A quiet sense of cool in Krakow
Two tiny ladies study a city map on a pavement hoarding before taking their seats and ordering espressos and some water. Pigeons scatter as a long-haired man holding a ‘Free Walking Tour’ placard ambles about followed by a group of tourists. People point upwards outside St Mary’s Basilica, listening to the hourly trumpet call coming from the steeple. In the Cloth Hall, permanent stalls peddle carved chess sets, fridge magnets and wooden children’s toys. Horse-drawn carriages clip-clop through the square, following the Royal route towards the Wawel castle.
Mention a city-break in Krakow and people remember three things. The Square, Auschwitz and the Salt Mines.
Rows of travel agencies on Grodzka Street pedal day trips and before I have time to think, a day-trip to Auschwitz is booked with on-bus educational video and picnic lunch included. A nearby shop sells flower garlands and candles in stained glass holders, which visitors lay at the Death Wall inside, or the iron hanging hooks situated on the side of one of the streets inside. The tour guide is solemn and rarely smiles during the three-hour tour.
I visit the site of Auschwitz 1 first, where two-story red bricked houses are laid out in neat rows surrounded by barbed-wire fences. Now a series of museums, this area once served as an administrative centre, medical experimentation centre and torture centre. The first exhibit shows huge photographs of prisoners arriving in Auschwitz, smiling and unaware of their fate. Deeper into the tour are the rooms full of the prisoners’ possessions taken by the Nazis and stored in huge warehouses which were known as ‘Canada, the Land of the Plenty’.
The rooms of possessions are next. In one there are thousands of battered suitcases with names and addresses beautifully painted on them, some bearing the handwritten label ‘child’. Next is the Room of Hair where hundreds of chopped-off plaits sit casually atop mounds of hair. It may as well be bodies. Other rooms contain huge piles of shoes, baby clothes, prosthetic limbs, shaving brushes and eyeglasses. Walls of black-and-white photographs of men and women in striped pyjamas surround the prisoners living quarters. There is a flower atop one of these photographs, perhaps left by a relative.
I take a bus to the extermination camp at Birkenhau, ten minutes away. Its red-bricked train station is instantly recognisable. An original wooden train carriage still stands at the platform where exhausted people were divided into those who could work and those who could not. I had previously seen a photo online of a young dwarf-sized man sitting on a chair on this platform, looking bewildered at the crowds around him, totally unaware that his stature sealed his fate. The four gas chambers are gone now, destroyed by the fleeing Germans, and never rebuilt, out of respect to the 8,000 per day people who were murdered there.
After Auschwitz, I have no interest in visiting Oskar Schindler’s factory, or the Galicia Jewish Museum, or the Pharmacy Museum which details the plight of the Jewish ghetto victims. It’s simply too much suffering to bear.
I head to the beautiful Jewish quarter of Kazimiertz. At the Ariel café (frequented by Stephen Spielberg and his crew during the filming of Schindler’s List), I drink hot chocolate at a polished tiled table filled with gold grout and study the paintings of Jewish elders lining the walls. ‘Once Upon A Time in Kazimiertz’ is an interesting one. Consisting of a row of original shops amalgamated into one restaurant, the shop fronts still bear the Jewish names of the carpenter, the grocer, the tailor and the general store. The menu offers chopped chicken livers with eggs in truffle sauce, veal jelly with quail egg and green peas.
At the nearby Remuh Synagogue and cemetery, there is a wall of plaques dedicated to the victims of the holocaust. One is donated by Henry and Lola Tenenbaum, New York. Later, I discover that Krakovian expatriate, Lola, watched her mother being transported to Auschwitz on Mother’s Day, 1944. Another family plaque remembers the 88 members of the Ferber family who were killed during the Holocaust.
The Museum of Ethnography in the former Kazimiertz town hall, provides a welcome break from the all-pervasive sadness and I have an interesting ramble through Polish life past and present, with costumes, farming implements, childrens’ toys and a recreation of a rural classroom all on display.
My hotel recommends a trip to the ski-resort of Zacopane and the Tatras National Park, a two-hour drive from Krakow. Lionel Richie and Roxette play on the radio as we zoom up the motorway, spying bleak countryside, and unattractive bungalows with dormer windows, smoking chimneys and piles of chopped firewood stacked against lean-tos.
Most Polish drivers remain silent until you speak to them. This taxi driver guide speaks no English and deposits me at the ski lift at the ski resort of Zacopane, smiling and signalling that he will wait. With the ski season over, it’s deserted at the top, with piles of slush, and some empty cafes. An old woman sells the ubiquitous pierogis (dumplings stuffed with potato or cheese) on top of an upturned bucket. I speak no Polish and nobody can tell me how to get the entrance of the National Park.
At €120, it’s an expensive and disappointing day trip.
My advice is to learn some Polish before you go. Plenty of Krakovians speak perfect English. But many do not. And buy a guidebook. And carry a pocketful of zloty coins wherever you go. Toilet-trips cost 1 zloty everywhere.
A three-hour guided tour around the Wielicska Salt mines is interesting. I walk hundreds of steps down to the mines, seeing chandeliers, statues and a church all made of salt, before whooshing up to ground level in a shaky metal lift.
Back in Krakow’s old town, I eat steak smothered in blue-cheese sauce in Scandale Royal, and drink vodka in the über-cool communist-like bar, Antybar. The Jazz Rock club beneath the bar is cavernous, with tattooed goths grunging to scary Linkin Park and Nirvana classics.
Krakow fizzes with history, beautiful architecture, and a quiet sense of cool. At a manageable (3-5 hour) driving distance from Warsaw, Wroclaw or Posnan, a detour to Krakow may just be the ticket during Euro 2012.
Ryanair flies from Dublin to Krakow with flights costing approximately €150 return.
John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice is located 10km from the city centre. There are trains every 15 minutes and busses every 35 minutes with connections costing about €1. A taxi to the city centre costs approximately €30.
The slightly-dated but beautiful Grand Hotel, Slawkowska Street, is in a brilliant location. It is a 2-minute walk from the main square and is surrounded by bars and restaurants. Double rooms start from €100 per night.
Visit the Wawel Castle, take a trip on an old-fashioned city tram, visit the horrors of Auschwitz, buy an enamel mug at Schindler’s factory and view photographs of the ghetto at the Pharmacy Museum. Check out the Wielicska Salt Mines, people-watch in the old town Main Square, sip a hot chocolate and try a dumpling at the uber-traditional Ariel café in the Jewish quarter or take a stroll around the Planty Park which surrounds the old city. Hop aboard the red tin bus for the Communist city tour or take a covered rickshaw around the city.
Visit one of the five shopping malls in Krakow. Study old maps in one of the myriad of antique shops dotted throughout the city and buy spotted Polish teacups and ceramic chickens at the wooden stalls in the Main Square.
Sample some traditional Jewish fare at the quirky ‘Once upon a time in Krakow’ in the Jewish quarter. Try the amazing tagliatelle carbonara at Del Papa Italian restaurant place, Tomazna St. Sample Mojitos and steak at Scandale Royal, Plac Szczepanski 2, Old Town, or hang with the cool cats in Antybar, Slawkowska Street. Relax at the Buddha Drink and Garden Bar off the Main Square.
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