A wet day! Not what we had planned for at all so plan B needed for how to spend our first day in the city of Krakow.
It is such a beautiful place so the options are plentiful and indoors outdoors plenty to do.
We set off to the information centre to check out local options after booking day tours on Saturday to see the Wieliczka salt mines and on Monday to Auschwitz- Birkenau for me.Brad has already been there so she is planning other options.
We found there were free food tours and city tours like we took in Bulgaria so we decided to do the free food Tour in the afternoon which took about two and a half hours and we booked for a classical recital by the Royal Chamber Orchestra in the old Romanesque church called St Adalberts. Quite a small space but intimate and atmospheric.Sermons have been preached here since 997. Quite a good plan B we thought.
The morning we spent exploring the Cloth Hall market stalls which offered a great assortment of tat and local crafts.Amber jewelery of every hue had pride of place, plus lots of woolen goods and furs,some wooden toys and dolls and souvenirs to tempt the tourists.The number of tourists is still high and every language can be heard bargaining for food,rides or goods.People watching is a great sport here.
After lunch we found our walking tour and lined up with thirty five other foodies for a great experience. Alice and Adam did us proud.Alice was a delightful guide who was very passionate about her country and regional food.She explained that the revival in Polish food has come from her generation as they remember the treats of their childhood with affection whereas their parents saw it as shameful food because food was so scarce with the rationing imposed by Russia that potatoes,eggs and apples were used to supplement rations.One kilo gram per day was considered the meat ration for a Pole, far from enough in a meat loving country so mothers had to become very inventive.
We tried herring and a bread snack to have with a drink.Vodka was the traditional drink of choice.She told us how you tipped it straight down in one gulp and then ate otherwise it had drastic consequences.She also said some Australians had recently demonstrated how not to do it with awful consequences!
We walked from the old town to the Jewish quarter where local people eat cheaply trying local delicacies in Polish restaurants.Dumplings or pierogi were on the menu,these are a tradition to eat during the feast on Christmas Eve when the whole family gather to celebrate the birth of Jesus at midnight.
We had a soup served at Easter called Zurek, bigos which is a mountain stew made of meat hunted in the hills and cooked over the fire.This was "part of every good Polish women's fridge ",Alice said so it could be heated up for visitors.
We went to a food market and tasted pickled cabbage and gerkin treated in the traditional manner,then to the butcher to try the smoked sausages.There are many variations of smoked,dried cured meats here it is eye watering if you are a meat lover.Here vegetarian does not mean the dish has no meat it may mean it is not the dominant flavors.
Alice explained that to be a vegetarian in Poland is to starve!
We also had a dessert option of a donut type of bun with apple in it deep fried and sprinkled with icing sugar which was offered by grandmother's to fill up the hungry children but now loved by a new clientele.By this time we were starting to wilt,two and a half hours of walking so there was a rest spot and an ice cream before we finished.
There was a long hike back to the old town and we realised we were going to be late for the concert so we became a pair of frenzied walkers trying to race along unknown roads to the finish without quite knowing where that was.
Luckily I had a map and much to Brads relief we emerged in sight of our church but I had left the tickets at the hotel so it was a close call but we arrived just in time.So pleased as it was a polished performance by an accomplished quartet of collected pieces by Brahms, Vivaldi ,Mozart and Bach to name a few.
Our city day finished with a meal at a local Polish self serving restaurant which is popular with locals according to Alice.I tried the Borsh soup with sour cream and potato for my challenge and it was surprisingly tasty.A good note to end the day on.......
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