Kraków Museums and Must-Sees!

An outstanding array of cultural experiences seized the day! If you know that I love art and history, especially WW11 history, you can say I was in heaven for the last 12 hours of sightseeing around Kraków.

Someone in our group of four exclaimed in Polish, “It’s a lot of work being a tourist!” Ha! After our scrumptious hotel breakfast, European style, we hit the streets of Kraków with an ambitious schedule. There is too much to write today, but a few bullet points with the promise of unpacking my thoughts and more photos later this summer of what I saw today will be a great plan, plus not burning the midnight oil tonight. Hey, I need my “beauty” sleep for our last day in southern Poland.

Because I love the Jesus Christ cross at Saint Mary’s Basilica, we peeked in for a more extended visit so I could sit and stare.

Met up with Jacek outside the Basilica; he is a physicist living in Krakow (and Maciak’s brother) who spent the day with us, helping with translation and exploring “his” town like a tourist with us.

Explored the smallish Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art in the Sukiennce (in the main market square and very cool).

Admired St. Francis (Assisi) Basilica with its beautiful stained glass windows.

Walked down Ulica (street) Kanonicza - the oldest street in Kraków (12th century) on our way to the Wawel.

Wawel Castle - an entire blog post at a future date. It was wonderful (though it was my second time to visit, and I hardly remember the one in 1995 - because I took no photos I can remember either). We had a tour guide, in English, for two hours that took us around most of the floors and “behind the scenes.” There were 22 people in our group. The castle is a big draw worldwide, and I even heard American English all around this area).

You are correct if you surmise Poland has a long and complicated history! Every surrounding country wanted to take big slices of it and did on several occasions. And…this has been happening for over 1000 years! It’s time for peace and democracy for a long time ahead.

Walked to the Jewish Quarter for a late Israeli lunch and a tall glass of piwo!

Ubered over to the Oskar Schindler factory - another one or three (maybe more?) blog posts in the future! A great museum and a MUST-see if you are in Kraków! Extremely well done on the history of the war and easy to navigate - all in the enamel factory Schindler owned and operated.