trip (and definitely not the last!). I was so excited about this dish as I had not had pierogi for a very long time, and I wasn’t disappointed, they were delicious!!! For those that don’t know, pierogi are a kind of dumpling, usually filled with potato, cheese, cabbage, onion, or meat and are served either boiled or fried. The restaurant itself was very kitch, it was like an old fashioned dining room below ground and came complete with a man in a tuxedo playing music on a grand piano. All in all it was a great end to a lovely day.
On our third day in Krakow we went back to Wawel Castle, this time it was to actually go inside the castle grounds and building. Wawel Castle is unbelievably huge. A very impressive place with an equally impressive history. To enter the Royal Rooms and State Apartments we had to put on some bright blue plastic shoe covers which was rather amusing but since we all had to wear them it wasn’t so weird. The tour of the castle really opened my eyes to the difficult history of Poland. Due to it’s location it has been invaded over the centuries by many different people, and as a result, Wawel Castle contains basically no original furnishings inside due to looting with each invasion. I found this to be incredibly sad, to have such an impressive building so empty of it’s original treasures.
After the castle experience we went into Wawel Cathedral which houses the relics of St Stanislaw, the patron saint of Poland. This visit was followed by more pierogi for lunch – YUM!
After lunch we got on a tour bus and headed to the Wieliczka Salt Mines. Located just outside of Krakow the salt mines have been in operation for over 700 years and only ceased production in 1996! The mines go so deep that you could fit the Eiffel Tower inside and it would not surface! The tour available to the public goes to a depth of 135m (not even half as deep as it is possible to go) and covers about 2km of the 300km of mine! This place is incredible, everything, and I mean everything in there is made out of salt – from the chandeliers to the floor. The flooring looks like marble tiles but on closer inspection it is polished salt, if you shine a torch on the floor you can see the light shine through the floor which is a give-away that it is made of salt.
There are chambers carved into chapels, chambers with statues and furniture carved out of salt, chambers with Salt Lakes, and the penultimate chamber is the St Kinga Chapel which measures 54m by 18m and 12m high. This was created by one man over the course of 30 years (beginning in 1895) and then completed by his brother. This chapel is still used for the occasional mass or concert and the occasional wedding – I definitely think it would make a great wedding venue, 135m below ground!
While down below ground I also got the opportunity to ‘work’ in the mine. Our tour guide was explaining the lift mechanism to us for moving rock salt between different levels of the mine and grabbed some of us to make the lift move. In return for turning the wheel and making the lift move I received my very own lump of rock salt from the mine, well worth it I say 
Our final morning in Krakow was spent walking around the Old Town again soaking up the relaxed vibe of the town one final time. We also headed to the Collegium Maius, the oldest surviving university building in Poland (from the 15th-century), which has a replica 14th-century clock that chimes at 11am with a cast of characters rolling along as well.
One final reflection on Krakow was how proud it is that Pope John Paul II came from here. At Wawel Castle there is a statue of him outside the Cathedral, there are pictures of him everywhere in the town, and at the Franciscan Monastery there is a giant picture of the Pope waving from a window above the entrance way. It was from this window that he would often stand and wave to people when he was visiting Krakow.
So much of Krakow felt so familiar to me yet it was all new and exciting to discover. It also made me proud to be half Polish and be able to say that this beautiful town was part of my cultural heritage. I look forward to many more trips back here and to other parts of Poland.