Last day in Krakow
4:50 PM
Our last day was spent exploring the interior of Wawel castle, and roaming around old town square within a span of 3 hours. Anson overslept, so we did not leave the hostel till like 9 plus... there was a long queue at the castle, and we spent about half an hour waiting (enough time for anson to run around and find an atm machine and for us to start a conversation with the american couple lining up behind us). When we got our tickets, we realized that we had to wait for about one hour before being allowed to go into the castle treasury so we went to visit the dragon's den first. Legend has it the a dragon once lived in Krakow... it was a bit strange for me at first to accept that dragons were part of European legends as I always associated them with Chinese ones, but anyhow, we walked through this limestone cave which is linked to the castle and ends at the bottom of it, with a dragon sculpture in front.
To be honest, it's a pretty disappointing cave, lots of hype and nothing, which is probably why it only cost 3 Zlotys, and there was no queue for it.
Me trying to take a picture with the dragon sculpture. It was only later when i was browsing through the pictures on my camera when i realized that there was kid behind me sitting like a rickshaw puller and that was her picture pose....
Later, we went to old town to visit the market square for a while first. The market square is literally a touristy place. Lots of small carts selling polish trinklets and lots of artists posing as characters to earn a quick photo buck with the tourists. I want to go inside the cathedral but mass was being held so i just looked in from the outside.
I found this scene quite cute, kids feeding the pigeons.... behind there is a man selling bread to feed the pigeons....
Our last day in Krakow also coincided with the Krakow marathon, so the atmosphere was a bit like the london marathon just not as overwhelmingly crowded.... but still pretty fun to watch!!
The castle interior is very pretty and well preserved... almost hard to believe that poland has not had a monarchy for several centuries already and the castle still looks like as if they were only living here yesterday. We went to see the treasury where we could see the coronation robes and sword. There is no crown as the Prussians stole it and melted all the crowns down.
And finally it was time to leave Krakow.... off we went to the station. It was a good trip though I obviously didn't get much rest the whole weekend... but I really enjoyed Krakow... and I really loved my first taste of Poland... despite the scary train conductors...
To be honest, it's a pretty disappointing cave, lots of hype and nothing, which is probably why it only cost 3 Zlotys, and there was no queue for it.
Me trying to take a picture with the dragon sculpture. It was only later when i was browsing through the pictures on my camera when i realized that there was kid behind me sitting like a rickshaw puller and that was her picture pose....
Later, we went to old town to visit the market square for a while first. The market square is literally a touristy place. Lots of small carts selling polish trinklets and lots of artists posing as characters to earn a quick photo buck with the tourists. I want to go inside the cathedral but mass was being held so i just looked in from the outside.
I found this scene quite cute, kids feeding the pigeons.... behind there is a man selling bread to feed the pigeons....
Our last day in Krakow also coincided with the Krakow marathon, so the atmosphere was a bit like the london marathon just not as overwhelmingly crowded.... but still pretty fun to watch!!
The castle interior is very pretty and well preserved... almost hard to believe that poland has not had a monarchy for several centuries already and the castle still looks like as if they were only living here yesterday. We went to see the treasury where we could see the coronation robes and sword. There is no crown as the Prussians stole it and melted all the crowns down.
And finally it was time to leave Krakow.... off we went to the station. It was a good trip though I obviously didn't get much rest the whole weekend... but I really enjoyed Krakow... and I really loved my first taste of Poland... despite the scary train conductors...
