chocolatebuddha » Archives » Krakow : Humble Beauty

Being greeted warmly when we arrived at our hostel at 7am straightaway made a good impression on us of Krakow. John Crazy Thunder, the hostel’s nocturnal caretaker, is a stout and bald Polish guy whom I suspect uses this particular name because we wouldn’t have been able to pronounce it anyway. He bowed to kiss my hand as a welcome. For the next hour, John took us through a brief history of Poland from how the country originally emerged, through the war and finally its independence.

Self-proclaimed to be “Batman but without the fighting, only sitting” due to his nocturnal nature of work, I peered into his bag and saw stacks of books. The current read on the table was the history of King Arthur. He is a ferocious reader with history being the favored subject. He was not afraid to share with us his thoughts on politics and religion. Our conversation ended with the agreement that if we treat everyone with respect regardless of race, culture and religion, there would be no wars.

Seems as though every part of the world you go, people have the same ideas of peace and respect but nothing of that sort is truly happening.

If Budapest was like a beautiful woman who knew of her captivating beauty and craved to be photographed all the time, Krakow would be the charming woman that is humbly comfortable with her beauty. It doesn’t crave for attention and does not have buildings and monuments that yearn for appreciation like in Budapest.

Krakow is a city that captivates with its liveliness and every lane you turn to in the Old Town is like a sweet surprise. The city demands little from you but generously offers you plenty of inspirations.