I keep saying every place we visit is great and wonderful, and I love it. Krakow is definitely the best yet! We have been traveling for about a month now and we have been moving every 5-6 days. Krakow is the first place we found a spacious 2 bedroom apartment for an extremely reasonable price. This apartment has been absolutely dreamy! It is old but renovated…beautiful wood floors, balconies, extremely high ceilings and a lovely living room with a comfortable sofa and lots of space. While we love each other, it was really nice to have some space 😊.
The apartment was located about 5 minutes from the Old Town square in a lovely local neighborhood. The host was amazing and offered lots of information, the people in Krakow were incredibly friendly and it did not feel like a city built for tourist. We were there for 7 days and did not even scratch the surface of all there was to do.
While most major cities in Poland were completely razed to the ground during WWII, Krakow was hardly touched. Krakow was proclaimed the capital of the General Government by Nazi Germany and therefore was never bombed or destroyed. The buildings of Old Town are actually extremely old!
We met up with some workers who have lived in Poland for about 10 years and had a lovely Polish lunch. They shared some of the history and folklore about the city including how the pigeons in the square are supposedly Prince Henryk IV’s knights. Supposedly a witch turned the knights into pigeons so they could not accompany the prince to Rome to get the Pope’s blessing on his crown in the 13th century. We saw some of the original walls of the city that have been preserved, the moat of the old town has been filled in and is now a lovely green park with walking paths around the entire Old Town.
We took a day trip to Auschwitz, which is the main reason we chose Krakow in the first place. It deserves its own post. It was heartbreaking and somber. Frankly even having been to visit Auschwitz, it still seems so unbelievable that there could be so much evil and hatred towards others. It almost did not feel real. I struggle to comprehend how this place could happen, what was going through the minds of those who came up with this idea, the lack of respect for humanity. In my mind I know this type of horror has occurred throughout the ages, and even continues today but it is still difficult to understand.
We visited the Salt Mines, which I had never heard about but it was well worth the visit. Our guide was excellent, although we felt like we had run a marathon at the end of the tour. We went down over 700 steps (330 feet below the ground) and walked 3 miles within 2 hours. There were several chapels that had been carved and decorated into and out of salt, one still operates and has services every week. Beautiful chandeliers made of salt and wood. Our tour guide was the daughter of generations of miners, she said most of the 500 tour guides working in the mines came from generations of miners. The pictures below show a sampling of the artistry and talent of the miners. I highly recommend visiting if you find yourself in Krakow.
The food was spectacular! We found a pizza place that we went to twice, a takeout sushi place right below our apartment and bakeries galore. There was a bakery right below our apartment which was phenomenal and the owner would let us sample everything before we purchased. Every time we walked past the she would wave and say hello, it was fun to feel like we made a connection. They make a delicious donuts called pączki which are traditionally filled with a rose petal jam but in the Old Town they have different varieties…I have never heard Tim talk about a pastry so much!
We ended our week by attending a Polish worship service that was very moving. We only spent a week in Krakow but we have left a piece of our hearts there and will definitely return. We only scratched the surface of things to do. Now on to Prague.
Thank you for praying for our journey and letting us share a snapshot of each place with you. We are so grateful that we get to have this adventure. Blessings!
