Today we walked around taking in the beautiful old buildings of Krakow. As it was the beginning of winter, the majority of the trees in the parks had lost their leaves and the few remaining leaves were various shades of orange and yellow. Underneath the trees was a blanket of yellow leaves…very pretty. As it was the beginning of winter it was also VERY VERY COLD, we were rugged up in thermals, coats, gloves and scarves.

Krakow Royal Castle is a very grand imposing building on the top of a hill. The castle contains a cathedral which had lots and lots of alcoves, where important heads of the church are buried, off the main building. It was interesting to see from the outside the different styles of these alcoves which would have been added to the original cathedral in different centuries. The downpipes on the building all had interest dragon heads at the ends where the water came out.

As we did the customary walk around the wall of the castle, we noticed a lot of people pointing and looking down from the wall. We stopped and looked too and saw a huge metal dragon at ground level, that breathed actual fire every minute or two…it was quite spectacular. But that wasn't what the crowd of people were looking at. On the river bank were a group of five people, four of the guys stripped down to their underwear…one of them looked as though they'd already been in the river. Were they crazy, it was freezing cold!!! Anyway the four of them climbed over the railing and stood, ready to jump in the river. I'm not sure what happened but only one of them ended up in the river, I think the other three chickened out…and who could blame them.

On our way home, we saw a sign outside a church advertising a chamber music performance the next night, so made a mental note to come back the next night.

We stopped in the city square to have a tasty hot chocolate with chilli drink to warm us up.