October 21, 2017 Krakow 1 Day 20 of trip
We arrived in Krakow about 3:30. That made us about 16 hours
late. The airport is named John Paul II, originally Karol Wojtyla, after
Krakow’s most famous modern citizen. The people in the airport were
overwhelmingly white, a sharp contrast to the diversity in our prior stops.
Our baggage came quickly and while waiting I found an ATM to
get Polish money, zloty. With people waiting in line behind me I got confused
about the exchange rate and withdrew too much money.
The airport was easy to navigate and after collecting our
bags and money, we went out to the reception area to find the ride that I
thought had been arranged for us by the Airbnb host. It was not to be found,
probably due to our delayed arrival. A driver approached us and initially I
turned him down, expecting that we had a ride. The airport is about 15 km west of
the town center and I had read that there was a train connection to town. I
briefly considered using it, but we had lots of luggage and I was not certain
where our lodging was, so when the driver later came back to us, I spoke with
him. He initially wanted 150 zlotys, but I negotiated him down to 90, the same
price I was told to pay by the Airbnb host. Turned out he was not a licensed
taxi driver. We walked to the parking garage to get into his well-maintained,
late model German vehicle and I was instructed to sit in the front, I assumed
to make it appear as if he was not carrying passengers for hire.
The drive into town took us along a modern highway that went
through a wooded area. As we approached the town we initially passed
neighborhoods of two story row houses and then entering the town there were
lots of mid-sized office and apartment buildings.
Our driver was unable to find the exact location of the
Airbnb. To be fair it was on a one block street. He was finally able to find it
with assistance from the GPS on my phone. As promised we were greeted by a
friend of the owners. He was a young man on roller blades. Helped carry the
bags up the stairs and explained the apartment, but then he was off. The unit
was a one-bedroom loft apartment on the 3rd floor in an apartment
building. The apartment was very nice, clean, spacious, a breakfast stocked
kitchen and a large living/dining room. However, I was surprised that it was a
unit in an apartment building. I had thought that the Airbnb units were in the owners’
homes, but that was mistaken. This clearly was an investment Airbnb unit. We
never saw the owners (who on the website were described as very helpful) or the
friend again.
Someone should write a history of Krakow, from what I
learned it would read like an epic novel. T became the capital of Poland in 1038
but was burned to the ground by the invading Tartars in 1241. The city was
revived and thrived in the 14th century under the leadership of Kazimierz
the Great who facilitated the founding of Jagiellonian University. However, its
status slipped in 1596 when the capital was transferred to Warsaw. The decline
accelerated in the 18th century under the Austrian empire when the city was relegated
to a provincial capital. Between the world wars after Poland regained its
independence Krakow thrived, but under the Nazis the city’s academic elite and
Jewish community were slaughtered. Under the Communists after WWII the city was
enveloped in a cloud of pollution from the massive steelworks built at Nowa Huta,
only 10 km outside the city. That has now been cleaned up and Krakow is now
Poland’s second largest city and rivaling Prague as an Eastern European tourist
destination.
After unpacking and settling in we took off, (it was now
dark) to explore Krakow and get some dinner.
We walked through a small park which had a statute and
memorial to Pope John. I intended to walk to the Old Town area but turned 180
degrees the wrong way along Lubicz. When we came to the Opera Krakowska house
at Mogilskie roundabout, I realized that we were going the wrong way. A very
impressive, modern, red brick building, but our schedule and its programs,
which advertised music from Verdi to Bernstein, did not mesh.
We then boarded a street trolley, I thought that it was going
in that direction, to resume the trip to Old Town. Not many English speakers at
the trolley stop. A cheap ride with fares based on time of time rather than its
length, so I guessed that it would be a brief ride. The trolley line did not go
into Rynek Glowny, the main square, (none of them did) but skirted the square’s
east side. We got off at Sienna and walked up that street looking for food. We
picked out a place that two British tourists highly recommended, but they could
not accommodate us on Saturday night without a reservation. Sienna has lots of upscale shops and restaurants,
but we continued into Rynek Glowny.
This is a very large square that had lots of activity in it.
It is 4,000 sq. meters and the largest medieval town square in Europe. Its layout,
based on that of a castrum (Roman military camp), was drawn up in 1257 after
the town was burnt to the ground in 1241 by marauding Tatars. There were lots of horse drawn carriages going
around the square which is dominated in the middle by the lit-up Cloth Hall.
Overlooking the square on its northwest corner is the massive St. Mary’s
Basilica. From the higher of the Basilica’s two towers there is an hourly bugle
call. It has only 5 notes and breaks off in midbar. This arises from the legend
that a watchman was sounding the alarm when the Tartars invaded, and he was cut
off in midbar when an arrow pierced his throat.
We took a short shopping detour in the Hard Rock Café and
then proceeded up Florian ska St. in search of food. It is a bit of a tourist
street, but we found a small Polish restaurant and ate lots of pierogis and
drank beer. These are Polish raviolis that are stuffed with a variety of
fillings. Good meal at a reasonable cost.
After the Tarter invasion the city surrounded itself with a
3 km long chain of defensive double walls complete with 47 towers, eight main
gates and a wide moat. In the 19th century the moat was filled in
and has become a park, the Planty, that rings the Old Town. Most of the walls
have been demolished, but the gate at the end of Florianska St remains. So, we
walked up to that after dinner and then along Basztowa and through a long
tunnel back to Lubicz and then to our apartment by about 11.
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| The Opera House |
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| Cloth Hall in Rynek Glowny |
