Krakow is Poland's second largest city and one of its oldest, and I've got a day to do it ;) So here goes. This is the Planty, a city park that encircles the Old Town of Krakow where medieval city walls used to stand. Lovely.

The Krakow barbican is a historic gateway leading into Old Town, and is one of the few remaining relics of the complex network of fortifications and defensive barriers that once encircled the city.

Looking through the old city walls towards Old Town.

Just in front of the barbican is St. Florian's Gate, a gothic tower built around the 14th century as part of the city fortifications. Once upon a time Krakow had massive medieval city walls but most of it was demolished in the 19th century.

Another hard day at the office.

Hahaha also a hard day at the office. This guy had everyone thoroughly confused, apparently sitting in thin air. I have a theory ;)

Market Square smack in the middle of Old Town. It dates back to the 13th century and at roughly 40,000 square-metres it's the largest medieval town square in Europe. Never a dull moment here - people everywhere, bars and cafes, random markets, buskers and performers, it's all action!

And smack in the middle of Market Square is Sukiennice cloth hall, a historic building located in the centre of the main marketplaces of many European towns. Krakow's cloth hall is the most famous example of an existing cloth hall. During its golden age in the 15th century this was the source of a variety of exotic imports from the East including spices, silk, leather and wax. Nowadays, it sells mainly souvenirs for tourists.

Krakow's Old Town is a great place to meander and people watch, and again the whole thing is surrounded by the Planty park - nice!

At the southern tip of Old Town is Krakow's most popular tourist attraction - Wawel Castle perched on Wawel Hill. The castle isn't free, but I just walked on in like I owned the place after realising I'd passed the ticket office back down the hill (and couldn't be bothered going back) and no one seemed to care. The castle consists of a number of structures situated around the central courtyard below.

People have apparently lived on Wawel Hill at the site of the castle as early as fifty thousand years ago, bustling with trade, assorted crafts and local farming. So there you go.

View from the castle over the Vistula River, the longest in Poland at 1,047km. Notice the crane top-left - it was holding a column of speakers which were being set up and tested for something I wasn't aware of at this point. More on that later.

Looking back towards Wawel.

Behind the castle there was some sort of fair going on, and I found myself a lunch of pickles and thick BBQ'd bacon on buckwheat bread or something, with some an equally random drink. Perfect :)

From there I wandered through the historic district of Kazimierz, best known for being home to a Jewish community from the 14th century until World War II (when the Germans saw to that). The area naturally contains several synagogues and various other Jewish-related stuff.

Just outside Kazimierz is the factory of Oskar Schlinder, the story of which is brilliantly portrayed and made famous by Steven Spielberg's 1993 movie Schlinder's List. Schlinder was a German businessman who saved the lives of over a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during The Holocaust of World War II by employing them in his factories (some of whom are shown above). Initially, Schindler may have been motivated by money (as Jewish labour cost less) but later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost. He would, for instance, claim that certain unskilled workers were essential to the factory. The special status of his factory ("business essential to the war effort") became the decisive factor for Schindler's efforts to support his Jewish workers. Whenever "Schindler Jews" were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. Wives, children, and even handicapped persons were shown to be necessary mechanics and metalworkers. As one story goes, "Two Gestapo men came to his office and demanded that he hand over a family of five who had bought forged Polish identity papers. 'Three hours after they walked in,' Schindler said, 'two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded'". Really, go watch Schindler's List - great film and a shocking story to say the least of what the Nazi's were all about.

Today, Schindler's factory has been turned into a modern museum devoted to the wartime experiences in Krakow under the five-year Nazi occupation.

From Schindler's factory I caught a few trams back to the hostel to regroup.

Later that night I headed back to the river under Wawel to find out what was being set up earlier today, and based on the thousands of others that had also rocked up I figured it must be something good! Much like Ljubljana, Krakow also has a famous dragon of its own in Polish Folklore. He lived in a cave under Wawel Hill on the bank of the river and terrorised everyone. One day, according to the legend, a poor cobbler's apprentice accepted the challenge from the King to kill that fucking dragon after several of the King's knights had failed to do so. He stuffed a lamb with sulphur and set it outside the dragon's cave. The dragon ate it and soon became incredibly thirsty. No amount of water could quell his stomach ache, and after swelling up from drinking half of the Vistula river, he exploded hahaha! The apprentice married the King's daughter as promised and they lived happily ever after. Lovely. Anyway, this is part of the Great Dragon Parade which is an annual celebration of that story. I did see a parade earlier in the day in Market Square, and this is the culmination of that - a sound-and-light show including these inflatable, umm, characters, and fireworks and lasers with music. Video of the action here. This was also the reason for the fair I found earlier (where I got lunch).

These two appeared to be mating.

And this looked like something out of Power Rangers or Pokemon.

Anyway, the very random show lasted about an hour, after which thousands of people thought it'd be a great idea to storm this one tram hahaha!

So that was Krakow in a nutshell! Really nice city, but if I'm honest, I think I've seen so bloody many European cities in the last five years that I'm finding it hard to be really blown away and impressed anymore. Good sign that it's about time to move on to pastures and experiences new.

And with that ended what I expect will be my final European trip with my permanent departure from the UK just weeks away.