Krakow (Day 2 Part 2) - Treats to our ears and tongues

One of the things my hubby enjoys is to go to organ concerts. Luckily enough, we found the exact one we wanted to listen to at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral that day. The church is the first Baroque Jesuit church in Krakow and is small compared to St. Mary's or Wawel Cathedral of course, but inside it is dazzling with lots of golden decor. It is said that the Jesuits spent so much money on the facade and the sculptures (there are stone statues of the 12 Apostles on the fence) that they ran out of money to finish the rest of the building. True enough, behind the Baroque facade, you see an ordinary brick church.


The organ concert was just great. Maybe it was the combination of the size of organ and church. The sound felt just right to me. The program contained four of Bach's pieces, and four other songs.

Totally satisfied with an hour of beautiful organ concert, we walked through a narrower street which had a row of cute cafes and restaurants. In fact, later that night we decided to stop by after dinner at one of the cafes we had seen to have a coffee and a hot wine, which I really dug!

It was the last night in Krakow, so we decided to go to a fancier restaurant called miód malina, which has been in Michelin Guide since 2008. The restaurant is located pretty close to the main market square. It is rather hard to see from the street, as it is inside a small arcade.

The interior reminded me of a restaurant we went in Provence, France. It was not "fancy" in a modern sense, but it had lots of charm. The walls were painted yellow and rosy red, the wooden tables covered with rosy red tablecloths topped with rosy pillar candles and rosy red flowers. 

We started out with Polish aperitifs; Mandarin Sobieski for my hubby and Cranberry Sobieski for myserf. Sobieski is a Polish voka made from rye, and it was named after Jan III Sobieski, a 17th century Polish king.  It was too strong for me, but I enjoyed a couple of sips in honor of being in Poland.

For appetizers, we ordered toast with ricotta and herring with onions in olive oil.  I was flabbergasted by the serving portion, as they looked like they themselves could be main dishes. We always share everything, and we did the same that night, too. The herring was more like my kind of dish, but it was a bit chewy. Hubby satisfied his daily cheese cravings with toast with ricotta.  For main dishes, we ordered bigos and grilled veal with mushrooms. Bigos is a traditional Polish stew of cabbage and meat. It was a bit too salty for me. Grilled veal with mushrooms turned out to be something completely different from what I imagined. It was more like a thick creamy stew with LOTS of mushrooms and veal meat (I guess the veal meat was grilled first). I am typically not a big fan of creamy stuff, but I enjoyed the mushrooms pretty much.

The night ended with a glass of red hot wine (sweet with citrus flavor with a touch of cinamon), which I loved very much.  I finally had a good night sleep that night :-)

Krakow (Day 2 Part 1) - Wawel Royal Castle

Wawel stands beautifully on the bank of Vistula River (Wisła River). If you drive into Krakow from the south side, you can see a complete view of Wawel from the bridge. Wawel, just like other castles, went through many changes (I will not bore you with the looong history here. Please check wikipedia if you are interested). Wawel, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage List in 1978, has a lot to see inside which includes Wawel Cathedral and the Royal Wawel Castle.

As you enter Wawel from the northern slope from Kanonicza Street, the first thing you would notice is the tall tower of Wawel Cathedral. The exterior of cathedral is rather unique, which looks like a mixture of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque style. The cathedral is the burial place of Polish kings, rulers, poets, and Krakow bishops. It is also where Pope John Paul II offered his first Mass as a priest on 2 November 1946. The church has a history of over 1000 years, but the current form was being structured in the 14th century.  There is a lot to see inside, so you may want to rent an audio set which will guide you through the cathedral including the tour to top of the northern Sigismund Tower with five bells; one of which is the famous Sigismund Bell.

Sigismund Bell is said to be one of the most important Polish national symbols and was cast in 1520. The huge bell, which weighs over 12 tons, takes 8 to 12 people to ring. However, it only tolls on national and church holidays and at the important historic events, so we didn't get to hear the sound of it. 

The stairs to the top of the tower are rather steep, but if you are in good health, I would strongly recommend going up there and enjoying a gorgeous view of Krakow.

The audio tour will take you down again into the back part of church. What was interesting to me was the gorgeous caskets (or sarcophagi) exhibited all over the church. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures inside the church, but they are all decorated with beautifully sculpted effigies. The oldest ones are from the 14th century. But, they are all symbolic tombs and do not contain actual remains of the kings (thank god!). We spent about good 2 hrs going through the cathedral with our audio guidance. 

The only other exhibit that was available that day on Monday was the one for Crown Treasury and Armoury which was combined with Lost Wavel.  Some of the armouries had interesting pictures carved onto the wooden part. I was wondering how the design was decided, as most of them looked rather cute and fairy tale like and so not like a type of pictures you see weapons.

On the way to the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant called Kawiarnia right off the Wawel to have a quick lunch. The restaurant was located in the underground, which may had been a celler at one point.  It had an arched brick ceiling, and the ambience was just so cozy. And, finally I got to taste Pierogi (ruskie type, filled with potato and cheese) and Żurek! I definitely became fun of the soup!

Krakow (Day 1 Part 2) - Exploring our first Georgian food in Poland :)

It is not that easy to find a good dinner place in Central/Eastern European cities I heard that it was not the custom for the local people to eat out at night.  Therefore, most of the restaurants we find are for tourists. And, that looked to be the case in Krakow as well. But... we really wanted to try the local food if possible. What we found out was that there weren't too many "pure" and "traditional" Polish food restaurants in Krakow. Most of them are fused with neo-"such and such", which sounds good but was rather disappointing to someone like me who doesn't want to see "Thai-style soup" in a Polish restaurant. Lots of restaurants also had Italian dishes like Pizza and Pasta. 

Ignoring the restaurants recommended by a hotel clerk, we just walked around to look for a decent-looking place. A little bit off of the cntral square, we found a couple of Georgian restaurants, which neither my hubby nor I had tried before. So, we decided to give up on the idea of traditional Polish food and go for a Georgian meal :-)

It was raining that night, and the restaurant was half empty when we walked in, but the ambience was good, and we got a table by the window. Georgia is a small country by the Black Sea, on the opposite coast from  Romania. It neighbors Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. To be honest, I didn't know too much about Georgia except some of the coups that broke out back in the 90's and the recent sad accident of the luger at the winter Olympics. Just to explore basic Georgian food, we decided to order all four appetizers on the menu along with the Georgian wine; I found out later that the region around Georgia was the historical origin of the grape-based wine!!

For wine, we ordered Mukuzani, which I just loved so much.  It was the first time that I ever tasted Georgian wine, but I have to say it is superb (and cheap, too ^^)!  As for the appetizers, these are what we tried.

1) Georgian dumplings called Khinkali. They looked more like Chinese dumplings than the Polish dumplings calle Pierogi which seem to be flatter. They serve you a whole bunch of them on one plate. It was one of my favorites, but it fills you up quite quickly.

2) Some kind of bean paste.  It had a very healthy taste, but it was not one of my favorites.

3) Khachapuri with lots of cheese, which was my hubby's favorite.

4) Kharcho, traditional Georgian soup. It is a bouillon-based soup with sun-dried plum purée and grated walnuts. It has meat, rice, and finely chopped vegetables in it.  I loved it!

After happily stuffing ourselves with Georgian wine and food, we passed through the central square.  It was late, but the square was still full of people enjoying the live band despite the rain.  This town might never fall asleep!