Krakow is Poland’s old capital and a stunning city with a lot of beautiful architecture and culture. The old town luckily survived WWII and it really hasn’t changed much since the Middle Ages! We were able to explore this famous UNESCO world heritage listed place with the help of a free walking tour. Major sites we visited include the Main Market Square with St Mary’s church, Cloth Hall and Townhall tower where 2x trumpeters play a short 25s melody at each of the 4 windows hourly based on an old tradition/legend), the remains of the medieval city walls with the Barbican and St Florian Gates, St Francis Church, the Bishops Palace and Wawel Hill and castle. Outside of the main town , we also spent a night at the old quarry which has been turned into a park. We saw many divers there swimming in the water and lots of locals lighting fires and having a BBQ on the weekend.
We learnt that the Polish Empire was the largest country in Europe at its height in the 15than 16thcentury and covered lands including modern day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Romania. It began to decline in the 17thand 18thcentury and Poland was then owned by 3 countries – the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Krakow was badly affected by the Nazis’ during WWII and we visited a Jewish synagogue in Krakow’s Jewish quarter. This was the first time we had entered a synagogue and it was definitely very interesting but a culture shock!
Jewish quarter/old ghetto area.
Breakfast time in the van!
An old Austrian building used as a city hospital.
The Polish food in Krakow was amazing and we sampled our first Polish dumplings ‘Pierogi’ and also had ‘Barszcz’ – a beetroot soup served with dumplings and ‘Schabowy’ – breaded fried pork shop with potatoes and fried cabbage.
Really cheap and good quality traditional Polish cuisine.
Beetroot soup and dumplings.
Lots of horse and carriages within the old town.
Florian's gate of the old town walls.
The beautiful and largest central town square in Poland.
