Hey hey! Did everyone have a nice Judeo-Christian-Spring-awakening holiday weekend? I hosted Passover in my home for fourteen people so that was a thing I pulled off by the skin on my teeth.
So Krakow! A very very old city in Poland! But first, let’s look at some random stuff that does not neatly fit anywhere else.
Graffiti from both Vienna and Krakow that I liked.
A piece of ancient oldness chillin’ in the Vienna train station because they have so much art they can just put that stuff any old place:
The Rathaus in Vienna at night. The Rathaus (pronounced how you would think, Rat House) is the main government building of the town, where you would go to get a permit or pay your taxes, that kind of thing. It is from the late 1800s but it is faithfully designed in Gothic style. The Viennese Rathaus has a giant public park in front of it and during the Frozen Months it is a ice skating rink with colored lights in the trees and pop music. It was so lovely that The Moomins and I stood there in the epically cold weather and simply enjoyed the people skating to Katy Perry.
Now on to Krakow. Krakow is going to be a bit darker than Vienna because instead of museums The Moomins and I went to several places of Jewish interest and that means Auschwitz, Schindler’s factory, etc. Therefore, less upbeat. You have been warned.
Krakow is OLD. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
Kraków, also Cracow or Krakow is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. The city has grown from a Stone Age settlement to Poland’s second most important city. It began as a hamlet on Wawel Hill and was already being reported as a busy trading center of Slavonic Europe in 965. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centers of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life and is one of Poland’s most important economic hubs. It was the capital of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from 1038 to 1569; the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1596, the Free City of Kraków from 1815 to 1846; the Grand Duchy of Cracow from 1846 to 1918; and Kraków Voivodeship from the 14th century to 1998. It has been the capital of Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999.
A Voivodeship is like a state with a Governor called a Voivode. They only exist in Central and Eastern Europe. My point is Krakow is super-old. When we arrived early in the morning we went to our hotel. While we were waiting for our room the front desk asked us if we wanted to have breakfast in their medieval wine cellar and we were like, “Hell yes, I want to eat eggs and toast in a medieval wine cellar, thank you.” I spoke to the front desk afterwards and they said don’t get too excited, every building in the city center has a vintage basement. There’s a whole city under the city, they ain’t special. Lotta old all over.
Another thing I learned from the front desk staff is that they don’t have myths and legends, they have truths and realities. I’ll explain. As we were checking in, the front desk girl pulled out the map of the city and started circling things. “Here is where the hotel is, and here is the city center, and over here is Wawel Castle, and if you’d like to meet our dragon he lives here, and here is…”
Notice she didn’t say, “If you’ve heard our story about the dragon, blah blah blah.” No. The dragon is real, he lives here and you can visit him. They also strongly believe in gnomes who we will meet when we go to the salt mines. My favorite conversation of this style is when we took a walking tour of Kazimierz. Our guide named Jack said, “Have you met our dragon?” and I said I had not yet but was planning to. Jack said matter-of-factly, “You should come back on the first of June. Our dragon sends out invitations to all the rest of the world’s dragons and they come here and there’s a parade of dragons.” I don’t know about you but you bet your sweet butt I’m going to the dragon parade at some point, are you kidding me? That sounds amazing.
Due to being around for millennia, Krakow has awesome architecture.
I took way too many pictures of that church at the end. I loved the step style that is reminiscent of Dutch step buildings, but it doesn’t only go across and down, it dips back down before it goes up which makes it spikier. I attached a picture of a Dutch-style building in New York so you can understand what I’m saying.
The city, even though it is ancient, is very much alive and adapting. I took this photo to show Krakow keeping it modern. The building to the right was torn down, and the wurst over the door on the right has been removed and now it’s a ramen place. In the place of the torn down building is a tex-mex food truck. Very current with the times.
Next entry: more Krakow including its ancient fossils.
Addendum: Look at these pictures of the Dragon Parade! That looks super-fun. I am on board with that.
