St Mary's Basilica and main square at dusk. Photo / Jorge Lascar, flickr
St Mary's Basilica and main square at dusk. Photo / Jorge Lascar, flickr
Krakow is bursting with relics and richness, and visitors to this medieval city, which came out of WWII almost intact, are mightily thankful, finds Paul Fry
The wonder of Krakow — with its elegant buildings, a towering former royal riverside castle and a central square akin to London's Covent Garden on steroids — is how it came through World War II almost intact.
The popular version is the Nazis planned to level the medieval city as they fled the avenging Russian advance. But Polish scholars believe Krakow's escape was an accident.
The Germans fled too fast to do their worst, while the Red Army came in so fast they didn't have to use their own heavy weapons to clear the way.
Whatever, while Krakow's past is gone, its relics and richness, dating from its good fortune to be on the western end of the Silk Road in the 13th to 18th centuries, are all around, and visitors are mightily thankful for it.
There are tales of kings, fiery dragons and a modern-day Pope to take in, perhaps while relaxing in the Rynek Glowny, the central square halfway down the royal route to Wawel Castle.
Cafes and restaurants are all about, enticing patrons to a soundtrack of clip-clopping, fairy-tale white, horse-drawn carriages, with top-hatted drivers inviting you to tour former King Krakus's cobbled streets.
If you fall prey to their charms and are lucky, you'll have a guide up front who will regale you with royal legend, such as the nicknames of early Polish kings who ruled here, like Boleslaw the Wry-Mouthed or Wladyslaw Spindleshanks.
Krakovians don't overtly revel in their past, for this city of 800,000 is a thrusting IT and tech hub.
The gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
But tourism clearly keeps many local households afloat. The city draws three million visitors a year and leaves most wanting to return.
We didn't get to the Kazimierz Jewish quarter, best known for Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory. It's now a museum, with his original desk and a floor-to-ceiling list of the more than 1200 Jews he paid off the SS to save from the nearby work camp at Plaschow and, most famously, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, an hour's drive away, which we did visit, out of a sense of human duty. It was heartening to see so many young people at these camps, ensuring the message — that the Holocaust happened and must not happen again — will be spread.
Less so were small groups taking smiling selfies near huts, cells, firing-squad walls, train wagons and the still more gruesome footprints of what happened at these places.
We knew the story, of course, but the scale of what happened was truly shocking, a word Witek, our engaging guide, used often as we turned the corner to each exhibit.
Auschwitz I, where the infamous sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes you free) — returned after being stolen a couple of years ago — greets you at the front gate, was harrowing enough.
The little details were the most shocking, such as how the brutal Nazis even charged Jews they had forcibly rounded up for their transport to the camps in their quest to ensure their deception was complete and that the operation to eradicate millions to purify the Aryan race paid for itself.
We saw train tickets from Greece. But few would have made the 10-day journey, standing all the way in packed cattle cars, to this hell hidden from prying eyes.
The second camp, 3km away at Birkenau, is mind-bogglingly massive. Witek said he once walked the perimeter of a camp which housed up to 100,000 souls, and it took him more than four hours.
You'll recognise the frontage, with its tower and rail lines disappearing beneath it, from the Steven Spielberg movie Schindler's List.
About 1.7 million tourists visited the camps last year, including descendants of those who were murdered here or, miraculously, survived. Anne Frank was here for four months before eventually dying at Bergen-Belsen — after a forced death march to Germany.
We left graphically aware of the scale of man's inhumanity to man — and how the complicity of so many enabled it to happen. A Jewish friend back home thanked us for going, saying the world had to never forget what happened in the camps.
Back in Krakow, our spirits lifted as we headed out for dinner to the central square, which was a magnet for us each day.
Outside bar on Pijarska Street by the historic Old City walls with the Florian Gate in the background. Photo / Getty Images
Next day we heard the noon bugle call from the tower in St Mary's Basilica, which once heralded the opening and closing of the city gates, and marvelled at the vibrant colour of the many flower stalls, and the bustle of tourist groups.
Later we reflected on how many Jews must have lost their faith in those dreadful happenings 70-odd years ago as we followed the path led by a certain young priest, Karol Wojtyla.
He made his astonishing 17-year ascent from humble curate at Krakow's church of St Florians to university professor; from bishop to cardinal, then to the Vatican in 1978 as Pope John Paul II.
You can follow his story through many of his former homes in the old town, including the Bishops' Palace.
Krakovians are immensely proud of John-Paul II, naming the city's airport after the first non-Italian pontiff in more than 400 years.
To exhaust all Krakow has to offer you'd need more than the three days we had but you can try out the salt mines at Wieliczka, with their host of chambers, including a beautiful cathedral. At its deepest you are 135m below ground.
Further afield there are the wooden chalets of Zakopane, a ski resort in the south, at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, 1000m above sea level. But you are sure to be drawn back to Krakow.
CHECKLIST
Getting there:Emirates flies from Auckland to Warsaw via Dubai, with connections on Polish airline LOT to Krakow.
Where to stay:Friend House Apartments Lobzowska 22, Old Town, 31-140 Krakow. Tastefully equipped and very spacious, self-catering but serviced apartments, a short stroll to the central square.
