Krakow

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My time in Krakow started with a beautiful train journey from Warsaw. It was raining when I left there, but as the train headed south, the sky cleared, and the countryside was stunning. The autumn colours were amazing--mostly golds, but some reds too. We passed through hills, dotted with farms and tiny villages. The sun was low enough that it added extra gold to the countryside. If I could paint, I would paint the scenes I saw from the train: pillars of white bark crowned with golden leaves and standing on a russet carpet; bright yellow leaves against a stormy sky; a churchyard bursting with tombstones; rows of vegetables waiting to be harvested.

I got disoriented leaving the train station in Krakow, and ended up in a shopping mall (they are connected). It took me a while to get going in the right direction to the hostel, and I made a few wrong turns along the way. This place is so different from Warsaw. Everything, including the hostel, is so busy, and at first I was overwhelmed and craving the solitude of Warsaw.

When I visited the Main Market Square (the largest in Europe), I don't know which was more overwhelming--the tourists, or the pigeons. The strangest thing though was the sound--if I closed my eyes it reminded me of the sound of breathing underwater. It wasn't until I got around to the other side of the Cloth Hall that I found the source of the strange sound: a 4-hour, 3-city art movement that involved piping the water over loudspeakers into the square, and people standing still for 30 minutes before being replaced by someone else. I could have participated in it, but the cynic in me thought it was too bizarre.

Poland is definitely one of the most Catholic countries I've ever visited. The Poles devotion to their faith is obvious in the flowers and candles at monuments and shrines, and in the number of priests and nuns on the streets. Which is why Wawel Cathedral kind of surprised me. It was very cool to walk along the uneven floor, caused by the different 'weathering' of the stones in the floor. The detail in the decoration was beautiful, but the cathedral felt almost closed in and stuffy--not like the grand spaces so common in Cathedrals.

At the cathedral, I climbed the worn wooden stairs of the Sigismund Tower to see the 487 year old, 10,980 kg Sigismund Bell. The stairs were narrow, winding between and under the structural beams of the tower. I got stuck climbing up behind a slow lady who left a trail of garlic odour behind her.

It snowed my first night in Krakow--the excited Aussies in the hostel shouted out at 3am that it was snowing, and apparently several people had a snowball fight in the street at that hour. The next morning, there were a couple of centimetres of snow on everything, but it was gone by the end of the day. It created a nice effect at the Royal Palace at Wawel Castle though, to hear the water falling from the dragon's mouths to the stones of the courtyard.


I had the chance to go to a photo exhibit of Jewish life in Krakow before WWII. It is incredible that the photos even survived the war, and it was a really good exhibit, although it is so hard to come to terms with the number of lives that ended during the Holocaust--what contributions to the world never got to be made because those lives ended prematurely?

On night, I ended up in the main square by myself just before midnight. I was on my way out clubbing with friends from the hostel, and had got separated from them. There was a light drizzle, and I stood there, not sure if I should go back to the hostel or look for my friends. And then at midnight, the hourly horn call from the tower of St. Mary's Church began. It was beautiful and sad at the same time. The call goes out in the four directions, as it was originally a warning of an invasion, but it stops on the same note where the bugler stopped when he was shot in the throat. It was a magical moment, to hear that call in the empty square, with the cobblestones shining in the light rain, and when it was done, I heard my friends calling my name.

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Photos

View of Krakow's Old Town
From the Bell Tower at Wawel Cathedral

Comments

[Chi]

ohh Krakow looks nice... I should do some travelling in Eastern Europe! :)

[D MJ Binkley]

Reading some of your older blogs
Doing a bit of research and I've enjoyed reading your blogs. Hope you publish again soon.