Travels
The Museum does not have to be in a museum – Wolnica Square, Krakow
An open-air exhibition “The Museum does not have to be in a museum” (“Muzeum nie musi być w muzeum”) has been put up at Wolnica Square. “Again we wanted the items from the museum’s collection to go out onto the streets and change a small piece of the world” invites you to visit the exhibition of the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow. Exhibits in the public space can be viewed from dawn to dusk until the end of the summer holidays. If you don’t go to the museum, the museum comes to you! “Open-air, interactive and open to the public, the exhibition is both an exercise of imagination and an attempt to transform a” piece of the world “, in this case, Wolnica Square in Krakow. Thanks to this intervention, the empty space of the former liberum forum become filled with installations, among which everyone can find a place for themselves The arrangement draws on the rich collections of the Museum, including the heritage of the Krakow Workshops, as well as traditional culture patterns (cut-outs, coloring books, costumes, decorations). It tells about the unwavering will to create, about the need to leave a trace, about relations with matter and form “. – we read in the description of the exhibition. “Muzeum nie musi być w muzeum” – wystawa Muzeum Etnograficznego – photo by Anna Kaczmarz The exhibition is accompanied by a series of Saturday workshops for children 6-10 years old organized in the space of the open-air exhibition “Museum does not have to be in a museum” (“Muzeum nie musi być w muzeum”) at Wolnica Square. Each of the three meetings is a story about the three stages of creating a simple toy: shaping it using simple materials, making it move, and defining its features with color. Necessary details for your visit Detailed information on the website of the Ethnographic Museum. Available to be seen between 1.07 and 31.08.2021Where? plac Wolnica w KrakowieHow much? Free entrance for all 🙂 Outdoor experience, so better take an umbrella in case it starts raining 😉 Yours sincerely, The Twisted Red LadyBug
How to visit St. Mary’s Bugle Tower – Krakow, Poland
Saint Mary’s Basilica (Kosciol Mariacki) has always been a symbol of Krakow. A Symbol containing multiple other Krakow Symbols, like The wooden carved altar by Veit Stoss or the Bugle Call Tower with its Hejnal or The Legend of the 2 Brothers. After Tartar raids in the 13th century left the original church in ruins, St. Mary’s Church was rebuilt in Gothic style on the existing foundations and consecrated in 1320. In the early 15th century the towers took the iconic form they have today when the northern tower was raised to 80m high and made into a watchtower for the city. From that watchtower, the Bugle Call plays every day, every hour, no matter rain or shine! How can one visit the Bugle Call Tower – Mariacki Church? The Tower cannot be visited during all the months of the year, so make sure you don’t plan to visit it during wintertime as it is closed then. There is always a chance of frost on the stairs so only the Bugle Call player gets to go on top. But! During the summer months, it is always open for visitors and you can check the schedule below. From 7th May:Friday, Saturday — 10 a.m- p.mSunday — 1 p.m — 6 p.m From July to October(except religious holidays)Monday — closedfrom Tuesdays to Saturdays10.00 a.m.- 6.00 a.m.Sundays – 1.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. January, February, March, November, December — closed The ticket price, as of July 2021 is 15 Zloty per person or 10 for 7 to 18 years olds. Come check the video I did on my first climb up to the Bugle Call Tower – Mariacki Kosciol, Krakow, Poland Things you should know about the tour Children up to 7 years old are not allowed to go – due to the steep steps (danger ahead!)There is a limited amount of tickets everyday. You cannot book/buy tickets in adavnce. Just for the same day. Tickets can be bought at the ticket office only (Plac Mariacki 7).Children between 7 and 18 years old get a discount.People with walking dissabilities cannot get to the top as there is no elevator or method to pull up any wheelchairs 🙁 sorry for that 🙁 In case of bad weather the tour (just like the Eiffel Tower, in Paris) gets closed down.The Tower entrance is located on the side of Mariacki Church, from Florianska Street.A group of no more than 10 people can enter every 30 minutes. Krakow Kosciol Mariacki – St. Mary’s Church, Krakow, Main Market Square Did you know? That the Bugle Call (Hejnal) players are actually firemen? They stay there (up in the tower) on shifts that are 12 hours long! They need to “get to work” by climbing the 271 steps, every day, and they play the Hejnal every hour, for their 12-hour shift. Before the stairs were built, there was no way to get on top except with the help of a very tall ladder (wooden). Thank God they don’t use that anymore! Yours always truly, The Twisted Red LadyBug that loves views from the top (of the world)
Flights from Krakow to Vienna are back!
The connection to Vienna returns to the airport in Krakow-Balice after 14 months, from where you can fly further – to over two hundred locations around the world. After the pandemic, Austrian Airlines is rebuilding its network of connections, which will accelerate the return of Kraków Airport to normalcy. By the end of June, we will fly from Krakow to the Austrian capital (and back) four times a week, from July – seven times a week, and from August – twice a day. Brand news from Krakow Airport! Today we are happy to welcome the Austrian Airlines plane that flew to Krakow from Vienna. Vienna – Krakow – Vienna is one of the favorite connections of our passengers. Before the 2019 pandemic, they traveled through the Austrian capital to more than 200 different airports around the world.Radosław Włoszek, president of Kraków Airport He adds that Vienna is not only one of the top cities where Krakow and Małopolska residents like to spend their free time, even at the weekend, but is also the 5th popular transfer port from which you can go further into the world. The long common history and tradition of social, cultural, and economic contacts additionally increase the importance of this connection. “We also hope that tourists from Austria will gladly return to visit Kraków and Małopolska, he added” – says Radosław Włoszek. Austrian Airlines – a key player Austrian Airlines offers not only the routes it operates (110 connections from Vienna in 2021), but also the option of using connections from other airlines as part of the STAR ALLIANCE cooperation. This gives Kraków Airport passengers great opportunities to plan a quick and comfortable journey. The authorities of Małopolska see the return of further connections to Kraków Airport as an opportunity for tourists to return to the region and its capital; In recent years, the development of the airport near Krakow has driven numerous sectors of the economy of our region, and vice versa: the increasing interest of tourists in Krakow and Lesser Poland attractions has led to a record-breaking boom in Krakow-Balice airport. The pandemic has dramatically disrupted this, but thanks to the close and harmonious cooperation of all interested parties, there is a chance for a swift reconstruction of battered businesses. The vaccination encouraged people to look for vacations abroad again The vaccination campaign, which is developing at its best in Kraków and Małopolska, in conjunction with the decline in the number of cases and deaths, allows accelerating the thawing of critical sectors of the economy. Krakow hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes, museums, tourist, entertainment, and cultural facilities are ready for full opening, and tourists in Poland and around the world are hungry for expeditions and rest, thanks to which Krakow and Lesser Poland appear more and more in travel plans. Yours truly, The Twisted Red LadyBug
Recreational buses on the 1st of May!
The inhabitants of Krakow were very keen on the idea of running special city buses that will take Krakow residents to popular recreational places outside the city, such as the Niepołomice Forest or the Ojców Forest. The response was so great that the city is planning to launch 4 bus lines for the May weekend! Officials of the Public Transport Authority prepared special questionnaires in which they asked residents whether it was worth creating the so-called recreational bus lines. These would transport residents to popular recreational areas on the outskirts of Krakow. Specifically, it is about the Niepołomicka, Ojców, Dolinki Podkrakowskie and Przylasek Rusiecki forests. Over 3.5 thousand polls. Residents want recreational buses The proposal hit the spot. The residents filled out over 3,500 questionnaires and strongly supported the idea of ZTP. “The residents mainly want to travel to Ojców. They prefer the departure time between 9 and 12 and return in the afternoon. For example, 62 percent. of the respondents were in favor of the hours of departure to Ojców between 9 and 12” – tells us Sebastian Kowal, spokesman of the ZTP. Officials emphasize that the surveys also wanted to check the transport behavior of residents. It turned out that the inhabitants of Kraków travel mainly by car to popular recreational places, but a large part would use public transport if there was such an option. The interest was so great that officials plan to launch recreational bus lines at the turn of April and May, i.e. for a picnic. “We now have to adjust the appropriate frequency of the buses. Having planned courses on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) and on additional days off. We thought about the frequency every hour, but after the surveys we can see that there is more demand. So we will consider courses every 45, 40 or 30 minutes. We see that the offer of courses every hour is insufficient” – adds Sebastian Kowal. Which routes will be available? The buses would run on the following routes: Podwawelskie-Ojców housing estate,Nowy Kleparz – Niepołomice Forest,train station in Czyżyny-Przylasek Rusiecki,Bronowice Nowe-Krakowski Valleys. The current fare will be valid on the buses. Info take from Polish article in Gazeta Krakowska. Yours truly, The Twisted Red LadyBug
Kraków’s Tourism Policy for 2021-2028
The coronavirus pandemic has had a drastic impact on Krakow’s tourism industry. Will Krakow ever return to the pre-pandemic level of tourism? The city authorities prepared the document “Krakow’s sustainable tourism policy for 2021-2028”, which is to answer this question and what will the tourism policy look like in the coming years. Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com Pandemic = collapse of tourism Due to the pandemic, there was a collapse in tourist traffic in Krakow. Foreign tourism has practically died down, and the Krakow airport is recording drastic drops in the number of passengers. Pre-pandemic tourism and the idea for the future are described in over a hundred-page document on tourism policy for 2021-2028. It was prepared by the Tourism Department of the Krakow City Hall. The document is ready and the councilors will take care of it soon. If adopted, it will become the basis of the city’s official tourism policy. What is the document all about? “The program was ready before the pandemic, but it had to be verified and adapted to the current situation. We hope that after the pandemic is over, we will start rebuilding tourism in our city, so as to regain its important role in the socio-economic life, not to overgrow the tourist function in the future, while increasing the quality of services and the quality of life of the inhabitants” – emphasized Elżbieta Kantor in the autumn, director of the Faculty of Tourism. Like many documents of this type, it is full of clerical phrases and specific language. What is striking is the fact that it was only the shock in the form of a pandemic that forced Krakow’s authorities to look at the problems that residents have been reporting for years, such as depopulation of the center, which has been appropriated by tourists, or loud, drunken night-time “tourism“. Nativity Scene (Szopka) in Krakow, Poland – photo taken in November 2020 Krakow tourist statistics were on the rise (pre-pandemic times) Krakow has always boasted about growing tourist statistics. In 2019, the city was visited by approximately 14 million people, including over 3 million foreign guests. At that time, tourists left PLN 7.5 billion in the city (compared to PLN 6.48 billion in 2018). Tourism in Krakow was primarily about quantity, not quality. What officials pay attention to in their study. “The structure and development trends in the tourism market until 2019 and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic indicate the need to change the approach to the development of tourism from quantitative to qualitative, without throwing inhabitants and space (especially cultural heritage) from a state of relative balance” – reads Krakow’s sustainable tourism for the years 2021-2028 ”. The situation was analyzed before the pandemic. The authors point out that tourism is an important part of the city’s GDP, but not the dominant one. In 2016, tourism was responsible for 8% of the city’s entire GDP. It is estimated that tourism creates 29,000 jobs in Kraków permanent jobs, and at the peak it generates over 40 thousand. The share of the tourism economy in employment in the entire economy of Kraków exceeds 10%. Saint Peter and Paul’s Church on Grodzka, Krakow, Poland Mainly foreign tourists spend the night in Krakow Mainly foreign tourists use the accommodation base in Krakow. In 2019, as much as 95.5% of them stayed in Krakow for at least one night. In the case of domestic tourists, it was 66.9%. Rooms and apartments for rent offered as part of the global Booking or Airbnb portals, are very present in Krakow. The problem is that many of these short-term rental places are not officially reported anywhere. Which doesn’t mean they’re not reported. Nevertheless, it is difficult to determine their total number. However, in 2020, in the database of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in the records of facilities providing accommodation services, other than hotels and camping sites, in Krakow there were 1,646 facilities offering 32,181 beds, which is over 50% all accommodations in the city. Short term rentals were also on the rise (pre-pandemic times) A survey among residents from 2019 was also cited regarding their attitude to the increase in the number of short-term rental premises. Almost 80% agree with the opinion that short-term tourist rental allows residents to earn, and approx. 65% believes that it broadens the city’s accommodation offer. On the other hand, 50% agree that the development of such a lease is conflicting, and almost 60% state that it causes depopulation of districts and should be subject to interference by city authorities. wawel_dragon_by_thorbet The growing role of business/congress tourism The officials’ study also drew attention to the growing role of business and congress tourism. In 2019, the Krakow meetings industry took 48th place in the world and 29th in Europe. In 2019, 8,400 business meetings were held in Kraków, 78% of which were domestic. The largest share (over 2/3) was constituted by congresses and conferences, which were over 5.6 thousand. Corporate and incentive events were ranked second (over 2.6 thousand). Krakow’s tourist offer, which enjoyed the greatest popularity until the pandemic, is the so-called city break (short weekend stay), congresses and conferences, religious tourism. The most competitive area of Krakow tourism is gastronomy, and the most attractive is medical tourism. Types of tourists visiting Krakow The program includes an interesting analysis of the “type” of tourists coming to Krakow, indicating which tourist is the most desirable. So far, three groups have been the most numerous: the purist of culture and art, the weekend conformist, and the banal hooligan. The last tourist is most often noticed by the resident – loud, often drunk, focused on cheap entertainment, not exploring the city. Rynek Krakow: Sukiennice and Mariacki Looking for Homo Consumens From the city’s point of view, the most desirable tourist is the creative homo consumens. As we read in the study: He is not only a passive addressee of the offer created by the city but also acts as an active participant in the market and acts as its reviewer. Until now, however, this type of tourist was poorly present in Krakow. The study focuses on the so-called night economy, where it was emphasized that the most desirable attractions should be sophisticated and advanced entertainment, which, based on …
Dark January for the Krakow Airport – 91% drop!
Closed borders, including Norway and Great Britain, restrictions on flights to most countries – all this had an impact on the January result of the Balice airport near Krakow. Throughout the month, only 54,353 passengers used Kraków Airport services, i.e. 91% less than in January 2020. At that time, despite the disturbing news about Covid-19 coming from China and the first steps to increase security taken by the authorities of the largest Polish regional airport, it was still on a rising wave. Everything collapsed in mid-March 2020, and to this day a significant part of the old movement has not been rebuilt. The main reason is the restrictions imposed by the governments of most countries in response to the second wave of the pandemic, much more severe than the first. Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com Adjusting to a new normality In previous years, in January, Kraków Airport passengers were very eager to use air services when going for a winter break. This year everything has changed. Passengers are required to follow sanitary rules in the countries they travel to, and airports are adjusting the infrastructure to the new guidelinesRadosław Włoszek, president of Kraków Airport He assures that the priority for the Krakow airport has always been and will always be the passenger, his comfort and safety. “It is also very important to react quickly to changing travel rules to individual countries, which is why we introduced the possibility of performing antigen tests at such a rapid pace in front of the Kraków Airport terminal, when such tests began to be required on flights to the Netherlands, due to the decision of the authorities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands” – adds Radosław Włoszek. Photo by Ahmed Muntasir on Pexels.com Black trend: airports are in the grip of restrictions and bans The January collapse is a continuation of the black trend that started after last year’s relatively successful (for a pandemic) summer vacation. Successive governments introduced numerous restrictions in October in response to a repeated attack of the coronavirus, a significant increase in morbidity and mortality, and then also due to new mutations (including in the UK). As a result, the airport in Krakow-Balice in December 2020 handled only 76,469 passengers, i.e. by as much as 89 percent. less than in pre-pandemic December 2019. How did 2020 look for Krakow Airport? Throughout 2020, Kraków Airport handled 2,592,972 passengers, i.e. over 5.8 million less than in the record-breaking 2019. By far the highest was traffic in January, February and until mid-March (i.e. before the first wave of the pandemic and the introduction of restrictions), and also in summer. The end of the year was clearly spoiled by the ban on flights from Great Britain introduced by the Polish government – about 3rd of all passengers fly to the Islands at the Krakow airport. However, the key airlines did not completely suspend connections in this direction: from Great Britain, planes arrive empty, return full of Lesser Poland, returning to their British homes, and/or work. Photo by Chokniti Khongchum on Pexels.com Moderate optimism: vaccinations will unlock airports in the second half of the year? According to analyzes of the aviation market, in 2021 we can expect 4,250,645 passengers at Kraków Airport, i.e. almost two times less than in the record-breaking year 2019, but 2 million more than in the pandemic 2020. “Independent research by aviation organizations such as IATA whether the ACI confirm that passengers will want to travel by air after the pandemic has calmed down. Common international policy and regulations in the field of opening borders for air travel are to guarantee this forecast” – says Radosław Włoszek, president of Kraków Airport, hopefully. Coronavirus does not stop Polish investments The activities of the entire industry ensuring travel safety, including sanitation, are aimed at developing uniform standards that will allow the reconstruction of the air transport market and tourism after the pandemic period. A prerequisite, however, is the full or partial opening of the tourism industry, as well as the effective dissemination of the vaccineAndrzej Adamczyk, Minister of Infrastructure, during the January meeting summarizing 2020 “Coronavirus does not stop Polish investments – this applies to roads, railways, and airports. Kraków Airport presents ambitious plans for the future. This is an opportunity for a further dynamic development of this airport, and with it of the entire region“, added the minister. 2021 will be a time of even greater challenges: rebuilding confidence in air travel and rebuilding the airport’s potential. The consistent implementation of the Investment Plan for the coming years will also help in this, said Radosław Włoszek, president of Kraków Airport. Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com Even higher safety standards at the Krakow airport Kraków Airport has introduced another modern solution to increase travel safety during a pandemic. The containers used by passengers during security checks and also placed at check-in desks have been coated with TitanSolid, which destroys the human coronavirus and other viruses and bacteria. The Krakow airport is another entity in the transport industry that uses this sanitary method. TitanSolid is a disinfecting coating that activates when exposed to natural or artificial light. It was developed by the Polish company Lumichem in cooperation with university scientists. The coating in a continuous system removes all microorganisms, thanks to which the surface covered with it becomes microbiologically clean. Its effectiveness is confirmed by certificates and research, including the latest – towards the removal of the human coronavirus. Original article, in Polish language, can be found in Gazeta Krakowska. Stay safe! The Twisted Red LadyBug