If you’ve read my previous columns, you already know that I live in Kraków so that I can wander around it. And if you haven’t, you’ve just found out! I’ll add that after ten years here I moved to Warsaw, and came back at the start of the pandemic when I moved to Kazimierz and roamed the empty streets absorbing architecture and local secrets.
The crowds may have returned to Kraków’s streets but I’m still here because I’m infatuated by the enigmatic doorways, tenement houses, Modernist balustrades, stories of Cracovian feminists, bakeries old and new…
I wander alone and with guides (Rożek is my favourite book, but I won’t reveal the names of any companions!). I lean on doorframes in the hope they’ll open and I’ll find more beautiful tiles, mosaics, stuccos or sgraffiti. Perhaps there will be a lift? My walks are deliberate or totally accidental, when I’m coming back from somewhere in this city which seems to have been built for walks and strolls, and where I rarely drive or take public transport.
There are walks which start with me putting on my shoes and taking a few steps on the stairs. There are those which start with a few words which force me to put on my shoes. The one which steered me towards the Vistula and the Kościuszko Mound started with “The Abecadło” Second-Hand Bookshop is on the site of the former “Pod Aniołem Stróżem” Pharmacy at 18 Kościuszki Street, near the Lajkonik Zwierzyniecki square, the ‘Jubilat’ bus stop, Wawel Hill and the Rodła Boulevard by the Vistula in Kraków.” Are you at all surprised that I felt like Marco Polo? Okay, okay, let’s pick someone more cool because the land here is familiar, local names are my guilty pleasure and in any case I’m a different gender… You know what I mean, though, right? And it just kept getting better: “Its unique interiors include the original pharmacy fixtures from 1899 which we were able to save and restore. Today, medicines and other tinctures have been replaced with myriad books, fairytales, comics, magazines, prints, posters, postcards, photos, maps and documents and even vinyl, CDs and videotapes.” I’ll spare you my grief over the disappearance of CDs, videotapes and old pharmacies (btw, when you were last at the Rynek, did you pop into the pharmacy on the corner of Sławkowska? Did you know that it used to be named the “Golden Tiger” pharmacy, and that a beautiful tiger adorns the wall opposite the entrance?). At Abecadło, the word “walk” takes on a brand-new meaning: you can take a stroll in time and space, exploring meanings and contexts, with fascinating companions – and so what that they’re papery and a bit dusty?
There are walks which start with an object. I found my most beloved trinket – a dazzling glass egg – at one of those shops in Kazimierz which sell everything but the kitchen sink. “Oh, Kraków Glassworks! One of their classics!” said a friendly expert (a local, naturally). I immediately got googling. The Kraków Glassworks – formerly the Glass and Ceramics Centre – is at 3 Lipowa Street in the post-industrial Zabłocie district. A walk around the district offers a fascinating insight into how the former factories became a wasteland, which in turn became a bustling part of town. But there’s still plenty of old stuff to find. There’s the Kraków Glassworks, and although it’s not actually “old”, you can certainly see true craft. Apparently it’s the only place left in Małopolska where you can see artisans making glass ornaments and admire the collection of original tools used for handmaking glass, glass vessels made at the turn of the 20th century and a collection of contemporary colourful artistic glass made on the site between 1969 and 1998. I delight in the trinkets every single time, and I try to pop into the factory whenever I go to MOCAK or go on a culinary pilgrimage to one of the latest eateries which are popping up all over Zabłocie (have you been to Konrad Tota’s latest Galeria Tortów Artystycznych? Best croissants in town!).
I’m sometimes asked about my favourite view, or favourite place. There are plenty of answers, but if I were to pick one which perfectly encapsulates Kraków with its magically slow passing of time and the essence of Cracovian culture, I’d send you to a place which is equally beautiful in daytime when sunshine glints on polished wood and when it’s bustling (no, sorry, that’s the wrong word for these slow, deliberate, precise rituals which take place there), and after dusk when it’s only dimly illuminated. I’m talking about the luthier’s workshop at Wolnica Square which somehow transports us the film To All the Mornings of the World and to Vermeer’s paintings. Stanisław Kurkowski, the Cracovian master luthier who founded this kingdom, has been making world-famous string instruments for over 40 years.
Recently my regular walks to the courtyard of the Dominican Church have become more of a pilgrimage, albeit with for meditative rather than religious purposes. That’s because Justyna Mazur’s lithography workshop is just around the corner at Stolarska Street. Looking for somewhere to soothe your body and soul? A portal to a world where time flows more slowly? Being around Justyna is like being at a sanctuary. Her voice, her energy, the objects she surrounds herself with, and – more than anything – what she does and how she does it slow my heartbeat, calm my breathing and whisk me to a digital-free world in which my unskilled, untrained hands start performing miracles. Of course you can buy things at her workshops, but best of all you can learn how to make lithographs and other mysterious art. And so I walk around there, in this miraculously stretched-out time, in a world of chisels, linen, hand-made paper, old sketches, rocks, ceramics and herbs, and in a world of my own calm and imagination. It’s these kinds of walks I love best in Kraków.
Aga Kozak – journalist, coach, sex educator and wellbeing and meditation mentor. Head of the Kręgi Festival and co‑author of the podcast “Sharing is caring”.
