Krakow

Our yearly city trip with our best friends in 2019

Every year around Christmas time our friends Lisette & Ard and Bea & Dani and us meet for a special dinner. At this event, each of us proposes a new city trip where we would go together in the next year. The winner has the honour of organizing the trip :-) - the choice for this year was Krakow.

It's almost a tradition that we plan in a boat trip, so this time we were on the river Vistula - the 9th longest river in Europe. The view to the Wawel Castle, which served kings, presidents and others as their base, is very beautiful.

Wawel Castle

Otherwise, the scenery seen from the river was not as spectacular as on some of our other trips to Riga, Dubrovnik, Amsterdam and Istanbul, but nevertheless the beer tasted really good after the cruise - on the deck of the C.C.Stefan Batory!

Happy Friends

Our next destination was Kasimierz - the Jewish Quarter. For over 500 years this was an important center of Jewish life. But after its destruction by the Nazis and during the communist era the quarter fell into disrepair. It was actually thanks to Steven Spielberg's movie Schindler's List that the quarter was re-discovered and renewed.

But in the evening the place transforms into a hot nightlife spot. At almost every corner you can find a bar where you can sit outside and enjoy your drinks. After enjoying a beautiful meal at one of the many great restaurants we ended up in a large courtyard with many deck chairs. Here we did it the Polish way: after beer and wine we ended up ordering a bottle of the local berry-flavoured vodka!

Kasimierz Outdoor Bar

The next morning, we expected the worst but we were actually all fine and ready for new discoveries. We hadn't visited the old town yet which is one of the best preserved in Poland. It's not huge and it can get crowded very quickly. A visit to the main market square with the beautiful Gothic church, the Renaissance cloth hall and many restaurants are very popular places to see.

Main Market Square Krakow

Aaron's Dad had told us about this church and was so enthusiastic about the interior of it, that we had to go inside. And yes, it does offer a lot more than the brick building would indicate from the outside.

Inside the Brick Gothic Church

After lunch, we still had half a day left to explore the town so we decided to visit an area where one of the cruelest and saddest actions of human history took place. We rented an electric cart and drove across the river to the place where the infamous ghetto was set-up. 16'000 Polish Jews were relocated from Kazimierz to an area of 320 buildings which were before occupied by 3'500 residents. We stopped at the Ghetto Heroes Square and this is were the chairs symbolize the tragedy of the Jews because the furniture was the last of the things that remained when the Jews were transported to their last destination. Standing here, listening to the tragic stories and you will never forget the sadness that grows inside you.

Ghetto Heroes Square

Our final stop was at the factory where Oskar Schindler hired Jewish workers to save their lives. We couldn’t get tickets to the museum but standing in front of the photographs of the workers made us reflect again about what terrible things happened here in the 1940s.

All in all, we had a very enjoyable trip to Krakow with a lot of fun but also with a lot of sad stories to digest.

Our next trip will take us back to Holland during the tulips season. We look very much forward to more happy moments with our friends!

© Aaron Matzinger & Clare Walker

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