At the end of the street where I left you yesterday is one of several entrances into the Rynek Główny or main market square of Krakow. It is a large square punctuated by the tall Gothic towers of St. Mary’s Basilica,
dotted by beautiful structures and dining choices,
and dominated by the historic Sukiennice or Cloth Hall, which was once Krakow’s center for bustling commerce during its Golden Age in the 15th century. Merchants with textiles, spices, wax and other traded goods of yore are now replaced by souvenirs vendors in this place:
All this souvenir shopping is making me hungry. Meet me back here tomorrow and let’s see if we can’t find any pierogies!
Tags: Cloth Hall, Krakow, pierogies, Rynek Główny, St. Mary's Basilica, Sukiennice
So last night was not the best way to meet Krakow, Poland for the first time, but I wake up to its bright, puffy clouds gazing down at me through my hotel room’s skylight, which sadly is the only fabulous feature in my room. Well, that and the strong water pressure. I tell myself daylight is probably a better alarm clock than the one on my phone. After a quick breakfast in the hotel’s basement restaurant, I grab my camera and head outside…
It turns out my hotel is just around the corner from the central train station, Kraków Główny, that I tried to navigate last night…
And the station is adjacent to a large modern mall
that’s no different from anything we’d find in the US, including a food court with the ubiquitous McDo:
Steps away from the mall I walk through the tunnel where locals and tourists rub shoulders as we rush between trains and trams, but today I’ll not be taking any public transportation. Its historic center, deemed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is best toured on foot. The first thing I notice is how many carts there are everywhere hawking these pretzels and bagels:
Anyway, here are a few things I see as I follow one of the sightseeing routes the Information Center suggests to me:
Krakow has come a long way from its humble Stone Age beginning and now ranks as Poland’s academic and economic center. Tomorrow, as we go beyond this street,
we’ll see evidence of its rise to fame, and in a few days I’ll take you to a place that’s been on my must-see list for a very long time.
Tags: Kraków Główny, Krakow, Poland, UNESCO World Heritage site
I’ve written before that I envy one VB (Victoria Beckham aka Posh Spice) not only for her staggering Birkin collection but mainly because in any paparazzi photo of her circling the globe, she always, always looks like she’s just stepped out of a salon wearing an outfit worthy of the red carpet. I’m not at all celebrity-fixated but I often think about how it’s (im)possible to be more put together on the road, like her, when sometimes the road is not so glamorous. Case in point: I arrive at the Krakow airport in the early evening…
and follow the signs on the floor, as in the first pic, to find said train (by now in pitch black) that’s on a lonely, uncovered platform…
After being chided in Polish by the train conductor for not having exact change for the ticket–though I don’t take it personally because he is grumpy with all of the other tourists who also give him a big bill that we’ve just all pulled out from the ATM!–I still manage to make it to the city center, where I try to find my bearings by landmarks I’d noted on my phone but cannot really make out in the dark…
So what would VB do? Well, of course she wouldn’t be standing in the middle of some place without an entourage to whisk her to her hotel, with her hair frizzing out in all different directions from the humidity like yours truly. But right now the only thing that will whisk me anywhere might be a mugger so I stay close to the well-lit streets till I find some big hotel that’s always near the train stations. Luckily, the concierge knows where my hotel is and shows me on the map. I do have the general directions from Expedia, where I booked my hotel, but good luck looking at tiny street signs in the dark when you don’t know how to read the local language. Anyway, it’s probably a five-minutes walk from here, but in the dark, in a foreign town, time stands still until I finally reach it.
As I get out of my wrinkled clothes and wash my dirty face–well, I don’t know that I look like a sweaty chimney sweep or anything, but I’m from car-obsessed LA and any time I succumb to public transportation I feel a little dirty…but I digress. So as I wash my face and get in the shower, I think about all the times I’ve experienced the un-glamour of travel. From sitting on a truck with no shock absorbers in wet shorts to slushing around a flooded Venice without rain boots to sleeping in a fetal position on a night train with strangers who were eyeing my bag…
I’m still laughing about these memories as I get into bed (but not before checking for bed bugs) (which I think we should all do regardless of where we stay). I can’t always travel like VB, but glamorous or not, I love the unexpected from the road. And tomorrow is another day. Can’t wait to see what’s out there.
Tags: Birkin, Krakow, Victoria Beckham
If you live in the concrete jungle or any overly congested city, you might know what a luxury it is to experience clean air as a given. Out here in the Semois Valley in Belgium, as I drive through the forests from one village to another,
I want to run through the meadows and skip across streams just to celebrate the beauty of nature. But I know, it’s a bit kooky for someone my age to do this, so I fake strolling around the towns, like at Poupehan…
when in my head I’m really doing cartwheels down this amazing hillside:
But can you blame me? These places should only exist on postcards, yet here they are for all the world to enjoy:
In the above video you can sort of hear cows mooing in the distance; I think I actually get to meet one of them on my drive back:
Moooo.
Tags: Belgium, Poupehan, Semois Valley
Don’t you just love technology? Remember the days of looking for places on a real map? Nowadays we can just blindly hop in our cars and follow an automated voice on the GPS without a single clue of where we’re headed, and yet we’re completely confident that we’ll get there. Map, schmap, who needs that? So even as I drive down this winding road that the tom tom (GPS) tells me has no name (route sans nom), I know I will eventually arrive at my destination:
…or not:
When what you’re looking for is part of the forest, how do you really know when you get there? Especially when there are no signs? Am I there yet?
There’s no whining allowed on the road, remember? So I keep walking till I reach the clearing, and there it is, the lookout that supposedly gives you the highest view of the entire Semois Valley:
But just my luck, this scaffold has recently had a fire and it is locked up for safety reasons. According to the sign here, there’s a fine that goes with trespassing, but do you think a chain around the lock would stop anyone–do you see all those faces peering over me–
especially if that someone (cough, cough) could slip between the doors without needing to unlock it? I’m just sayin’….
Anyway, from here it’s a short drive through a series of small villages…
to feast my eyes on one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, le Tombeau du Géante (tomb of the giant):
One final stop in this valley tomorrow then I’m taking you to yet another country. Bring your dictionary; we’re gonna need it.
