On the way to Krakow, I saw lots of interesting country on the way to Krakow. A few small towns had impressive churches that I was able to look at through the train window. The only stop I had between Dresden and Krakow was Wroclaw, and at that station, I had my first taste of Polish perogies, and they were great. After my long travel, I finally arrived in Krakow and was able to tour their Christmas Market.
The Christmas Market here was one of the larger ones I had seen. There was horse-drawn carriages, lots of candy, and many booths selling a large selection of items. When I was finished touring around the market, I decided to go and check into the hostel.
have photos of Christmas Market
It turned out checking into the hostel was not going to be that easy to check into. I was turned away at the door because I was wearing sweats. The only way to get into the hostel is to go through a somewhat exclusive club, so it was actually the club who turned me away. The security guard at the club said that I could not enter with sweats I then told him I wanted to enter the hostel and he asked me a question I did not know how to answer, so he told me to go away. I decided to go back to the Christmas Market and email the hostel about this. They told me what to say to get into the hostel, and so I was eventually able to check in.
The people at the hostel were very nice about it and gave me a free beer. In the bathroom, they have a message saying that the club security guards are not your friend and to just ignore them and you should be fine. Evidently, it does not sound like this was the first time they had a problem like this.
Auschwitz
On my first day in Krakow, I went to the infamous death camp Auschwitz. This is one of the most disturbing experiences I have ever had. Since it was such a significant experience, I made a separate blog post about it which can be found here: https://belgiuminternship.blogspot.com/2019/05/19-day-trip-auschwitz.html.
Christmas Market
The Krakow Christmas was lovely and located entirely in the main square. It is also legal to drink alcohol in the market, contrary to the normal law of no drinking in public, so I had some gluhwein while touring around. I ate some perogies several times and learned that the ones we eat are called ruskie perogies, but there were many others to try. On top of perogies, I ate a lot of other food that was for sale there. There was lots of candy as well, and I had some strawberry covered chocolate. I also bought a few trinkets at a few of the booths.
Salt Mines
One of the other tours I went on was to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. This was an exciting and unexpected tour. During the tour, we went up to 130 meters underground, but only saw 1% of the mines. This was one of the reasons that the guide told us at the start to stay close to the group or else we may get lost. Many exhibits were explaining how life was in the mines historically.
They showed how horses were used to move things around the mines. The guide explained that when a horse was brought into the mine, it never left because it was too hard to bring them back up. There were horses down there until modern history, but they were eventually phased out in favour of current methods. The last horses down there were more like pets than actual workers.
The various churches that were built into the mine. These chapels were made because, historically, people were very religious, and the dangers of working in the mine were high, so they did not know if they would get back home alive. Therefore the chapels served as an area to make prayers during the day in case you died later that day. Now, however, building chapels in the salt has become a sort of tradition. A large church was built deep down that has been used for various events even. This large church has a replica of the last supper carved into the salt. It was really cool to see these rooms that were built into the salt.
On top of chapels, there was also statues and other art-pieces carved into the salt. The photos below show some of these.
Some of the sculptures and designs
There was also a shopping mall about 100 meters in the ground that had cell reception. I asked the guide how did they accomplish that, but she did not know. I would guess that the must-have piped the output of a cell reception booster to the underground mall (this is just a theory).
Overall it was a great trip.
Actual Krakow Touring
The majority of this blog has been about trips to places around Krakow, but Krakow itself has many interesting sites itself. There is a beautiful old castle, a running path where the old city walls used to be, ancient churches, the Schindler Factory, and many others. Let's talk about them 😀.
Wawel Castle is a massive and beautiful castle. It is also is the center of the story of the dragon of Krakow. It also has many different architectural styles in its cathedral area. This is from its history spanning so many years.
Krakow is also the center of the oldest university in Poland, Jagiellonian University. Interestingly it is not certain where the university started since it was declared, but the declaration did not specify where. Now it is spread throughout the city like many old European Universities like it. My favourite alumni of the university is, of course, Nicolaus Copernicus and just because I am physics student does not mean I am biased.
The oldest church in Krakow, St. Andrew's Church, was also built as a fortress. Right beside it was a very different church called Saints Peter and Paul Church, it is effortless to tell these two apart since there architecture was very different. The other main church that I saw was St. Mary's Basilica, and it was located in the main square. It was also where all the 'free tours' started.
Also located in the main square is the cloth hall and the town's tower. The Tower used to house a jail and torture chamber, and today it has a bar at the bottom. Nowadays the cloth hall is home to many little shops. The main square is also where the Christmas Market was located, so it had a very surreal feel to it.
The other neat part of Krakow is where the old city walls were, and where the city fortress still stands. The fortress, called the Barbican, was planned to be demolished but the people came and said it would be harmful to lose that part of their history. One professor said that if they removed the Barbican, it would cause the wind to blow women's dresses up, and during that point in time, it would be scandalous for that to happen. During my last morning, I went for a run around where the town wall used to be.
Some photos of Krakow at night
Some other photos of Krakow
Saint Andrew's Church on the right and
Saints Peter and Paul's Church on the left
The Hostel
The hostel I went to was great, Little Havana Party Hostel. They had the option to buy tickets to Auschwitz and the Salt Mines when booking the stay, which was very convenient. They also organized a pub crawl, which was very fun. The people working there were always friendly, and most of them are travellers as well. The other guests were also entertaining to hang out with. Two things should be kept in mind, though:
- It is a party hostel, and it can get loud
- The club security is not your friend.
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