Traveladvice Cracow, 3 day vacation

Cracow (or Krakow) is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. One of the most important cities of the country and the region through the ages, Cracow dates back to the 7^th century. Its long and rich history is reflected in its architectural and cultural heritage, the entire old town of Cracow being listed as UNESCO world heritage site.

Cracow is located in the southern part of the country, on the Vistula River. The city has one of the largest number and variety of unique landmarks in Eastern Europe and a three day tour of the city should provide a great opportunity to visit the most important.

DAY 1

• Start your visit of Cracow with the Old Town and its superb Market Square (Rynek). The 13th-century merchants’ town has Europe’s largest market square and numerous historical houses, palaces and churches with magnificent interiors. Further evidence of the town’s fascinating history is provided by the remnants of the 14th-century fortifications and the medieval site of Kazimierz with its ancient synagogues in the southern part of town, the Jagellonian University, and the Gothic cathedral where the kings of Poland were buried. Stare Miasto is the old city, characterized by the rigid grid of perfectly orthogonal streets, the layout ordered by Boloslaw the Chaste in 1257 when he decided to unify the various peoples scattered around the hill of the Wawel. All that remains now of the medieval enclosure walls is the gate and the little wall that was built in 1499 near the main city gate.
• In the middle of the Market Square, visit the the Cloth Hall, a monument of commerce that for centuries played the role of an international trade center.  Traveling merchants met there to deal. In its golden age in the 15th century, Sukiennice was the source of a variety of exotic imports from the East – spices, silk, leather and wax – while Kraków itself exported textiles, lead, and salt from the Wieliczka Salt Mine. The monument, originally in Gothic style, was rebuilt as a marvelous Renaissance edifice with an ornate roof decorated with grotesque masks. Currently stalls on the ground floor and shops in the arcades mostly sell various souvenirs. is situated upstairs. There you can find the collection of the 19-century Polish art, including famous giant historic paintings.
• Continue your tour with the beautiful Mary Church, whose towers dominate in the city center skyline, is one of the most recognizable Polish architectural monuments. The monument was originally built before the medieval town location of 1257. This is why it stands a little askew from the Main Market Square. Rebuilt from red bricks St. Mary’s Church was completed in 1397 and then, in the 15th century were added the towers. The taller one (81 meters) is topped with a late-gothic spire and the lower one (69 meters) with a manierist cupola. The extraordinary impression makes surprisingly colorful wall painting in interior of basilica. The most splendid monument inside is 15th-century wooden altarpiece created by the master carver Wit Stwosz (Veit Stoss). It is composed of more than 200 carved, painted and gold-plated figures. The monument besidereligious scenesillustrates medieval life in detail. The interior  is lightened by superb stained glass windows.
• After lunch, visit some of the sections of the Historical Museum of the City of Cracow. The Museum’s main location is aBaroque Krzysztofory Palace, owned between 1640-1649 by the Crown Court Marshal Adam Kazanowski, who also commissioned its construction. The palace was designed by joining three Gothic houses in the Main Square.  The first major upgrade of the palace was done by the architect Jakub Solari in 1682-1684. One of its unique features is the fine stucco work by Italian architect Baldassare Fontana working in Kraków at the time. Towards the end of the 19th century, the main floor was taken up by a popular restaurant Pod Palmą founded by Antoni Hawełka, purveyor to the imperial court of Vienna. Although the museum is made of 14 different divisions, most of them are located in the Old Town, so you should visit as many as possible. These include main branch as well as Old Synagogue, Schindler’s Factory, Under the Eagle Pharmacy, Pomorska street Gestapo prison, Hipolit Manor, Town Hall Tower, Barbakan, Defensive Walls, Celestat, Muzeum of Nowa Huta, Zwierzyniecki Manor, Under the Cross Manor, and the Main Market Square
• Make sure to visit the Rynek Underground, a museum that was built under the east side of the Main Market Square. It was opened in 2010 after 5 years long archeological works. The underground trail “In the Footsteps of Kraków’s EuropeanIdentity” allow spectators to feel the atmosphere of the medieval market square – the heart of the city. Uncover archeological layers, that surround visitors all the time, architecture relics, the oldest brick constructions of trading buildings and many other objects illustrate 1000 years of history of this place. Using modern technology like holograms, scanners, laser projections and multimedia installations gives a tourist a different perspective on the confrontation with history and monuments.
• Ending your first day in Cracow, visit the green belt that surrounds the old city and that is known as Planty. The Planty stretches from the Barbican in two directions towards the Wawel Hill and creates an irregular oval shape, slightly elongated on the side of the Vistula. The Planty was established in the 19th century in place of the demolished city walls surrounding old Krakow.

DAY 2

• Start your second day in Cracow with its symbol, the Wawel Royal Castle. The first castle was built on the Wawel Hill already in the 11th century. For over 500 years, Wawel was the king’s residence. During the reign of the Jagiellonian dynasty, a complex of Romanesque monuments was rebuilt into a beautiful Renaissance palace. In its beautiful courtyard, surrounded by arcades were organised knights tournaments and royal ceremonies. In the royal treasury and Kings chambers one could admire unique tapestries, paintings, murals, furniture and other  valuables while in the armory – the biggest collection of arms in the country. In the ground floor part of the eastern wing one may note the Gothic-Renaissance portals from the 3^rddecade of the 16^th century, the item produced in the workshop of Master Benedict as an expression of symbiosis of the northern and Italian forms. Here resided the Kraków governors (officials who managed the royal property and administered the castle) and their deputies. The rooms on the 1^st floor featured mainly private royal apartments, and rooms for the court’s retinue and guests. Nowadays, similarly to other palace interiors, they are richly fitted with works of art that evoke the atmosphere of the royal residence of the 16^th and 17^th  The most picturesque rooms of the palace are the interiors of the Hen’s Foot. Two rooms cover the frame vaults with plafonds. The marble portals and fireplace date back to c. 1600, while the interior furnishing comes from the 16^th and 17^th centuries. On the 1^st floor of the eastern wing of the palace there is one of the best preserved Renaissance interiors of the castle. The rooms on the 2^nd floor were of representative nature and were used for various court ceremonies. They are mostly Renaissance in style with the exception of the northern wing which bears the signs of early Baroque
• After lunch, make your way to the nearby National Museum. The National Museum in Krakow was originally founded as a municipal institution so as to shun control by the occupant’s government in Vienna. In 1950, already as a state museum, it came under the authority of the Ministry of Culture. It is financed by the Ministry and from its own proceeds which, for the past few years, the Museum has been able to generate despite its status of a non-profit organisation. At the moment it employs 644 people, including 257 in curatorial areas and a relatively big internal security forces of 112 armed officers who provide safeguarding services in all the buildings. The collections of the National Museum in Krakow number almost 780,000 objects. Of these over 300,000 belong to the collection of the Princes Czartoryski Museum and Library which is managed by the National Museum in Krakow. There are artefacts from every period of history. The oldest exhibits in the Museum date from prehistoric times, though these are limited in number as the Museum does not usually collect archaeological artefacts, with the exception of classical archaeology. The Museum also possesses a separate collection of ancient art, recent works acquired from contemporary artists, and collections of medieval and modern art from the 19th and 20^th
• Returning to the Wawel Castel hill, visit the impressive Wawel Cathedral. The Cathedral is a national sanctuary. This is the place where rulers were crowned and kings, national heroes, great Polish people were buried. It is also an impressive architectural monument with Sigismund’s Chapel (Kaplica Zygmuntowska) – the tomb  of the last Jagiellons, acclaimed  by many historians of art as the most beautiful example of Tuscan renaissance north of the Alps. In one of the towers of the cathedral hangs Sigismund Bell (Dzwon Zygmunta), which is regarded as one of Poland’s national symbols, used on special important national occasions. The Wawel architecture complex is surrounded by fortifications. Under the Wawel Hill, on the banks of the Vistula river you can find  the legendary Dragon’s Den (Smocza Jama), in there is a bronze dragon in front of it, belching out real fire.
• Last visit of the second day will be the Dragon’s Den. The Dragon’s Den, a legendary cave in the western slope of Wawel Hill, is surely among great curiosities of Wawel. The oldest version of a legend about the dragon of Wawel, related to the mythic beginning of Cracow, can be found in the Chronicle of Master Vincent called Kadlubek. A visit to the Dragon’s Lair begins at the foot of the Thieves’ Tower by going down a staircase in a brick tower (a former Austrian well). The cave is 270 metres long, of which 81 metres are open to the public. We exit the Cave through a pointed arch portal and a vestibule. On the Vistula Boulevard visitors stand in front of a sculpture of the Wawel Dragon created by Bronisław Chromy in 1972.

DAY 3

• Start your last day is Cracow with the old Kazimierz This is a historical district of Cracow, former Jewish Quarter located close to Old Town that for the last years became popular center of social and cultural life. Wandering trough narrow streets you can find many interesting clubs, pubs, small cafes, narrow flee-markets, antique shops and galleries. Impressive churches, old synagogues and Jewish cmentary give evidence for interesting history of this place, where for many centuries coexisted Jewish and Christian communities. The atmosphere of this place one can feel especially in such places likeformer Jewish market (Plac Nowy) with flee-market, surrounded by stylish cafes and clubs and  in the Szeroka Street former main market street of jewish district, where annual take place the final concert of Jewish Culture Festival, which attracted every year many artists of Jewish culture from all over the world – music bands, soloists, choirs, jazz musicians and dance teacher.
• Visit the Jewish Theatre at No. 7 Bocheńska Street in the building erected in 1908 by Liebling and Oberleder there was the permanent stage of the Jewish Theatre in Kraków. Its establishment was largely due to the agents of the Kraków Bund and the enthusiasts of the Jewish theatre: Moses Kanfer, Abraham Seidenfeld, Frederick Freund, Maurice Fiszer, and two Jewish poets: Mordechai Gebirtig and Ber Horowitz.
• Visit the High Synagogue. The High Synagogue was built as the third one in the Jewish town in Kazimierz, after the Old and New (Remuh) synagogues. It was built after 1556 but not later than in 1563. The synagogue’s name is derived from the fact that the room of prayer was situated at the upper storey of the building. This unusual location of the prayer room was adopted for security reasons as the synagogue was standing at the gate to the Jewish town, which is a particularly busy place full of street clamour and in very close proximity of the Christian properties. At the broader eastern side there probably were shops from the very beginning of its existence. The interior preserved only fragments of the old decor, including stone frame of the altar panel at the eastern wall and remains of wall paintings with texts of prayers discovered and preserved in the 1960s.
• After lunch, visit the Corpus Christi Chrurch. One of Krakow’s greatest churches, it was founded by Casimir the Great and blends various architectural styles together – late Gothic (top of the facade), Renaissance (belfry), and Baroque (side chapels). In its atmospheric interior one can admire masterpieces of sculpture –the17th-century stalls in the chancel andthe18th-century pulpit. The high altar contains the famous Nativity attributed to Tomasso Dolabella (17thc.). The left aisle contains an altar-mausoleum (famous for its miracle-making power) with the remains of the St Stanisław Kazimierczyk, a Regular Lateran canon.
• Make your way to the Polish Aviation Museum. The museum features a wide collection of aeroplanes, helicopters, plane engines, pre-war planes made in Poland. Also included are exhibits on the development of world aviation technology.Year 2010 sees a centenary of aviation in Kraków and Małopolska, and the museum has been finalising the “Creating an Aircraft Cultural Park” project, initiated a few years ago. September saw the opening of the museum’s new building, constructed from glass, steel and concrete, shaped like a rotating propeller when viewed from above.
• Lastly, go back at the foothills of the Wawel Castle and enjoy a walk along Vistula River.

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