Planty Garden Ring in Krakow
Krakow's medieval city walls were largely demolished after 1807 save the part with the main gate, its adjoining towers and the great barbican. Fortunately, a green belt of public parks called Planty took up the emptied area of 52 acres in the 1820s.
It takes an hour to two hours to walk around the Old Town historical district down the leafy alleys among old trees. And the stroll is the more delightful as Krakow’s ancient buildings reveal their unusual aspects. On the other hand, it appears also a journey through the art of gardening for the Planty ring actually proves to be a chain of some 30 gardens in varied styles.
Nowadays the area of the Planty gardens is roughly 41 hectares. There are 2,236 trees, including 629 maples, 362 lindens, and 227 chestnuts. Plus 3,021 bushes, 1,004 park benches, 36 monuments, two fountains, and 658 garden lamps.
Krakow's Juliusz Slowacki Theater
In 1893 Krakow acquired the brand-new theater building at 1 Plac Sw. Ducha square and Szpitalna street to house its much envied company of players.
The splendid edifice of the city theater was modeled on the grand Paris Opera. A vast Gothic complex of medieval hospital and monastery together with its church of the Holy Spirit had been demolished to make room for what was then a state-of-the-art playhouse. The interior also was impressive. Most of all the huge painted curtain with the allegory of tragedy and comedy has gained enduring fame as an outstanding work of art.
Krakow’s City Theater, in 1908 renamed the Juliusz Slowacki Theater (Teatr im. Juliusza Slowackiego), introduced to this country modern stagecraft, drama, and acting at the turn of the 20th century. Its thespians staged the most of important plays of the period and endorsed the best Polish and foreign playwrights. Among them was Stanislaw Wyspianski, Krakow’s painter and poet of genius, who wrote all his milestone dramas with this theater in mind on top of revolutionizing the art of stage design.
Apart from its primary theatrical function the Juliusz Slowacki Theater has always served as an all-purpose public venue. It long doubled as the Krakow opera house and occasionally substituted for a congressional center.
The Teatr Slowackiego theater underwent a thorough renovation for its centennial in the early 1990s.
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| The Great Barbican |
Krakow's main city gate, Brama Florianska, was made insurmountable in the beginning of the l6th century thanks to Europe's mightiest barbican. The circular marvel of military architecture surrounds space 24.4 meter in diameter. Its high walls are three meters thick. The awesome structure, topped with seven turrets, has 130 loopholes in four rows: the lower to be used by artillery, the upper for archers and riflemen.
In the past the Krakow barbican (Barbakan in Polish) was surrounded by a 30-meter-wide, deep moat. However, if the enemy had forced their way in, they would have found themselves entrapped inside and shoot at from all sides. The barbican was connected with the Brama Florianska gate tower by a drawbridge and a walled passage.
Nowadays the 500-year-old fortification serves occasionally for a summer concert hall, theater etc.
The Royal Road is the historic tract which was used by the Kings of Poland to enter the Wawel Hill. The route crosses the heart of the Old Town. From the Barbican and the Florian Gate we enter Floriańska street, full of antique tenement houses and legendary places, such as Michalik’s Cave (Jama Michalika), Jan Matejko’s house, Hotel under the Rose (Pod Różą). 
The Royal Road will lead us towards the remarkable Main Market in Cracow, one of the largest market squares in Europe, full of top class monuments – among them the Gothic St. Mary’s Basilica with the Altarpiece created by Veit Stoss, the Sukiennice Cloth Hall and the Town Hall Tower dominate.
Grand Square of Historical Krakow
Krakow’s central Grand Square (Rynek Glowny, often translated wrongly as “Main Market”) has been the hub of the city ever since its Old Town historical district got the present grid of streets in the 13th century. The huge 10-acre square, the largest of all Europe’s medieval cities, is a curio in itself. At the same time, it is arguably one of the world’s most beautiful plazas.
Krakow's Cloth Hall, the Renaissance monument of commerce
The world's arguably oldest shopping mall has been in business in the middle of Krakow's central Grand Square (Rynek Glowny) for 700 years. Circa 1300 a roof was put over two rows of stalls to form the first Sukiennice building – Cloth Hall – where the textile trade used to go on. It was extended into an imposing Gothic structure 108 meter long and eight meter wide in the second half of the 14th century.
The basilica of the Virgin Mary's (or Kosciol Mariacki) at Krakow’s central Grand Square has been traditionally the temple of choice of the city’s burghers. It also seems to be the most famous of all Poland's churches.
The Gothic edifice of the present St. Mary's church replaced its Romanesque predecessor by the end of the 13th century. In 1365 a chancel was added and soon its splendid big stained-glass windows, of which three are still in place, were ready as well.
By the end of the 14th century the body of the church got its current form of a basilica. The taller (81 meters) of its two towers, with a fantastic Gothic spire of 1478 and a gold-plated crown of 1666, curiously belongs to the municipality and the Krakow signal is played from it every full hour. The lower tower (69 meters), with the 1592 Renaissance roof, accommodates five bells. Two of them date back to the late 14th century. In the Baroque front porch of the mid-18th century one finds two early-Gothic holy-water basins. 
St Barbara’s Church
"The church was built around 1400, most probably as a cemetery chapel: St Barbara was venerated as the patron saint of a good death. It replaced the former mortuary. In 1488-1518, it had a late-Gothic Garden of Olives added, inside which there stands a group of sculptures chiselled by the Wit Stwosz (Veit Stoss) related group of stonemasons. In the 17th century, the Gothic church was redeveloped; the effects of that baroque transformation are visible from the side of the Small Market Square. At the same time, the church interior received a decidedly baroque appearance.
The Church of St. Adalbert (St. Wojciech), located on the Main Market Square in Krakow's Old Town, is one of the oldest stone churches in Poland. Partially reconstructed in the Baroque style between 1611-1618, the church's almost 1000-year-old history goes back to the beginning of the Polish Romanesque architecture of the early Middle Ages. Throughout the early history of Kraków the Church of St. Wojciech was a place of worship first visited by merchants travelling from across Europe. It was a place where citizens and nobility used to meet.
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Town Hall Tower (Wieża Ratusza) |
The tower is the only
remnant of the building of Kraków Town Hall, which reached halfway into the
Main Square.
From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, the Town Hall was the headquarters of the municipal authorities. It was built around 1300 as a 2-storey stone construction, with a tower that served both defensive purposes and as a symbol of power and elegance. During the following centuries, the town hall building and its tower were repeatedly rebuilt.
From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, the Town Hall was the headquarters of the municipal authorities. It was built around 1300 as a 2-storey stone construction, with a tower that served both defensive purposes and as a symbol of power and elegance. During the following centuries, the town hall building and its tower were repeatedly rebuilt.
This is most probably the most “literary” street in contemporary Kraków, made famous throughout Poland by a song of the Kraków bard, Grzegorz Turnau. You can walk into the atmospheric Nowa Prowincja café frequented by the aficionados of the pen. 
Jagiellonian University
The Krakow university is Poland's second largest and most revered. Its over 47,000 students and 7,000 faculty members make Krakow’s 650-year-old Jagiellonian University a major European institution of higher education. Though mostly government-funded, the university enjoys broad autonomy as regards its management, finances, internal organization, scientific research, education, student enrollment, etc. Decision-making lies with democratically elected university Senate and rectors voted into office every four years. St Anne's Church
Thanks to the foundation of the
professors of the Academy of Kraków and King John (Jan) III Sobieski, and the
design of a Dutch architect, we can admire one of the most beautiful examples
of mature baroque in Poland at the heart of Kraków.
What today is the Collegiate Church of St
Anne was built in the 17th/18th century as an initiative of the professors of
the nearby University, supported by their former student – King John III
Sobieski. Its architect, Tylman van Gameren, took Sant’Andrea Della Valle Church
in Rome as his model; the new church was far more impressive than the one that
it replaced, answering the preferences and ambitions of contemporary academics.
This is how the history of the origin of one of the most magnificent baroque structures in Poland unfolded. The impressive façade was skilfully exposed so that it offered a splendid shape even if viewed from the perspective of a very narrow street, which additionally was enclosed by the city wall when the church was built.
Lunch at Magia Bistro
The Europeum - branch of the National Museum in Krakow
For the first time in its 134-years history, the National Museum in Krakow has opened a separate permanent exhibition of European art.
The exhibition in the Old Granary presents seven centuries of European art based on over 100 paintings and sculptures. At the beginning, when the museum was established in 1879, its collection (mainly in the form of donations) was not covered by any particular collecting policy, as the museum – as its name suggested – focused mostly on Polish art. This situation changed after the war, when the museum purchased some outstanding West-European paintings and sculptures, such as: The Crucifixion by Paolo Veneziano, Lorenzo Lotto’s Adoration of the Child, Pieter Breughel the Younger’s The Sermon of St. John the Baptist and a French 14th-century sculpture, Madonna with the Child or The Bishop’s Bust, created around 1500 in the Low Countries.
Apart from the above-mentioned showpieces, the gallery also features other amazing works of art: Catalan medieval Madonnas, Man of Sorrows by Jan Gossaert (Jan Mabuse), Luca Giordano’s The Flight into Egypt, The Portrait of a Boy with a Bow and a Dog by Nicolaes Maes, Portrait of Antonio Canova by Antonio d’Este, François-Xavier Fabre’s Portrait of Michał Bogoria Skotnicki or Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Mercury.
There are fragments of stone architectural details from famous Kraków sites in the lapidarium in the courtyard.
On the way we can admire the Gothic Churches of the Dominicans and the Franciscans with a polychrome and stained-glass windows by Stanisław Wyspiański. In the middle of Grodzka street we can see the Baroque Church of Saints Peter and Paul with statues of the Apostles on the bases as well as the Romanesque Church of St. Andrew. The oldest street in Cracow, the magic Kanonicza street, is also worth visiting.
Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi
As a theology student, Karol Wojtyła often attended holy masses delivered in the Franciscan Church.
He had his favourite spot under the choir, where he used to sit, which is now commemorated by a small plaque. During his first papal trip to Poland in 1979, John Paul II met patients in the Franciscan Church.
Church of Saints Peter & Paul (Kościół Św. Piotra i Pawła)
Kraków's premier Jesuit Church was built in the early 1600s, and its crypt serves as the new national pantheon for Poles distinguished in the arts, science and culture
The twelve disciples standing on the gates outside are the church's most striking feature, although the interior has been extensively renovated and the airy, austere grandeur of this late Renaissance building is now evident.
Krakow's Arguably Most Scenic Street -
Ulica Kanonicza
The picturesque Kanonicza Street ends just at the foot of the hilltop Wawel Royal Castle and used to constitute the last and most glorious part of the Royal Road, Krakow’s ceremonial route leading from the main city gate to the central square to the Royal Castle.
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PAŁAC PEŁEN PIĘKNA |
Wawel Hill & Castle
As the political and cultural heart of Poland
through the 16th century, Wawel Castle is a potent symbol of national identity.
It's now a museum containing five separate sections: Crown Treasury &
Armoury; State Rooms; Royal Private Apartments; Lost Wawel; and the Exhibition
of Oriental Art. Each requires a separate ticket. Of the five, the State Rooms
and Royal Private Apartments are most impressive. 
People lived on the Wawel Hill at least as early as fifty thousand years ago, in the Paleolithic Age. In the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, i.e. some three thousand years ago, the settlement was apparently bustling with trade, with assorted crafts and with farming.
It was at the turn of the past millennium when the rulers of Poland took up their residence here. During the early 16th century King Sigismund I the Old (1506-1548) brought in the best native and foreign artists (Italian architects and sculptors, German decorators, etc.) to create the splendid Renaissance palace-cum-castle which survived, little changed, till now.
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| The Pod Wawelem (adjacent to the Royal Hotel) |
We had dinner at the Klezmer Hois restaurant in the Jewish 'Kazimierz' quarter near our hotel.A typical homely interior with magnificent embroidered tablecloths;
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