TRAVELERT: Krakow Concert and Event Alerts

Each Sunday morning is your chance to check out two of Kraków’s best flea markets, just a few minutes’ walk from the hostel. Visit the stalls around Plac Nowy for clothes, mostly, and go to Hala Targowa for an unclassifyable assortment of objects ranging from baffling crap to actual antiques. Spread out on tables, or on old sheets or blankets on the pavement you might be able to find:

• stacks of old magazines, postcards, and assorted forgotten documents
• vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, DVDs — all of mysterious origin, all old, all well-used
• cute little cups, plates and dishes a grandma would love
• communist and pre-communist memorabilia
• furniture
• religious portraiture
• German porn, slightly used
• cameras, from famed plastic Russian Lomos (cheap and plentiful!) to Zenit (you can hammer in a nail with them they are so solid) to older and more exotic ones
• a set of used false teeth or assorted dental tools
• a bag of rabbits

Good places to bargain, and an a place where you can see things (and people) you will not find anywhere else. If you are looking for one specific thing, you may not find it. But if you are just looking for nothing in particular you will not be disappointed. During the week these places sell fruit and veretables and some other things (underwear, meat, spices, flowers, frozen pierogi, kitchen items, etc.) but the flea markets are only on Sunday morning.

Each Sunday morning is your chance to check out two of Kraków’s best flea markets, just a few minutes’ walk from the hostel. Visit the stalls around Plac Nowy for clothes, mostly, and go to Hala Targowa for an unclassifyable assortment of objects ranging from baffling crap to actual antiques. Spread out on tables, or on old sheets or blankets on the pavement you might be able to find:

• stacks of old magazines, postcards, and assorted forgotten documents
• vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, DVDs — all of mysterious origin, all old, all well-used
• cute little cups, plates and dishes a grandma would love
• communist and pre-communist memorabilia
• furniture
• religious portraiture
• German porn, slightly used
• cameras, from famed plastic Russian Lomos (cheap and plentiful!) to Zenit (you can hammer in a nail with them they are so solid) to older and more exotic ones
• a set of used false teeth or assorted dental tools
• a bag of rabbits

Good places to bargain, and an a place where you can see things (and people) you will not find anywhere else. If you are looking for one specific thing, you may not find it. But if you are just looking for nothing in particular you will not be disappointed. During the week these places sell fruit and veretables and some other things (underwear, meat, spices, flowers, frozen pierogi, kitchen items, etc.) but the flea markets are only on Sunday morning.

Each Thursday if we have enough people who are interested we serve a free dinner at our hostel on Sarego street. If you’re staying at the hostel or the private rooms, we encourage you to join.

If you are interested in coming, please let us know before 12.00 noon on Thursday, since we won’t cook unless we know for sure that at least 3 or 4 people are interested.

Dinners are always made with fresh ingredients from Kraków markets and are vegetarian. Dinner is served around 20.00.

Polish vodka is varied, delicious, and (if you are coming from somewhere to the west) very very cheap especially when you factor in its quality. Many of our guests may think of vodka as something to hide inside some energy drink (don’t do it! It’ll kill you!) or disguise behind benevolent sweet Cola flavors. We humbly recommend you try some straight, particularly the flavored ones.

Here are the ones pictured above (available everywhere for drinking at pubs or for purchasing by the bottle in ALKOHOLE shop) which come highly recommended:

1. Żołąkowa Czysta — Not flavored, but very good and very pure. Maybe pure enough even for General J.D. Ripper?
2. Żubrówka — Maybe the most famous vodka outside of Poland. Flavored with a piece of grass in each bottle (you can also buy a chocolate bar with ribbons of this curiously-flavored grass woven in). “Bison Grass” vodka, with a distinct but not sweet flavor often mixed with apple juice to produce the drink called Tatanka. The slight yellow color? Legend says it is from the urine of the precious bison who favor and flavor it.
3. Wiśniówka — cherry. Very much beloved. If you can’t find a Polish grandmother to share her homemade variety, “Cherry Cordial” or Lubelska brands are quite acceptable. Good with lemon. Like all of our suggestions here (and unlike other Cherry Cordials in less enlightened countries) it is 40% alcohol.
4. Żołąkowa Gorzka flavored — The normal Żołąkowa Gorzka (literally bitter stomach) flavor is a spiced sweet digestif and very tasty. Now, though, they have spinofs — mint (maybe a little like mouthwash on it’s own but great in mixed drinks and with coffee) — bison grass (with not piece of grass like the original but sweetly delicious) — and honey.
5. Cytrynówka — lemon.
6. Malinówka — raspberry.
   
7. Krupnik — honey. Not to be confused with the soup of the same name. Note the bears on the label, sitting against a tree and toasting.
   

If you didn’t fly RyanAir or WizzAir and are allowed to have luggage carried under the plane (and not just over your seat) then you can carry some home with you. If you’re working on Euro, most of these bottles cost about 5 Euro. That’s not much!  If you can pay a little more, you fill find on Bracka street a shop selling specialty homemade varieties (many similar to the commercial versions listed above but many more, such as black pepper and honey or clove). Save money at this place by bringing your own bottle to fill. Look respectable, and you may get samples.

A good quiet place for sitting and sampling new vodkas in the city (but you’ll have to pay of course) is Wódka Bar, near the main square. Try the vodka of the day (sometimes ginger or mandarin orange) or their chocolate or walnut varieties.

photo from Madmolecule on Flickr.

The quiz happens every Thursday at Kraków’s most labyrinthine Irish Pub. Join the competition for 25 Złoty per team (teams have no more than 5 people each) and do your best to answer 4 rounds of 10 questions on a variety of topics. The winning team gets a lot of free beer, the losing teams get a lifetime of regret. It can be fun, but beware!  Some people take their pub quizzes very seriously. Starts at 21.00 each Thursday.

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.

One frozen day captured by Zenit on Hala Targowa – source of all goodness, things you need, you might need and you absolutely don’t need but because of the good flow you buy them. The other place worth to visit is Plac Nowy – more specialized in clothes.

Beware while you hunting! Don’t get too many useless objects!

As almost every week we make a free dinner for our guests (actually not only for guests, but as well for hostel friends, friends of guests and friends of friends).

This week spicy soup will warm us up.

Starts at 8 pm, everybody are welcome;)

Sarego 24

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ninagregier.blogspot.com

As every week Ptasiek invites you to free jam sesion.

Kazimierz, Dajwór 3

Starts 9pm

As every week there is an option to spend Saturday night partying in a tram!

This week Latino Party!

Price 29 pln, welcoming drinks included, it’s allowed the take your own refreshments on the board!

Meeting point tram stop on Plac Dominikanski

Starts 8:45 pm

Ask for details at the reception desk!

The Sanghaloka Buddist Centre in Krakow offers an introduction to Buddhist Mediation in Kazimierz every Monday from 7 to 9 pm at Augustianska Str. 4. Each week they alternate between two meditation practices dating back to the time of the Buddha: the mindfulness of breathing and the metta bhavana (development of strong positive emotions towards oneself and others, all beings). All are invited to attend, and a 7 PLN donation is suggested. You can read more about these meditation methods at The Friends of the Western Buddhist and Wildmind Buddhist Mediation.