Day 10: Krakow Sights and Musings

We spent Saturday exploring some of Krakow. Our first stop was Wawel Hill (pronounced Vah-vehl). Wawel Hill indicates the Wawel fortress on top of the hill in the middle of Krakow. We visited the Wawel Castle and the Wawel Cathedral. We were told that our must see at Wawel Castle were the Royal Grand Apartments. Unfortunately, the last English tour tickets were sold to the couple right before us in line! It was unfortunate but we still got to tour the State Rooms and the Cathedral. We hired a tour guide to take us through the State Rooms and Cathedral. The cathedral was very beautiful and we got an in depth guide of the history and details of all the crypts. We headed to the State Rooms next which were not as interesting (I fell asleep standing up again) or maybe I was just a little burnt out on Polish history. Our guide was great though! She was very knowledgeable and taught us a lot of cool things. We couldn't take any pictures of the inside of either but here are some pictures of the outside...

The Cathedral

The royal courtyard

View of the Fortress

Some of the Architecture

These are the "dragon bones." A dragon used to terrorize Krakow and he was eventually defeated because of an upset stomach. Legend says that if these bones fall down the world will come to an end.


We lost our precious Rick Steves guidebook on Friday and we've really been suffering. It was also our guidebook for Prague and Vienna so we purchased a Lonely Planet guidebook (we're still searching for a Rick Steves one though) and the book just isn't as useful or helpful. We also purchased a touristy guidebook on Krakow that has been helpful when we see historic sights around town.

After we visited Wawel Hill we ventured towards St. Mary's Church. As we were purchasing our tickets to go inside we also had to purchase a sticker that permitted us to take pictures. We figured if we'd seen one church, we'd seen them all so we didn't pay the 5 zloty to take pictures. We entered the church and immediately turned around to pay to take pictures. It was an incredible sight. We were there during a wedding ceremony so we also got to hear the organ going. It was beautiful. I hope these pictures convey how incredible it was. We weren't allowed to use the flash and so they all turned out kind of dark.




We also went to a string quartet concert. They played music from movies, musicals, and operas. It was in the oldest church in Krakow and it had incredible acoustics.



We've noticed a lot of unique things about Polish culture - we wrote all of these down to blog about but I will try to be brief.

1. As I mentioned before, you have to pay to take pictures. We noticed this at the Salt Mine we visited today and at St. Mary's Church. You purchase a sticker and people patrol making sure you have a sticker on if you're taking pictures.

2. We have had to buy water here. Our waitress brought us bottled water the first night and we tried to tell her we just wanted tap...She said that she didn't drink the tap water very emphatically. So we decided we shouldn't either.

3. We also have to pay to go to the bathroom. We had to do this only once in Paris but have had to do it multiple times while in Krakow.

4. We noticed a lot of efforts to conserve. There are two buttons on toilets - one for large flush and one for a small flush. Our hotel doesn't clean our room daily - at all. We obviously don't need a cleaning everyday but it was different to find our beds still unmade the way we left them.

5. Restaurants here and all over Europe do not have "Please Wait to be Seated" signs. We feel so uncomfortable seating ourselves. We also have to ask for the check and wait forever for attention. Rick Steves mentioned in his guidebook that in Paris when you sit at a table in restaurant, you are renting the table for the night! This also seems to be the case in Krakow and most likely will be all over Europe.

6. Communicating in Krakow has been a different than Paris because we've hardly fumbled through our Polish phrasebook. Everybody tries to speak English here and they aren't ashamed of it. In Paris, we think they wanted to see all the tourists squirm. Here, they are just so excited that we came to visit!

7. Catholicism is a big deal here. We see nuns and priests just about everywhere we go. Also, you wouldn't even know here that Pope John Paul II passed away 4 years ago. Everyone loves and reveres the "Polish Pope."



8. Alcohol is a big part of the culture here. There are big signs everwhere like the one below...