Showing posts with label Krakow Moja Milosc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Krakow Moja Milosc. Show all posts
22 December 2012
Z ostatniej chwili...
Jasiek uwielbia muzykę T.Love. Słuchamy właśnie koncertu na Trójce i Jaś tańczy i tańczy. Ojczyznę kochać trzeba i szanować.
Blog - krakowska reaktywacja (cz.3)
Pewne miejsca się nie zmieniają i ludzie tam wciąż ci sami. Choć tylko raz na cztery lata...
Blog - krakowska reaktywacja (cz.2)
Blog - krakowska reaktywacja (cz.1)
Jaśka Krakowa odkrywanie - gonienie za gołębiami na Rynku i oczekiwanie na ucztę u Wierzynka...
11 July 2009
Blogowanie ponownie w pełnym wymiarze
Gdy była u nas Mama, blogowanie nie było priorytetem, bo najważniejsza czytelniczka siedziała przy moim stole kuchennym i doskonale wiedziała jaką książkę wożę w torebce i jaka rzeźba spodobała mi się najbardziej w Muzeum Rodina. Ale teraz, gdy Mama już szczęśliwie wylądowała w Balicach i spokojnie dotarła do domu, pora nadrobic zaległości. Jak zwykle będzie to przede wszystkim nadrabianie obrazami, bo jak się okazało w ostatnich tygodniach, w naszej rodzinie od pisania jest Mama... ;)))
Poniżej zdjęcie zrobione 10 maja w czasie mojej jednodniowej wizyty w Krakowie. I spóźnione podziękowania dla Wszystkich moich Przyjaciół, ktorzy znaleźli czas i ochotę na nadprogramowe spotkanie ze mną. :)))
26 January 2009
10 January 2009
09 January 2009
Czy jeszcze ktoś pamięta tę piosenkę?...
Oto Ja
Słyszę każdy szept
Usłyszę też to
Czym chcesz zranić mnie
Znam wiele kłamstw
Bawią one oczy me
Lecz pozwalam widzieć mnie
Taką jak chcę
Oto Ja
Czasem słowa ranią mnie
Choć zamiast serca mam
Dawno już głaz
I jeśli istnieje coś
Warte tego by zmienić się
Zrobię to
Znam wiele prawd
Ciągle nowych uczę się
Nie żądam więcej
Niż mogę mieć
Na szczęście istnieje ktoś
I dlatego poświęcę się
Pozwolę mu odkryć to
A czego Ty nigdy nie chciałeś mieć
Odkryję moje drugie ja
Nie nie nie chcę być
Czymś co byś kiedyś stracić chciał
Oto Ja
Kasia Kowalska z płyty "Gemini"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb66R5CVyag
Przeglądam dziś różne zdjęcia i tak mi się jakoś przypomniało... ;)))
A oto i ja:
Zdjęcie wykonane przez Tima 23 grudnia 2008 w ulubionym miejscu na Plantach.
Słyszę każdy szept
Usłyszę też to
Czym chcesz zranić mnie
Znam wiele kłamstw
Bawią one oczy me
Lecz pozwalam widzieć mnie
Taką jak chcę
Oto Ja
Czasem słowa ranią mnie
Choć zamiast serca mam
Dawno już głaz
I jeśli istnieje coś
Warte tego by zmienić się
Zrobię to
Znam wiele prawd
Ciągle nowych uczę się
Nie żądam więcej
Niż mogę mieć
Na szczęście istnieje ktoś
I dlatego poświęcę się
Pozwolę mu odkryć to
A czego Ty nigdy nie chciałeś mieć
Odkryję moje drugie ja
Nie nie nie chcę być
Czymś co byś kiedyś stracić chciał
Oto Ja
Kasia Kowalska z płyty "Gemini"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb66R5CVyag
Przeglądam dziś różne zdjęcia i tak mi się jakoś przypomniało... ;)))
A oto i ja:
Zdjęcie wykonane przez Tima 23 grudnia 2008 w ulubionym miejscu na Plantach.
20 March 2008
Niemożliwośc...
Przeczytałam właśnie w Dzienniku poniższy artykuł i siedzę teraz przed komputerem z otwartą buzią... Czy naprawdę można zastawic w banku Kopiec i krakowskie kamienice?... Na jakiej zasadzie je wyceniano?! Na podstawie wieku, urody, znaczenia historycznego, wysokości?... W głowie mi się to nie mieści.
*************************
środa 19 marca 2008 23:17
Prezydent zastawił w banku Kopiec Kościuszki
Prezydent zastawił w banku Kopiec Kościuszki
Krakowianie łapią się za głowę. Boją się, że skarb i symbol ich miasta - Kopiec Kościuszki - przestanie być dobrem publicznym i przejdzie w ręce banku. Wszystko przez prezydenta Krakowa, Jacka Majchrowskiego, który zastawił ten nietypowy pomnik, by komunalne przedsiębiorstwo mogło się zadłużyć na 22 miliony złotych - pisze "Fakt".
Półtora miliarda złotych miejskich długów - to kwota przerażająca, ale najwyraźniej nie tak bardzo, by władze Krakowa szczególnie się tym przejmowały. W razie finansowego krachu, wierzyciele mają bowiem co zabierać - pisze "Fakt".Kopiec Kościuszki to gwarancja 22 milionów złotych pożyczonych od banku Miejskiemu Przedsiębiorstwu Wodociągów i Kanalizacji, by mogło rozbudować oczyszczalnię ścieków. Legendarny symbol Krakowa zastawiono więc za miejskie ścieki - bulwersuje się gazeta."Fakt" przypomina, że piękny kopiec to niejedyny zastaw za długi. Miejskie kamienice, bloki, a nawet siedziby magistrackich wydziałów zastawiono na kwotę 75 milionów złotych. W sumie miasto winne jest bankom i innym instytucjom ponad miliard złotych.W przeliczeniu na jednego mieszkańca daje to kwotę prawie dwóch tysięcy złotych, wliczając w to noworodki i starców. Pozostaje mieć nadzieję, że prezydent Majchrowski i jego administracja uporają się z długami i przestaną zastawiać kolejne symbole Krakowa - pisze "Fakt".
16 November 2007
Szkieletor unicestwiony?...
Na blogu krakoff.info przeczytalam wlasnie wspaniala informacje o tym, iz moze w koncu z krajobrazu miasta zniknie straszydlo zwane szkieletorem. Odkad tylko pamietam mijalysmy go z Mama na Rondzie Mogilskim w drodze do Babci na Pradnik Czerwony. Z czasem przyzwyczailam sie do widoku tego ducha i nawet w pewnym sensie go polubilam. Pewnie na zasadzie "taki brzydki, ze az ladny"... Ale prawda jest taka, ze nie bede za nim tesknic, gdy w koncu przemieni sie w labedzia jak Blekitek z Ronda Kotlarskiego. ;)))
Ponizej wklejam przerazajace zdjecie szkieletu, ktore znalazlam na stronie iKrakow.com pod haslem "Trupy krakowskie":
Zainteresowanych dramatyczna historia wiezowca odsylam do portalu Krakowskie Inwestycje.19 October 2007
Ostrze juz sobie zeby
W najblizszy czwartek rozpoczynaja sie w Krakowie 11 Targi Ksiazki i ja na nich rowniez bede. Szukajcie mnie w sobote kolo poludnia w okolicach stoiska Wydawnictwa Literackiego, gdzie odbywac sie bedzie spotkanie z Olga Tokarczuk. WL wydalo wlasnie najnowsza ksiazke Pani Olgi zatytulowana "Bieguni". Odsylam Wszystkich do recenzji w GW.
05 September 2007
Cuda Swiata
Bardzo uprzejmie prosze o glosowanie na zabytki Krakowa w plebiscycie Rzeczpospolitej "Wybieramy siedem cudów Polski". Ja juz swoj glos oddalam.
04 July 2007
Bliżej domu
Właśnie odkryłam, że w internecie mogę oglądac, niemoalże na bieżąco, lokalne wiadomości z Krakowa. No wiem, że na niewiele mi się to przyda, ale przynajmniej będę miała poczucie kontaktu z domem.30 June 2007
Zdjęcia motywacyjne
Dostałam dziś e-mail od Mamy z załącznikiem. Poniżej prezentuję, w jaki sposób moja Szanowna Rodzicielka stara się przypomniec mi o konieczności zakupu biletów lotniczych do Krakowa na jesień tego roku:
Na zdjęciach możecie podziwiac (to informacja dla moich niekrakowskich Przyjaciół) Dąb Lokacyjny oraz Pomnik Tadeusza Rejtana. Oba pojawiły się w Mieście przy okazji obchodów 750-lecia lokacji.P.S. Na drugim zdjęciu daje się również zauważyc typowego mieszkańca krakowskich Plant, jak zwykle bardzo zmęczonego... Za nim nie tęsknię... ;PPP
12 June 2007
Smiac sie, czy plakac, czyli czy zachowala sie w nas osobowosc Wandy.
"Proszę, czy mogę pogładzić twój miękki tyłeczek?". Zastanawiam sie, jakie bylyby reakcje, gdyby mlody Polak zadal takie pytanie przygodnie poznanej kobiecie w Londynie, czy w Dublinie. Czy zostalby oskarzony o szowinizm i momentalnie zlinczowany? Czy tez zostalby po prostu zignorowany jako niegrozny polski pijaczek? Jak zachowalaby sie Angielka slyszac takie pytanie? Co zrobiliby obecni na miejscu Anglicy?Nie ma mnie w Krakowie, wiec nie wiem nawet, jak na najazd pijanych chuliganow z Wysp reaguja mlodzi Polacy. Czy podnosza sie od stolikow i bronia dobrego imienia swoich kobiet? Czy dziewczyny przypominaja sobie patriotyzm Wandy, corki Kraka i odchodza z podniesionym czolem, nie zwracajac uwagi na wulgarne zaczepki? Czy tez moze Polki w nadziei na "lepsze zycie na Zachodzie" pozwalaja Wyspiarzom na takie traktowanie? Czy przymykaja oko, usmiechaja sie najpiekniej i mysla, ze przyzwolenie na takie zachowanie da im zacnego brytyjskiego meza?...
Mam nadzieje, iz wiekszosc po prostu spoglada z wyzszoscia i odwraca sie z niechecia.
Tym niemniej, mysle sobie, ze istnienie przewodnikow po Krakowie, nawet tych imprezowych, jak ten na zdjeciu powyzej, swiadczy o tym, ze ludzie z Wysp przynajmniej wiedza, ze taki kraj jak Polska istnieje, ze ma swoj wlasny jezyk i walute, ze piwo jest tam dobre i tanie, a dziewczyny najpiekniejsze w Europie. Czy wkladaliby tyle wysilku w nauke naszych szeleszczacych zglosek, gdyby nie mysleli, ze sie im to oplaci? Od nas zalezy tylko, jak sie zachowamy i jaka damy opinie o nas samych. Nie oburzam sie jak pani Jaruga-Nowacka na lamach Dziennika, tylko wierze w sile charakteru i dume mlodych Polakow.
30 May 2007
O Krakowie znowu
Bardzo dziękuję Ewie za to, ze zwróciła mi uwagę na ponizszy artykuł w niedzielnym (!!!) wydaniu The New York Times. Skrót, jak równiez wywiad z Borisem Herrmanem - dziennikarzem "Berliner Zeitung", mozna znalezc na stronie Gazety.
***********************************************May 27, 2007
Next Stop Krakow
Poland’s Second City Is First Choice for the Young
By DENNY LEE
TO find Pauza, an artsy pub in the medieval heart of Krakow, slip past the rowdy British lads at the greasy kebab stands, step over the inebriated young woman splayed on the shiny cobblestones, and wait. A clique of trendy young Poles will clear a path to a soot-stained building on Ulica Florianska; follow them up a dark stairwell and open the unmarked wooden door.
The thumping electronic music may sound vaguely familiar, and the swirling psychedelic lights and photographic art are not exactly avant-garde. But if you came to Krakow — a compact city of 760,000 in southern Poland — expecting to run into boozy stag parties or old Polish men swigging rubbing-grade vodka in dank bars, you’ll be pleasantly disappointed.
On a cool night this past fall, the crowd was sexy and self-possessed, with enough bell-bottom jeans, clunky belts and gorgeous blondes to populate a runway. The men were stylishly disheveled, with hip-hop hoodies and chiseled good looks. The women were chic and funky, with impossibly high cheekbones and long legs.
“There’s a lot of creative energy here,” said Garrett Van Reed, 25, a writer from Pennsylvania, who is part of a growing expatriate community that is turning Krakow into Eastern Europe’s newest bohemian capital. “There’s tons of artists and street performers. And there’s always something going on in Rynek Glowny,” he said, referring to the picturesque main square. “You’re constantly stumbling upon something new.”
That’s easy to do when there are some 300 watering holes in Krakow’s Old Town, many of them former World War II hideouts that only the local intelligentsia seem to know about. But word is getting out. The airline service into Krakow has increased dramatically in recent years, especially among low-cost carriers like easyJet, which recently added more than a dozen weekly flights to Krakow from cities like London, Belfast and Newcastle.
And with the euro climbing against not only the dollar but other foreign currencies, too, younger travelers have another reason to flock to Poland’s second city. At about 2.9 Polish zloty to the dollar, Zywiec beers are still under $2, dinners rarely exceed $10 a person and a hostel bed goes for $15 a night.
“Krakow has exploded,” said Thymn Chase, 26, a musician and writer who moved to Krakow shortly after graduating from Skidmore College in 2003, and started Lost in Krakow, an English-language zine, which he first published in September to give voice to the growing expat community. A brooding man with a goatee and long hair, Mr. Chase embodies the backpacker-philosopher type who might have chain-smoked in Prague during the early 1990s. “Within a half-hour of arriving in Krakow, I knew this is where I wanted to be,” he said over a beer at Lokator, a new lounge on Ulica Krakowska. “Krakow has an incredible artistic atmosphere.”
In October, a dozen expats and Poles gathered at Mr. Chase’s grungy apartment in Old Town. Sprawled on beat-up couches and flea-market chairs, they were a motley crew — unemployed artists, Web designers, writers and musicians — eager to make their mark as cultural pioneers, colonizing a new frontier in Eastern Europe. “I’m in several bands here,” said Anna Spysz, 24, a pixieish guitarist from Austin, who wore a low-cut T-shirt, hip-hugging jeans and fake pearls. “It’s very easy to book a gig here. You don’t have the pressures of London, New York or Austin. And you don’t need two jobs to survive.”
The group chatted about their creative endeavors as they polished off six-packs of Tatra Pilsener, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and, at one point, began scrawling existential messages on the walls. Then, at about midnight, they headed off to Kitsch, a multilevel pansexual club on Ulica Wielopole, where they danced until the wee hours.
Krakow’s pleasures, however, are not confined to after nightfall. Unlike in Warsaw, which was largely destroyed during World War II, Krakow’s stone churches and castles — some dating back to the 10th century — remain gorgeously intact. Older Poles still talk about how the occupying Nazis had apparently rigged the entire city with dynamite, but fled before detonating a single charge.
As a result, Rynek Glowny, which ranks among the largest medieval squares in Europe, looks pretty much the way it did in the Middle Ages. Dominated by the twin-towered St. Mary’s Basilica and the behemoth Cloth Hall, the market square is also surprisingly un-touristy, even when the stone-paved expanse is thronged with tourists. There are no Starbucks, no American Apparels.
On a Sunday afternoon, there were sharply dressed mothers sipping tea, elderly couples looking at an outdoor photography exhibit, and clusters of students — the nation’s top colleges, including Jagiellonian University, are in Krakow — pecking on their laptops under the 230-foot-tall and Wi-Fi-equipped Town Hall Tower.
“The city center is for real people,” said Mark Bradshaw, 38, an expatriate from Zimbabwe who runs Cracow-Life.com, a popular online city guide. “If you were in Venice, every place is taken over by some big business. Here, you find student spaces that haven’t been driven out by corporations.”
The same ethos holds true for Kazimierz, an old Jewish district southeast of Old Town. A tightly packed warren of crooked cobblestones and peeling facades, its hauntingly preserved streets came to attention in 1993 as the setting for Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List.”
While Kazimierz still evokes its Jewish past, it is estimated that fewer than 200 Jews are living in the whole of Krakow today. The Nazis had corralled some 17,000 of its residents into a nearby ghetto before shipping most of them off to Auschwitz and Birkenau, about 40 miles west of the city. About seven synagogues remain, but they serve more as cultural attractions than houses of worship.
As with other former Jewish districts throughout Europe, Kazimierz has emerged in recent years as the city’s alternative artistic center. After languishing for decades, its dingy tenements and wooden doors have been pried open and are slowly being converted into gritty pubs and sleek restaurants, with names like Le Scandale and Propaganda.
The coolest joint may be Alchemia, a dark and smoky bar with wobbly furniture, wood plank floors and faded photographs. Like other nearby lounges, its fin de siècle décor was meticulously stage-crafted to evoke a lost bohemia. Lurking in its shadows on a Saturday night were students studying by candlelight and moody artists nursing pilseners.
But then, around midnight, a gang of British louts stumbled in and ordered shots of krupnik, a honey-flavored vodka. Yes, the stag party has discovered Krakow, many of the revelers drawn by tour companies like Crazy Stag, run by Mike Ostrowski, a 29 -year-old Pole. Offerings include “Communism tours” of Nowa Huta, a bizarre socialist-realist suburb 20-minutes outside Krakow, and gatherings in Soviet-era apartments where the entertainment might be a stripper in a hot pink bikini and where guests may end the night by shedding their clothes and tossing their underwear out the window.
WHILE such spectacles no longer raise an eyebrow in Prague and Budapest, they feel somehow out of place in Krakow, a proud and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic city, where the local airport is named after John Paul II, who served as the city’s archbishop before becoming pope. Indeed, scandalized by their growing presence, city tourism officials recently announced a campaign to discourage stag parties with advertisements spotlighting the city’s rich heritage. (Whether church morality wins over the virtues of cheap booze remains to be seen.)
As evening fell on Rynek Glowny, the square was awash in a luminous golden glow, pigeons were replaced by swarms of young revelers, and the thumping of Polish electronic music echoed off the medieval stone walls.
VISITOR INFORMATION
HOW TO GET THERE
LOT Polish Airlines flies from Kennedy Airport in New York, with a connection in Warsaw, starting at about $950. Czech Airlines flies from Kennedy, with a plane change in Prague, starting at about $850.
WHERE TO STAY
Wielopole Guest Rooms (Ulica Wielopole 3, 48-12-4221475; www.wielopole.pl), just outside Old Town, was recently renovated and has clean, modern rooms. Doubles start at 320 zlotys, about $110 at 8.9 zlotys to the dollar.
For million-dollar views at backpacker rates, try the Rynek7 Hostel (Rynek Glowny 7/6; 48-12-431-16-98; http://www.hostelrynek7.com/). In a 15th-century building overlooking the main square, it has bunks starting at 55 zlotys, and doubles with shared baths for 150 zlotys.
WHERE TO DRINK
Alchemia (Ulica Estery 5; 48-12-421-2200; http://www.alchemia.com.pl/). A dark and folkloric hangout in Kazimierz with live music and art shows.
Kitsch (Ulica Wielopole 15; 48-12-4225299; http://www.kitsch.pl/). A mixed, gay-friendly club that parties all night.
Pauza (Ulica Florianska 18/5; 48-602-637-833; http://www.pauza.pl/). A hard-to-find bar in Old Town that draws musicians and art-school students.
Piekny Pies, an eclectic pub popular with expatriates, students and a few local drunks, has closed, but will reopen at Slawskowska 3A next month.
Next Stop Krakow
Poland’s Second City Is First Choice for the Young
By DENNY LEE
TO find Pauza, an artsy pub in the medieval heart of Krakow, slip past the rowdy British lads at the greasy kebab stands, step over the inebriated young woman splayed on the shiny cobblestones, and wait. A clique of trendy young Poles will clear a path to a soot-stained building on Ulica Florianska; follow them up a dark stairwell and open the unmarked wooden door.
The thumping electronic music may sound vaguely familiar, and the swirling psychedelic lights and photographic art are not exactly avant-garde. But if you came to Krakow — a compact city of 760,000 in southern Poland — expecting to run into boozy stag parties or old Polish men swigging rubbing-grade vodka in dank bars, you’ll be pleasantly disappointed.
On a cool night this past fall, the crowd was sexy and self-possessed, with enough bell-bottom jeans, clunky belts and gorgeous blondes to populate a runway. The men were stylishly disheveled, with hip-hop hoodies and chiseled good looks. The women were chic and funky, with impossibly high cheekbones and long legs.
“There’s a lot of creative energy here,” said Garrett Van Reed, 25, a writer from Pennsylvania, who is part of a growing expatriate community that is turning Krakow into Eastern Europe’s newest bohemian capital. “There’s tons of artists and street performers. And there’s always something going on in Rynek Glowny,” he said, referring to the picturesque main square. “You’re constantly stumbling upon something new.”
That’s easy to do when there are some 300 watering holes in Krakow’s Old Town, many of them former World War II hideouts that only the local intelligentsia seem to know about. But word is getting out. The airline service into Krakow has increased dramatically in recent years, especially among low-cost carriers like easyJet, which recently added more than a dozen weekly flights to Krakow from cities like London, Belfast and Newcastle.
And with the euro climbing against not only the dollar but other foreign currencies, too, younger travelers have another reason to flock to Poland’s second city. At about 2.9 Polish zloty to the dollar, Zywiec beers are still under $2, dinners rarely exceed $10 a person and a hostel bed goes for $15 a night.
“Krakow has exploded,” said Thymn Chase, 26, a musician and writer who moved to Krakow shortly after graduating from Skidmore College in 2003, and started Lost in Krakow, an English-language zine, which he first published in September to give voice to the growing expat community. A brooding man with a goatee and long hair, Mr. Chase embodies the backpacker-philosopher type who might have chain-smoked in Prague during the early 1990s. “Within a half-hour of arriving in Krakow, I knew this is where I wanted to be,” he said over a beer at Lokator, a new lounge on Ulica Krakowska. “Krakow has an incredible artistic atmosphere.”
In October, a dozen expats and Poles gathered at Mr. Chase’s grungy apartment in Old Town. Sprawled on beat-up couches and flea-market chairs, they were a motley crew — unemployed artists, Web designers, writers and musicians — eager to make their mark as cultural pioneers, colonizing a new frontier in Eastern Europe. “I’m in several bands here,” said Anna Spysz, 24, a pixieish guitarist from Austin, who wore a low-cut T-shirt, hip-hugging jeans and fake pearls. “It’s very easy to book a gig here. You don’t have the pressures of London, New York or Austin. And you don’t need two jobs to survive.”
The group chatted about their creative endeavors as they polished off six-packs of Tatra Pilsener, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and, at one point, began scrawling existential messages on the walls. Then, at about midnight, they headed off to Kitsch, a multilevel pansexual club on Ulica Wielopole, where they danced until the wee hours.
Krakow’s pleasures, however, are not confined to after nightfall. Unlike in Warsaw, which was largely destroyed during World War II, Krakow’s stone churches and castles — some dating back to the 10th century — remain gorgeously intact. Older Poles still talk about how the occupying Nazis had apparently rigged the entire city with dynamite, but fled before detonating a single charge.
As a result, Rynek Glowny, which ranks among the largest medieval squares in Europe, looks pretty much the way it did in the Middle Ages. Dominated by the twin-towered St. Mary’s Basilica and the behemoth Cloth Hall, the market square is also surprisingly un-touristy, even when the stone-paved expanse is thronged with tourists. There are no Starbucks, no American Apparels.
On a Sunday afternoon, there were sharply dressed mothers sipping tea, elderly couples looking at an outdoor photography exhibit, and clusters of students — the nation’s top colleges, including Jagiellonian University, are in Krakow — pecking on their laptops under the 230-foot-tall and Wi-Fi-equipped Town Hall Tower.
“The city center is for real people,” said Mark Bradshaw, 38, an expatriate from Zimbabwe who runs Cracow-Life.com, a popular online city guide. “If you were in Venice, every place is taken over by some big business. Here, you find student spaces that haven’t been driven out by corporations.”
The same ethos holds true for Kazimierz, an old Jewish district southeast of Old Town. A tightly packed warren of crooked cobblestones and peeling facades, its hauntingly preserved streets came to attention in 1993 as the setting for Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List.”
While Kazimierz still evokes its Jewish past, it is estimated that fewer than 200 Jews are living in the whole of Krakow today. The Nazis had corralled some 17,000 of its residents into a nearby ghetto before shipping most of them off to Auschwitz and Birkenau, about 40 miles west of the city. About seven synagogues remain, but they serve more as cultural attractions than houses of worship.
As with other former Jewish districts throughout Europe, Kazimierz has emerged in recent years as the city’s alternative artistic center. After languishing for decades, its dingy tenements and wooden doors have been pried open and are slowly being converted into gritty pubs and sleek restaurants, with names like Le Scandale and Propaganda.
The coolest joint may be Alchemia, a dark and smoky bar with wobbly furniture, wood plank floors and faded photographs. Like other nearby lounges, its fin de siècle décor was meticulously stage-crafted to evoke a lost bohemia. Lurking in its shadows on a Saturday night were students studying by candlelight and moody artists nursing pilseners.
But then, around midnight, a gang of British louts stumbled in and ordered shots of krupnik, a honey-flavored vodka. Yes, the stag party has discovered Krakow, many of the revelers drawn by tour companies like Crazy Stag, run by Mike Ostrowski, a 29 -year-old Pole. Offerings include “Communism tours” of Nowa Huta, a bizarre socialist-realist suburb 20-minutes outside Krakow, and gatherings in Soviet-era apartments where the entertainment might be a stripper in a hot pink bikini and where guests may end the night by shedding their clothes and tossing their underwear out the window.
WHILE such spectacles no longer raise an eyebrow in Prague and Budapest, they feel somehow out of place in Krakow, a proud and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic city, where the local airport is named after John Paul II, who served as the city’s archbishop before becoming pope. Indeed, scandalized by their growing presence, city tourism officials recently announced a campaign to discourage stag parties with advertisements spotlighting the city’s rich heritage. (Whether church morality wins over the virtues of cheap booze remains to be seen.)
As evening fell on Rynek Glowny, the square was awash in a luminous golden glow, pigeons were replaced by swarms of young revelers, and the thumping of Polish electronic music echoed off the medieval stone walls.
VISITOR INFORMATION
HOW TO GET THERE
LOT Polish Airlines flies from Kennedy Airport in New York, with a connection in Warsaw, starting at about $950. Czech Airlines flies from Kennedy, with a plane change in Prague, starting at about $850.
WHERE TO STAY
Wielopole Guest Rooms (Ulica Wielopole 3, 48-12-4221475; www.wielopole.pl), just outside Old Town, was recently renovated and has clean, modern rooms. Doubles start at 320 zlotys, about $110 at 8.9 zlotys to the dollar.
For million-dollar views at backpacker rates, try the Rynek7 Hostel (Rynek Glowny 7/6; 48-12-431-16-98; http://www.hostelrynek7.com/). In a 15th-century building overlooking the main square, it has bunks starting at 55 zlotys, and doubles with shared baths for 150 zlotys.
WHERE TO DRINK
Alchemia (Ulica Estery 5; 48-12-421-2200; http://www.alchemia.com.pl/). A dark and folkloric hangout in Kazimierz with live music and art shows.
Kitsch (Ulica Wielopole 15; 48-12-4225299; http://www.kitsch.pl/). A mixed, gay-friendly club that parties all night.
Pauza (Ulica Florianska 18/5; 48-602-637-833; http://www.pauza.pl/). A hard-to-find bar in Old Town that draws musicians and art-school students.
Piekny Pies, an eclectic pub popular with expatriates, students and a few local drunks, has closed, but will reopen at Slawskowska 3A next month.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)