Posted on 06/17/2006 11:08:40 AM PDT by lizol
Kraków a crown for Poland
02:30 PM CDT on Friday, June 16, 2006 By RICK STEVES / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
The top stop in Poland is Kraków. And enjoying a drink on its marvelous main market square, you’ll know why. The biggest square in medieval Europe remains one of Europe’s most gasp-worthy public spaces.
Knowing this is one of Europe’s least expensive countries, I choose the fanciest cafe on Kraków’s fanciest piece of real estate and order without even considering the price. Sinking deep into my chair and sipping deep into my drink, I ponder the bustle of Poland, just a decade and a half after it won its freedom.
Vast as it is, the square has a folksy intimacy. It bustles with street musicians, fragrant flower stalls, cotton-candy vendors, loitering teenagers, businesspeople commuting by bike, gawking tourists, and the lusty coos of pigeons. This square is where Kraków lives (and visitors find themselves hanging out). To my left, activists protested Poland’s EU membership. To my right, local teens practiced break dancing.
The folk band, swaggering in colorful peasant costumes, gives me a private little concert. Feeling flush, I tip them royally. (Perhaps too royally. Be aware: A big tip gets you "The Star-Spangled Banner.")
Kraków is the Boston of Poland, a captivating old-fashioned city buzzing with history, intriguing sights, colorful eateries and college students. Even though the country’s political capital moved from here to Warsaw 400 years ago, Kraków remains Poland’s cultural and intellectual center. Flat and easy to navigate, Kraków is made for walking. A greenbelt called the Planty rings the Old Town, where the 13th-century protective walls and moat once stood (a great place for a stroll or bike ride).
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
So many pictures and no kopiec? :)
Kopiec is under renovation on those pictures, that I have :-)))
Someday, I'll make my way there, to the land of my ancestors.
Wonderful display of photographs, sir, and I and many others appreciate them.
By the way, is Crakow the former Breslau?
Everybody keeps changing names of cities, and one gets confused.
Not always, during WW2 it was the main city of so called General Gouvernment (Polish territories, that had not been incorporated directly to the Reich).
And the official name of Krakow at that time was Krakau.
Your distinction between "Krakow" and "Krakau" is too fine, sir; a matter of orthography.
It seems to me "Krakow" and "Krakau" would be pronounced the same way, so it's just the spelling that's different.
Or I am wrong?
You know, I always wondered about something.
According to history books, the cities of Warsaw, Kiev, and Belgrade were massively destroyed during the second world war (1939-1945), not a stone standing on top of another stone anywhere in these cities.
(Perhaps Minsk, too; I forget.)
So.....I go to Kiev, and Ukrainians show me some of the sights, including the "18th-century" Marinsky Palace.
But there seemed something unreal about the condition of this particular building; it lacked the exquisity, the fine handiwork, usual and customary in 18th century buildings; in fact, when looking very closely, it looked a rather slap-dash socialist job to me.
I suspect a lot of these "historical" buildings were re-created, and not the real thing.
Is there, really, any structure in Warsaw that AUTHENTICALLY dates from before, say, 1946? Or are they all socialist re-creations of buildings that had been utterly destroyed?
wikipedia:
"Poland was partitioned again in 1939, at the outset of the Second World War, and Nazi German forces entered Kraków in September of that year. It became the capital of the General Government, a colonial authority under the leadership of Hans Frank. The occupation took a heavy toll, particularly on the city's cultural heritage. On one occasion, over 150 professors and other academics of the Jagiellonian University were summoned to a meeting, arrested and dispatched to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen (see also Sonderaktion Krakau). Many relics and monuments of national culture were destroyed or looted. Major concentration camps near Kraków included Plaszow and Auschwitz, to which many Polish Jews were sent. Specific events surrounding the Jewish ghetto in Kraków and the nearby concentration camps were famously portrayed in the film Schindler's List, itself based on a book by Thomas Keneally entitled Schindler's Ark. Thanks to a manoeuvre by advancing Soviet forces, Kraków escaped complete destruction during the German withdrawal and some historic buildings and works of art were saved."
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