26th June: Wanna see a dragon?

The day started with a good breakfast provided by the hostel. And we started exploring the town, through the Old Town Square. Saw a lot of buskers around and Dagmara was even scared by one of them! Haha. So we walked to this place called the Florenc Gate and in front of the gate, there was this wall where vendors hang drawings of different size and shapes against it. And the effect is really beautiful, like a big piece of collage!

Pretty?

From there, we walked again to the castle, where there is a cathedral and a dragon. The cathedral housed tombs of previous kings and also the Polish president who died in a plane crash few years ago. There were many people there as well to pay their respect for the president.

The tomb of the previous president

And afterwards, we went up to the bell tower, to witness the large bell, which can produce sound that travels almost 30 km far! But the climb up the tower is not an easy one, with steep staircase and low arch at some places.But the bell was magnificent!

Ding Dong Bell

Next up, we went to see a dragon! A fire spitting dragon! It was actually just a dragon statue. According to the legend, the dragon attacked Krakow in the olden days and one of the warrior killed him by feeding him real salty water. Hmph, I wonder if the salt were from Waliszka?

Dagmara is always wanting us to get the best Polish food from Poland. So she wanted to bring us to this cafe which served krakovian traditional stew in the Jewish Quarter. She said that this cafe was on the television before and we couldn’t really find it when we were there. We asked around a few times but nobody seemed to hear it before. Then she thought that maybe the shop changed its name. So we went around the square which eventually lead us to the cafe. Yeap, the changed their name. Krakovian traditional stew was really good, a slab of meat in some tasty gravy, placed on top of two pieces of bread, that will soak up all the gravy. It was really tasty and filling.

The Krakovian stew

My ultimate yucky Caesar salad (no croutons)

And, boyfriend and I tried buttermilk for the first time. In my imagination, buttermilk is literally milk added with butter, and it is hot. But when the drink came, it was cold, and it tasted like yoghurt drink, a more sour version. And I like it!

After that, we went food hunting again, for this thing called Zapikanki. It seems that this is probably the only food that I can remember it’s Polish name. Basically, this is a long baguette, baked with cheese on it. You can choose any toppings of your preference. But the traditional one, according to Dagmara was fried onions only.No meat! We ordered one to share and it was really really good.

Dagmara and I, posing with our Zapikanki 

Boyfriend and Dagmara

Zapikanki!

And so we continued walking, to digest off our food, which was really a lot of food. In the evening, boyfriend and I decided to watch a classical musical performance in St Peter’s and St Paul’s church in the church district. It costs 30PLN per person for about one hour performance. This is my first classical music concert. And I must say, for the price I pay, it was really a good show. The soloists were very professional. Apart from violin, we had a flute and a trumpet soloist. It is amazing how the church can give good acoustic effect! How I wish we have this in Singapore/Malaysia! And after the performance, I had a sudden urge to pursue music again. But we will see!

The music hall

Us before the concert