Krakow

Three years ago I made a list of my favorite cities (and metropolises, and villages) I had visited. I also made a list of places I wished to visit. I need to update some of those lists. One city that escaped attention, but that I always had every intention of visiting, was Krakow, Poland. This month we finally got around to it and it has radically altered my lists.

Krakow has the great blend of historical import, architectural beauty, and wonderful atmosphere. And it is currently super cheap! We got an apartment just two blocks from Europe’s largest city square, about fifty meters from the Florian Gate on Florianska Street, one of the city’s most picturesque places. As usual, we packed in multiple days’ worth of sightseeing into three days.

We saw all the major buildings and churches in Old Town, and we ventured into the Jewish [art of town, and into the ghetto where they were forced to move by the Nazis. We saw Schindler’s factory, and we ate a lot of meat, cheap. We saw one of the most vibrant city squares at night. We ate ice cream (the heat was pretty bad!) and we laughed at the ladies trying to pull the well-known “drink scam” on unsuspecting tourists. (None successfully from what we saw.

We also spent a cool afternoon in the world-famous salt mine and a hot morning in the infamous death camp, but that is fodder for other posts…