Trip to Cracow with Rasti
Hi! The last trip of this summer happened between 31.08.-03.09.2016. We all are so lucky we got such a long summer holidays as we did! I have travelled unbelievable amount of km in 9 weeks!
Anyway, back to this amazing trip. Our journey started in the evening of the last day of August, changing our trains in Žilina and Bohumín. We came to our first stop /Oswiecim/ the morning of the first day of September. After three hours of sleep we were like walking zombies, so we decided to have a hot chocolate in McDonald. Before we did so, we also walked to the second camp, Auschwitz-Birkeau II, 20 minutes by walk far from the train station.
Our guided tour in Auschwitz camps was supposed to start at 10AM, so we still had quite a time to wait (we came to Oswiecim about 5.30AM). We crossed a bridge, separating the part of Auschwitz-Oswiecim with the centre of the town. I always thought this town is more like a village - now my opinion changed. After seeing a small park and a square we started walking back. To find the first camp wasn't as hard. We met some other people, who were leaving the train with us in the morning, so we weren't the only ones crazy enouch to travel whole night and then undergo 3,5 hours tour.
Because of the earlier time we chosed a guided tour in czech language. The guy talking was good, we were around 15-18 people in the group. He showed us the whole area with detailed oral presentation, so me and my boyf were satisfied enough. He was taking photos most of the time, because he hadn't been there before unlike me. I remembered it to be a bit larger/longer when I was there first time with my school.
Right after the guided tour and sighseeing both of the camps we went to the train station to catch a fast train to Krakow. My boyf took a nap because he slept much less than me during the night.
When we finally got to the majestic city it was already evening. We took the shortest route to get to the hostel, checked-in (with a small problem - they couldn't use my debet card for the payment, so we needed to find a cash-mashine...) and walked to the highest level in the hostel. The accomodation was very nice, considering the price.
We couldn't wait so we left the rooms almost instantly. My boyf has been in Cracow two years ago through a summer Erazmus+ project. He fell in love with this city and since then he promises me to show me around in it.
Cracow is a beautiful city. It is historic, but still different from other historic cities in Europe. It is not as giant as Prague and it is not as modern as Vienna... something in between. The historic centre is surrounded by a ring of park, so any time you cross this park you know you leave the centre.Most of the trip we spent just in the historical part unfortunately. The last day we were telling each other off why we didn't book one day more.
Anyway, while we were walking to the centre we came across few interesting places in Cracow: The Barbican, Florianska street, Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square), St. Mary's Church... I could name at least another ten places. We were about to see them all deeply in the next two days, so I will talk later about them. We walked down the whole centre, leaving the park and heading to Wawel, a castle in the middle of Cracow. It was really huge, I didn't expect it to be that size.
We had a nice walk through the night Krakow and stopped at KFC to have a dinner. Then we finally managed to get to the hostel and get some decent sleep.
The next day we stood up quite early and ran to withdraw our Cracow City Card. With this card (only 25€ for 2 days) we could visit about 40 attractions like galleries and museums "for free". At the end of the trip (next day's evening) we realised it wasn't that small amount- we barely made about 16 places.
The first place was a gallery or a Museum of Jan Matejko, a Polish well-known artist. He did a lot things, as an artist he was pretty flexible - he was a painted, drawer, designer,... The museum is inside his house. I liked the detail of his work. He even designed the interior of St. Mary Church in this city! I don't have any photos from that place, google it - the ceiling and colourfullness of this place is just amazing. :3
Another place we visited was The Barbican. It was a part of city walls in the medieval ages. It is a circular building with passageways in the walls. Now it is used just as a museum.
Then we continued to the the City Defence Walls, or at least what stayed out of them. We could enter a small tower at the beginning, where we found a TV playing some sort of documentary, but we weren't interested in it. We had to walk all the way back, because the gate at the end was closed.
Near the city walls was a gallery (The Princes Czartoryski Museum & Library. The Arsenal Gallery of Ancient Art.) where they were supposed to show some work of Rembrandt. When we entered via our City Cards (btw, the polish women at the desks didn't hide their hate to the cards... they know they will get less money out of it) and got on the first floor, there was just ome painting by this painter. I smiled about it and then we explored the gallery in the size of one room. They had some greek ceramics and egyptian sarcophagi, together with some nude sculptures from these ancient civilizations.
There was nothing else in the area, so we walked down the Florianska street to the Rynek Glowny. Rynek Glowny, or The Main Market Square, was full of stuff we could visit. We all made it. Here are the names: Town Hall Tower (Me and my boyf really need to work on our stamina. The view was amazing, shame we couldn't walk on the balconies, the best photos could be made one floor beneath, where the windows were opened and without bars.), St. Albert's Church Underground (The smallest underground I have ever seen :DD Nothing special, only one plus is the skeleton of a person from 11th century.), Museum of Medieval Cracow (Main Market Square Underground - one of the best exhibitions/attractions in this place. The medieval walls are connected with the technology on this century, I just loved it. A lot of projections and interactive features.), The Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art in Sukiennice (Medium size, but interesting paintings. The view from the terrace we had an entrance on was great as well.) and The Krzysztofory Palace (two or three different exhibitions - first about the rising of Cracow city throughout the centuries, then an intercative exhibition with steampunk features in the last room /Cyberteka/ and in the end a small exhibition about saving animals, especially dogs in the city.).
That was basically the end of the first day. We wanted to visit The Hipolit House (Bourgeois house from XVII century) or Museum Art of Stanislaw Wyspianski and Feliks Jasinski "Szolayski House", but in the first one was the last entrance in minimum of 30 minutes before closing time and in the second one they were preparing an upcoming exhibition. Me and Rasti had a nice time out in the evening, walking through the park and then wandering around the streets. We explored one very busy street leading to our hostel, not realising there were about two or three places we could visit with our card (they were closed anyway).
The second day in Cracow, practically the last one, was the first part of the day a bit of a fail and then everything was so perfect. We wanted to visit few things in the morning - we skipped an exhibition called History of the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy, because it was part of the academy and the school year was already on. Our next stop was Europeum The European Culture Centre. Cracow became two years ago the Capital city of Culture within EU. That's why they have built this building. It was basically a gallery with two floors, once again with some statues and paintings. I have found the most magnificent sculture I have ever seen - which is called "Portrait of a Woman in a Hat with Veil" by unknown Italian artist. Such a beautiful piece:
We spent there about half an hour and then we had to go on a bus to see another interesting museum on the list - Museum of the History of Occupation "Pomorska street". It was basically one room with all the infos about the occupation of Poland in Nazi's era. The museum is built on a place where the gestapo used to live and command. As a part of the exhibition we could see the prison cells where they kept the "suspicious", and sometimes innocent, people. There are still carvings and messages on the walls of these five cells.
After this dark museum we wanted to visit Museum of History of Photography few streets by the Pomorska street, but it was closed exactly that day because of some preparations for an upcoming exhibition with openning that evening.
So once again we took tram this time (black line, hih) and pass around half of the historic centre. We got off on Sw. Wawrzynca station and walked to the Galicja Jewish Museum. It was basically a gallery with photos by a person from social studies academy and an american photographer. The guy from the academy had been asigned to do this as his project - it took him few years to finish it. His mission was to commemorate and jewish places that had stayed the same in Poland, changed during WWII and places which has been completely demolished. It was a great exhibition with a small painting gallery by Jewish artists at the end.
Near this museum was The Old Synagogue, which was destroyed during the WWII. Nowadays, they have a museum inside. I was kind of looking forward to seeing an old synagogue design inside, so I was a bit disappointed about the fact it is just a normal museum. Stupid Nazi's. They had to destroy the beautiful thing.
I was so hungry so we needed to take a little break and LUCKILY there was a shopping centre behind a corner so we could get food easily.
Afterwards, we crossed a bridge to other side of Cracow and we found our penultimate attraction for this trip - The Museum of Contemporary Art in Cracow. That was one of the best exhibition I have seen there, partially for the reason of it being the modern art. The gallery was giant with practically two floors. First exhibition was about paintings with medical surgeries, weird embryo sculpture and the usage of some medieval equipment for surgeries and I don't want to know what else.
Second exhibition showed small paintings in sequence, which couldn't have anything in common by the first glance. That was exactly the point. We should think about them and put them in some sort of context so it all makes sense.
The third exhibition was a bit of every taste - Andy Warhel, Kunst Macht Frei (as a parody of the title on the Auschwitz camp "Arbeit Macht Frei"), cube with crosswords inside and much more. We left about after an hour.
The last place we visited as an atraction was Schindler's Factory. It reminded me of the museum I visited with my father and Carola in Februrary - when you step into the rooms, you are changing the worlds, entering other ones. Basically this museum told the Schindler's story, since the very beginning of the war up to the end, when Stalin came to Poland and claimed it to be his... It was all very interesting and we both enjoyed it. There was one place we were a bit scared about - suddenly in the corridor there were stairs down, but you could continue straight in the way all of the people were walking. But we were like let's look what is below. So we did, and a door was there. It wouldn't be anything strange about it if there weren't hellish sounds coming out of it. The door looked dark and when we peeked through the hole in the door there was darkness. So we went back up. There were two men going down after us, so we stayed above and conspicuously watched them. They stood a bit in front of the door and then they opened them - a movie was being screened at the wall. We were laughing on us so hard. :DD But it was seriously creepy.
The evening we spent once again in the city. I wanted to breathe the atmosphere of this city for the last time in deep inhales. It is special in some respect, I am not surprised it was the Capital city of Culture in EU two years ago. It was always alive, full of people, but my boyf kept telling me that in July two years ago there was like three times more people - I can imagine why.
If anyone will be out of ideas where to travel, go to Cracow - the way there is a bit of a mess if you go by train, but in the end it will be wort
h it. That day we were leaving Cracow at 9.43PM. I so didn't want to go, keeping in mind that this was the last trip of this summer holiday, spent with the person I love the most :3 It couldn't end up better.
P.S.: Another reason to visit Cracow is to experience the pigeon invasions - this is just a fraction of the pigeons which were there.
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