Friday 3 June 2016

Kraków


After the horrors of Auschwitz, we needed something a little more light-hearted.  So, we headed further east to the city of Kraków.  In fact, on this entire nine-week journey, Kraków is the furthest east we will come.  In terms of charm, this city and Wroclaw are roughly equal.  Both cities have not one old town square but two.  In Kraków's case, the long market building (seen below) separates the two halves of one large square, effectively making two.  The square constitutes the largest medieval square in Europe.
Horses and carriages can be constantly seen, ferry around the tourists.  In this much bigger city, which was once the capital of Poland, many more people have a knowledge of English, unlike the more sleepy, rural areas of western Lower Silesia.
Note the few pigeons.  Actually, multitudes of pigeons flap around the square, reminding me a little of London's Trafalgar Square.
Christine and I climbed to the top of the Town Hall Tower, which dominates the square, and is the survivor of a much larger building that used to exist.  When Kraków was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Austrians tore the rest of the building down.
From the Town Hall Tower, a view to the St Mary's church.


Inside the market building..
Outside St Mary's church..

The horses and carriages are coming by again...
Inside this bread is my mushroom soup.
Outside Oskar Schindler's factory in Kraków, where he saved around 1200 Jews during the Second World War.
After the countless numbers of faces we saw of those who perished in Auschwitz, it was a nice change to see countless numbers of faces of survivors.
Izaak Stern was Oskar Schindler's accountant.

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