Rynek Glowny

Krakow’s main square, Rynek Glowny, is one of the largest of the European cities. It is filled with people, vendors, Polish food, pigeons, beautiful buildings, and churches. We spent lots of time just walking through the square.

Unfortunately, it is also filled with people trying to sell you tours around the city and the sites close by. Some days we could not walk two steps without someone new asking us to take a tour. Mostly because of this, Krakow felt more touristy than the other cities we visited in Europe.  Despite this slight annoyance, we think Krakow is a great city to spend some time in.

Visiting Auschwitz and Dachau

When we were in Munich visiting Abbie, we visited Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, which was the site of the first concentration camp in Germany.

We also went to Auschwitz while we were in Krakow. Auschwitz was designated by the Nazis as the place where the “final solution of the Jewish question in Europe” would take place. As if there were any questions to answer other than how people could act so cruel, depraved, and sadistic towards their fellow human beings.

I don’t have much to say about our experiences at Dachau and Auschwitz, other than I think it is important for everyone to visit a Holocaust memorial somewhere at some point in their life. To pay respect to those who suffered and died. To learn more, to ensure that history never repeats itself in this way. The experience at the memorials is sobering. Particularly at Auschwitz, where each pair of shoes, laying in piles and piles, in all shapes and sizes – including children’s shoes – really makes it hit home, the shear enormity of the number of individuals who died there at the hands of others.

We also visited the recently opened Schindler Museum at the site of Oskar Schindler’s former factory in the Podgroze neighborhood of Krakow. It is designed to demonstrate what life was like for Poles and Jews during the time of Nazi occupation of Krakow.  Having visited Auschwitz the day before, the musuem’s exhibits were all the more poignant.

Hall of Choices, showing people’s ethical dilemmas:

Quote about the lives Oskar Schindler saved:

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I’ve never been fond of pigeons.  They congregate around you when you are trying to enjoy a nice meal outside.  They crowd you.  They stare at you, and try to coerce you to feed them.  They have beady eyes.  They poop.  Everywhere.  (Particularly up and down the side of your house when they live in your neighbor’s roof.  Not that we ever lived next door to a house like that or anything). And they make annoying, persistent, cloying gurgling noises.

As a long-time reader of Ginny Montanez’s blog That’s Church and previously, the Burgh Blog, my distain of pigeons has been taken to a new level, incited by Ginny’s boundless hatred of pigeons.  So I am posting this to warn her, and others who truly, deeply hate pigeons, that Krakow is best to be avoided. Apparently, pigeons in Krakow are legendary and respected.  The horror.

They are EVERYWHERE in Krakow, especially in Rynek Glowny, Krakow’s main square.  And they are ready to attack. One morning, I was taking pictures of the square, when I spotted a congregation of pigeons. Suddenly, they took flight and aimed themselves directly at the people like missiles. It was like a scene out of that horror movie The Birds.

Pigeons surrounding, getting ready:

Pigeons on attack:

Shudder.

Pierogi Bender

Being from Pittsburgh, I am well versed with the pierogi.  Pittsburgh is a city with many neighborhoods still filled with the descendants of the Central European immigrants who settled there many years ago.  It even has an entire hill devoted to the Polish – creatively named Polish Hill.  So Sean and I were eagerly anticipating tasting actual Polish pierogies.  I’ll admit it – there were days in Krakow when I ate pierogies for lunch and dinner.  They are filling, cheap, and delicious.  What’s not to love?  Probably all of the calories due to the fact they were most frequently served swimming in lard.

Krakow has a 24 hour pierogie place.  This is a fantastic idea.  I am not sure why someone in Pittsburgh has not thought of this.  It would be perfect on the South Side and would give that dog kebab place a run for its money.  It fits well in Krakow, which appeared to have lots of young party-goers.  Being old farts ourselves, we visited Zapiecek Polskie Pierogarnia for lunch.

We started with the basics.  The most common pierogi in Krakow was the pierogi ruskie, also known as a Russian pierogi.  Pierogies ruskie were filled with potato and cottage cheese and had a rather creamy texture.

That same night, we tried pierogies at U Babci Maliny, an obnoxiously ornate restaurant that was redeemed by their excellent pierogies.  Sean especially liked the beef and cabbage filled pierogies there.

We ventured out in the pouring rain the next day to try a milk bar, which is a cheap cafeteria style restaurant that was common during the communist area.

Almost everything in Krakow is in English, but not the milk bar.  This made ordering very difficult.  We finally saw a British family and asked what they ordered, and tacked on an order of pierogies ruskie for good measure.  The pierogies at the milk bar were surprisingly tasty, and cheap to boot.

Our final pierogie tasting was the most adventurous.  Pierożki u Vincenta, located in the Jewish neighborhood, has fun and creative pierogi fillings.  We sampled the sundried tomato and mozzarella filled pierogies, but the sweet pierogies we ordered stole the show.  They were filled with grilled plums and cinnamon, and were scrumptious.

I think it is possible for me to subsist on a diet consisting primarily of pierogies forever.  Luckily for us, the Polish store in the Strip District at home will keep us filled with pierogies when we finally make it home.

P.S. Those travelling to Krakow with a sweet tooth and a slight case of homesickness should be sure not to miss the cookies and brownies baked up by an American ex-pat at More Than a Cookie.

Nor should one miss the cupcakes at Cupcake Corner, which have actual substance as well as style. According to an article I read Cupcake Corner is apparently known as the Polish Magnolia Bakery a la Sex in the City after they were featured in a Polish television show. Personally, I think the Polish picked up the American cupcake thing quite well, for their cupcakes were even tastier than Magnolia’s cupcakes.

To the Valley of Beautiful Women We Go

Although we love cities, we know that cities are never truly representative of the entire country. But we do have to leave Europe sometime, so some of the countries have gotten short shrift, at least this time around. Since we were headed north to Krakow, we decided to stop in the Hungarian town of Eger, where, we were told, there is a valley of beautiful women and wine. The valley of which we speak is actually called that – Szepasszonyvolgy, translated as the Valley of Beautiful Women. I’m not sure what Sean’s intentions were, but I quite liked the Hungarian wines I tasted in Budapest so I was game to go taste more of them.

Unfortunately, best laid plans go awry quite easily. We should know better to try to squeeze in too much, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. We showed up in Eger without accommodations. Normally, this is not a problem and can even be beneficial. Not in this case. I am somewhat of a planner by nature, so this fly by the seat of our pants approach does not come naturally to me. Although I tell myself, really, what is the worst that can happen, in Eger, I started to fear the worst – that we would have nowhere to stay.

We arrived in Eger in a somewhat cranky state after having been on the hottest train known to humankind. It was over 90 degrees that day. This train – an ancient relic dug out of retirement solely for the purpose of torturing us on the way to Eger, I was sure – naturally had no air conditioning. It also had no air flow, made even worse when it inexplicably insisted upon stopping, for no apparent reason, for an eternity several miles away from Eger. We tried to buy tickets on an overnight train the following night from Eger to Krakow. After telling us we could buy the tickets (we think; it was in Hungarian), the ticket teller then changed course. All we could surmise was that there was some sort of problem on the route. This left us no choice but to take the hot box back to Budapest, then take the overnight train from Budapest to Krakow. So while we originally had the entire next day to spend in Eger, we now only had an afternoon and evening the day we arrived.

After walking through a never ending construction zone to the old town, sweating profusely, I thought we could quickly find a place and get to the business of drinking wine. Over two hours later, after Sean trekked all over town while I stood guard with the bags in the hopes of speeding up our task, we still had no place to stay, even with the assistance of the tourist office. Everything – and I mean everything – was full. We finally were helped by a different woman at the tourist office, who told us about several options outside of town who had called to say they had availability.

By the time we ended up at the guesthouse, the entire day had passed. We were tired, exhausted, and hungry. Reality was dawning that we would not get to see hardly any of Eger. A big disappointment, for sure, because Eger seemed like a really cute town. It is known as Hungary’s Baroque jewel box. Plus it has thermal springs.

Although there was talk of devoting the evening to touring the town, we stuck with our priorities and headed for the Valley of Beautiful Women after grabbing something to eat. (For future of reference of anyone who travels to Eger: there are restaurants close to the Valley, so you do not need to head into the old town as we did if you don’t want). The Valley is a collection of wine cellars in a horse shoe shape.

The wine, made on premises at many of the cellars, is cheap. Supposedly you can take a plastic jug to be filled with wine straight from the barrel, but we just tried the different wines by the glass. For $2 or $3 dollars, you could have two very large glasses of wine. We didn’t see any beautiful women, per se, but we did drink many delicious wines.