Krakow's Hospitality

Krakow, Poland was a great surprise. Coming in I was a bit anxious and hesitant about the visit, but was met with great food, and some very memorable sights.

Let’s begin with the Krakow Old Town. The city is beautiful and very tidy. The town square was once the largest in all of Europe and the long building in bisecting the square is home to stalls of souvenir shops. This was the place of trade back in its days, somewhere around the 13^th and 14^th century.

Our first night was spent in this square, having a traditional Polish dinner. I have had perogies before, but I was not prepared for just how good Polish cuisine was going to be! My first meal I had a Zurek, traditional soup served in a bread bowl, and some perogies. Honestly, after the first meal, I fell in love with Polish food! No more baguettes, no more non-filling food! CARB ME UP!

Like any other city, we visited the major tourist sights. One of the most popular was the Wawel Castle south of the town square. The castle sits on top of a hill, overlooking present day Krakow.

Within the castle are a few more museums, and a church that houses the tombs of kings and queens past of Poland. They said you could not take pictures, but I guess once you are physically out of the church, you can always turn and take a picture through the door? Matt was not happy with me about this.. but hey, I paid to get into this place, at the very least I should be able to take ONE picture!

By far the coolest sight at the Wawel castle was the “Dragon’s Den”. Sitting under the castle, this cave was said to be where dragons were kept, but really, was a cave probably carved out by water over time. It was said that the formation occurred two million years ago. Pretty neat.

Now speaking of going low into the ground, our next day we spent visiting the Weiliczka Salt Mine. The tour takes you down into the mine, walking through networks of tunnels. At one point, we were about 360ft deep. This tour was also the first time I realized getting an actual camera would have been a great idea, instead of relying on my iphone and ipad!

The walls of the mine were salty as my taste buds verified that during the tour. The most amazing sight was the church that the miners built. In this church there were statues carved from the stones, and here, a replica of the Last Supper carved into the wall of the church. The chandeliers were made out of salt crystals as well. This just shows how religious the Polish people are, and their dedication to their god.

Krakow was great, and we could not have found a cheaper place for great food! Our last day was spent waiting for a train that leaves at 10pm, so the whole day, we tried to keep ourselves busy. For lunch, we sat at a local deli and I ate almost EVERYTHING there is. I went back twice to try more food! The assorted perogies, the cabbage rolls, the tripe soup… I don’t know which I am carving more right now!

Our trip to Krakow also included a day in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. I cannot believe that murder at this scale occurred only some 70 years ago. 

The next post will be dedicated to those that died, that lost loved ones, and that suffered. I think the pictures will be enough to show you the living conditions of millions of innocent Jewish people during the Second World War, and here is hoping that we all learn from history and will never see it ever repeated.