TRAVEL WRITING
Krakow
By Billy Briggs
26th January 2008
IN 1912, Vladimir Lenin arrived in Krakow. Working as a freelance journalist for newspapers such as Pravda he took rented lodgings in the Polish cultural capital and became quickly absorbed in a city that was the historic heart of a nation. The Russian’s preferred hangout was the Noworolski café in Rynek Glowny, the city’s main square. It is where, according to folklore, Lenin spent much of his time, not only entertaining his mistress but no doubt ruminating over bringing revolution and communism to Russia, and, of course, to Poland. Nearly a century later I am sitting in the same Noworolski eatery.
But instead of musing over Marxist political theory my thoughts are on why anyone would swap this to relocate to Peterhead to labour long shifts in a smelly fish processing plant. Krakow is rather special you see, so why Poles are leaving in droves bemuses me.
I’d arrived in the Polish city three days earlier, seeking respite from a miserable, wet and windy few months in the UK, and looking forward to a Narnian blast of ice and snow, wintry niceties that global warming seems intent on spoiling. On arrival at Krakow’s John Paul II Airport, however, I was sorely disappointed to find that Poland was as dreich as Fort William on a summer Bank Holiday, and thoughts of spending a few days in a Christmas tree of town evaporated quickly amid visions of a weekend in a grey, post-communism hinterland - I am prone to glass half-empty syndrome at times. But not so.
Krakow, once the nation’s capital and seat of kings, must surely be one of Europe’s great unspoiled cities, with a chocolate box of an old town that teases and charms and has a modest elegance to rival Paris.
The natural focal point for any visitor is, Rynek Glowny, Europe’s largest market square, surrounded by lines of charming townhouses painted in different pastel colours, many of the magnificent buildings having their own personal history - Ludwik House, for example, was where Tsar Nicholas the Second once stayed, his Royal footsteps followed in years later by another Russian leader, Uncle Joe Stalin. The square itself has it’s own pleasant ambience to sit and enjoy, and centrepiece is the cloth hall (Sukiennice) stuffed with stalls that drip with an extensive selection of gorgeous amber jewellery. Strangely, local firemen perform an hourly bugle call from the towering St Mary's Basilica, in honour of a fireman shot in the neck with an arrow whilst trying to alert Krakow residents to invading tartars in 1241.
But the main attractions, I discovered, lie in the narrow passageways that lead to Krakow’s subterranean world of restaurants and bars, around 400 in the locality according to urban myth. Please do not be alarmed, this is not stag party city in the same vein as Edinburgh, Dublin or Prague, and the Poles seem intent on retaining the city‘s cultural integrity. Public displays of drunkenness are unacceptable and simply not tolerated, so rampaging Brits full of Polish vodka will merely end up in the ‘drunk tank’ for the weekend, strip searched, then dressed in Guantanamo-styled, blue pyjamas before being locked in a cell with a local vagrant. This is, after all, a city the late Pope John Paul 11 presided over as bishop. Be warned.
To food, which was the highlight of the trip and deserves a special mention.
I wasn’t sure what to expect aside from traditional Polish fayre such as meat and dumplings, but I ate like a king for four days and paid around half what you’d expect to at home for veritable feasts. The choice of restaurants is immense, the fun being trying to find them in the narrow, cobbled alleyways off the main square. There is plenty of Polish, of course, but also Lithuanian, Brazilian, Mexican, French, Greek, Russian, Hungarian, Spanish, Jewish, sushi, and even an underground Scottish restaurant selling wild boar and rabbit. I tried goulash inside a bowl made of bread, sweet ravioli with cottage cheese, and in a Russian restaurant called Nostalgia on ul Karmelicka, I had the most delicious Ukrainian borscht I’ve ever tasted. The downside is that vegetarian is limited.
There is no less choice of bars but here my memory gets slightly hazy and I can't remember most of the names of the cellar bars I ventured into at the bottom of hair-raisingly, precipitous flights of steps. I did spend one whole evening in Club Pose ski on ul. Poselska, once a medieval place of torture, and if you’re a real beer fan there’s an ale house on ul. Stolarska, selling gold, amber and dark ales all locally brewed - a blessed relief from fizzy lager.
Aside from Krakow’s gastronomy, there is plenty to see with regards to culture and history with a raft of galleries and museums to peruse, as well as the King’s Castle at Wavel. Krakow’s dusty courtyards and web of streets are home to some 2.3million registered artworks. There are also trips available to the nearby town of Oswieciem, better known under its infamous German moniker, Auschwitz. It is where the Nazis systematically murdered 1.1million people during World War Two, 90% of the victims being Jewish.
In Krakow, the Jewish community live in the Kazimierz district, their home for some 500 years, including the period of Nazi rule from 1939 when the quarter was turned into a teeming ghetto. Today, whilst having a faded, peeling and down-at-heel ambience, in comparison to the old town at least, it's a vibrant, lively cultural centre of it's own. But here the respective poverty becomes more apparent and at the daily flea market women with big, bleached hair slowly traverse the rows of rickety stalls holding up battered, old fur coats or mangy, leather jackets, vying for a sale. It’s a step up from Glasgow’s Paddy’s Market, but only just.
It was in the Jewish district that Oskar Schindler played his own part in world history, the story immortalised by the film director Stephen Spielberg in his poignant Oscar-winning movie, Schindler’s List, starring Liam Neeson.
Schindler’s factory isn't signposted, and is barely marked on the map. I crossed the Vistula River and a tram terminal and found his factory on Lipowa, tucked between other unassuming, dilapidated buildings. After taking a couple of photos of the exterior - a simple black and white sign and closed, rusty gates - I crossed the street to peer through the gap at the side of the gate into the factory yard. A man emerged in his slippers and wearing a threadbare, tank-top and ushered me up some stairs to watch a grainy black and white film about Schindler's factory. At the end, there was a suggestion that work was to start on making the factory into a memorial. But as Schindler himself died in the early 70s, and Spielberg's film came out 14 years ago, perhaps the factory will continue to sit empty and rust away, attracting only a handful of daily visitors who seek it out. The neglect is puzzling and seems a shame.
On my way back to the town centre, passing through the flea market again, I came across two young women in a decrepit Fiat 500 - one steered whilst the other strained to push it down the street. I offered my services and a couple of hundred feet down the road when I'd got a bit of pace up, it spluttered into life. After that I noticed ancient Fiats everywhere, all rust-spotted and angular in colours of decades gone by. Later, back at the hotel, I was told about the ‘communism tours’ that are available, and tourists can be driven around Krakow in genuine, eastern bloc Trabants to visit places such as the social-realist suburb of Nowa Huta. It is the site of a steelworks where once 100,000 working class souls lived and worked amid absurd Stalinist-Baroque architecture.
Instead, I opted for a visit to an old salt mine at Wielickza. For centuries salt was mined near Krakow, bringing enormous wealth to the region. It was certainly an interesting half-day excursion and a seemingly endless trudge down a huge shaft of wooden stairs takes you to 400ft below ground level where there are various chambers and numerous salty statues to behold. These include a Polish princess, Goete, numerous dwarves, Copernicus, and a very impressive salty John Paul II. The most impressive chamber is the huge Chapel of St Kinga, which is apparently big enough to fly a hot air balloon in. It is a vast underground complex and the tourist trail, which takes a couple of hours to see, is only 1% of the entire mine. It is a master feat of engineering. The most enjoyable moment was the lift back to the top in a rattling steel cage that whizzed skyward at a gut-wrenching speed.
While much of Poland was left in a heap of rubble at the end of World War Two, Krakow escaped wholesale destruction due to a lightning pincer movement from the Red Army. This forced the Nazis into flight before they had a chance to dynamite the city. Krakow was certainly worth saving and sitting in the Noworolski café I can understand what attracted Tsars and Popes and Lenin and Stalin. But why anyone would here for Peterhead… Ends.
1542 words.
TRAVEL NOTES -
GETTING THERE AND WHERE TO STAY.
Ryanair operates flights to Krakow from Prestwick Airport three times per week
on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Fares start from £32.99 return, inclusive
of taxes per person.
The Radisson SAS Hotel in the heart of the city, opposite the Philharmonic
Cracovia and Planty City Park, has rooms starting at 144 Euros per night. For
bookings call 00800 3333 3333 which is toll-free from the UK. Website is
www.krakow.radissonsas.com
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