Kraków

It took months of keeping quiet and organising our trip to Poland but we did it! When Karen, David and I finally told Ali we were off to Kraków the next morning, for his birthday treat, he was stunned and speechless. Phew! The flight was hassle free and flying from Edinburgh took just over a couple of hours to get to Poland’s capital city, Kraków.

After settling into our hotel we realised just how close we were to it’s main attraction – The Rynek Glowny Central Square, shown in the heading picture. Our view from our bedroom window was St Florian’s Church, shown below left (built between 1185 and 1212). On our first morning, I got up to close the hotel window and discovered these wonderful warm colours from the sunrise on the church. This acted as the catalyst for us the have regular pre-dawn jaunts into the city to try and capture some gorgeous photos. The picture of Karen and David below is at our usual breakfast table. Karen looks surprisingly awake considering she had been up since 4 am to get some Castle sunrise shots!

Our first wander around Kraków took us to the Rynek Glowny Central Square, also called the Market Square which is one of the largest Medieval plazas in Europe and dates from 1257. The square has 47 elegant buildings consisting of houses, shops, bars and restaurants so it’s a busy, bustling place. The surrounding streets are a grid like system so all roads lead back to the grand square.

In the centre of the square we have the magnificent Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) which originated about 700 years ago (shown below). It started off as a covered market and was once a major centre for international trade.

These side arcades, shown below, were added later and looked especially graceful in the afternoon light. Today, it is still used as a market but instead of local traders selling spices, silk and leather it provides souvenirs for tourists (mostly slippers!). Upstairs, the Kraków National Museum exhibits a huge collection of Polish art.

Adjacent to the main square is St Mary’s Basillica, built in the 14th century and stands 80m tall. Every hour a bugle is played from the top tower and we were very surprised one morning to hear the player stopping in mid tune and slamming the wooden shutters closed. We had a good chuckle assuming he thought nobody would notice him escaping early due to the fact it was 5am in the morning and rather cold! However, since returning home I read that the tune is actually supposed to break off in mid-stream to commemorate the famous 13th century trumpeter, who was shot in the throat while sounding the alarm before an attack on the city.

Also situated in the main market square is the Town Hall Tower and is the only remaining part of the Town Hall which was demolished in 1820. The cellars once housed a city prison with a medieval torture chamber which is now a cafe and theatre. Several fires weakened the structure so that a huge buttress had to be added in 1680 to support it. What’s more, in 1703, severe winds made the gothic tower lean slightly, which it still does to this day. At the top of the tower is the Kraków Historical Museum which also offers views over the city.

On the south corner of the Central Square is St. Adalbert’s Church with it’s copper dome, it is almost one thousand years old and is one of the oldest churches in Kraków, it predates the square by almost a century.

The picture below is the rooftop moments before it poured down with rain so we had no choice to take a break from our sightseeing and nip into a cafe and taste the Polish beer.

Between our hotel and the Central Square was St Florian’s Gate (Brama Florianska) and the remnants of the city walls, which encircled the old town. It is one of the best know gothic towers in Kraków and was built around the 1300’s out of red granite. Originally, the defences consisted of 39 towers and 10 gates but St Florian’s gate is the last remaining one.

Linked to the city walls through the Florian Gate lies the medieval Barbican of Kraków, built around 1498 and was a fortified gateway. It is a moated cylindrical brick structure with an inner courtyard and seven turrets and is one of the very few surviving structures of its kind in Europe. The Barbican now occasionally serves as a concert and exhibition hall.

Just around the corner from the Barbican is the magnificent Slowacki Theatre. It opened in 1893 and is a miniature version of the famous Paris Opera House. Regrettably, we didn’t manage to catch a concert but we did manage to get a night shot of this building as it looked spectacular lit up against the dark sky.

Karen spotted a globe on top of this building while walking through the Planty Gardens, again just around the corner from our hotel. It is the best example of art nouveau architecture in Poland and was built in 1906. It is an asymmetrical structure dominated by a pyramidal tower with a globe on top gives it the name ‘Globe House’.

Another spectacular building is the Collegium Maius which is the oldest college and best building in Kraków’s Jagiellonian University, built in the 15th century. Here you can see the beautiful courtyard and at certain times a clock performs a show with wooden figures of kings and famous professors parading to solemn music.

On Ali’s birthday we decided to take a tour to the outskirts of Kraków to visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Salt was excavated here as early as the 11th century due to the high deposits found in this area. There are enormous network of galleries and chambers and now it houses a display of the old mining methods and tools.

One of the main attractions of this mine is the Chapel of the Blessed Kinga and is found 200 metres below the surface. Everything is carved entirely out of salt, including the chandeliers and the floor; there is even and underground lake. Amazingly, these carvings and statues were created by the miners themselves.

Back in the city, south of the old town is Wawel Hill which lies (starting form bottom left of the first picture) Wawel Royal Castle, Wawel Cathedral and St Andrew’s Church on the right. These shots were taken from across the Vistula river (Wisła).

People had lived on this hill as early as fifty thousand years ago and it was during the early 16th century that the rulers took up residence there. The Castle (close up bottom right pic) was created by the best native and foreign artists. Karen and I got up early for a sunrise shot of this, unfortunately when we arrived the castle lights were switched off and the red sky disappeared! You can see the castle (small building on the left) lit up in the bottom left picture just before we rounded the corner to get a close up.

Perhaps, one of the reasons we didn’t quite make it on time to photograph the castle is because we got slightly distracted photographing the J. Piłsudski’s Bridge as it had a fantastic sunrise behind it. You can see the trail lights of a tram going over it during the 15 second exposure. Worth the distraction I think and nice to end my Kraków blog with this one!

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