TRAVELERT: Krakow Concert and Event Alerts

The Schindler Factory on Lipowa has been renovated in recent years to include a great exhibit on Kraków’s German occupation (Czas Okupacji 1939-1945). The museum works hard to involve visitors with tricks of theatre design — the floor keeps changing texture, lighting is used very cleverly, and you find yourself often surrounded by or inside of the exhibited objects rather than the traditional museum model of looking at things behind glass. And there’s the great advantage of the location, so parts of the factory (Oskar Schindler’s office, for example) are incorporated into the museum.

This permanent exhibit is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10.00 until 18.00. Tickets are 15 PLN, I think.

The Schindler Enamel factory also serves as a performance venue, and there’s a brand new coffeehouse boasting Julius Meinl brand coffee from Vienna.

On closer examination, they are only water in a solid state. They will not harm you unless you stay outside too long. It’s warm in the hostel. You may seek shelter here. Flake buildup on pavements may cause gravitational irregularities, so walk carefully. Make sure to swallow enough warm fluids before going out.

It seems that a piano has fallen from the sky in the Planty (the mini-strip of park running around Kraków’s old town). Fortunately someone has managed to place a base below it and a glass box around it for your safety. The city is alert to the problem of instruments plummeting from the sky now — there is a flurry of trombones predicted for late Sunday evening that they’re working on preventing. Beware!

When in Krakow and not in the hostel you should really find the time to stop by Massolit books. Not only do they have a great selection of english-language books with very reasonable prices, they make excellent coffee. On Sunday mornings there are readings for children (they sell lots of great children’s books, too) and occasional events and ‘happenings.’ The place is an institution (named after a fictional literary society in the beloved book The Master And Margarita) and some have called it “the best bookstore in Central Europe.” How could they possibly have visited all of them? Massolit is pretty fantastic, though. Read their books! Trade in your own for newer, unread ones! Eat their homemade carrot cake! Eavesdrop on the bizarre conversations at the next table! And, as of last spring, they now serve wine.

If you’re looking for a similarly distinct cozy experience but with all spanish-language books, head to Mały Rynek #4 to check out the spanish-language equivalent.

Spinach! Rich in iron, captain of the leafy greens! Here are a few things I didn’t know about spinach (السبانخ in Arabic, 菠菜 in Chinese, szpinak in Polish):

• it is originally from Asia
• it was added to the wine given to French soldiers who had lost a lot of blood during World War I
• it is delicious in Pierogi

If you’re looking for good pierogi ze szpinakiem in Krakow, you have a lot of options.

For the cheapest option (and perhaps closest to our hostel) look up Filarki or Bar Targowy on our Milk Bar Map. Milk bars offer good, fast and shockingly inexpensive food. They are a favorite with students and the quasi-homeless; it is a good place to find older guys asleep in their soup. Since pierogi ze szpinakiem isn’t standard fare, it is not common at Milk Bars. At Filarki, though (right across the street from the hostel) you can find it — their filling is very creamy, with hints of cheese and a strong but gentle garlic element. The ones at Bar Targowy have a more “leafy” filling, also quite delicious but distinctly different. They also offer delictable naleśniki ze szpinakiem (crepes with spinach) which are fried to slightly-crispy perfection.

Of course Pierożki u Vincenta has some spinach offerings which change from time to time. At one point they offered one with chicken and another without. I have not tried the chicken option, but the “normal” one, though we can be sure they have used the very best ingredients, is in my opinion a little blander than the milk bar variety.

Where else? One more slightly upscale suggestion — Restauracja Marchewka z Groszkiem (The Carrot & the Pea restaurant) has pierogi with spinach and sheep’s cheese (called oscypek) and like everything else I have had there, it’s excellent.

Niegrzeczne

There’s a photography exhibition on at Bunkier Sztuki (“The Art Bunker”) themed around women rebelling against “cultural and societal norms” called  Niegrzeczne (“Rude”). The work plays with anger, strength, beauty and women’s struggle within and against the various roles they adopt in society. If you are confused by things in Polish (like me) and you’ve seen these posters around town with the girls and the biting {image above} you will have wondered what it’s about. Well, this is it.

The exhibit runs until 27 February. While you’re there (or even if you don’t bother to go) you should really check out the Bunier Sztuki cafe. It’s an outside cafe in the summer, walled off with an insulating wall of plastic in the winter. You can drink your coffee (people who know things about coffee say it’s the best in the city) and watch the snow in warm comfort.

Bunkier Cafe

Then you can go inside and look at interesting pictures of girls biting each other.

Opening: January 11, 2011, 18.00; to 27 February 2011.

Suddenly it’s the time of year when the hostel is full of people rubbing their hands together for warmth and doing everything they can to avoid going out in the cold. When they do go out they have expressions on their faces like dogs who expect a beating from their owners when the look toward the sky. The harmful and unkind sky.

One coping strategy might be to seek out warm alcohol. Here are a few suggestions, with links for how to find the places:

Swięta Krowa, or “The Sacred Cow.” They have the traditional Krupnik with spices (honey vodka with lemon, cloves and cinnamon) which you can order in most places, but they also have some more inventive hot alcoholic drinks, such as super-thick hot chocolate with vodka and some frothed-milk concoctions.

Cafe Magia, the lovely covered courtyard cafe connected to the Polish Interiors Museum and sometimes-haunt of Hipolit the cat. Try their hot mead (honey wine).

Restauracja Marchewka z Groszkiem which is a restaurant named “The Carrot and the Pea.” It’s an excellent and not-too-expensive place to eat but I mention it here because they offer a selection of Polish and Ukrainian beers which they will serve hot with spices. You can get a hot mulled beer lots of places, but this one is the only one I know of where they use real ground ginger and not ginger syrup.

These are just a few randomly-selected places; pretty much anywhere you can sit down and buy liquids will have some kind of hot alcoholic (and non-alcoholic) offering, most of which are delicious. Explore! Imbibe! Keep warm!

A new concert series offered by 100.5 FM Radiofonia wants to bring not necessarily the most well-known artists but the “most real, most promising, most rebellious, most experimental” to the stage.

As the first in this series they offer Grabek. Grabek, who “for the past 6 years in the music school learned to operate a perfect bow.”

His debut will be on April 1st in Kraków at 20.00 in the club called Rozrywki Trzy. Which is not to be confused with Kraków’s drunk tank, for which the club is named.

Ticket price? “Whatever the performance is worth to you,” they say.

Plum and Woody Alien (deeming their previous band names to palatable and normal) have a new project called TERRIBLE DISEASE.

Their manifesto:

TERRIBLE DISEASE builds a wall of sound around you. You will be unable to turn toward the bathroom, you will not be able to rise from the kitchen floor. You will not be able to identify objects. What’s that coming toward me? Is it a grapefruit, or a bulldozer? After TERRIBLE DISEASE you will not be able to tell.

“If you listen long enough to TERRIBLE DISEASE,” they say, “you will likely die. That’s our goal: to kill you. We hate you because you’re ugly, messy, neurotic, selfish and pathetic. Without you the world will be a better place.”

Terrible Disease are:

Arek – bass guitar
Meow – Vocals
Peter – guitar / vocals
Zbyszek – drums

TERRIBLE DISEASE claims to have no influences. They sound like nothing!

Hear the belligerent roar of the void, swirling up to swallow your sad little soul on Saturday, April 9 in Kawiarnia Naukowa. Doors open at 20.00. The concert will cost 10 PLN.