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The Barbican, a main defensive structure just outside the city walls.
Entrance to the Old
Town, this gate was
built in 1307. First, we
zigzagged our way through the touristy area of Old Town. Old Town
was very pleasant, peaceful and felt safe. It was a relaxing change to the high
action of Moscow.
The Juliusz Slowacki
Theater, in front of which is a statue of a famous Polish comedy writer, in
front of which is an infamous not-so-funny tourist.
Wandering the streets of Old
Town.
Go Angels!
The lively and heavily touristic Old
Town square.
 
Traditional Polish music and dance.
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Old Town clock tower.
As seen from the clock tower.
Head statue.
The yellow building is the Boner
Mansion, erected in the
16th century and having survived hard times.
St. Mary’s Church. Every
hour a trumpeter sounds a bugle call from the open window of the highest
tower, but the call is cut short to commemorate the death of a trumpeter
who, in the 13th century, was calling the city’s residents
to arms against an attack by the Tartars when a Tartar marksman caught the
trumpeter with an arrow right through his throat. All I’ve got to say is hey man,
nice shot.
The Dominican church.
Inside one of the Old
Town churches.
Nice stained glass window of God, or an old guy dancing in a club.
At the end of Old Town was the 10th century Wawel Castle,
which is the pride of Poland
because it survived while the rest of the country was being flattened by
non-stop wars throughout its history.
Entrance to Wawel.
Wawel inside.
Wawel king.
On our way out, we checked out the Dragon’s Den, where it is said that
some guy killed a dragon. Here, I
do my best impression of some guy.
Where the dragon used to chill.
The statue of the dragon outside the cave would sporadically unleash belches
of fire that amused the kids to no end.
Next, we walked a few minutes to Kazimierz, which
is the former Jewish quarter. It
was nice to see too many synagogues packed together as a refreshing contrast
to the typical too many churches packed together.
Inside Tempel Synagogue built in 1860.
This nice stained glass complements the other stained glass in the church.
We stopped for lunch at a Frommer’s
recommended restaurant for pierogi, which are
essentially dumplings, but you can pick any range of fillings. For instance, Carmel got spinach in hers, while I got
strawberries in mine.
We wandered for another hour more, then ran into
another Frommer’s recommended restaurant
called Bagelmama (the bagel is said to have been
invented in Krakow). We poked our heads in out of
curiosity, and saw that they even sold burritos and had some good looking
guacamole. As Americanly
as possible, we stuffed in yet another meal though we were not hungry.
Next, we walked across this bridge and off the beaten path a bit to Podgórze, which was where all the Jews of Kazimierz had to move to during WWII. We walked up the hill and into a
pleasant park, where we found a bench under some shade and rested/napped
there for about an hour.
Freckly couple in the sun.
St. Joseph church.
We then headed up to the Krakus Mound with a decent
view of Krakow. The Mound was raised in the 7th
century and is the burial place of King Krak, the
founder of Krakow.
  
Happy to have made it to the top of the mound.
Next, we headed back into the center of Podgórze
and found the square with a chair-memorial where all the Jews of Podgórze were killed by the Nazis.
A brief 10 minute walk from there led us to Schindler’s factory (i.e.,
Schindler’s List).
We left Podgórze and returned to Old Town
for a quick rest at a café before catching a classical concert
(including Poland’s
Chopin) in one of the churches.
Outside the concert.
Adjacent church.
 
For dinner, we wandered the square a bit looking for another Frommer’s recommended restaurant, but were
distracted by a breakdance show. We finally found
the restaurant, got a quick bite to eat, and retired back to our hostel for
the night.
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