Krakow is a Charming City With Harrowing History
All it took to get from Warsaw to Krakow was a simple 4 hour Flixbus journey that was an absolute bargain for £7, the bus journey wasn't too bad, however there wasn't a charging port for my phone. When I got to my hostel, I had to charge my phone. Later on, I met up with a guy I met in Naples and we got some Pierogi then had a few beers in the Old Town. I ended up meeting some English guys who had came to Krakow simply to get sloshed, they couldn't even notice that I was Scottish and thought that I was either Polish, Balkan or Italian.
The next day I made sure I got out of bed early so I could see the city, the first place, of course is the main square where the cloth hall is, inside of the cloth hall is a series of stalls selling souvenirs and some unique cool things that I'd definitely buy if it wasn't for Ryanair's baggage rules. There is of course the Town Hall Tower which you can enter for £1.60, sadly you can't go right up to the top and there isn't much inside of the tower. One of the most famous buildings in Krakow has to be the basilica, this church is a great place to get your picture taken and for a pound you can go inside. Inside of the church, it is really well kept and you will be staring into the incredible ceiling.
A 5 minute walk away from the main square is the Wawel castle, this place is incredible and it even has its own cathedral, around the castle you can find some incredible views around the city and when I was there, it wasn't absolutely teeming with tourists.
I headed over to St Florian's Gate to meet up with my friend Giuseppe and then grabbed a quick pizza for lunch. Then we went for a walk around the city, we walked around the old town for a bit and went inside of the Krakow Barbican which is an old fortified outpost and city walls which were once used to defend the city from invasion. To go inside the Barbican the ticket costs £1.60 and you can go to two other parts of the wall. It's really cool to go inside of the wall, but there isn't much else to it.
I spent the rest of the day walking around Krakow with Giuseppe, we were very impressed by the picturesque old town and we also found the Jewish quarter. This was the area in which Jews had resided in for hundreds of years and it is still going strong today. All through the streets, there are Jewish-owned businesses and you will notice the synagogue in the middle of the street. Because we had been walking around so much, we had to stop at a place with food stalls to get something to drink.
Then Giuseppe told me about a great place to get views of the whole city, I was very much interested and I had never heard about this place before. It's slightly out of the way, if you want to get there, you must take the bus and then walk uphill for a bit. It was quite refreshing to be walking through the path as it was very tranquil in complete silence. Then we found the building with the mound which looked like a prison, we were confused as to where the entrance was but we eventually found it. The entry to the mound is £3 and as part of it is a museum inside of the building. The museum isn't much to write home about as we didn't pay much attention, we were just looking for the way to get to the top of the mound. Eventually we found it and took the steep path to the top of the hill and the views were incredible. We could see everything, the old town, some commieblocks in the distance and the vast Polish wilderness.
After that, we headed back down to the centre to find a place to get pierogi and we found a place that was so cheap, we had a feast. We ordered two lots of meat pierogi with schnitzel chicken and kielbasa and the bill only came to around £12. At some Polish eateries it is "self service" in which you go up and order, they bring your food and then you put the dishes away. Eating out was certainly a pleasant (and frugal) experience.
I then said it was a must that we had shots of vodka in Poland. We headed over to a really cool bar in the Jewish quarter and after some beer we headed to another bar to watch the Nations League match between the Netherlands and Poland. We got into conversation with some Poles sitting next to us over some beers and they were very curious about Scottish culture, they asked me about Outlander and the Scottish Gaelic language.
The next day, I realised I missed my chance to book a tour to visit Auschwitz, it's something that everyone should do at least once so that they can understand the atrocities of the Nazis. However, there are some historical sites and museums to do with the holocaust and the Second World War around Krakow. Even in the same building as my hostel, I found the Gestapo museum which was small but informative. It's definitely worth a visit if you have time. Located inside of an old headquarters of the Gestapo, it tells of the horrific actions of the Gestapo against the Poles and Jews. You can even walk inside of the cells in which the Jews were tortured to death and it is extremely harrowing.
I then decided to go to Schindler's Factory which contains a museum about what the Nazis did in Krakow. It's a very interesting museum about the persecution of the Jews and the horrific things that they had faced. The story of Oskar Schindler is very well-known and his selfless acts had saved the lives of over a thousand innocent people. His humanity must not be forgotten and this museum is definitely a must-visit when in Krakow, the price of admission is only a fiver and it is about half an hour walking from the centre of the city.
After that, I decided to head back to the Old town, just to simply chill out on a bench. Travelling through Europe had been seriously exhausting and it was my last day before going home. I decided to buy some souvenirs for some friends and I ended up getting ripped off. Poland is seriously cheap, but be careful where to get your souvenirs, I ended up paying £15 for two shot glasses and three magnets.
Then I found a place to get pierogi for the very last time, in case you didn't realise yet, I really like pierogi and I can't believe how criminally underrated Polish cuisine is. I found a place where I paid a fiver for 12 dumplings and a Warka beer. Then I took one last walk around, I had noticed that there was a horde of English tourists I could from a pub getting loud in preparation for the Nations League fixture and then I simply decided to go home and head to bed as I needed to be waking up at 4AM to catch my flight home. The next morning I got to the airport and made it home safely.
Do I think you should visit Krakow? Absolutely! My only criticism is that it is slightly touristy, in the main square there were a few annoying British tourists getting pished and it's mostly likely a hotbed for stag do drunkards. However, when I went to the trendy pubs in the Jewish Quarter, the bars there had a complete clientele of cool Polish people. Being flooded with stereotypes of Eastern Europe, I expected that the bars would be full of tracksuit-clad gopniks, however I was told that when Polish people go out to the pub, they want to dress well. It certainly is a great place to drink and eat. A beer will set you back at £1.50 at most, a shot of vodka cost me £2 and I have to say, it tastes so much better in Poland compared to what we have back home. What was amazing about Krakow is the well-kept architecture of the Old Town, this place is definitely worth seeing.
Comments
Post a Comment