Walking the Streets

by: Blessy Varughese

After a long day of traveling from the previous day, today we finally got to walk the streets of Krakow! We got to explore various parts of Krakow, first the Jewish district and then to Old Town.In the Jewish district, there was so much history we saw as we walked through the streets from synagogue to synagogue, which it was also a new experience for me especially to learn about what goes on during the services. Each of the synagogues was set up so differently and had intricate designs, the picture on the left was shaped in a circular shape, in the middle inside of the what looks like a gazebo is where the Torah is read. The picture on the right was another synagogue we went to and was shaped differently and place where the Torah is read was closer towards the front where the Rabbi sits.
Then, we really got to sit down and eat some Polish food for lunch. I tried Pierogi’s (a potato filled dumplings served with toppings like melted butter, sour cream or fried cream) for the first time, which is somewhat similar to ravioli. The rest of the day we spent our time in Old Town, which was beautiful everywhere when we went through the streets, center of Old Town and the market. The first building you see is the castle (red brick building on the left), and as we went through the market we saw on various souvenirs that had fire-breathing dragons “protecting” the castle.

Overall, today was a great experience for our first time being able to walk the streets of Krakow. Although, I am very excited for the upcoming days we have in Poland especially for our visit tomorrow in Auschwitz. It will definitely be a life changing experience.