It’s not that I really want to start a band, I just think it’s necessary – you’re nobody in this town unless you’re ‘in a band.’ At a party the other day, a former Miss Singapore and professor of nuclear physics with several books under her belt earned nothing but yawns until she said…
Read more
They tell me it’s not easy being Polish. I have to admit, from my comfortable armchair of smug Englishness, it does look exhausting. Chief among the difficulties seems to be the deep conviction that being Polish means something profound, coupled with a vexing degree…
Read more So here’s the thing, about a month ago, a Dutch student journalist wrote to me and asked if she could bring her group of Dutch student journalist friends to Poland and talk to me about the amazing success of the Krakow Post. Tabbing out of my email, I gazed across the city…
Read more I ‘m fascinated by the qualities nationalities ascribe to themselves – the super powers people assume themselves to have acquired by the simple expedient of being born to speakers of a particular language or within lines drawn on a map. We’re all guilty of it…
Read more
I get the feeling that, if I let them, Olga and Michał could talk to me about stop-motion animation for hours. It’s a good sign when the organisers of a festival have such passion for, and knowledge of, their subject and I certainly learned a thing or two I wouldn’t have got…
Read more
Skansen Smaków is not the kind of restaurant we usually review in the Krakow Post, which is a shame, since it is the kind of restaurant that most Poles actually visit. This epic-scale log cabin on a lake represents a perfect example of a true Polish cultural phenomenon – the karczma…
Read more When did the deck chair become an acceptable form of seating? Thinking back to the early summer, which seems frighteningly recent, I don’t remember ever seeing one in the fragrant beer gardens of our fair city. Now, as the thoughts of alfresco drinkers turn…
Read more
According to folklore, the honey bee’s traditional enemies are fire and bears. This is why beekeepers use smoke to disperse bees, and why it is unwise to wear brown when approaching a hive. The bee now has a third deadly enemy, environment pollution…
Read more
One month after new laws about the collection of rubbish in Krakow came into force, many Cracovians are complaining that the transition has been bungled by the city. There have been numerous reports of uncollected rubbish…
Read more
Here’s an idea: how about a decent, family-friendly restaurant that you don’t have to trek all the way into the centre of town to visit – a place on the door- steps of Krakow’s growing suburban middle class that offers something a bit more sophisticated than Zywiec-branded deck chairs…
Read more