Krakow, again. The place hasn’t changed very much since I was last here, still a marvellous fantasia of medieval and early renaissance royal bling cocooned in lovely ornate 18th and 19th century urbanism and set in a coronet of endless marching socialist-era tower blocks. But the war was quietly everywhere, dark military trucks on the roads, Ukrainian flags and the trident of Volodymyr hanging from random buildings. I was sat by a British-Ukrainian lady on the plane, on her way to Lviv to see off a relative and look after a house she’s putting up refugee families in. She told me all about her family, the many ways in which this horror has been wrecking their lives for nigh on a decade. I gave her eclairs for the takeoff and landing, and told her dark jokes (“how do you stop a Russian tank? – shoot the guys pushing it”) which got barrel laughs. She bought me a cup of tea and refused all attempts to contribute to her work.
Landing was perfectly smooth, apart from Sam’s plane out of Bristol (“My flight is branded BUZZ and has a cartoon bee on it. I’m concerned. I hope they’re taking this seriously”) ganking my landing slot. A train and then tram to our quiet third-floor Airbnb aparthotel, through streets under exuberant regeneration and dozens of public parks filled with painted ironwork, Morris columns and bursts of bright yellow dandelions.
The Rotunda, then and now.
We had a late lunch of excellent pierogi and headed through the bustling parks that have replaced the city’s old bastions to Wawel Castle, still possessed of the same eclectic fiddliness and intimidating immensity as last time. This time the exhibition of choice was “The Lost Wawel”, through rooms built through the half-buried skeletons of previous Wawels, with a notable standout the ancient, strikingly simple and beautiful rotunda of the saints Feliksa and Adaukta, now literally buried inside the walls. There was lots of the eclectic, organic, pre-Baroque decoration, with a strong classicism probably partly due to general Renaissance Romanophilia* but, I suspect, mostly because all the decent architects on hire were Italian.
“This is the stuff that led to people going ‘alright, enough’?”
“Yes, as a result of which a third of Europe destroyed everything beautiful and the other two thirds decided to go in even harder on the bling.”
Down by the river we saw Smok again. An old Ukrainian man was playing the violin, with an album cover featuring a much younger him in front of St Andrew’s in Kyiv. I took his bank details, and said “slava ukraini” – he took me for a Pole and responded “chwa?a polsce.”
We walked to the National Museum, a big chunky thing like a Stalinist version of the Doge’s Palace, but although on the door the museum claimed it was open til 7, disappointingly they actually closed at 1845 and passive-aggressively stopped me from going into the Decorative Art gallery more than half an hour before close – another day, I suppose. So we only had time for the the top floor, home to some really striking bits of painting, sculpture, stained glass and other crafts both modern and pre-war (unlike Warsaw, the collection here has either been much better reconstituted or wasn’t as badly looted and burned in the war – I suspect the latter).
Google maps thought the Barbican was open until 10 so we headed there – but upon arrival it was obviously closed. We wandered back to the town square for a wander (attracting the usual dusk chorus of touts offering us titty bars and, possibly, drugs) and a stout (which turned out to be 9.5% – oh well) and then, at Dan’s recommendation, a huge and wonderful meal at a place called the the Black Duck – Georgian house wine, pork schnitzel for me and stuffed cabbage for Sam, the whole coming to perhaps £18 a head. Poland remains a marvellously hospitable place.
Poland 2022
The Lost Wawel – Barbican, Celestat, Auschwitz – From Wieliczka to Wroc?aw – Rac?awice, Ostrow Tumski – Ksi?? Castle – Museums of Wroc?aw – Gdansk town hall, Westerplatte – Malbork