New & amazing food and drink in Krakow!

Yay! We had a successful trip! To not bore you to death, I'll try to explain this whirlwind week in installments, so bear with me...

Krakow! I have to admit that I didn't know much about the city before this trip but I had heard wonderful things from other people, so I was excited to give it a go! Plus we were going to visit Sarah's friend Alexis and were going to have an insider's perspective of the city.

We arrived in the city on Saturday evening and had a shuttle from our hostel pick us up. Our hostel, The Elephant on the Moon, was one of the quaintest places I've ever stayed with the nicest woman running the place. We had our own room, but the place was empty and we were served a free and pretty extravagant breakfast both mornings. Big win!

Alexis met us at the hostel on Saturday and took us for our first Polish food experience-perogis! We obviously were very glutenous and got five different types of perogis to split between us. I think my only perogi experience before was Mrs. T's frozen perogis, so obviously these were wonderful in comparison. Another new treat that we got to try was the local beer (Zywiec) with ginger or raspberry syrup that you drink with a straw! I would probably start to have a problem if I lived there....

After dinner Alexis took us to one of the traditional bars in the Jewish quarter. The place we went to was called Alchemia. It was the first post-Communist bar in the area. It was a dark cave-like bar with several small rooms and was only lit by candles. I obviously had more of that beer and we chatted with some other travelers before ending the evening. The thing that wowed me most about the place was how warm it was! Florence (especially my apartment) is still freezing and it was so nice to be all warm and toasty for once!

After our hostel breakfast on Sunday, Alexis made us try obwarzaneks (also known as non-bagels). We had come to Krakow thinking that they were big on bagels, which Alexis told us was not truth. The non-bagels were a happy compromise though.

Aja at the hostel had told us about free walking tours in the city and that is what we did the rest of the day. The "royal" tour in the morning followed by an hour break (complete with beet soup) and the Jewish ghetto tour in the afternoon. What a great and informative experience! And for only the cost of the tip! We were shown all around the Market Square (the largest Medieval square in Europe) and explored Wawel castle-my first European castle! Apparently one of the seven chakra points in the world is behind one of the castle walls, something that the Catholic city isn't too fond of. We had some fun "getting our chakra on". It was also interesting to note the extreme awe that the Poles and people of Krakow specifically have for Pope John Paul II. There are 14 statues of him around the city and they even refer to him as Jesus 2.0.

Wawel Castle


The Jewish ghetto tour was obviously a lot more of a sobering experience. Krakow used to be full of Jews and now there are less than 200 practicing Jews in the city. We were able to see the oldest synagogue in the city as well as the only one that is still functioning. The tour guide also took us within the walls of the old Jewish ghetto where we saw many memorials as well as Schindler's factory. As sad as all of that information we got was, I was glad to be able to experience all of that.

Schindler's factory

To change subjects completely, Alexis took us to another awesome bar for drinks Saturday night. The place was called Singer, and you bet it, all of the tables in the bar were old Singer sewing machines. I obviously played with the antique sewing machine the whole time we sat in the bar...



Sunday was All Saints Day and pretty much everything in the city was closed. That was such an awesome experience though that it needs its own blog post.