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00:00.
00:17Poland's political capital may have moved to Warsaw centuries ago,
00:21but Krakow remains the historic, cultural and intellectual capital,
00:25a proud symbol of the Polish national identity.
00:29Krakow is ideally set on the Vistula River.
00:32We'll explore one of Europe's most crowd-pleasing squares,
00:36marvel at medieval glory,
00:38visit Wawel Hill, a site sacred to Poles since the 11th century,
00:42learn how to make a classic Polish dish, or at least try,
00:46and then eat what we cook.
00:48We'll remember the Holocaust at a concentration camp memorial,
00:52and with a guide, we'll take a nostalgic communist-era joyride.
00:57Finally, we'll cap our visit with a twilight stroll.
01:01Medieval Poland was prominent on Europe's map.
01:04In the late 1700s, it disappeared, partitioned by its powerful neighbors,
01:09and it didn't reappear until after World War I.
01:12Then, after World War II, it was part of communist Eastern Europe.
01:16And today, with the Iron Curtain long gone,
01:19it's a leading country in Central Europe.
01:22We're visiting Poland's historic and cultural capital,
01:25Krakow, and side-tripping to Auschwitz.
01:31Krakow, or as locals say, Kraków, was a crossroads,
01:34a trading center that boomed back in the 11th century.
01:38Today, it's a sprawling city of a million,
01:40with a delightful old town.
01:44And everything converges on the majestic
01:46and massive Main Market Square.
01:49It's hard not to be drawn to this square.
01:51It bustles with life.
01:53Enticing cafes,
01:56families out for a stroll,
01:59fairytale carriages,
02:02a youthful energy,
02:04and, it seems,
02:06half the tourists in Poland.
02:10St. Mary's Church stands tall over it all.
02:15Its spire doubles as the town watchtower.
02:23At the top of each hour,
02:25literally 24-7,
02:27a fireman with a trumpet comes to the window
02:29and plays a tune
02:34to announce All Is Well,
02:37a tune that suddenly dies,
02:39recalling a legend in which a watchman's throat
02:42was pierced by an enemy arrow.
02:54Inside St. Mary's, each midday,
02:56is a medieval moment.
02:58A nun swings open the door's
03:00much-adored altarpiece.
03:09This exquisite Gothic triptych,
03:11with hinged panels,
03:12was carved in the late 1400s
03:14by Veit Stoss.
03:17One of the most impressive
03:19medieval wood carvings in Europe,
03:20it depicts the Virgin Mary's
03:22ascent to heaven
03:23with a motion rare in Gothic art.
03:26The square's centerpiece is the cloth hall.
03:39Once a marketplace for cloth merchants,
03:41today it's home to souvenir stalls.
03:44Vendors sell gifty crafts from all over Poland.
03:48Like painted wooden plates from mountain forests.
03:51Colorful embroidery,
03:53delicately hand-stitched.
03:56Hand-painted pottery from Silesia.
03:59And amber jewelry from the Baltic coast
04:02for your favorite travel partner.
04:05Krakow's old town is compact
04:07and easy to navigate.
04:09The vibe is relaxed
04:11as modern and medieval mix it up.
04:13In the 13th century,
04:15after their city was destroyed
04:17by invaders from the east,
04:18Krakowians rebuilt it
04:20with a near-perfect grid plant.
04:22Today, it's pedestrian-friendly
04:24and thriving.
04:26They also encircled their city
04:28with a wall featuring
04:29classic ramparts and towers.
04:32The big, round, freestanding fort
04:35is a barbican,
04:36which provided extra protection
04:38at the main gate.
04:39Later, the wall was mostly torn down,
04:42leaving just a few evocative remnants.
04:47The moat was filled in,
04:48and a fine park was created in its place.
04:51This circular green belt, called the Planti,
04:54is popular with today's Krakowians.
04:57And if you need a break from all the tourists,
05:00you can bike or hike around the Planti
05:02and along the riverbank.
05:04It's a charming local scene.
05:07Fun-loving boaters.
05:09Lazy picnics.
05:11But beware the dragon.
05:19Oh, and if you think you're good at chess,
05:22challenge one of these guys.
05:28The riverside path is inviting,
05:30and so is the playful rigging
05:32on its delightful pedestrian bridge.
05:39Krakow has been called Little Rome.
05:42That's because of its many churches.
05:44There are 23 in the Old Town alone.
05:49The country is devoutly Catholic.
05:54Almost two-thirds of Poles attend weekly Mass.
05:57So churches here aren't just tourist attractions.
06:00They're alive with worshipers.
06:04Catholicism is central to Polish identity.
06:16Squeezed for centuries between Protestant Germans
06:18and Orthodox Russia,
06:20Poles were united and strengthened by their Catholic faith.
06:23And after World War II,
06:26when Poland was ruled by anti-church communists,
06:29going to Mass was more than worship.
06:31It was a political statement,
06:33a chance to express both dissent
06:35and a desire for freedom.
06:38It was during these challenging times
06:40that a charismatic Krakow priest named Karol Wojtyla
06:43led his flock in defiance of communist authorities.
06:46Throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s,
06:50he fought for the right to worship
06:52inside the communist state.
06:54The church hierarchy was impressed,
06:56and in 1978, that humble Polish priest
06:59was elected Pope John Paul II.
07:03The first non-Italian pope in centuries
07:05was made a saint in 2014.
07:08Although he's a controversial figure to some,
07:11many locals consider him the greatest Pole.
07:16Krakow's Franciscan church was special to John Paul.
07:19He'd come here all alone to pray.
07:24This was his favorite pew, way in the back.
07:27To people across the Eastern Bloc,
07:29and to Catholics worldwide,
07:30Pope John Paul II embodied the resistance
07:33fighting Soviet rule.
07:35And he inspired the Polish people
07:37with his soothing refrain,
07:39Have no fear.
07:42The church is also a fine introduction
07:44to Art Nouveau, Polish style.
07:48With its stained glass weaving together
07:50images of the favorite Franciscan saints,
07:53it employs the movement's characteristic
07:55organic swoops and floral motifs.
07:58Another window shows God in the act of creation,
08:01turning natural light into spiritual energy.
08:07The Art Nouveau style flourished across Europe
08:12in the early 20th century.
08:14While Klimt was painting in Vienna
08:16and Mucha was busy in Prague,
08:18Poland's Art Nouveau movement
08:20was led by Stanislav Wiespenski.
08:25At the museum dedicated to the artist,
08:27you see how the movement was playful,
08:29lyrical, and inspired by folklore.
08:32Wiespenski and his fellow artists
08:35mixed gloom and mysticism
08:37into beauty that came with a message.
08:42The spirit of Poland will live on.
08:52To learn more about Polish culture,
08:54I'm joined by my friend and fellow tour guide,
08:57Tomasz Klamek.
08:58Every time I travel in Poland,
09:00it seems vodka is quite important.
09:02What does vodka mean to Poland?
09:04Vodka is definitely our national drink.
09:07We take it very seriously.
09:08We're very proud of it.
09:09Polish vodka is a brand that is renowned all over the world,
09:13and we do take our vodka very seriously.
09:15So Polish vodka, does that mean Polish ingredients?
09:18Polish vodka has to be not only made in Poland,
09:21but made from Polish local ingredients.
09:23And those could be either potatoes,
09:25so we have potatoes vodka, or grain.
09:28So is this potatoes or grain?
09:30This one is grain vodka.
09:31Which do you like better?
09:32I like grain better.
09:33That's my favorite.
09:34So is there a ritual for drinking it in a pub or a bar?
09:37Yes, there is.
09:38When we celebrate, we drink it with our friends,
09:42and we do mainly the shots.
09:44And we don't sip it like this.
09:46We just do the bottoms up.
09:48Is that right? No sipping?
09:49No sipping.
09:50What if I sip? What do people think?
09:52Well, if you want to be really local,
09:54you better do the bottoms up.
09:56Okay.
09:57So really, you just throw it right down.
09:58Exactly.
09:59And how do you say toast?
10:01Na zdrowie.
10:02Na zdrowie.
10:03And bottoms up.
10:04And bottoms up.
10:09Yes.
10:11For dinner, Tomasz has promised to teach me
10:13how to make a classic Polish dish at his house,
10:16a dish that all Polish grandmas make.
10:19I'm learning how to cook pierogi.
10:22First, you need the potato dough to just the right texture.
10:26Like a play dough.
10:27It's very relaxing.
10:28It's like going to a spa for your body and soul.
10:31Is Grandma looking down?
10:33I hope she is.
10:34Then you roll it out, flat as a Polish crepe.
10:39We want it as thin as possible,
10:41because our dough is generally flavorless.
10:44What gives the flavor to our dish
10:46is the filling and the topping.
10:48And cut out small discs.
10:50Beautiful.
10:51Mm-hmm.
10:52There you go.
10:53Circle.
10:54Making cute little pockets,
10:55you tuck in the cheese, onion, and meat filling.
10:58Then you seal it watertight around the edges.
11:01Pinch it firm.
11:02There you go.
11:03It has to be your first pierogi.
11:05Congratulations.
11:06Nice.
11:07And we just wait for them to float.
11:10After a short boiling bath,
11:12they're ready to eat.
11:15In true family style,
11:17we enjoy a little sunshine in the backyard
11:20and a classic Polish meal,
11:22just like Grandma or babcia used to make.
11:25Dziękuję babcia.
11:26Dziękuję babcia, yes.
11:27I hope she's proud.
11:32From Krakow's old town,
11:34a ramp leads up to the most hallowed ground
11:37in all of Poland.
11:39Wawel Hill is sacred to the Polish people,
11:42a castle and royal residence since the 11th century.
11:46The park-like scene entices Poles to drop by
11:49and celebrate their nation's epic story.
11:52Everything is layered in history,
11:54including the venerable Wawel Cathedral.
11:58Architecturally, it's a hodgepodge,
12:01a riot of towers and chapels.
12:04This national church, with its many tombs,
12:07is a who's who of the nation's most beloved figures,
12:11from saints to generals to kings and queens.
12:17And if you're going to remember only one name,
12:19make it Kazimierz the Great.
12:22He ruled Poland from Krakow in the 14th century.
12:26The larger-than-life Kazimierz was a great warrior,
12:29diplomat, and patron of the arts.
12:32His scribes bragged that Kazimierz found Poland made of wood
12:36and left it made of stone and brick.
12:39In fact, he even made it on the 50 Zloty note.
12:42Kazimierz provided refuge for Jews expelled from other lands,
12:46and he established the tradition that Poland
12:48would provide safe refuge for Europe's Jews.
12:51In fact, for centuries,
12:53an estimated one-third of the world's Jews lived right here,
12:57in a land known as the Jewish Paradise.
13:01While they still faced some persecution,
13:04Jews carved out a relatively vital niche in Polish society,
13:08as Poland became home to an estimated one-third of the world's Jews.
13:12Krakow's historic Jewish district is named for Kazimierz.
13:17Until the 20th century,
13:19Jews made up a quarter of Krakow's population.
13:22Of the neighborhood's many historic synagogues,
13:24some are still places of worship.
13:27But today, the economy is mostly tourism,
13:33and touristy restaurants feature klezmer,
13:36a Jewish traditional folk music
13:38that stokes a nostalgia for their poignant story.
13:42We have a nice fun place and here,
13:43a tradition fast colour,
13:44and sewing with the hides,
13:45which, for those people have not taken place to meet,
13:47some of the streets of the East Stalk and the East.
13:49And when you're in a village,
13:50we're just driving down to the city of the East Stalk,
13:51which is quite a wonderful place to reach the identity,
13:52and that, in any region of the East Stalk and the East,
13:53in a village,
13:54there was a beautiful place.
13:55Thank you,
13:57you're not.
13:58You were in one place for the town of the East Stalk,
13:59the east Stalk and the East Stalk,
14:00you were a very nice city of the East Stalk and the East Stalk.
14:01Most of the East Stalk Stanley won the East Stalk for the East Stalk
14:31The Old Cemetery of Kazimierzch also honors the Jewish past.
14:36This grave remembers a beloved 16th-century rabbi.
14:41Prayers are lovingly tucked into the cracks and crevices of his tombstone, and rocks stacked
14:47atop tombs, also representing prayers, recall the ancient Jewish tradition of covering sandy
14:53graves with stones to prevent them from being disturbed.
14:59Kazimierzch cemeteries, like the community of Kazimierzch itself, were nearly destroyed
15:04after Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
15:10Gravestones crushed under Nazi tank treads were later assembled into memorial mosaic walls.
15:19During the Holocaust, the vast majority of Krakow's Jews ended up in concentration camps, and
15:25fewer than one in ten survived World War II.
15:30About an hour away is perhaps the most powerful Holocaust memorial in all of Europe, the concentration
15:37camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
15:40This was the biggest and most notorious concentration camp in the vast Nazi system.
15:47After invading and occupying Poland in 1939, Nazi Germany built many such camps here, far from
15:53mainstream German society.
15:55Ultimately, they murdered an estimated six million people, mostly Jews, and about half of those
16:03came from Poland.
16:06The Nazis turned this army base into a death camp.
16:10Over a million people, the vast majority of them Jews, were systematically exterminated
16:16here at Auschwitz.
16:18The notorious gate welcomed inmates with a cruel lie, Arbeit macht frei, work will set you free.
16:28The former cell blocks now display powerful museum exhibits that, while difficult to see,
16:34must, out of respect to its victims, be seen.
16:41People were told they'd be starting new lives and to bring luggage, clearly labeled with their
16:46names.
16:47After they were killed, everything of value was seized and sorted.
16:53Crutches and prosthetic limbs remind us that the first people exterminated were the mental
16:58and physically ill, piles of glasses, a seemingly endless mountain of shoes.
17:07It's hard to comprehend the numbers, even children.
17:11The Nazis spared no one.
17:16Halls are lined with photographs of victims.
17:21Men and women, each marked with the date of arrival and the date of death.
17:32Inmates rarely survived more than a couple months.
17:37The gas chamber and crematorium is marked by its chimney.
17:41Up to 700 people at a time could be gassed, but it required two days to burn that many bodies.
17:48The Nazis wanted an even higher death toll, so they built a far bigger camp nearby.
17:56That camp, called Birkenau, was an efficient factory for the mass production of death designed
18:02to implement the Nazis' final solution, genocide, the murder of all Jews.
18:10It could hold about 100,000 prisoners at a time.
18:15People from all over Europe were loaded like animals into train cars like this.
18:21They would pass under the infamous gatehouse, into the camp, into the dividing platform.
18:38A Nazi doctor stood here and evaluated each prisoner as they stepped off the train.
18:43If he pointed one way, that prisoner marched unknowingly directly to the gas chamber.
18:48If he pointed the other, that person was judged fit to work and would live a little while longer.
18:54It was here that countless families from across Europe were torn apart forever.
19:00The gas chambers where the mass killing was done were disguised as showers.
19:05At Birkenau, the Nazis gassed and cremated thousands of people per day.
19:11The camp monument represents gravestones and the chimney of a crematorium.
19:17Plaques in each of the languages spoken by camp victims explain the mission of this memorial.
19:27Back in Krakow, tourists can learn about the next chapter of Poland's story,
19:35becoming a Soviet satellite after World War II.
19:40One entertaining yet informative way to get a peek at that
19:43is by looking through the windows of tiny communist-era cars.
19:48And we'll do the same, visiting the communist-planned worker's town of Nowa Huta.
19:53Oh, I love this little car.
19:56Don't get too comfortable.
19:59And our guide is Cornelia.
20:01This is such a treat. Tell me about this little car.
20:04So we are driving a famous Trabant from East Germany.
20:09Very popular family car in Poland.
20:12Also one of few to choose from, so people had no choice and they were happy what they got.
20:18So tell me about this neighborhood. What is this?
20:20We are in Nowa Huta district.
20:23It's a communist-model city from the 50s.
20:26The only place like that in Poland, actually.
20:28So it's supposed to be a showcase, kind of proving that communism works.
20:33People get jobs, apartments, and they're happy.
20:36Nowa Huta was designed around a new, enormous steel mill, the largest in Poland.
20:42Called the Lenin Steel Works, it employed nearly 40,000 workers who worked in three shifts 24 hours a day.
20:49It was intended as a high production factory to show off the Soviet bloc's industrial might.
20:55How many people lived in Nowa Huta?
20:57The design was for 100,000 people, but it was like a worker's paradise.
21:02So most men had a job in one factory over here, steel works, and families, women, you had jobs like services, hospitals.
21:10So it was self-sufficient town.
21:12So why did Stalin want to give that plan to Krakow?
21:17Well, one of the main reasons for sure were to punish the intelligentsia, to kind of contrabalance this society in Krakow with a lot of churches, universities with workers, which before were farmers and had quite simple life.
21:32So punish Krakow for having culture, education, and churches.
21:37Yeah.
21:38What was it like to actually live here in the 50s?
21:40So after the war, this was a very attractive place for people to come.
21:45So they had jobs, they had apartments for free, and shops were even better than the center.
21:51They wanted to show people in Krakow that it's working.
21:55So after the war, that was a good place to live.
21:59What about now? What do people think of Novojuta now to live in?
22:03It's getting way more popular than in the past.
22:06Now, within 30 years' time, this is a pretty nice place to live in.
22:11People are happy, people have beautiful space to live in, and they definitely prefer it more than being in a busy center.
22:19Probably one of the best districts to live in Krakow.
22:22And the central plaza, reflecting the transition from communism to democracy and capitalism, is called Ronald Reagan Square.
22:36Let's enjoy one last slice of Krakow with an evening walk.
22:41The Jewish Quarter, Kazimierz, has transformed into a thriving night spot, with trendy pubs and restaurants, and an inviting energy.
22:50The Round Market Hall is now a food circus, popular with families and locals out on a cheap date.
22:56Many munching zabikanka, the local pizza.
23:00And back at the main market square, locals and visitors alike make the scene.
23:08Cafes are full.
23:11The horse carriages add to the genteel atmosphere.
23:15And it's all about another great travel tip, savoring the moment.
23:21As the sun sets and the lights come on, Krakow takes on a timeless and romantic aura.
23:32Surrounded by the floodlit wonders of Krakow, and having learned so much in this jewel of a city,
23:37I'm reminded how travel connects us with the past, with rich cultures, and with inspiring people.
23:44I'm Rick Steves.
23:45Until next time, keep on traveling.
23:49It was also the nickname of her lover.
23:53I guess it's up to the viewer to decide what's really going on.
23:59Like painted wooden plates from mountain forests.
24:04That was good.
24:06Like painted wooden plates from mountain forests.
24:11Like painted wooden.
24:14...
24:25As you know, the biggest things were very lucky.
24:31Another thing squirrel sounds.
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