Kraków; Thursday, 01 June, 2006

I met up with my friends at their hotel before we caught the tram into town. We wandered over to the north of the old town and to the main entrance to the old city, the Barbican and Florianska gate. These impressive structures were built to protect the city from the various groups that wished to take over this part of Poland (The Russians, The Prussians, The Germans, The Austrians, The Swedes...) The buildings are still impressive today (if only slightly dampened by the fact they were pretty well rebuilt from ruin in the 1840's.

After the Barbican and gate we headed south down the main street towards the market square for a brief coffee stop, before wandering over to the tower of the old town hall (in fact it is the only part of the old town hall that still exists.) The tower has several different levels each of which has a different display, on level one it's remains of the old town hall, level two has some of the costumes that the burghers of old Kraków would have worn in the 14th Century. The third level has photos of the centre of Kraków taken at different times between the 1840's and 1930's. The top level has three viewing windows from which you can look over most of the city.

The next stop, after a pause for lunch, was the old Jewish quarter at Kazmierz. The area was emptied by the Nazi's during the war moving all the residents to the Ghetto in another part of the city, but the area remained almost intact as the Nazi's were going to turn it into a museum of "Vanished Races". The main destruction that did take place is evident at the Remuh cemetery. One of the walls is made of the fragments of tombstones, which were destroyed when the Nazi's tried to get rid of the cemetery. Today, some of the stones have been restored, but much of the site, despite being full, is open space with no stones to mark who lies there.

From the Remuh cemetery and synagogue, we walked on down to the old synagogue. This was one of the first to be built in the area in the 15th century. It no longer serves as a Synagogue, but instead holds a museum to the history and culture of Judaism. It some detail it explains the different customs and traditions as well as the festivals and beliefs of the Jewish faith.

After pausing for a short stop at a café in the Jewish quarter, we finished walking through the area, before catching the tram out to Salwator on the tram, and from there walked the short distance to the Kosciuszko Mound. The mound is man made, at the base are the buildings of a fort that the Austrians built in their attempt to turn Kraków into a fortress, above is the original mound, covered in grass, with its paths leading to the top. From the top of the mound you have stunning views over the city and the surrounding countryside.

After spending some time on the top of the mound we descended to the base, caught the bus back to the Salwator tram depot and the tram back into town for dinner.