When you visit a new city, it is very difficult to see all its corners and get to know it well in just one day. Of course, you can visit the main tourist attractions if they are all nearby, but if you have the time and opportunity to stay for more than one day, then it is even better. When you are in the same square or in front of the same church for, let's say, the third day, then you start to experience it in a different way, as if you have known it for a long time.
Five days? I think that is a good ratio of days and getting to know a city, and that was the case with our visit to Krak贸w in October 2023. The reason we were there was a Hive meeting, HiveBeeCon, which I have already written about in the following posts. If you want, of course, it is not mandatory, you can take a look at these links if you still haven't. I wrote about our first day, about the meeting in the Kingdom, and about going to the salt mine, but since we stayed in the city until Tuesday of the following week, we still had a few more days for casual sightseeing in the city centre. It rained sometimes, but we also had nice weather and a lot of sunshine. That's why you will see in some pictures the sky covered with clouds and then a blue sky.
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Whether our walks were in the side streets of Krak贸w or in the very centre of the city, observing the main square, the Basilica, the Town Hall tower or the Cloth Hall, we had a great time. We can also thank other Hivers for our nice memories because with some of them, we saw each other every day, and that was the best part of the whole experience.
And I think it is now the time to announce that we will soon participate in another meeting, to be exact, in ten days we will travel to Austria. We will arrive there on Tuesday 29th of April, in the morning, and have some free time until we meet the rest of the guys who announced their arrival at Hive Creator Days, Graz, 2025.
I had some busy days, so I left all the preparation and organisation of the travel to my husband. Now I see that the dates are close, I already started looking forward to the next meeting and realised I still have nice memories of our Krak贸w visit. Not just memories, but also places we visited, though I didn't post about them.
If you are in the Main Square of Krak贸w, you can easily spot the major and most important buildings of the old city centre. You will spot the red church with two towers - the Church of St. Mary...
...the Town Hall Tower...
...or sculptures as well, like this huge bronze head, Eros Bendato, a work of the Polish artist Igor Mitoraj.
Another sculpture, which is more visible as it is much taller, is the monument to Adam Mickiewicz. He was a Polish poet, and the monument in his honour was placed here in 1898, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Sorry, as the monument is seen a bit small in my photos, I guess I tried to squeeze the big buildings into the photos as well. In one photo, its background is the church and in another, the Cloth Hall.
The church with these two towers is the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in short Church of St. Mary. I heard its interior is worth of visit, but we didn't enter. There was a race in the morning when we spent the most time here. We didn't cross on the other side that morning, and the other days, we just didn't think a lot about visiting its interior. (bad we 馃槄)
Pigeons in the square - there is always someone to feed them.
One of the city's most recognisable monuments is this building, the Cloth Hall. It is awesome from all sides, as you can see the first photo is taken from the Town Hall Tower's side and the second photo from the Church of St. Mary's side, where the fountains are. Both sides look very similar.
We can see it in small as well, and read that since the 13th century, there have been merchant stalls in the middle of this square. In the late 19th century, it got the arcades. I was amazed how well preserved this building is, and then I read that it was also restored; the last restoration happened just 15 years ago.
In the interior, you can stroll between the stalls and buy the souvenir you want to take home from your Krak贸w visit. We bought just two fridge magnets.
A sunny photo for the end! My memories about this city are also bright and sunny, especially because of the people we met there. Soon, we will meet once again some of those Hivers, although in a different country.
