An Afternoon in Kraków

Kraków

After the salt mine that I posted about yesterday, the fiance and I had some time to spare before we went back to my uncle’s so that we could prepare for the car race. We went to Krakow for the afternoon just to see what it looked like. First of all we were starving. Where we parked was a little walk away from where the above two pictures were. Every restaurant we went to we couldn’t find anything that we liked so Joey said let’s walk through that tunnel to the other side. Then we saw the church in the above picture. We ended up finding this place called Cafe Bar Magia. I loved the set up of the place and Joey was excited that he could finally have another latte. I ordered us food and I even pointed and said in both Polish and English that we wanted pierogi and somehow we ended up with something completely different that we took a picture of below. We have no idea what it was, but it was pretty good.

I was instructed to take a picture of how fancy Joey looks like hahahaha!

^I ordered (in Polish and English) Pierogi. Do any of my fellow Poles know what this is? HAHA!

Then we walked out of Cafe Bar Magia and we saw this. They were lined up all in the shade so that it wouldn’t get too hot for the horses. Joey said we were going in one and I of course thought he was joking until he told me to ask her how much it was.

Sooooooo, we ended up going for a ride around Krakow to see Wawel Castle too.

Isn’t Krakow just beautiful?

We thought these goats were the funniest things. This particular one is missing it’s flute haha!

This street performer was cool. We named him mirror man.

Wawel Castle

Remember the King I was telling you about in my salt mine post that always sided with the weak? King Kazimierz III is the one who resided in this castle. There is a lot of history about this castle and it’s gone through some tough times, that’s for sure. I’m really sad that we couldn’t go inside the castle, or even in the courtyard, but at least we got to see it from outside!

In 1978 the castle was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the historic center of Krakow. After being home to many kings, and also being part of take overs, this castle survived and in 1930 was established as one of the country’s premier art museums.

During the early 16th century King Sigismund I and his wife refurbished the castle to a Renaissance palace. During the fire of 1595, the northeast part of the castle burned down. King Sigismund I rebuilt it however unfortunately the only things that remain today from that rebuild are the Senator Stairs and the fireplace in the Bird Room. Once King Sigismund III moved the capital to Warsaw, Wawel Castle started to experience hard times. The castle and buildings were neglected and then the Swedish invasions of 1655-1657 happened. In 1794 the castle was occupied by the Prussian Army. Royal Insignia were stolen and never retrieved. In 1795 was mostly demolished and was then taken over by the Austrians who modernized the castle and added defensive walls. In 1905 the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria gave the order for Austrian troops to leave Wawel. That’s when restoration began on the castle. After WWI they were going to have this be the house for the President which ended up passing, but after WWII the castle became a national museum.

Horsies

After we took our lovely ride around Krakow I asked the people if I could pet the horses as a thank you for lugging us around. They were so sweet and I noticed that the horses are smaller in Poland. Definitely not as big as they are here haha.

Once I was done loving up on the horsies (yes, I’m a child) we went back to the car. Then we drove all the way to my Aunt and Uncle’s house. We were needing to be fully rested because the next day we had a full day of meeting family I have never met before and driving all the way to the mountains of Poland for the car race. The funny part about this, we actually didn’t know what kind of a race this was or if we were still going to it. That’s a story for when I actually post about the race though!