So far, Krakow is totally living up to its reputation as being a gorgeous city. We could see that as we drove around, lost, trying to find our Air BnB accomodations. A river runs through it and there appear to be nice riverwalks on both sides, and some interesting buildings.
After finding our place and moving in (parking was kind of a nightmare, it’s a seriously crowded street, and not entirely free, as we’d understood, but free evenings and weekends, so no big deal), we went out exploring. I was a bit surprised to learn that out of our party of 10, no one had been to Krakow before and two of them (my mother-in-law and my wife’s cousin) are Polish. So, a new experience for all of us.
Found a restaurant pretty quick and Helena decisively herded us in, which was smart, because otherwise the ‘where to eat?’ debate could have taken hours. The food was pretty good, I thought, and the prices reasonable, and the service friendly. Then we stopped for an ice cream after and the ‘small’ scoop was, in the words of the dad character in ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer,’ “friggin huge.”
We made our way to old town square, which impressed me as being bigger than Pragues, and there were some people making giant bubbles to entertain the kids, and there is this long, palatial building with an arcade along the front which I thought was exceptionally beautiful, as beautiful buildings go, and we walked through it, inside is a long hall of souvenir shops, and out the other side… to Old Town Square 2! A bit smaller, but not much, and a lot going on. More bubbles, balloon guys, a juggler, a wedding happening up on a terrace of aforesaid long building, statues, and the horses and carts, but that was 150 zlotys for 15 minutes and we thought that was a bit much.
Tomorrow, we’re off to the Salt Mines. Seriously, that’s not a figure of speech, we’re going to visit a salt mine.
www.gurukalehuru.com 