While waiting for the train to Krakow, we took this Picture of the Warsaw Palace of Science and Culture - Stalin's “gift” to the people of Poland.
(Linda: The trains had a side aisle and cool little compartments--something I'd never seen before.)
(Linda: I don't think Sujai really cared about going to Krakow. He just wanted to ride the train.)
Views of the Polish countryside from the train
Walking from the Krakow train station to our apartment hotel, Linda takes a break in the Planty - the beautiful garden strip that surrounds the inner old town of Krakow (where the city walls once were - you can see the base of the wall even today in a few parts of the garden).
(Linda: We're including several apartment shots, because I was so thrilled--especially after being in expensive Italy--that we were getting this great place for about 60 euros/night.) Linda shows off the well stocked kitchen in the apartment
Living room
Linda's enormous double bedroom.
Sujai makes himself at home in his green room.
Examining the stove/heater--there was one in each room.
View of the courtyard of the building with the apartment - the tables are for the Orient Ekspres restaurant whose owner manages the apartments.
Lunch at the Orient Ekspres (that's our apartment on the first-- floor--or second floor for all American readers). We had Pierogis and Golabkis (pronounced Gowamky).
Standing on the Grodzka (royal way), Linda is amused at the tiny size of icecream servings after the enormous gelatos of Italy.
Street performers at the Rynek Glowny (the l should have a diagonal line through it and is pronounced ”Gwowny“)
This pair would be perfectly still (without even blinking) until someone dropped a coin and then they would do this beautifully synchronized curtsey before assuming a new pose.
(Linda: LOOK! It's my brother Gary!)
(Linda: And LOOK! The next day we saw more likenesses of Gary in a shop window!)
Groups of children (on school trips) would invariably stop and chat with the street performers and were among the most generous when it came to giving tips to the performers.
More street performers at Rynek Glowny. The whole square was like one big party with restaurants/clubs lining the sides, street performers and flower stalls in the middle, and thousands of tourists/locals walking about.
One of the statues in the main square provided a good vantage point
More scenes of the Rynek Glowny
Accordion players at the Rynek Glowny
Colourful buildings surrounded the main square
Old ladies selling smoked goat cheese ("Oscypki") and flowers on Ul Florianska.
Sujai contemplates if we should go to an internet cafe or a wifi coffee bar after our Napolitan Pizza in the main square (we wanted to eat at a polish restaurant but none had outdoor spaces free).
Happy children whizz by our table in a horse carriage
St Mary's Church - the largest in Krakow, overlooking Rynek Glowny
Unlike her trips to India and China, Linda was no longer the tallest woman around. Here, she is dwarfed by St Mary :-)
Sujai, wearing a Polish hat
Inside St Mary's church. An incredibly ornate and colourful church.
Linda kept saying that everyone looked like her Polish uncles and aunts.
Aunt Lucille, I think
Of course, there is a McDonalds, but the golden arches are relatively discrete.
This three ton bronze sculpture stands eerily next to the old cloth market building in Rynek Glowny
Sujai likes getting inside people's heads and figuring out what they're about.
That's not a trick of perspective, the head really was twice the height of a normal person.
The old cloth market in the main square (one of the world's first covered shopping malls) now filled with souvenir shops
Sujai in the cloth market
The trumpeter at the top of St Mary's church signals every hour with a melody that stops suddenly in the middle of a measure. In the 13th century, a fireman was trying to warn the city of an invasion when he was shot by an arrow so the sudden stop commemorates that incident. Today, 7 city firemen take turns to play the trumpet in his memory. Linda wondered if the fireman recruitment exam included a trumpet test.
(That's how high up the trumpeter has to go to play - if he can still play the trumpet after that climb, he could probably blow out a fire easily).
St Florian at the entrance to the royal way - the patron saint of chimney sweeps and firemen!
Linda has a seeded roll (called an "obwarzanki") that you can buy at every street corner for 1 zloty (the l again has a slash through it and is pronounced w, so - “zwoty”).
Sujai eats his roll outside the only Indian shop in Krakow.
Horses like seeded rolls too, I suppose.
Knights and guitarist just hanging out, as in medieval times.
Every few minutes we'd have to veer out of the way of a fast clopping horse carriage coming down the royal way.
Krakow had several amazing churches on each street. Here are two next to each other (on the left and in front). What's also interesting is that they are all FULL on Sundays for several services and have a steady stream of worshippers on other days too. It is possibly the most Catholic country in the world.
An Indian pizza in a Polish city.
So of course we asked someone to take a picture of us in front of it. We were laughing sheepishly because passers-by were stopping to stare and were wondering WHY we wanted a picture in front of a Pizza Hut poster
While looking for the Soup festival in Krakow's Jewish district, Kazimierz, we came across a square where there were several youngsters performing in a concert (given the number of grandparents in the first couple of rows, we think it was a school function or something).
Sujai wishes he could go on the bouncing slide.
At the soup festival, the line for the free soup (made/served in these old stye cast iron portable cauldrons) was SO long that we decided to get something else to eat.
Linda bought a kielbasa.
While I got a Goralska Zapiekanki (a kind of baguette with sausages and grilled cheese, topped with green onions and sour cream - completely unhealthy and very very tasty).
Sujai and the Zapiekanki man wait for the grilling to finish
Sujai looks happy.
A funny performance (the guy on the left was supposedly the harmonica instructor teaching his recalcitrant students how to play). We didn't get any of the jokes, of course, but everyone was laughing at their antics as they ran around the Nowy Plaz during the soup festival.
Close up of slightly undercooked Kielbasa sausage. Fortunately the zapiekanki was enormous so we didn't go hungry.
We began day two in Krakow with a walk along the Planty. It was Sunday and everyone was on their way to or from church.
This little boy fearlessly took on a pigeon, bombarding it with mud from the sand pit behind him.
Picturesque Krakow apartments
Entrance to the Wawel castle was up a small hill.
Wawel castle controls crowds by only selling 10 entrance tickets every 10 minutes.
Posing in front of the Wawel cathedral - the place where all the kings of Poland were crowned and where Pope John Paul II offered mass.
Boat ride along the Wiswa (sp?) river
Overlooking the river from Wawel castle
Linda sends a postcard home. (Linda: Mom and Dad--this one's being mailed to YOU.)
The Dragon's Den was a little exhibition about the Wawel dragon, which terrorized the people of Krakow until some smart guy filled a goat with sulphur which burnt the dragon (!) when he tried to eat it.
Kids climb up the cast iron sculpture of the Wawel dragon.
(Linda: Sujai does a fine dragon impersonation. As the only Indian in Poland [possibly not an exaggeration at all], he gave the onlooking Polish children a memorable first impression of what foreigners are like.)
If we'd been quicker, we could have caught the dragon breathing fire (there is a gas tube in the sculpture's mouth, which we hadn't noticed initially).
(Linda: We saw many girls dressed up in First Holy Communion--I'm assuming!-- dresses.)
Stalls near the castle selling cuddly Wawel dragon soft toys and imitation assault rifles.
Restaurants outside the castle capitalizing on brand Dragon
Wawel dragon handing out pamphlets on Florianska
The Planty was a (lovely and) recurrent theme of our stay in Krakow
We wandered into a church (without knowing anything about it) and discovered it was a beautiful, white church (unlike some of the darker, brooding examples in the city). There were several pastel frescoes on the walls and an organ player practicing, so we stopped to listen for a while.
Memorials to saints/martyrs dot the city of Krakow.
The Bishop's palace (where PJP2 stayed when he was the Bishop of Krakow).
An open air exhibition in the Planty about Pope Jana Paw(\slashed-L)a II in Krakow had some terrific pictures of Krakow.
Krakow tram
(Linda: Overlooking the fountains in the modern three-story mall near the train station.)
Linda FINALLY gets a decent sized scoop in an Italian cafe (of course) in the mall.
