A Weekend in Kraków 9-11 November 2007 by Harkon, Tuesday 20 November 2007 |
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| Kraków has a rich and colourful history with much to do and see. Its origins go back to the 7 th century and despite world wars and a period under communist rule this historic city has been left intact. Today you can walk along cobbled streets and take in all this energetic city has to offer whether you like marvelling at architectural beauty, exploring its interesting shops or sampling the nightlife I'm sure you'll find something for you. As with everything Darkulture, I'll be taking a walk on the dark side and showing what there is to do and see at night but I'll also be discussing a lot of the cultural aspects of Kraków. I had the privilege of enjoying this little break with the lovely Sophia and my two good friends Marcus and Lee. Before travelling to Kraków I invested in a couple of books I knew would come in handy. Lonely Planet's Best of Krakow offers a comprehensive guide to Kraków complete with maps to help you around. They also let you know what the weather conditions are going to be like. If you're travelling in November or in the winter then it'll be very cold, often snowing. The average temeparature during our visit must have been around -3 degrees. The second book I purchased was a phrasebook of Polish also by Lonely Planet. I think it's good to try and speak the language where you can. No-one is going to expect you to be fluent in the language but I believe learning is a good thing to do and it earns respect. Both books are compact so you can carry them around. Easyjet run flights to Kraków from Liverpool John Lennon Airport . The journey time takes just over two hours and you can get a return ticket for under £100 if you book well in advance.
Friday 9 November 2007 (Day 1) Kraków Airport lies 12km from the city centre. When you arrive at Balice Airport and have gone through the customs checks you have three modes of transport if you're staying in the city centre, either bus, train or taxi. The way we went was via train which is also the fastest way taking approximately fifteen minutes if that. Buses and taxis can easily be found outside the main entrance but for the train station you have a short walk which will take you less than ten minutes. If you wish to travel by train which is the fastest way, firstly make your way to the main entrance of the airport then turn right. You will see a long road straight in front of you with an imposing barbed wire fence. At the end of it on the right is the train station. The ticket doesn't costs that much. I think it was something like 15 zloty. When you get off the train at Kraków Glówny train station you will find yourself in the middle of a big shopping complex. You have two options. Either get a taxi to where your accommodation is or walk through the streets on the other side of the road to Rynek Glówny. This is the main square and you cannot miss it. We decided to stay at a place called Bed & Breakfast (imaginative name I know) located at 30-007. If you wish to stay in the same place I can recommend it as it's reasonably priced and the bed's are very warm. I've listed the website in the links. Kebabs After the travelling and checking in at the bed and breakfast, it was not surprising to find that we'd all developed an appetite. From the whistle stop tour we'd had traversing the Rynek Glówny area we noticed a profusion of kebab shops so this was the consensus. Polish kebabs are different from their English equivalents. You can still find donner and chicken varieties and also falafel. Size-wise they're a bit smaller, probably about the right proportion actually as opposed to bursting at the seams. The sauce tends to be a bit thinner too. Pub Popularny Now it was time to go and explore what Kraków had to offer for the thirsty traveller on a Friday night. Pub Popularny was the place we decided to visit having been recommended by a group of metallers encountered by chance in the street. You can find this down a short alley off Ul. Grodzka 31 and down a few steps where you will emerge into a candlelit subterranean cellar. Many places in Kraków we would later discover were similarly situated. The general ambience of the place hit you as soon as you walked in. Its dimly lit interiors and several nooks lit only by the flickering flames on wooden tables gave it an immediate atmosphere. I can't say as I'd seen anything like this in Manchester and we were all very impressed. It was pretty packed throughout the night and played a good selection of various types of metal. The bar had a good selection of beers, both pale and dark including Zywiec, Porter, Warka and Strong as well as spirits. Wódka (the Polish name for vodka) as you will probably know already is the most popular spirit in the country. Whilst on the subject of wódka, if that's your drink of choice then try Zubrówka. This contains a single blade of bison grass which gives it its distinctive taste. My beer of choice would be Porter which is an excellent dark ale. Ironically, I didn't like it at first but curiously it began to grow on me as time went by and when I'd finished the glass I'd fully enjoyed it. I can't say I've drank a beer which has done that before! Fellow partakers agreed this was an excellent beer. Beer prices in general worked out between 4-7 zloty which is very cheap compared with UK . Watch out for Disaster Bastard (a dark ale with a shot of vodka hiding at the bottom) and Mad Dog (a mix of vodka, tequila and cherry). Evil drinks for your inner demon!!! Pub Popularny is an excellent place to hang out in, I highly recommend it. The Polish people we met here were very friendly and I'm sure I speak for all in saluting you and saying na zdrowie! The pub also has its own website. Check it out in the links below.
Saturday 8 November 2007 (Day 2) Lunch Meat was the order of the day when in came to lunch. We needed to recoup our energy from the previous night. Two bites, two cokes and three coffees came to the equivalent of £5.00. Like any tourist, you're going to get the best value for money if you avoid the tourist trap. If you're on a budget then you'll find Poland good value for money. At the time of our visit the exchange rate was 4.6 zloty to the pound. Wavel Castle The Lonely Planet guidebook notes that the castle's origins lie in the 11 th century but that most of the present structure dates to the 16 th century. The castle is perched on a hill in a vast complex immediately to the south of Kraków city centre. What we saw was very impressive but sadly we didn't get time to go inside as with it being late in the afternoon it was near closing time. There are many attractions within the castle complex that would well be worth visiting if you go early such as Wavel Cathedral, the Museum of Oriental Arts, the Treasury & Armoury and the Royal Chambers. Whilst walking around the courtyard of the castle it began snowing and looked very enchanting. If you have time I would also recommend you pay a visit to the little music shop on the right-hand-side of the green as you walk through the entrance. It specialises in medieval and renaissance music. Just listen out for the music and you will find it. Transylwania (R.I.P.) The Lonely Planet guidebook recommended visiting a place called Transylwania located in the Kazimierz district of Kraków. It was reputedly a gothic/vampire themed bar complete with coffins and spluttering candles etc. It sounded superb but unfortunately when we arrived it had closed down and was now a restaurant. The guidebook got this one wrong so hopefully it will update its guidebook for 2008. Early Evening Due to all the walking (we'd walked round and round in circles using a confusing local Kraków map) we found ourselves hungry and ventured to the nearest restaurant we could find which happened to be an Italian but to give it credit, it did serve traditional Polish fare too. Kraków, and probably by-and-large Poland itself, is like the UK in that it is very cosmopolitan when it comes to food. During our stay we noticed many different types of cuisines to suit the tastes of all palates. Ironically I didn't eat any Italian food in the restaurant we found. The food I ate was a thin soup of some kind and the other dish was pierogi , a Polish speciality which are little dumpling and can have different filling. Mine were filled with cheese. A taxi back to the bed and breakfast provided us with a bit of time to relax before going out again in the evening. There were about ten Polish TV channels offering a choice of music, films debates etc. All ok if you speak Polish but no English ones. The showers in the b&b were reasonable. The one used in our room went cold and wouldn't heat up again meaning we had to use a friend's. I would therefore recommend you enquire as to the effectiveness of these before you jump in. Lost Highway Club A short time later it was back out on the town again. This time to check out the Digital Rebelll night at the Lost Highway Club. LHC is a club in the Kazimierz district and plays industrial, electro, noise, trance and ebm. There's one main dancefloor and various seating areas (with comfy seating) snaking off in all directions. There's even a chillout room downstairs. The bar plays separate music from the dancefloor. Visually the club looks awesome. The people who designed the place really let their imagination run riot. Some of the features I recall being inside include an intriguing mural in the corridor with loads of freaky heads in the shape of Munch's The Scream . The dancefloor looked the part, right down to the tiling on the floor, everything looked the business. An unusual black and white stripe design permeated the whole of the room with all of the points connecting to a seemingly incongruous chandelier hanging above its centre. A chevron theme interplayed with the stripes giving a camouflage effect which I can only describe as looking like dazzle camouflage on first world war ships. With laser lighting weaving in and out the overall effect was very psychedelic. It was also the cleanest looking club I've seen. I can't say I've seen toilets in an alternative club look that immaculate before. The club was pretty busy at first but never heaving as one might have expected. I can only assume that with a Polish national holiday on 11 November coupled with other alternative events either side of this weekend that that was the probable reason as the ambience of the place suggests it usually gives more.
Sunday 11 November 2007 (Day 3) Breakfast was missed on Saturday due to waking up late but we had to be up early today due to the room vacation time. Breakfast was served in the b&b's very own subterranean cellar and there were a few choices of which I opted for scrambled eggs and coffee. There was no orange juice though. With it being our last day and with the flight not leaving till late, it still provided around six hours to kill by exploring the city. There were hardly any shops open on Sunday but in the Cloth Hall in the centre of Rynek Glówny there were market stalls selling all different types of gifts. There were quite a lot of stalls selling amber jewellery which is profuse in this city. Some of the necklaces had such heavy pieces they looked almost impossible for a neck to hold. Many curious goods caught the eye but I settled on an unusual three-player chess set complete with hexagonal board. I believe this is called Yalta and I'm waiting for the right occasion to play this. Shisha Club It seemed colder on the Sunday than the previous days. We attempted to have a look in St. Mary's Church near to the Cloth Hall but the place was too packed to enter. Instead we opted to escape the cold and go and find a place for a coffee. The Lonely Planet guidebook came in useful here as we remembered reading of a place called the Shisha Club. The Shisha Club was located in a cellar below an Italian restaurant in the Maly Rynek at the back of St Mary's Church. This was an interesting middle-eastern style bar that was very tastefully decorated with comfortable cushions everywhere and Arabian music. The guidebook said there were belly dancers there too but not when we went. Maybe it was a bit too early? It was a nice place to chill out in and I can imagine it would have been even better in the evening. Kraków Streets After a well deserved rest it was time to flex the muscles again. It must have been around 2pm local time and the streets were thronged with people, no doubt because it was their national holiday. Some people were waving large Polish flags in the air as the streets became a sea of red and white with banners hung between buildings. There was also a large stage being erected for an event of some kind. It's nice to appreciate these things even if you're not of the same nation. One of the good things about spending weekends away like this is that it opens your eyes to culture, broadens your perspective and you always learn something you didn't know before. You seem to develop a kind of ‘owl vision' in that your eyes seem to be everywhere, absorbing everything often down to the smallest detail. I love it. Anyway, we continued to walk around, passing by the Rynek Glówny. In one direction there were several horse drawn carriages offering rides around Kraków, in another there was a man on a street corner singing in an impossibly high voice almost as if he was a castrato. Around the Florian Gate which Lonely Planet describes as one ‘of the original gates to the city' (p.5) people were selling artwork in the street. These were of a very high standard and looked very colourful hung on the ancient wall. Szlacheckie Jadlo Hunger resurfaced again and we all agreed that the last meal we were to have would be in style. Originally we'd planned to come here the night before but because of all the walking around the previous day we opted for the Italian. Today however, Szlacheckie Jadlo would not escape us and it was well worth the visit. Richard Watkins whetted our appetite when he described this place as full of medieval music, armour-bedecked and above all a ‘boisterous banqueting experience' (p.33). He wasn't wrong and the welcome we received was very warm. As we sat around a big wooden table awaiting what was in store we were provided with a big jug of mulled mead to share. It was delicious. After some crusty bread for starters we were ready for the main course. First of all the lights were extinguished, then a bell was rung. This only heightened the anticipation. The next moment the waiter came in with a trolley, a sword blazed brightly on top and upon its blade were skewered chunks of beef sizzling away. What a spectacle. The whole restaurant turned round to see what was going on. It was a brilliant performance and well deserved the round of applause it received. The food was excellent along with the accompaniments of roast potatoes and salad. After such an experience it was a shame to leave but it'll live long in the memory. Last Orders There was still some time to kill when we left the restaurant. Stepping outside it began snowing again. On Saturday it snowed a little but not for long. Today it was more vigorous as we made our way back to the Rynek Glówny. There was still chance to visit a couple of pubs. Tower Pub was a bit like Pub Popularny and similarly subterranean. There was also another bar which was also set in a cellar which had a giant star chart on the ceiling, runes on the walls and other things. That looked really cool too but the name escapes me. Summary That therefore is one way to spend a weekend in Kraków. There are infinite ways to enjoy the weekend there, this was just one but I hope I've given a little insight into what there is to do. Kraków has been labelled by some as the new Prague . I cannot comment on Prague as I've never been there but I'd hate to see Kraków become too commercial and lose its distinctive Polishness as for me that is the very essence of what made it what it was, and that simply put is a memorable experience. Big thanks go to Marcus and Lee for an enjoyable weekend but most of all to Sophia for sharing her wonderful company with me. Harkon
References Piotr Czajkowski, Polish ( London : Lonely Planet Richard Watkins, Best of Kraków ( London : Lonely Planet
Links Bed & Breakfast, 30-007 Kraków, ul. Wi s lna Lost Highway, Ul. Brzozowa 8, Kraków Pub Popularny, Ul. Grodzka 31, Kraków Szlacheckie Jadlo, Slawkowska 32, Kraków Tower Pub, Ul. Grodzka 4 Wavel Castle Wikipedia |
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