The shadow of barbaric wars & occupations looms so large in Europe. Some of the cities bombed into smithereens have built & rebuilt their city centers in a way that has transformed them into places that look like movie sets or dreamy paintings.
The Vistula River is not a winding, mystic waterway for lovers; it's broad, pragmatic...a working river
This bridge is a cold engineering design intended to let people cross a river...nothing more
The old buildings survive unchanged & are just part of the neighborhood
People live in these apartments & there's no attempt to pretty things up
Age, war, weathering of their buildings are fine as far as Kraków people are concerned
Kraków, it seems, is having none of that. It suffered less bombing damage than most other cities during WWII & seems to have a fuck-you attitude in that not much has been restored or romanticized or softened.
This is Lee (he does not use his long, unpronounceable Polish name), Kraków guide. He has a law degree but tells rude lawyer jokes & is happy working as a guide.
During a walking tour, Lee led us past numerous decorative buildings, like this one with large sculptures all along the front gate, but he walked right by them, as if they were boring & irrelevant.
He made fun of much of the architecture in Old Town Kraków. This church has at least eight distinct types of architecture all smushed together. He said that Poles love to stuff every possible style of exterior & interior design together, with no regard for taste or constancy.
He referred numerous times to Krakow's primary preoccupation & source of pride: pubs & drinking.
There is one of these on every corner
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