Advertisement
Published: October 8th 2022
Edit Blog Post
We had a leisurely start then out to
Gossip for breakfast before wandering up up to see St. Florian's Gate - built around the 14th century as a rectangular Gothic tower in the city walls this is part of the city's fortifications against Tatar attack - and the Kraków Barbican - a fortified outpost once connected to the city walls.
Wandered back down to the Main Market Square with Saint Mary's Basilica and the cloth hall. After a quick browse of the souvenirs we went to look around
Rynek Underground museum situated below the market square. This contains remnants of medieval walls, streets and waterworks reconstructions of workshops, the remains of burned settlements, the oldest of which dates from the 11th century. There were also holograms, fog machines and screens to recreate the atmosphere of Kraków 700 years
ago.
Back above in the square we went to
Wedel’s chocolate café and had delicious hot chocolate - I had one with E. Wedel chocolate liqueur and Jamie had a slightly bitter chocolate with orange and ginger! It was still raining with no sign of stopping so we braved the weather and headed down to Wawel Castle passing Saints Peter and Paul Church and St. Andrew's
Church on the way. We poked around the castle grounds then headed down through the cave to Dragon's Den (
Smok Wawelski). This limestone cave has been said to be home to the dragon of Wawel who is related to the mythic beginning of Krakow, comes from the turn of the 13th century. The legend goes that Prince Krak rid his people of a dragon devouring both their stock and virgins.
After watching the dragon breath fire (!) we headed over the the Jewish Quarter to wander around and for Jamie to find a menorah for her mum. Our route took in Corpus Christi Church, the Old Synagogue, Remuh Synagogue and Cemetery and the Tempel Synagogue as well as a jewish bookshop where we found a lovely menorah. It was rather heavy so we headed straight back to our hotel room to drop off some bits and pieces and have a cuppa before heading out to find a traditional restaurant for an early supper. We walked around the square & nerarby streets looking at the menus (again I was drawn to the Georgian place!) and ended up at
Staropolska Karczma. This was an excellent choice - we both had potato
pancakes with beef gulasch and shared sides of homemade potato dumplings and grilled vegetables, I also has a Polish Mojito (vodka instead of rum!)
We returned to the hostel so Jamie could pack up & we could get to the train statrion with plenty of time for her to get to the airport for her flight to Croatia.... but that's another adventure and hers to tell.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 33; dbt: 0.0285s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb