A Long Weekend In Poland - Part 1

Day 1 – Krakow

Over the last 15 years or so, we have holidayed in Poland on a number of occasions, especially in the south of the country with the fine city of Krakow and the mountain resort of Zakopane being firm favourites.

Cloth Hall in the centre of the main square

The Town Hall Tower ....

.... with its display of traditional costumes ....

.... has views from the top across to Wawel Hill ....

.... the Church of St Mary, with its asymmetrical towers,
where the truncated bugle call sounds every hour .... 

.... and out over the shops and cafes

In the course of those visits, made both summer and winter in all kinds of weather, we’d explored city streets and mountain trails, made new friends and seen old friends get engaged, tried new food and drink, learned a little of the language and culture, and generally fallen in love with the place.

Looks like Ray Harryhausen has left some old props
from the Jason and the Argonauts movie

Our early experiences were tinged with a kind of post-Soviet mystique. Like many children of our age group, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s the Cold War loomed large, and little was done to dispel the film noir image we had of the Eastern Bloc. Anywhere beyond the Iron Curtain was seen as a permanently frozen place of crumbling tenement blocks where life was grim and lived in black and white, security secrets were traded over shots of vodka, sinister secret police loitered at roadblocks and there was a spy on every corner.

Nowadays, that stereotype seems long-gone, and presumably much exaggerated. Modern Poland is emerging as a vibrant and confident nation. It’s only a couple of hour’s flight time from East Midlands Airport to Krakow, and connections to the city and beyond are good. It’s also culturally, linguistically and gastronomically different enough to feel sufficiently “foreign” as a destination, but not so exotic that it removes you too far from your comfort zone.

So what better place to take our niece and nephew for their first trip abroad?

After a lunch of assorted pierogi ....

.... we checked in at the hotel ....

.... situated beneath the massive walls of the Royal Castle on Wawel Hill ....

.... where Krakow cathedral stands ....

.

.... and whose archaeological remains show this highly defensible position 

overlooking the river has been inhabited since ancient times

We’d picked them up at a time they considered to be “a very late night” and we thought of as “a very early morning”. Either way, the 6.30am flight time meant setting off in the middle of the night. But all went smoothly and according to plan, and by mid-morning Poland time we were alighting the shuttle train in Krakow city centre.

We diced with death in the Dragon's lair ....

.... Sam shook hands with Sherlock ....

.... Tom drew water from a working standpipe ....

.... and we bumped into Pope John Paul II ....

.... in the grounds of the Paulite Church

Our first port of call was the Rynek Główny – the huge main square, located in the Old Quarter of town, where we stopped for a drink and to get out bearings. As usual, the square was busy, but we had a good look around and climbed the Town Hall Tower for wide-ranging views before making our way to the Mały Rynek where the annual pierogi festival was in full swing, which provided an ideal lunch opportunity.

We took a stroll round the Jewish Quarter, relaxing for a while
with diplomat and resistence fighter Jan Karski ....

.... before stopping at the Alchemia bar ....

.... where base metals (well, water, barley, hops & yeast actually)
are turned into gold!

Suitably replete, we went to check in at our hotel. Once settled and rested, we set out again – this time for a walk around Wawel Hill, by the River Vistula and through to the Jewish Quarter, before heading back to the main square for dinner – Bigos (the spicy stew of sauerkraut, sausage and meat) for me, meat-filled dumplings for Missy G, and pasta for Sam and Tom.  

By night, the main square is busy with people taking a stroll ....

.... or feeling like royalty in a horse-drawn carriage ....

.... or just having a drink or a meal ....

.

.... and enjoying live music, like Andy Grabowski's
cello-and-live-loops performances

As we took a last stroll before returning to the hotel, the evening’s entertainment was completed courtesy of the abundant buskers and street entertainers.