Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Today we had another long train ride ahead of us, it would be 8hrs by the time we arrived with one change along the way. Prague-Katowice-Krakow. Due to spending so much time exploring England, France & Italy, it's meant the final leg of our journey is really a matter of doing 1 city per country as we make our way up through Eastern Europe before cutting back west towards Amsterdam. Today's first train however was one of the nice modern ones, there are still a lot of old trains running the tracks here which means it's a bit of lucky dip as to which sort you have for each journey.
From the station, Krakow Glowny, it was about a 10min walk to our hostel which took us through Saint Florian's Gate at the top of our street. Saint Florian's Gate was erected at the end of the 13th century and was always considered the main gate to the city ( so you could say, we walked right in the front door), you had a feeling of walking back in time as you past though it into the old town. It's called Saint Florian's Gate because in the south side of the entrance is a sculpture of Saint Florian, the patron saint of the city.
Our hostel was on Floriańska street which leads into the Main Market Square, the hostel is located about 20m up from the square. After checking in we were keen to see the area, when a long train ride steals your day it's important to make the most of the evening.
Being so close we started our exploration in the Market Square at the well known church of St. Mary, which is one of the most important churches in Krakow and was built in the Gothic style in the 14th century. It has two towers, the higher one having always belonged to the city and in the past it was used as a watchtower where a guard would watch over the city by day and night. One of his duties was to play a bugle call to warn people of any fire or approaching enemies, the call has been played since 1392. Today the bugle marks time; on the hour, every hour, after the bells of the church ring, a firman plays the bugle from the upper windows of the tower. This occurs on every one of the 24hrs in the day. In the middle of the square is the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice), a long building built in the Renaissance style which, during the day, is home to market stalls. Between the Cloth Hall and the Church of St. Mary is a monument commemorating the great Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz. In the south-western part of the square is the town hall tower, the tower is the only original part left of the old town hall.
After our adventure around the square we went for a walk to explore this beautiful city at night. We started by heading north up the street from which our hostel is situated, just on the other side of Saint Florain's Gate we came across the Barbican, called Rondel. The Barbican is a beautiful circular fortification that was founded at the end of the 15th century. From here we walked along Planty Park, a 4km long park that was created when the council decided to pull down the city walls, in the 18th century. We came along The Royal Wawel Castle. The castle is three stories high and built in the Renaissance style, and it was designed by many Polish and Italian architects.
From here we continued our walk until we hit Grodzka street where we decided that it was time for dinner and so started the walk back towards the market square. Along the way we came across a pub/cafe and decided to have dinner here. After a good, big, cheap feed (we've discovered that it's not very expensive here either) we were off again but not before admiring the Church of St. Peter and Paul that happened to be across the road from the pub.
After a long day on the trains and a whirlwind nigh-time walk of the city we were ready to retire to the hostel and make use of the coffee/tea in the shared kitchen. Making use of the hostels wifi we set about bringing the blog site up to date, particularly the photo's, however the upload connection was slow making it a stop-start process. With about half the photo's done we decided to put the rest on hold and hope for a quicker connection at our next hostel. Definitely time for bed......
- comments