Logicless Logic

krakow part 2. when in Poland, troll as the Polish do.

I continue part 2 in Linkoping, after the magic of the holiday has worn off, and reality sets in. I might also have forgotten loads of things, so I might make up stories along the way. Part 2 of Krakow, however, is NOT day 2, because I realise I had forgotten to mention anything about our free walking tour. Our guide, Alicja, was a born and bred Polish, and led us on a tour to Old Town Krakow. We walked about the Old Town Square, which was actually raised by 5m since medieval times! There, we heard the story of the bum note at the end of the bugle piece, played every hour, on the hour, from 9-9.

Legend goes that during the Tartar invasion of Krakow, the bugle player had spotted the Tartars from a distance away, and played his bugle to warn the people within the city walls. Tartars, however, were master archers, and one of their bowmen shot an arrow right through the bugle players throat while he was still playing. And now, since that day, bugle players end the piece suddenly, exactly when the bugle player was killed, to honour his sacrifice for the city. This story, though very inspiring, was in the words of Alicja, totally not true. The true story was that someone made this story up some 40 odd years back, and the bugle players have been trolling ever since. I have never seen people so committed on a practical joke! A salute to the Polish for that.

Next, we walked through some other places like the Barbican, which contributed to the strong defence of Krakow in the medieval times, the Old Medieval City North wall, which has a funny story behind how it was kept standing as well. Basically, it was to be torn down, like the others, but a man whose name escapes me at the moment, told the king that the North wind would blow in without the wall, and make people sick. The king was still not convinced, so he said that the strong north wind, without the wall, would blow, and therefore lift women's skirts, leading to indecent exposure. While a king of today(if it was me) would say, "hmm, very good, I want to see her legs" the king then agreed to keep the wall up. What did I say about the Poles again? Oh right. Trolls.

We also walked by museums, which unfortunately I don't remember much of. There were many stories on Polish history, which was very interesting. I noticed that the guides in Europe all have a very good grasp of their countries history, and also this national pride arising out of them when they tell the stories. Wonder when that will happen for Singapore.

Next up was Wawel Castle, which I don't remember anything of, other than the nice views, the troll dragon that was supposed to breathe fire at 12, drawing a huge crowd, then proceeded to NOT do anything, the super magic wall that gives you magic powers (we all touched it), and one side of the castle courtyard that was built just to close up the courtyard, and therefore had no rooms, just windows. We saw the extent of fire damage of the castle (because the King was an amateur alchemist, meaning he obviously didn't know anything), destroying the wall paintings, which were otherwise quite pleasant to look at.

In the afternoon, we had a nice lunch(I think) and some awesome cake at this cake shop, Pastries @ Galeria Tortow Artystycznych (ul Bozego Ciala 22), which specialises in creating mouth orgasms. I kid you not. We were having such a good time that we went to the Jewish Quarter tour late. We also joined the wrong tour group for awhile, leading to Tees finding true love for just about 10 minutes with his RAG. And then because the guide was not very good, we moved on, finally finding the way back to our old tour. Tees was depressed for the rest of the trip, muttering something about lost love under his breath, DESPITE being the one who led us away. The Jewish Quarter Tour ended up at Schindler's Factory, where we heard some of the story of Schindler's List, and how he saved over 1000 Jews during WW2. Schindler is a complicated character, and what he did, while admirable, was not always without self interest. Very interesting. And so with this, we headed off for dinner, and back to Greg and Tom, nicely rounding up day 1 out of 4. So far as I can remember that is.

Next up, Auschwitz... In the next post.

justin.

posted by justin @ 7:43 AM