We woke up in Krakow this morning.  Wait, everything I see pretty much says Cracow.

We got up with sunshine and headed upstairs to breakfast.  The breakfast was big, bright, and radiant with sunshine.  It also contained some pretty darn tasty looking food.  We went around the buffet and picked up the things that looked good to us.  It was all wonderful.

Back in our room, we prepared for the day.  We’d need warmer coats since the temp was lower and the wind was blowing pretty well.  Once we exited the front door, we were headed to the Florian Gate that is one of the entrances in the old city wall.  Old Cracow is a walled city as well.  This wall is from the 1200s when the city was fortified against the Mongol hordes sweeping through this part of the world.

We continued down the street to the main square.  On the way down, I saw a sign for pacnkzis.  I knew I’d have to try that.  At the end of the street, the square opened up into a wide area lined with buildings of different time periods, colors, and purposes.  St Mary’s Basilica was right in front of us.  We walked around the square to get an idea of what things were like.

The streets are cobblestones and uneven.  It is definitely old world here.  The Cloth Hall, which was one of the first shopping malls in the world, was in the middle of the square.  This is where the guilds would have a stall to come and sell their wares to the public.  Around the square are stands that sell flowers, souvenirs, and other items.

We walked around the perimeter of the square to see what was there.  There were tours of all kinds going on.  The free walking tours are gathering people in different languages to start out.  Barkers are stopping you at every corner to purchase a tour of the city from them or to join some group for a tour at a cost.  We just keep saying no.

Once we get around all four sides, we went into the Cloth Hall to look at the different stalls.  There are woodcarvings, glass items, textiles, pottery, and lots and lots of amber.  This is a big amber producing part of the world.  I see all kinds of shapes and colors.  At one booth, I stop to ask the difference.  It’s all amber.  However, it depends on long it was in the ground and what kind of impurities are in it.  Rich sees a shot glass he wants for his collection.  It looks like stained glass, which was once a big product here

We come back out of the hall without buying anything yet.  As we leave the hall, the trumpeter on the tower of St. Mary’s Basilica started to play the anthem for opening and closing the gates.  Every hour on the hour, a trumpeter plays out of the window on one side.  He gets to a certain point in the song and stops.  He then moves to another side of the tower and repeats this for each side.

The story is that the trumpeter was playing on the tower during a siege by the Mongols.  An arrow struck the trumpeter in the throat and he halted his song at a certain point.  This is the point where the song gets interrupted today.

We walk over to St. Mary’s Basilica, but the visitor’s entrance is closed.  We decided to walk around the entire square and look at the buildings and businesses.  This is one of the largest squares in Europe.  I believe only Red Square in Moscow is bigger.

After this tour, we headed down the street toward Wawel Castle.  Rich was looking for the Nicholas Copernicus statue and thought it was down this way.  We stopped at the St. Peter and Paul Church.  The oldest church in Cracow is St. Andrew’s right next door.

Since we were at Wawel Castle, we decided to walk about the grounds and have a look.  We walked the outer wall that overlooked the Vistula River.  It is a beautiful river valley here.  We could see a mound off to the far right and wondered what it was.  Rich made a note to ask Marcin about it.

We walked on around the castle.  At the opposite side, you could walk by the Wawel Chapel.  A status of Pope John Paul II was standing nearby.  John Paul was assigned to Krakow and was a cardinal here.  The chapel has a beautiful golden dome on the front.  We decided not to pay the money to go inside and tour.

We made our way back down the hill from the castle and took one of the side streets.  This went by the house where John Paul lived when he was cardinal here.  It was right across the street from the Hotel Copernicus.  But no status of Copernicus was around there.

We got back to Grodzka Street and started walking back toward the square.  We saw a Ukrainian restaurant and Rich checked for borscht.  It was time for lunch.  This worked out perfectly because they also had Zurek soup.  The soups were wonderful.  That would be enough to hold us for dinner time.

Outside of the restaurant, we found the Information Booth.  It was time to ask the experts where the Copernicus status was at.  Rich really stumped the poor girl though.  She had to go to the computer to find the information and then identify it on the map for Rich.  A British lady had come in while the girl was looking up the info.  She was practically hanging all over Rich while his map was being marked.  She wanted the info also!

Back on the street, we headed toward the Jagiellonian University to find the status.  This is one of the many local universities in town and probably the largest one that had its start back in 1364.  We went through one of the many parks in the area to get to where we needed to be.  Wouldn’t you know it?  The statue was covered by netting as workers were cleaning it up.  They kind of stared at us funny for wanting pictures.

We walked through campus to get back to the square and came out on the opposite side from our hotel.  Since we were at the square, we decided to get coffee and try to find something sweet.  We walked to several of the restaurants without finding anything.  We backtracked a bit and a found small place in a hallway leading into one of the restaurants.

Rich ordered coffee and tried to ask for some of the poppy seed cake on display.  I went into the adjacent room to point to the cake.  The lady didn’t speak English, but she got the gist and shook her head now.  She came up with an alternative and offered us poppy seed pastry.  That would work also.  After paying, she delivered our coffee and pastry to the table for us.  The pastry was sweet and tender.  The taste was wonderful.  We enjoyed our coffee and talked about our day.

After finishing up, we headed back out to the square to wander some more.  We walked over to St. Mary’s Basilica to see if the visitor’s entrance was open yet.  It was, but you had to purchase tickets across the street from the church.  Having done this, we made our way into the church.

You had to step down a few steps to enter.  The original church is at one of the lower levels from a few centuries back.  The church was beautiful.  The ceiling is an amazing blue that has gold stars painted throughout.

The cathedral was decorated with beautiful statues and pieces of art.  The alcoves and chapels were filled with monuments and crypts for local saints and dignitaries.  I was in total awe of the colors and art around me.  I did attempt one photo, but it was hard to get anything without a flash.  It was church and they posted a sign for no pictures at all.

We eventually let go of looking at the church and headed back out to the square.  We made one more trip around the square before going in the direction of our hotel.  Marcin and Aneta were meeting at for dinner.  Marcin had a plan to whisk us away to somewhere for good Polish food.

At 7:00 PM, we met them at the front door of the hotel.  Once in the car, Marcin drove out toward the salt mine to a little place with a big reputation.  It was a little cool to sit outside, so we went in and found that Marcin had called ahead with a reservation.  Rich ordered the mushroom soup in a bread bowl.  It was like having beef barley soup without the barley.  It was definitely tasty.

Everyone ordered and I apparently didn’t listen to directions.  My dinner came out on a trencher like in past centuries.  The pork schnitzel was about 12 inches wide and maybe 14 inches long.  It was huge!  I cut off a third of it and almost managed to finish it.  What was I thinking?  I saw other people order it, but they were sharing with those around them.

We got our bill and paid up with the waitress.  Back on the road, Marcin took us on another whirlwind tour of town.  Rich had asked about the mound we had seen earlier from the wall around Wawel Castle.  Marcin said it was Kosciuszko’s Mound.  It was a memorial to the general and you could walk up the mound to the top with a view of the city.  There are apparently seven such mounds in the area.  There were also defensive points to see attacks on the city.

We saw the field where Pope John Paul II had held mass when in Cracow for the large number of people who showed up.  Marcin said it was like 200,000 people.  The field is huge and I can image it holding that number of people to see one of the greatest figures of our era.

Finally back at the hotel, we said good-night.  Tomorrow, we go to the Motorola office to try and meet some of the people that we work with.  Rich has a meeting scheduled with a team working on a tool that would work with his tool set.  For tonight though, I’m full and tired.