Krakow Day 4

 Nancy and Jim decided to take a day trip to the famous salt mines. We were still emotionally exhausted from the concentration camps, so decided to have an art museum day. There are a number of small museums clustered just west of the town square. The most interesting is one featuring "Mloda Polska" (Young Poland) modernist artists from around the early 1900's, part of the Museum of Krakow. The painters correlated with the more famous well known europeans. One special exhibit was of a Polish female poet, Szymborska, who won the Nobel prize. In a film about her, Woody Allen is shown accepting a collage she made and he told her it meant more than that golden statue given out in Hollywood. Part of our walk took us into the student area of the university. We enjoyed jostling with the swarms of students, who looked like any at a US college. At an outdoor kiosk I picked up a tam to wear on a warmer day.

Returning to the Old Town Square , the largest medieval European square, we caught the famous trumpeter who blasts out a call from the high tower of the dominating church, St. Mary's Basilica. This is a ceremonial reference to a legend from the 1200s when a young boy warned the town of danger of invaders with a trumpet. in fact there is a Newbery award winning young adult book titled The Trumpeter of Krakow, which I enjoyed many years ago. Today tourists gather on the hour around the tower to listen to the trumpeter, then cheer and wave as he waves back from the small windows. The spires on top are reminiscent of some ornamental Havdalah spice boxes, or perhaps an inspiration?

The Cloth Hall, an imposing rectangular market building bisecting the square has a Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art. We were on the hunt for any painting by  Maurcy Gottlieb. Gottlieb was a Jewish painter who achieved master status before age 23, when he died. We studied a painting he had done which now resides in a museum in Tel Aviv.  They only had a self portrait, but we took photos so we could share the adventure with our fellow classmates in the Jewish Artist's Lab once home.

We explored another spoke street radiating from the square heading towards the train station, on the prowl for an electrical converter plug. Not that we didn't bring an impressive collection of cords, adapters, chargers and what-if devices, still, we missed one for my hair dryer. I do remember travel without phones and IPads, but why would we ever want to go back? We found what we needed in an electronics store in a modern American type mall. In an old world city that has managed to retain its old world charm, seeing KFC, McD's and H &M tarnishes the illusion.

We met up with Nancy and Jim at the end of the day and spent some more time in the Jewish quarter, finishing our day at Klezmer Hois for dinner. More old world charm and matzah balls to go with it.