Krakow – everything it’s cracked up to be.

Tuesday 25 September.  Arrived in Krakow at lunch-time after a pleasant three-hour train trip (in the company of an American ex-navy man, a staunch Texan Republican who assured us that Obama is leading the country to ruin and that America doesn’t need a national health scheme).  We have checked into our apartment, which is magnificent.  It overlooks the main town square, has two enormous bedrooms (that would sleep seven people in total), a big kitchen and bathroom, and ceilings that must be twenty feet high!  We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the huge town square which is known for its many pigeons.    Legend has it that the pigeons were once knights but a witch cast a spell on them and turned them into pigeons.We then visited the beautiful 80m tall Gothic cathedral of St Mary’s Basilica and listening to the lone bugler who calls the hour from the top of the highest of the two steeples (a tradition to recall the bugler who called the residents to arms during an attack on the city by the Tartars in the 13^th century). Inside the church it is illuminated by magnificent stained glass windows dating from the 14^th century. The blue star vaulting of the nave is breathtaking. The altar piece is a pentaptych and is the largest (13m high /11m wide) and most important piece of medieval art of its kind. Then a walk through the Cloth Hall, the Sukiennice, which dates from the 14^th century and contained stalls used by the town’s original cloth merchants.  It now contains stalls selling jewellery and mementos.  We took a stroll along ul Florianska, which was part of the famous Royal Route of Polish Kings (Krakow was the capital of Poland for several centuries, before the capital was moved to Warsaw a few centuries ago) and arrived at the Florianska gate dating back to the start of the C14th. We completed a delightful day with a Chopin piano recital by a brilliant young local pianist, Dobrochna Krowka, in the Pod Baranami Palace.  We had a delicious dinner was in our apartment - whatever it was that John pointed at in the nearby delicatessen.

Tomorrow: Auschwitz .