A Traditional Poland

A Traditional Poland

Krakow, Poland

“Ten przewóz do Warszawy.”A small yet vital piece of information meant that we could have ended up in the wrong Polish city.  The five of us reassembled in the Czech darkness, now on the correct carriage to Krakow I sat and contemplated our destination.    With Poland’s recent economic boost I pondered how different these two cities must be, having visited Warsaw before I knew it as the sky-scraping capital; metallic and dry.  With every building site, construction worker and flourishing business its beauty seems to diminish.  The scales are being tipped towards more Western European ideals and away from the appeal of the Old Town.  I yearned for the real Poland, for the friendly, traditional culture of my family’s rural farms and villages.  On the train the jolly Pole in our compartment chatted and offered us bottle after bottle of beer.  He reminded me of my older male relatives and this familiarity was comforting as the carriages clattered by in rolling slow-motion. As the others snoozed the only light flickered outside the compartment.  Hours elapsed as I squinted to read tales of wizards and wands, rickety train journeys, castles and lakes, of cobbled streets and the snow, and I fell asleep to the excitement of finally exploring a traditional Polish town.

When we woke up a new world had cracked open, and as with a runny egg we were the surplus bits of shell that poured from the station into the town.  Krakow is Poland’s third largest city and former capital, but unlike Warsaw it came out of the Second World War reasonably unharmed, and so today it maintains its medieval architecture.   Krakow’s sheer essence draws in the arrival of hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, and against the peaceful early-morning backdrop of this attractive, historical city we waddled through with backpacks and maps: a common eyesore.  It seems the appeal of a place can sometimes transform its image.  As travellers, other sightseers tend to become loathsome, yet we consider ourselves as dissimilar to them, as having more of a right to visit anywhere we please because we are young and deserve to see the world, and yet even in thinking this we are conforming to typical tourist cognition.

Krakow is divided into eighteen districts including the Old Town (Stare Miasto), the Wawel District and Kazimierz (the Jewish quarter).  Particularly when wandering through the Old Town I felt a sense of real Polish ambience; locals and tourists bustle between Polish cuisine eateries, buskers and flower-sellers dot about the tread-ways, tobacco stands prop up every corner and housewives line every street selling homemade bread and cakes.  In the centre of the Rynek Glowny (Market Square) the beautiful arched architecture of the Old Cloth Hall separates this from any other square.  This centre of activity is the city’s meeting place where both young and old come together, the satisfying September sun casually highlighting this scene made it all the more radiant, and all the more unique.

Rynek Glowny Old Cloth Hall

In the Wawel District, Wawel Castle and Cathedral sit on the top of Wawel Hill next to the Vistula River.  The castle’s history dates back to the eleventh century and is a former residence of the Polish kings; the surrounding buildings have Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance features.  The arcaded courtyard is bright and spacious, built in the Renaissance style it glows like a ‘Casanova’ scene.  My imagination ran away with me as I pictured couples parading sweetly together here under the courtyard’s white arches, flooded with romance and curiosity.  In the castle gardens deep and rich purple tulips from the flower beds and leaves from the trees shuffled in and out of sync in the breeze.  With a drawbridge entrance and a view over the river it’s no surprise that this romantic setting is subject to so many weddings.  A set of spiral steps lead to the ‘Dragon’s Den’, according to legend the Wawel dragon lived here until it was defeated by a poor shoemaker.  The underground cave passages are a satisfying exit from the castle and leave a wizardly, medieval impression especially upon those blessed with a child’s imagination.

View of Wawel Castle from the Vistula River

Taking a darker turn, an hour’s bus or train journey away from Krakow is the town of Oswiecim, better known as Auschwitz.  Visitors are taken on a tour around two of Auschwitz’s three camps.  Auschwitz I was the original camp and today various exhibitions depict its history through portrayals of the sufferings of prisoners, and the gruesome gas chambers and crematoriums that they perished in.  A shuttle bus goes to Auschwitz II; Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camp.  The majority of Jews that arrived at Auschwitz’s specially built train station were imprisoned here.  Having been told they were heading for a better life they were brought to their slaughter or enslavement on arrival.  Auschwitz is a very serious, very morbid day but a necessary visit especially for someone with Jewish or Polish roots.  I felt amazed at my Polish grandparents who had suffered and survived through these experiences during the War: without their bravery my family and I wouldn’t be here today.

Auschwitz II

It is easy to spend quite a few days in Krakow as there is so much to do in and around the city.  In the right season days can be spent in Zakopane, a village and popular skiing resort at the foot of the Tatra Mountains.  Failing that the mines at Wieliczka provide a fascinating few hours.  One hundred feet underground the rocks are embraced in salt.  Some of the caved passages are burnt and indigo from numerous candle fires, and reconstructions of horse-drawn machinery display Wieliczka’s 900 year-old mining methods.  Within the mines is St. Kinga’s Chapel where the chandeliers, altar and wall mural of Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ are all completely carved out of salt.

We spent our favourite and least touristy day just out of town.  Deep in a park of fern trees winding paths brought us to sheer cliffs which enveloped an abandoned quarry. Walking around this astonishingly gorgeous dark blue lagoon the slope crumbled and we clambered and jumped by the water’s edge.  The risk was worth the still fresh water slicing at our faces.  It was even worth the rocks bruising our skin and pondweeds licking and playing with our nervy senses.  The cold liquid got darker and deeper the further we swam, but when the sun beamed and the water shimmered we surfaced from the depths and babbled and splashed back to the edge.  The lagoon was transformed from a magnificently dark, exciting, unknown place to a bright, blinding, sundrenched spectacle.

'The Blue Lagoon'

To conclude our stay in Krakow we ate a delicious dinner at Babcha’s restaurant just off the Rynek Glowny.  This endearing little place felt quintessentially Polish, and when stuffing my face with Pierogi I felt that this whole visit had quenched my thirst for an essence of traditional Poland.  Krakow itself does seem to display a pinch of Warsaw’s cosmopolitan influence, yet this is only really present in shops and outlets.  Of course the city of Krakow is not like the rural Polish villages of my childhood memories, but visually and atmospherically this alluring place feels very traditional with its relaxed, old world charm.  Krakow attracts an influx of tourists; this is apparent but it only blemishes the surface.  The appeal of Krakow is far too strong for this to detract from its delights. 

We did the expected touristy things like visit Wawel Castle, Auschwitz and Wieliczka’s salt mines.   We did unexpected non-touristy things such as swimming in the quarry, and simply wandering with no procedure.  The admittance of being one of those puzzle-faced foreigners means that one can learn more about such a wonderful place and its history.  The bottle to explore just that little bit further can lead to glorious encounters never even contemplated.  Combining the two approaches makes Krakow a very memorable experience, and I have never felt so proud to be Polish.