Kraków, it turns out, is a (significantly) cheaper, (slightly) less touristy version of my favorite city so far, Prague. Well, no, Kraków has its own unique history and place in the world, of course. But from the perspective of an American tourist, I think the comparison with Prague is apt.
Like Prague and many other European cities, Kraków has a scenic central square in its Old Town that’s a magnet for tourists.
Actually, it’s really more like Kraków has two main squares. There’s this half of the Rynek Glowny (meaning, conveniently enough, “main square” in Polish) dominated by the Town Hall Tower behind me. To the left of my head in the photo above, some tourists are posing for a photo. Probably not for my selfie, but hey, who knows? Behind them, the long Cloth Hall building divides the square in two (12 July 2018).
Although it’s a squat, low, unassuming building for the most part, the Cloth Hall has its fun flourishes (14 July 2018).
During the Middle Ages, people bought and sold clothing in the Cloth Hall. These days, it’s ground zero for souvenir shopping (14 July 2018).
And on the other side of the Cloth Hall, you pop out in the other half of the square, with its landmark, the mismatched spires of St. Mary’s Basilica.
I’m amazed at how many people in Europe, locals and tourists alike, wear short pants and short sleeves all summer long, no matter how chilly and dank it is. I’d be shivering without my jeans and pullover on. But then, I remember growing up in Maine, where some people decide once it’s April, they’re going to wear shorts, even if it’s 40˚F outside. Maybe it’s about making up for those dark European winter days (12 July 2018).
I think it’s even prettier at night (12 July 2018).
And, as any self-respecting central square in Europe should be, the Rynek Glowny is ringed by cafés.
Outdoor tables on a happening European main square? You know I’ll be under one of those umbrellas. Unlike Prague, I was able to eat an entire meal here while staying under budget; more on that in a future post. In the background, notice the horse-drawn carriages. They’re a big tourist gimmick in this part of the old town. Like taxis elsewhere, the carriages queue up, wait for a customer, and then the next one advances forward. This became comical when a troupe of street dancers set up shop right here, putting on a semi-impromptu performance and then shaking down the café patrons for money. I generally welcome musicians and other performers who come to spaces like this and lay down a hat or a guitar case so passers-by can donate. But I don’t like it when the performers come to me while I’m a captive audience to ask for money, particularly when they chose to perform in front of me, rather than me choosing to watch their act. Out of principle, I’ll never contribute. The dance performance was unimpressive until the very end, where one guy stood on his hands for like two minutes, “dancing” with his legs in the air. That was cool. But the funniest part was that horse-drawn carriages kept passing through the dancers’ space, but because the performers were dancing to music from a boombox they brought along, they didn’t want to pause to move. So they’d scurry out from under the horses’ hooves at the last possible moment and then be all in disarray for a minute or two before they got back on track, only to be interrupted again (12 July 2018).
Kraków’s Old Town is also wonderfully walkable. It’s not quite fully pedestrianized, but cars are a fairly rare sight.
(12 July 2018)
(14 July 2018)
And of course, there are a lot of churches. At this point in my travels, I’m pretty well cathedraled-out, so I didn’t pop into the interior of many of them. Multiple churches in Kraków are attached to still-functioning monasteries, so they’re less of a museum piece than in, say, Spain or Czechia.
This is the Cloister (monastery) of the Dominican Fathers. As with many cultural sites behind the former iron curtain, you see a sign noting that the EU is paying to restore the structure (16 July 2018).
The Church of Sts. Peter and Paul has one of my favorite exteriors (14 July 2018).
The Basilica of St. Francis, part of an active Franciscan monastary, has an unimpressive exterior… (14 July 2018).
…but inside, it’s a different story. Off to the side, there’s a chapel marked off-limits to tourists, for worshippers only. And it was about half-full on a Saturday, as far as I could tell from out in the nave. Roman Catholicism is very much alive here in Poland, unlike any other country I’ve visited except Croatia. In both of these countries, the Catholic faith appeals to nationalist sentiments, since it sets them apart from their neighbors — Protestant Germany and Orthodox Russia in Poland’s case, Orthodox Serbia and Muslim Bosnia in Croatia’s. And many of the clergy were active in opposing repression in these two countries during their long communist periods (14 July 2018).
And I love Art Nouveau stained-glass windows (14 July 2018).
Speaking of things Catholic, I would be remiss if I did not mention the numerous monuments dedicated to Kraków’s favorite son, Pope — now Saint — John Paul II. He grew up in the Kraków area and was bishop of Kraków before becoming pope.
He has his own chapel in the Basilica of St. Francis (14 July 2018).
Here he is among a constellation of mostly secular Polish heroes in Park Jordana, west of the Old Town (14 July 2018).
And you know you’ve made it in Poland when you’ve got your very own monument on Wawel Hill (13 July 2018).
As a medieval history buff, I love city walls. Kraków’s walls, other than those of Wawel Castle at the southern tip of the Old Town, have mostly gone the way of the dodo. But a couple of fragments remain.
This barbican was added to the main north “Florian” gate to Kraków’s city wall around 1500 for additional protection (12 July 2018).
The Florian Gate and the small extant stretch of city wall adjoining it create a funnel that serves as a natural tourist trap, filled with souvenir stands and hawkers selling tours (12 July 2018).
However, I do approve of what Kraków did with the real estate where the city wall and moat once stood. They put in a lovely park called the Planty that, unlike any other city I’ve visited with a similar feature, actually forms a complete ring of parkland around the entire Old Town. Naturally I incorporated it into my running route, and I took a slight detour so I could walk through it to and from the bus and train stations on my way in and out of the city.
The Planty is wide enough for cyclists and walkers, and here and there features dedicated bike lanes (12 July 2018).
Jagiellonian University, one of Europe’s oldest, sits along the Planty. Unlike Olomouc, Kraków is still hopping in July when the students are out of town (12 July 2018).
And this eye-popping structure, which Google Maps tells me is called Juliusza Słowackiego Theater, sits just off the Planty as well (14 July 2018).
And, venturing a little ways beyond the Old Town, there are plenty of other green spaces I can imagine walking, running, biking, or picnicking in on a regular basis if I lived here.
The Vistula River is lined on either side with a wide, well-marked, paved biking and running trail, which I naturally also run-tested. Kraków has a bike-share program, but the on-and-off (but mostly on) rainy weather that persisted through my entire week in Kraków precluded my taking a spin (12 July 2018).
The large Park Jordana, west of the Old Town, features busts of an assortment of Polish heroes (all men, as far as I could tell). Somewhat unusually for a “hero,” this guy, Ryszard Kukliński, passed military secrets of Poland’s overlord-ally the Soviet Union to the West (14 July 2018).
I saw a bunch of people exercising or letting their dogs off their leashes in the enormous, meadow-like Krakowskie Błownia, west of Park Jordana. If this were D.C., it would be filled with teams of people wearing matching t-shirts playing in summer kickball and glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee leagues (14 July 2018).