Krakow, Day 2

May 5, 2012 - Krakow, Poland - Day 2

Day two starts off with a visit to Wawel, the castle.
We walked to the castle (not too far) and had to enter through these gates, how magnificent!

The castle and the grounds were truly beautiful, it seemed like it was out of a fairy tale.

They had a miniature replica of the castle grounds, like the one in Olomouc.

Thea and I doing our best to act like guards ... how did we do?

Once inside the palace, we could not take pictures of anything ... again.

So, what you get to see is us, outside of the castle and the exterior of the buildings.

We did get to see the armory and some of the interior of the castle.

We did have to wait a bit between our tours, so we basked in the sun and took the opportunity to relax a bit.

Martin and Caleb looking suave.

Thea braiding my hair again.

Nap time?

Shrine to Pope John Paul II

Beautiful church inside of the palace grounds.

This is the supposed bone of the dragon that was slain that lived under Wawel.

The legend is that the dragon was eating up the virgins and a brave man killed him before more were killed.

This is a memorial to the events of the Katyn massacre that took place in 1940 

by the Nazi's of an estimated 22,000 Polish citizens.

We walked around Krakow before having a little lunch.  

The architecture of Europe takes my breath away.

For lunch we found this cute little restaurant where we ordered at the counter and paid, they had pictures to help us decide (yay!) and then we went back to the counter and got our food.  Kinda fast food like but all was home style cooking.

That afternoon we went back to the main city center.  

During the day, it is bustling with activity.  Street performers were everywhere, still not sure how this person did her act, we even waved a hand underneath her to see if there was anything there ... there wasn't.

After doing some shopping in the city center market, we sat down for an afternoon drink and ice cream and got out our new hand crafted chess boards.  I don't remember who won the game between Caleb and Andrew but I know I was the winner against Jed!

Found another drain cover! 

One of the most fun places we found was a cupcake store.  All cupcakes, all the time!!!

Loved this place!!!

That night Ann, Evan, Caleb and I went across the street from our hostel to this nice little restaurant.  

What a hidden treasure!  The food was wonderful, the staff was great, couldn't have asked for a nicer meal.

We left dinner and found more of our group in the basement of a pub in the Jewish Quarter ... that's where we were staying.  It was a nice place, had a good time just being there.

Our second day in Krakow was another good one, I am slowly falling in love with the city.
It will be one of the places I return to one day.