When we registered, we were given a card that advertises the campsite on one side and on the other side shows the numbers of the buses and trams that you need to get into Krakow – very useful. Reception also had a list of all of the bus times so we were able to time our short walk to the bus stop to catch the 09:21. At Salwator we changed to a tram and got off just a short walk from Wawel, Krakov's castle hill. There are lots of different parts of the castle (really more of a palace) and each part is paid for and time slots allocated separately. We decided to visit the 'Lost Wawel' and the state apartments, getting slots for 11:00 and 11:40 respectively. This gave us 40 minutes to visit the cathedral before we were due at Lost Wawel but fortunately there was only a very small queue for the cathedral tickets and we were soon inside. Krakov was the ancient capital of Poland and, although it didn't remain the capital, almost all of the Polish kings were crowned and buried here. The cathedral is very ornate and the nave is lined with chapels to kings and aristocrats with wonderful stone carvings. This also applies to the many tombs of Polish heroes in the crypts below the church. The centrepiece of the church is the magnificent Shrine of Saint Stanislaw, topped with a huge, ornate, 17th century silver sarcophagus. Bishop Stanislaw refused to agree with the ambitions of the king and so the king had him beheaded in 1079.
Forty minutes was plenty of time to visit the small but fascinating collection of exhibits in Lost Wawel. The most impressive exhibit was the remains of the Rotunda of Saints Felix and Adauctus dating to 1,000 AD with its base a good 5m below the current ground level. We arrived at the state apartments a little early but this did not seem to matter and we were allowed in immediately. We were lucky to come across a group of four people with an English speaking guide and as they we going around the rooms at the same pace as us (a pure coincidence, of course), we were able to here much of her talks and she was very good. The number and names of the kings became a little blurred although I did like the ones with names such as '... The Bashful', '... The Shy' (perhaps they were the same person?) and '... The Great', '... The Short' (definitely not the same person!) and 'Augustus The Strong', so called because he fathered over 300 children – I think that 'fathered' is probably the wrong word as he must have 'loved them and left them' in most cases and I am surprised that he isn't known as 'Augustus The Knackered'. The art was very impressive with excellent paintings and tapestries – Krakov, despite Nazi plundering, is actually full of art – over 2.3 million works according to our guidebook (Anthony please note – a possible trip for Strode College?). The culmination of the art was a temporary exhibition of the recently restored masterpiece 'The Hommage of Prussia' by the Polish artist Matejkos. It is a huge, beautiful painting full of figures and detail – the sort of painting that one could visit time and time again and always see something different. We stayed there for some time and I would have dearly liked a poster of the painting but the castle shops didn't stock them – we could however have bought any number of stuffed, cuddly Krakow dragons!
Krakow has the largest (200m by 200m) Mediaeval square in Europe and, unlike most European capitals the main square and the rest of the city were spared in the Second World War. The Nazis did not bomb it because they wanted it as a regional capital and the Russians encircled it so quickly that the Germans did not have time to explode the mines that they had set up all over the city. On our way from Wawel, we came across a number of marching bands and following them they took us into Mariacki Square. It appeared that the Krakow fire service was celebrating a ninetieth anniversary of something. We left the bands standing in the centre of the square and went of to visit the Mariacki church. It was just coming up to 14:00 and we stopped to watch the trumpeter sound the hour. Legend has it that a watchman in one of the church towers spotted a Tatar raid approaching and sounded the alarm on his trumpet but was stopped by an arrow through the throat. Now, every hour, a trumpeter sounds the 'hajnal' melody from the tower stopping in mid flow at the point that the watchman was killed. He does this four times from each of the four sides of the tower, finishing with a wave to all of the spectators. Strangely, it is a very pleasant tune and doesn't seem at all the urgent call that you would expect to announce the danger that was approaching. The interior of the church is very pretty, especially the altar and choir area where a series of thin brightly coloured stained-glass windows soar to the arched, blue-painted roof and carved wood panels cover the walls. There was a wedding in taking place in this roped-off area and we watched the service whilst in between admiring the rest of the church. During the service a lady soprano sang occasionally and she had a wonderfully pure voice. I couldn't work out where she was but Jane pointed her out high up, right at the back of the huge church next to the organ. She sang effortlessly and yet the sound filled the church – quite magical. The ceremony finished and the bride, groom and congregation left but a couple of minutes later the congregation returned. This had us somewhat confused until we realised that this was the next wedding – no time was wasted! We returned to the square and watched the marching bands play for a while but the baton twirling and the pompom waving got on my nerves. I have to admit to an aversion to pompom waving that set in during a visit to Staffordshire County Show in the mid 70's. We were living in Stafford and decided to visit the show that was held in the town. I was delighted to see that there was a major 'Morris Dancing' section and we headed off to see it. Now I was brought up in Dorset where Morris Dancers are Real Men, hard drinking, wearing fancy costumes, bells on their ankles, waving handkerchiefs whilst they dance and attempting to bash each other with long wooden staves. However, I was horrified to find that the Morris Dancers in Staffordshire were little girls with pompoms performing dance routines. To make it worse, it was a competition and the seemingly endless troops of dancers performed to the same piece of music – 'The Entertainer', which was very popular at the time. Even after we had extricated ourselves from the audience, we continued to hear that tune drifting across the showground for the rest of the day. Every time that I hear that music, even to this day, I have horrible visions of little girls with pompoms.
We wandered around the old town and then returned to the square to find that the speeches were taking place. That signalled the end of the event and the bands marched out of the square. It was another hot day so we found a shaded table at a café on the edge of the square and ordered a coffee. We spent a very enjoyable time watching the comings and goings on the square, particularly enjoying the procession of brides and grooms in horse-drawn carriages. There are many of these carriages in the centre of Krakow but the white ones were definitely the prettiest.
Photos: Wawel Cathedral on Krakow's castle hill; One of the marching bands on the way to the celebrations in Mariacki Square – this one was all too American and the lead twirler could switch on the most awful plastic smile; The beautiful interior of the Mariacki Church – you may be able to spot the bride and groom kneeling in front of the altar.
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