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| READY FOR TAKE-OFF |
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| HORSE DRAWN CARRIAGES IN RYNEK GLOWNY |
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| PAWEL TAKES US ON TOUR |
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| CLOCK AT COLLEGIUM CAIUS |
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| POTS & PANS AT OSKAR SCHINDLER'S FACTORY |
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| SALT STATUE OF POPE JOHN PAUL II (ON LEFT) |
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| RUBI AT THE GRADUATION TOWER |
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| SINGING NUNS IN RYNEK GLOWNY |
Anyway, we arrived at Krakow Airport shortly after 2:00pm and for 9 zloty (about £2) the efficient airport railway took us quickly into the city. Our accommodation at Studio XOXO apartment was just 10 minutes walk from the station. The room, with its sofa, ensuite and small kitchenette was just as we had expected.
After dropping off our luggage, we immediately headed out to Stare Miasto, the Old Town in the city centre. Rynek Glowny is the main square and, since Krakow is not large, it only took us 15 minutes to get there We were certainly impressed. The square is dominated by the 16th century Cloth Hall (these days we would call it a shopping mall) and flanked by the equally impressive St Mary's Basilica on one side and the Town Hall Tower with its large clock, on the other.
Carriages, drawn by colourfully adorned horses, were on hand for tourists keen to explore Stare Miasto in comfort and style.
Spurning such luxuries, we continued south along Grodzka to Wawel Castle, once the residence of Polish Kings and now a state museum. The elaborately designed Wawel Cathedral resides within the castle walls, and Karol Wojtyla, a newly ordained priest who later became Pope John Paul II, offered his very first mass here, shortly after the war in 1946.
We were hungry, so we returned to a self-service cafe in Grodzka after making our way half-way around Stare Miasto via the encircling Planty Park. The cafe offered a buffet selection of Polish cuisine. We enjoyed German sausage, meatballs, pork dumplings, buckwheat and potato pancakes. Satiated and, by now, tired we walked back to our apartment via St Florian's Gate and the Barbican. A store next to our apartment was still open, enabling us to purchase eggs, bread and yoghurt for breakfast.
The following morning started with a trip to the local bus and train stations to ensure that we knew where to catch them and obtain tickets - information that would be important over the coming week. Next, we waited by the Barbican to join a free, English-speaking guided walking tour of the city. Pawel, our guide, was easily recognisable due to his yellow umbrella with a Union Jack on top.
He took us down Florianska to Rynek Glowny, where he pointed out the Head of Eros sculpture, and then proceeded to Collegium Maius, the Jagiellonian University's oldest building, where we watched the automatons come out by one door and return by another as the courtyard clock struck 11:00am - a bit like a cookoo clock but with human figures.
Our tour continued on to Wawel Castle, where Pawel filled in a few gaps in our knowledge from the previous day's visit, and ended by the bronze sculpture of the Wawel Dragon (Smok Wawelski) who, according to local legend, once reposed in the large cave nearby when not out and about in town devouring virgins.
It was still only mid-afternoon so we decided to see if we could visit Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory. Oskar Schindler saved many Jews from the death camps by persuading the Nazi authorities that they were essential workers in his factory. He employed so many people, simply for the purpose of saving their lives, that by the end of the war it had bankrupted him. His factory is now a museum of the German occupation of Krakow. However, when we arrived there we were informed that there were no further tickets available today.
Disappointed, we started our way back to the city centre, but a local informed us that if we brought a 'Memory Trail' ticket from the nearby offices of the 'Muzeum Historyczn Miasta Krakowa' (MHMK), we could not only visit the Schindler factory immediately, but we would also be able to gain entry to two further museums relating to the wartime history of the city, and only for a few zloty more than the regular price of the factory ticket. Bargain.
Having availed ourselves of the requisite tickets, we spent the next two hours in Schindler's factory learning about the dreadful suffering of the Jewish people under the Nazis. I won't use this blog to describe what we learned as there is plenty on the internet. Suffice to say that it is difficult to imagine anything more evil than what happened to the Jews in Poland.
We had something a little more cheerful to do the following day - a visit to Wieliczka Salt Mine. A short early morning walk from our apartment enabled us to catch the 304 bus to Wieliczka town. We soon found the mine entrance and bought our timed ticket for an English-speaking tour at 8.30am.
We descended what seemed like an endless staircase to reach the upper levels of the mine, and then continued deeper down long tunnels.The mine was so much cleaner than a coal mine, and you could taste the salt on the walls of the tunnels. Apart from the beautiful underground lakes and magnificent caverns, there were sculptures made of salt and even a complete underground church. The shiny floor tiles looked like ceramic, but were also salt. At the end of the tour, we enjoyed some soup in an underground restaurant before being being shown around the salt mine museum, where variouys further artefacts relating to the mine were displayed. We finally returned to the surface in a cramped lift, happy that we had received good value for money.
In the park surrounding the mine was a large wooden construction called the Graduation Tower, where salt water flowing down the walls produced a healthy saline atmosphere in the immediate vicinity. We had our lunch nearby and then climbed to the top of the tower to walk around the walls.
After catching the 304 bus back to Krakow, we walked to Kazimierz, the site of the Jewish Ghetto south of the Vistula River. I visited the Eagle Pharmacy, another MHMK museum, while Rubi dozed in a nearby cafe. Though located within the ghetto, the pharmacy had been run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish Catholic, and it became a meeting place for Jewish artists, scientists and intellectuals.
With Rubi suitable revitalised, we walked north of the Vistula to join another free tour which started at 5:00pm and took us around some of the synagogues in the Jewish Quarter of the city. Afterwards, we returned to our apartment via Rynek Glowny, where a concert was underway with nuns singing on-stage. We were too tired to listen for long though and, after a quick-cook pasta supper embellished with a few vegetables, we were soon in the land of nod. Tomorrow we would catch a bus to Zakopane.