Our second visit to Krakow has reaffirmed our earlier impression that it was one of our very favorite cities on the planet. This time around, we toured the Schindler Museum, and we visited Liban Quarry, the site of the former limestone quarry where many scenes from “Schindler’s List” were filmed. We took the Rynek Underground Tour, and went inside St. Mary’s Basilica and several other historic churches in the city. And we went down into the Wielizcka Salt Mine not once but twice. Our last couple of days in town, we just took the time to meander around and soak in the historic atmosphere of this grand old city.

First on our agenda is to scout out the bus station where we’d soon be catching a ride to Chechia, so we won’t be scrambling at the last minute. laden with all of our weight, in a frantic search for the exact point of departure. It’s located behind the mall (the train station where we entered the city is in the mall’s basement), and takes a wee bit of sleuthing, but finally we zero in on it.

Next we saunter back through the mall and browse in various shops in quest of gifts to take back to the States for our son and Kimberly’s parents. (Dennis’s parents are both deceased.) When it comes to buying gifts, we both consider ourselves… not at all gifted. And it’s especially challenging now that we’re global nomads. We have to find something that is commemorative of the places we visit, and small enough to be carted around in our bags for a protracted period of time. Finally, we settle upon some rather elaborate fridge magnets that seem to fill the bill.

Then we have to make one more attempt to see the Wawel Dragon snort fire. But once again, we are left in the cold. Literally — the weather is still quite frosty. And Old Smok (as he is known) just stands there, camouflaging his lanky metal frame against the barren trees, refusing to exude even a flicker for us shivering wayfarers. So after we stroll around Wawel Castle, overlooking the dragon from Wawel Hill, we head back down into Old Town.

At a gift shop, we finally submit to the urge to obtain some comfy warm gloves. And we consider it mandatory to go and browse at the nearby American Bookstore, where Dennis finds a copy of a book by Haruki Murakami (one of his favorite novelists, whose work he’s always on the lookout for) and makes the purchase at a reasonable sum.

Ever since we became global nomads in Mexico in November 2021, we’ve become enamored of bakeries; in whatever country we are in, we ferret out whatever varieties of bun, roll, croissant, biscuit, or muffin are prominent in local snackdom. We’ve been quite pleased by what we’ve uncovered just about everywhere; and Poland is no exception. There are three or four bakery outlets very close to where we are staying, that all offer sumptuous bakery items at a comfortable price — often less than a dollar each.

We’ve been staying in a small hostel that is more like a hotel with ten guest rooms, except that it has a fully equipped kitchen and a washing machine. It’s next to the Barbican, the small medieval fortress at one of the entrances to Old Town.. It’s mostly been a very comfortable and peaceful accommodation — in fact, during most of our stay, almost nobody else has been there with us.

But near the end of our stay, we were joined by two men and two women from Germany, who were rather rambunctious and oblivious to any need for peace and quite that anyone else in the house might have. They smoked and drank on the balcony, raising a raucous ruckus, and they left dirty dishes in the sink. At least three times, Dennis had to go out in the middle of the night and ask them to be quiet. They would apologize and tone it down for a while, and then it gradually would build back up again. Their last night, they said they had to catch a plane at 6:00 a.m., and might just go to a bar and carouse all night rather than try to get any sleep — and thankfully they did just that. First, they offered him a drink of cherry vodka, which he actually accepted.

So here’s a cherry-flavored toast to you, Krakow. It’s been great catching up with you, and we hope to see again real soon.

Events occurred: 3/1-2/2025