Kraków [antikvár]

CracowThough incurably Varsovian, still I always say and write that if it weren't for Cracow, there wouldn't be a Poland, either. There would be no Poland with her thousand years of heritage and her wealth of culture and monuments, her proud and turbulent history. When you close my eyes and your imagination glides to Cracow, you see first of all the Market Square, St. Mary's and the Cloth Hall, and the network of narrow streets encased in the green framework of the Planty Gardens. And then with your eyes closed you espy Wawel Hill and the Royal Castle. But of course Cracow today means 327 square kilometres and a population of around 750 thousand, living not just in its beautiful epicentre. Many of the surrounding villages and boroughs pretend to belong to Cracow. They include Nowa Huta, just 12 kilometres away from the Market Square - a creation concocted by the wizards of the Hammer and Sickle, who wanted to make a proletarian paradise out of the City which had already said an emphatic no to Communism in the first post-war referendum. But they failed, as the people of Nowa Huta succumbed to