Kraków

Krakow. Some seiously turbulent history here. Thought it best to start this post with some local graffiti from Kazimierez, the old Jewish quarter.

Polish bread for sale.

Main Market Square.

Cloth Hall in Main Market Square.

Town Hall Tower. Every hour a trumpeter plays a short tune in each direction from the tower. That's 198 times every day. The tune was originally played in the 13th century to warn of attack and to signal the city gates to be closed. We read an interview with one of the trumpeters. He works 24 hours on, 48 hours off. Never ceases to amaze me all of the unusual jobs out there.

The Wawel Castle. The unofficial symbol of Poland. What's cooler than that is that it is also home to your classic medieval fairytale. So, as Polish folklore has it, a dragon liven under the castle and wreaked havoc on the Cracovians. The king issued a decree (it was just impossible for me to tell this story without using such fairytale ling as "issued a decree") that whomever could slay the dragon could have his daughter's hand in marriage. Blah blah blah...the dorky but awesome blacksmith won the challenge. Long live the nerds!  

The Church of St Peter.

Alex and I took a tour through Crazy Guides in Krakow to the Nowa Huta district of Krakow. We rode in this adorably communist fiberglass, two-stroke engine, Trabant. Nowa Huta was built from scratch by the People's Republic of Poland as a satellite industrial district to the city of Krakow. It is comprised of thousands of residential apartments, grand (wide enough for tanks!) boulevards and an enormous steel mill. No iron in this part of the world? No problem. Just carry it from other parts of Communist Europe. That's Communism for ya. Always thinking things all the way through.

Our guide was hilarious and gave us about an hour history lesson on Communist era Poland. These images show some of the high priority the Communists put on environment and air quality. 

Beautiful communist era architecture. The large statue of Lenin that used to be in this square was pulled down.

A photo from Oscar Schindler's Factory Museum showing Nazi's laughing while cutting a Jew's peyos. The museum focused on the German occupation of Krakow and was very well done.

After multiple museums showing lines...lines of Jews to the ghetto, lines of Jews boarding trains to their deaths, and lines of Polish residents under Communist rule waiting for days for a loaf of bread, we were delighted to see this line around the corner for what we were told was the best ice cream in Krakow!