Krakow

I'd heard from several people that Krakow is great and worth visiting...but WHOA. I was not expecting this. It's a BEAUTIFUL city.

Like any self-respecting European city, Krakow has an obligatory castle-on-a-hill. A lovely one.

I particularly enjoyed exploring outside the city center, in the former Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz, now a very hip area of young people and restaurants, along with lots of attempts to preserve the Jewish culture that once genuinely flourished here.

I ate pierogi until I was in danger of becoming a potato dumpling.

And I really liked the grittier side of the city we saw in Kazimierz. Because while the city center is very painted over, the things that have been metaphorically painted over in Poland are significant, and not something the country has moved past: the almost total obliteration of its Jewish population during WWII; 40 years of communist occupation; and even the general adoration of the late Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and lived and worked in Krakow for years before going to the Vatican...even as more and more is revealed about JPII's complicity in covering up the sexual abuse rampant in the church, and with 98% of Poland now Catholic.

We didn't have enough time to visit Auschwitz-Birchenau, but we did go to the former Jewish ghetto on the other side of the river, where the Schindler enamel factory is located. Now the factory (made famous by the movie Schindler's List) is a Holocaust museum, and Oskar Schindler's office space is preserved there.

We also made a trip just outside the city to the town of Wieliczka for a visit to its TOTALLY AMAZING salt mines. I should really do a completely separate post on this...but long story short, due to a shallow lake leaving extensive salt deposits here 13 million years ago, and the harvesting of this salt by humans for at least the past 6,000 years, and that evolving into more and more elaborate excavation deeper and deeper. Over the years, the mine was always a tourist destination and was a part of the culture and life of people here. This underground chapel--the walls, carvings, floors, chandelier crystals...EVERYTHING is rock salt!--has hosted concerts in addition to weekly services.

Horses lived their entire lives down in the mine, turning a mill day in and day out to operate the pulley system that moved things up and down within the mine, which had gotten to be 9 levels (and something like 450 feet) deep by the time (in the early 90's) when the bottom level flooded permanently and commercial operations largely wound down. I could go on about the salt mine forever; it was really mind-blowing. Suffice it to say, if you come to Krakow you should definitely visit the salt mines.

And you should DEFINITELY visit Krakow. I am definitely planning on coming back here someday again...