I'm seriously considering trading in my T-shirt...sorry NYC, just considering it.. I don't know what it is about this place but I wanted to stay for a while. Jamie caught a cold, so we stayed an extra few nights - as if we needed an excuse....
I think a little has something to do with where we're staying. It's a hostel on a boat (Hostel Marta) in the Vistula River that winds near the historic centre of town. It has great views of the Wawel castle on one side and and an old church on the other. It's also close to the main market square; the old maket; the Jewish quarter in the Kazimierz district and the previous Jewish ghetto area from WWll in the Podgorze district.
Dragon boats were practicing on the river for the first few days after we arrived and then we had first rate seats, (when we returned from sight seeing), for the competition this past weekend. It was really entertaining and brought Jamie and I back to our dragon boating days long ago... too long ago. I wanted to run over and join them, it looked like such fun. Even though we booked two bunks in a four bunk room, we had the place to ourselves. Small groups gathered to watch the World Cup "football" games in the shared dining room area, but the outside bar area on the roof was where we watched people jog, walk or cycle along the riverbank paths. We spent lots of time reading, googling and watching the boats go by.
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| Our temporary home |
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| Up close |
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| Nice big window with lots to watch on the river |
Krakows historic district is very pretty with its main market square and each street heading out from it is worth exploring. Eating out can be very affordable especially if you check out the milk bars or "bar mleczny". These cafeteria/canteen style bars have been popular here since the depression and throughout hard economic times to help provide affordable food to everyone. Pierogies, stew (bigos), borscht and potatoes pancakes are popular. There are also lots of little out door markets where you can buy really inexpensive fruit, veg and hot food. Of course, we've HAD to try some of it!
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| Main market square |
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| More of the main market square... |
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| One of my favorite places, the old market |
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| Fresh, sweet strawberries |
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| Would you like a bite? |
For those of you like medieval times (Game of Throners?) the gothic Wawel Castle has great exhibitions of royal clothing, jewellery, knights in shining armour as well as all of the weaponry and trinkets of the time. A few of the exhibitions are free on Mondays, but even walking the grounds was great. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures in the exhibitions and they watch you like a hawk!
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| Wawel Castle |
We spent a day visiting the Auschwitz - Birkenau camps and Jamie spent a few hours in the Schindler Factory. We felt they needed their own blog, so Jamie's working on that right now.
We also walked around the Podgorze district where the jewish ghetto from WWII existed. I'm sure everyone has seen Schindlers List? Of course there have been lots of changes in the last 70, 75 years, but there are still a few places where the 11 1/2 foot ghetto wall stands. 15, 000 people were ordered to move into this area of about 30 streets where 3, 000 lived before - about 4 families to an apartment and still some with no roof over their heads.
The main ghetto square (previously Plac Zgody) Plac Bohaterow Getta is where so many people were ordered to gather and be shipped off to local concentration camps. There's an old pharmacy building at this square where the owner would secretly take letterrs in and out of the ghetto as well as provide free medications and hair dyes for those wanting to attempt escape.
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| Memorial empty chairs reminescent of furniture thrown about the ghetto after it was orders to be liquidated. |
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| Pharmacy where owner risked his life to help Jewish ghetto prisoners |
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| Old street in previous ghetto area |
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| Remnants of the wall with grim tombstone aappearance |
We eventually left Krakow on a night train a few days ago and headed north to check out the Baltic Sea. Poland, part two, coming up soon!
