We're in Krakow! What a spectacularly beautiful place! It was a real mission to get here; it took us nearly eight hours on three trains starting at 7.48 this morning from Slovakia, but it feels all worth it now that we are here. (For anyone worrying about us encountering flood conditions, they are up near Warsaw, so please don't worry as we do not plan to head up that way - our next stop is Prague).
Aside from Prague, I don't think I have been to a more amazing looking city in Europe, perhaps the world. After we put our bags down at our hostel (it's noisy and I feel about 50 years old as the average age hear is about 19) we walked up to the old town square along the cobbled pedestrian streets, dodging the occasional cyclist and funky blue and white tram. Each and every building is an architectural gem - grand, imposing, with just enough detailing or decoration, painted in shades of pink, blue, green or just allowed to fade or crumble elegantly to grey. The square, the biggest in Europe, is surrounded by all these grand old apartments, most at least 500 years old and fabulous gothic and renaissance churches.
Anyway, enough about architecture. It's so hard to describe buildings without knowing all the architectural terms. (Again, I have been roadblocked by a computer without a USB connection to download photos.)
This evening after our wonder around the old town, we stopped in a quaint corner cafe for a warm drink. It is actually quite cold tonight, cold enough for a bit of mulled wine. Larna had a hot rasberry fruit tea. Back at our hostel they have been passing out free vodka shots and I have a big bowl of popcorn at the computer. Getting to sleep tonight could be another story all together (we are in a dorm with some English lads).
Tomorrow we are either going to see Auschwitz or going on a walking tour of the city, depending on the weather. If it's good weather we'll do the walking tour, if not we'll go to Auschwitz. In any event we'll do one on each of the two full days we are here. The rest of the time will be to soak it all in!
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Jonny Liebenberg said: have u seen Manya's pony wandering around the streets? Apparently she was the pride of Krakow!
ReplyDeleteTry to check out "Wieliczka" - it's a massive salt mine (really incredible) that spans 300km and has entire cathedrals carved out of salt inside. It's really close to Krakow and really worth the trip.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip Agnes...we have heard about the salt mine, though not the Cathedral. Seen lots of ponies Jon, though none going by the name of Manya
ReplyDeletenot manya doos! its from that episode of seinfeld remember?!
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