The arrival at Krakow main station made a huge impression. Welcome back to Western Europe, even if the our Krakow guide later thinks Poland is Central Europe and the rest of the world tends to think of Poland as an Eastern European country.
The train station is adjoining Galeria Krakow, a huge shopping center but we had not realised that on our arrival. All we
knew then was that it was really modern, with everything one would want or need at a main railway station. Getting from the platform to the main station was a breeze. We found the ATM easily where we withdrew Polish zolty (1 zolty = ~0.35 AUD). We sat down for a soy cappuccino at the stylish Coffee Corner. We did all these leisurely as it was really early in the morning. My travelling companion even chatted with her partner using the wi-fi in Coffee Corner.
At 8am, we walked to Hotel Polonia, our accommodation for the next two nights. It was barely 5 minutes away across some tram
tracks on the same street as the main station. It was one of those old style
with character hotel. It even has a
working elevator; one of those old style with doors only on the
outside! Keep all body parts and clothing clear away from moving parts of the elevator!! The receptionist was friendly, let
us checked in and even invited us to breakfast. Now that was unexpected. We had fully expected to have to leave our luggage in storage and checked in later in the day.
We decided shower was more important than breakfast so we had one and headed straight
out to the walking tour in the old city.
The old city was also really near – another 5 minutes away around the corner. First thing that greeted us was this
really ancient looking battle castle followed by the ancient city wall. The scene was a picturesque one.
The two cities that have impressed us no end thus far on this adventure has to be Dubrovnik and Krakow. As we were early and our free walking tour would cover mostly the old city, we decided to have a look the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre which is located the old city.
Our guide of the Free Walking Tour was very nice. She was the original starter of the free
walking tours in this city 5 years ago. This walking tour is a foundation which gives a portion of its earnings to charity. Nice idea. Our guide also has another job in
the museum as we were to learn later.
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| Front of Barbican |
First stop, the fortress which used to surround Krakow - the Barbican. It was built by one of their kings who was
silly enough to attempt to take on the Ottoman in late 14th Century.
He failed miserably and lost his army. Fearing retaliation, he had the
Barbican built in two years. It was never to
be used for its intended purpose. Perhaps its presence was sufficient to prevent anyone trying. The fortress tower is round so that it can be defended on all sides
by bowmen. The tower is narrow with entrance and exits angled at 33 degrees such that it would be difficult for battering rams to change directions once they have entered the first door. Its once moat is now filled in with trees. Completely intact, it is a formidable sight.
Krakow was the original capital of Poland – which back then
was a huge kingdom covering Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine. It started as early as 966 when the then Slav
who united all the Slav tribes decided to become Christian. It best glory days were between the 14th to 16th
Century. Back in the 13th
Century, it had some kind of a democracy, in that the kings were chosen from
among those who could be kings. The right to be king could not be inherited directly.
At some point, there was no son to crown, so the Princess was
crowned King of Poland at age 11. With that, an
alliance was arranged with the then pagan king of Lithuania leading to the formation of a new kingdom of Poland-Lithuiania. A king could also be a foreigner. It was a Swedish King who wanted to rule both Poland and Sweden that moved the capital
to Warsaw (as it was halfway between Krakow and Sweden) so that he can rule both that ended the status of Krakow as the capital of Poland.
There appeared to be much less of Soviet influence here in Krakow. But could be that is just because we were in the old
city. Of the original city wall, only
Florian Gate and some parts attached to it are preserved to these days. The rest had been dismantled. The famous Goethe who visited
Krakow in the days before the wall was dismantled called it a cess pool. The moat
was filled with filth and people with questionable intent and ran similar businesses. That provided the impetus to have the moats filled in
and trees planted over it. All the
gardens around the old city were once where the moats had been. Our guide, Gorgia remarked that could be the reasons the trees
grew well.
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| "Kereru" like pigeon |
We spotted a huge pigeon in the garden. It is almost as big as big as kereru of New Zealand!!
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| Florian Gate |
Down the street from Florian gate, we came to the largest
medieval market square. It is not symmetrically square due to buildings and streets that predated it. St Mary’s Cathedral and St Wojciech’s church
which stands is in front of the street that leaves the square and heads to Wawel
Castle are some examples. In the middle of the square, almost bisecting it is the bazaar.
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| St Mary's |
St Mary’s Cathedral has two towers, one a bell tower for the
church, the other a town hall tower which was slightly lower. This is quite common with churches in this region as Our Lady of Tyne in Prague had two towers of unequal size as well, though not for the same reason. The legend here in Krakow revolved around two brothers who
were builders. Each built one of the towers. The older who taught the younger everything he knew. The older brother built faster and had already completed his observatory when his brother was still building. The older brother realised that his tower would be lower than that of his younger brother, he murdered him out of jealousy. The knife is reportedly the one that
hangs at the entrance to the bazaar. There is actually one such knife at the entrance to the market but its origin was different. In olden times, it served as a warning that thieves will have
their ears or noses cut off to show their dastardly deeds should they be caught.
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| Bugle player of St Mary |
There is a interesting tradition at St Mary’s Cathedral where every 30 min a bugle tune would be played from the bell tower. The tune would terminate mid way. Firemen do the honour of volunteering for this task. The sequence always start with the window facing the
castle, then one facing the square and then the other two.
When one can see the bugle, one should wave to the bugle player for
good luck. Legend had it that the half
tune was due to a Mongol bowman piercing his throat with an arrow when he was
starting to sound the alarm in the death of night during an attack. The Mongols apparently did many attacks when they were conquering but
they did not want to settle …. All they wanted was submission to their rule ... it would take our visit to Mongolia later to understand why this modus operandi was preferred by the Mongols.
Part of Krakow's prosperity came from it being on the Amber Route which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Back in the days when travelling along a trade route took a long time along unsafe routes, routes that were well protected from bandits with more decent rest stops were naturally preferred by traders. Such rest stops capitalised by charging taxes and imposing rules that benefited it. Around Krakow, the rule was that one would have to pay taxes according to the
number of wheels on one’s wagon to travel on the routes and bridges here. In Krakow, one has to sell everything one
has brought and paid the relevant taxes before leaving.
Krakow becomes an important trading center for this reason.
On our way out of the square towards to Wawel Castle, we stopped by where John Paul II stood
at the window and addressed his fellow Poles as Pope.
Apparently, he never felt called to priesthood as a youth. Instead he studied literature and acting. Our guide told us how she overheard an older female colleague of hers at the library who was from his generation discussing how they would literally swoon about how handsome he was as a young man. He was going to be an actor. Then the war came, and he was called into
service as a priest. Later he would
served as a Cardinal. Finally he
would become Pope.
When John Paul II came back to address his city of 450,000 from
that window, Poland was still behind the Iron Curtain. A crowd of 2m came to hear him even though the Soviet tried to block every
access and cancel all public transport entering Krakow. His speech had a double edge. He implied that God would help if the Poles were
brave, augmenting impetus to the Velvet
revolution. As he climbed up to stand on
the window sill, the Bishop of Krakow held on to his legs, fearing the fate
of the Pope at his watch. Today, a picture of Pope John Paul II hangs over that window.
Wawel Castle is interesting as it was the Royal place and
Wawel Cathedral. It does not appear to have an integrated architecture - more like a patchwork of architectures added over time. This is characteristic of both the outside and inside. Walking tours usually do not enter buildings but only introduce them so that the visitors can explore them at greater depth later if so desired. We had a look at part of the part of Wawel Castle which was accidentally burnt during the reign King Sigismund III and only partly restored as he moved his capital to Warsaw before the restoration was completed.
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| Wavel Castle showing incomplete renovation |
Over the wall of Wawel Castle facing the Vistula River, we were shown the dragon statue on its bank that intermittently breath out fire. The
story is that the dragon was defeated by none other than a tailor who sew
gunpowder into sheep after the dragon who lived there and demanded regular sacrifices from the king of the kingdom started stealing virgins. The king protective of his daughter promised
half his kingdom to the man who could slay the dragon. The dragon having eaten that sheep was very thirsty as its tummy was hot. It drank so much water from the river that its tummy burst.
As we stood there, the dragon breathed out fire. We could smell it from where we were.
After the tour, we went with another tourist from USA, Brian and the new local who works for Reuters to lunch at one of the recommended Polish restaurant – a milk bar. A milk bar is basically a food shop that functions like a canteen. One chooses from traditional Polish dishes the amount one wants to eat and pay for it. It is inexpensive and good value. Our lunch of pasta and a drink cost us 20 PLZ (less than 7 AUD). The new local originates from Romania but speak some
Polish. We had interesting conversation on travel during lunch after which we went different ways to pursue our interest for the rest of the afternoon.
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| Interior of St Mary with the Veit Stross altarpiece |
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| Wavel Cathedral |
We went back to check out St Mary’s. Entry into the Cathedral required a ticket. Permission to photography can also be purchased. The most notable piece in the cathedral was the Veit Stross altarpiece which is sited behind the main altar. It survived being stolen by the Nazi, and was recovered from where it was hidden in Nuremberg castle. It is considered a national treasure of Poland. The earliest tickets we could get to visit the tower where the bugle player were located was the final session that day.
We then went back to Wawel Castle area. Entry into every attraction there require a separate entrance fee. We paid for entrance into the Cathedral. Photography was not permitted in the Cathedral.
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| Sts Peter & Paul church |
On the way back to the market square, we called into the Church of Sts Peter and Paul. The entrance of the church is characterised by a row of statues of the apostles of Christ. The main attraction in the church is the Foucault pendulum which demonstrates the rotation of the earth through its motion.
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| Inside St Wojciech |
Back at the market square we paid a visit to the smallish Church of St Wojciech. A musical ensemble plays there. It is being restored.
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| The famed knife |
We then went back to the marketplace and found the famed knife. And then we sat near the fountain and watched the activities in the square. Artists dressed as statues, horse drawn carriages, tourists and locals going about enjoying the sun on a Sunday afternoon. Entry into the bell tower was not permitted until the precise time slot as the number of visitors per session was strictly regulated. Before we climbed up the stairs, we were admonished that they would lock the door at precisely the closing time so we would be locked in should we tarried at departure. We wondered how they would enforce this as the firemen would need access to make the bugle call every hour through the night after closing time for visitors.
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| View of market place from observatory window of bell tower, St Mary |
It was a long climb as expected. The view from the various windows were spectacular. Uninterrupted 360 view of the old city as far as the eyes can see. We stayed as long as we could. After coming town from the bell tower, we headed back to the Barbican but it was now closed. We wandered through the gardens nearby and then decided that we should get our train tickets to Warsaw for the day after. There was a short cut via an underpass between the old town and the main train station.
In the area in front of the train station, a market selling cheese, candies, olives, fruits and other edibles was doing brisk business. We went to the ticket office and bought our ticket for early morning on Tuesday, then went back to the market. We ended up buying some delicious olives and snacks for dinner. We have not recovered our appetite yet. We took additional Vit C and an Alka Seltzer to ward off the cough. We need to be less tired for the visit to Auschwitz and the salt mine the next day.
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