Toni Comes for a Visit

My wife Toni arrived on the 8th and she tried to live in two time zones. Our day was to go to breakfast around 10 a.m., walk around the Main Market Square until noon or so, find a place to eat, and then separate as I headed off to work. On Thursday she stayed up until I returned around midnight and we went out again. That was a very long day for her and she did not do it again. So we changed it to eating breakfast, walking around until lunch, then I meeting for dinner around 5 p.m. after which I returned to the office. Work was slow enough that all of us there from the States had been able to get out for dinner each evening.

But over the weekend we stayed busy. On Saturday we went to the Metropolitan Restaurant for a traditional American breakfast. We next did something really interesting. They have recently

opened the cellar of St. Adalbert’s Church on the Main Market Square.
This is the oldest church on the Square as it even predates the Square itself. The interesting thing about this visit underground is that you can stand on the original ground of the Square as it was in the 11th c. This level is 4 meters below today’s elevation. That’s right, over that period of time, and mostly over five centuries, the Square has risen from its original elevation. I was never able to get an answer why until this weekend.

As you can imagine, the centers of towns in those days had open sewers, farm animals grazing, and freshly-killed animals being sold as food. All of that filth created a stench. So how they dealt with it was to cover it w/ dirt and lime. Over the years the ground was elevated. It is most pronounced in the cellar of St. Adalbert’s as the original door is now a great distance below the

Square today.

When I was living here in 2005-06, there was a major archeological dig along two sides of the Cloth Hall. It was interesting then to see the original buildings, with their stone arches, uncovered as they dug. But what I had thought were cellars were actually the ground floor shops of an earlier period. All of this is explained quite well in this subterranean view of the Square. A 2 zloty (80 cents) English pamphlet complements the excellent exhibit below ground. Also on display are three skeletons. Like any old church, there was a cemetery around this one. There is also a scale model of the two previous churches on this spot which allows you to view how the churches looked with what remains of them today. Pretty interesting.

But my favorite part was the cross section of the 4 meters of height difference. What they did was to dig a clean trench from the sterile soil layer up to the original ceramic tiles of the Baroque period church. Then they labeled each layer with the century and what comprised it. So on top of this sterile soil was backfill for the first wooden church, then rock for the 12th century church, then more fill and rock for the current Baroque period church. It went all the way up to the

ceramic tiles that were once the floor of this church.

There are plans for a major underground museum below the Square to highlight this period in time. They hope to have it open in 2012.

On Sunday I took Toni on my Schindler’s List tour of the Kazimierz area of the city. Kazimierz was originally separate from Krakow, and an area where the Jews lived. The wall separating the two cities was torn down and they became one. It was from this area that the Nazis deported the Jews to the Jewish Ghetto in Podgorze. Much of this area was shown in the movie so I took Toni from site to site. We started w/ the alley below the apartments where the Nazis evicted the Jews and threw their belongings down below. Then there was the staircase where the little boy hid under to escape detection. We visited some of the synagogues that were destroyed and paid our


respects at the New Cemetery. This cemetery was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt after the war.




We also walked along the trendy shops, bars and restaurants that have repopulated this area over the past few years. (I have seen a large change in just my three years of coming to Krakow.) After a late lunch outside we headed back to the Main Market Square for some more walking around. (As if we had not done enough already.)

Later that evening we had our anniversary dinner at a fine restaurant on the Square called Pod Krzyzykiem (Under the Cross.) There has been a restaurant at this location since 1634. I had called for a reservation asking for a quiet room to ourselves and they reciprocated with that and some top-notch service. The highlight of our meal was the Chocolate Soufflé that is the best chocolate dessert in the city.

As the moon was waxing towards its fullest we walked around the Square one more time then headed home to rest up from a long weekend of touring.

For her remaining two full days in Krakow, Toni shopped and walked some more and we met for dinner each evening. On Wednesday I escorted her to the airport. It was a tearful goodbye. She arrived home at 7:30 a.m. Krakow time on Thursday, about 25 hours after we awoke Wednesday morning.

In full discloser I am writing this at O’Hare International where I await my final flight home. But let me tell you about the end of my week.

On Friday I said my goodbyes to my colleagues in Krakow and left the office around 8 p.m. I still had some packing to do and I wanted to get a few hours of sleep before my 4 a.m. wake-up call. The first thing I did was to visit my favorite place in all of Krakow, Café Zakopianki. This was the last place I visited on the last day of my living in Krakow in December 2006. It was also the

place that Toni visited everyday while she was here.
I wanted to have the most recent image of this place in my mind to look fondly upon back in The States. There is something special about this place that draws me to it often. It is designed like a French café as its Polish owner spent a good amount of time in France. (He only speaks French and Polish.) He plays mostly French music (remember the Singing Nun?) and sells French magazines. It is one of only three cafes located on The Planty and it has an outdoor courtyard that faces the park and the people who stroll by. (It did not hurt that it was 75 yards from my flat when I lived there.) So it was here that I wanted to savor my last piwo in Krakow. With French music in the background, candles flickering on the tables and my favorite Okocim in hand I sat as the sole customer on that rainy and cold final night in Krakow.

After an hour of contemplative retrospection I walked up to pay the owner for my beverage. With my best Polish I said “To jest moj numer yeden café w Cracovia.” With apologies to my Polish friends it was my best translation for “This is my number one café in Krakow.” With tears in my eyes I disappeared into the cold, rainy night of autumn in Krakow.

It was a great 3 ½ weeks in Krakow made better by Toni being with me for a week. It was actually a better time than I had assumed it would be. The project implementation, I was a part of, went far better than any of us had predicted. And I was told by several of my Polish co-workers that they were glad that I was there to help them through it. That made me feel good. I was able to meet up w/ my friends Kinga, Wojtek, Sue and Jacek. I was also able to visit my favorite café many times over and I experienced some new things in the city. And the weather was very nice for most of my stay.

As I have said before, if you want to visit the most magical city in Europe, one that did not have to be rebuilt after WWII, go visit Krakow. Everyone who has comes away with the same warm feelings that you see expressed above.