Krakow: Too Cool to Be Hot By David Streitfeld Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 16, 1998; Page E01

The mismatched spires of Krakow's St. Mary's Cathedral. (Photo by Richard O'Rourke/The Post)

I want a place where English is only marginally understood, a city that has no direct flights from Dulles, somewhere cheap enough so I can fantasize about hanging out for a couple of years with no visible means of support beyond a talent for writing limericks. I want a backwater that is at least a century behind the calendar, except for indoor plumbing. Countries with rogue nuclear missiles are not eligible.

Basically, I want somewhere nice enough to be touted on the cover of Conde Nast Traveler, but that hasn't been. I haven't yet found such a place, probably because none exists. In the meantime, Krakow comes close. One small reason why: On Thursday, the hotel newsstand still had Wednesday's International Herald Tribune. Ditto on Friday. And Saturday. Krakow is behind the times.

Admittedly, it's neither small nor obscure. The city is the most popular tourist destination in Poland, and any visitor has nearly a million Krakovians to contend with as well.

Both these figures are deceptive, however. Keep in mind Poland is not the first place that comes to mind when hearing the phrase "European vacation." In mid-April, when the spring tourist season was well under way, the city was empty of most visitors, particularly the English-speaking kind. Only twice did I hear my native tongue being spoken by other Americans.

As for the high-rise monstrosities and clogged avenues that a million natives promise, the Communist-era architectural eyesores are relegated to the outskirts, where most visitors won't have cause to venture. The heart of Krakow is surrounded by a green belt called the Planty; stay inside and you'll swear you're in a town of companionable size.

On the river's edge, acting as a sort of buckle to the belt, is Wawel Castle, dominating the Old Town from its little hill. In the middle is Rynek Glowny, the town square and central meeting point. And off to the side is Jagiellonian University, the Harvard of Poland, which means an abundance of new and second-hand bookstores, bars, cafes and wandering student minstrels.

It also means cheap places to eat. If I'm ever destitute in Krakow, waiting for a check from home that never arrives, the first place I'll repair will be Chimera, an underground restaurant. It's a health-food place specializing in salads, which luckily you can order by pointing and saying "tak," which means "yes" and is about the only Polish word possible to pick up on a short trip. The salads are filling and the candles sufficient for reading. But what really makes Chimera useful for anyone down to his last zlotys is the open fire in a slot in the wall. It's stocked with slowly baking potatoes.

"How much are those?" I asked in sign language, and learned: "They're free. Help yourself."

Krakow's distant past is more illustrious than its present. The city peaked 400 years ago, when it was a center for publishing and higher education and was home to the royal court. In 1609, King Zygmunt III Waza, a bonehead who tried and failed to sack the Russians, moved the court to Warsaw. The Swedes and later the Russians attacked Krakow, part of a downhill slide that lasted a couple of centuries. In the early 19th century, Balzac nicely summed up the city by calling it "a corpse of a capital."

The bottom came when the Communists, as a sort of jab at the Krakow intelligentsia, moved in hundreds of thousands of peasants to work in a new steelworks just outside of town. The pollution has been reported to reach monstrous levels, although I saw no trace of it.

What ultimately saved Krakow is the fact that it wasn't destroyed in World War II. Some of the Polish cities that were, such as Warsaw, have undergone major restoration, and while this is better than forgetting the past, it can create the feeling of being inside a diorama. But Krakow was preserved while also being permitted to evolve. It's neither a museum nor wholly modern but remains unfixed; a walk of only a few blocks can evoke echoes of several centuries.

The prevailing mood is a high-spirited melancholy, nicely captured by the bugle call that issues every hour from one of the spires of St. Mary's Church in the central square. Only a couple of notes long, it ends abruptly. It seems a watchman was issuing a warning about the Tatar invaders when an arrow pierced his throat. The story doesn't make clear if the warning was successful, but maybe that's not the point.

The bugle call comes from the taller of St. Mary's spires, which is soaring and Gothic. The other is a Renaissance stump. Legend has it that they were designed by two brothers, but after the work was completed the brother who did the shorter, inferior tower was so jealous he stabbed his brother in the heart. Then, feeling guilty, he jumped from his own tower.

Are these stories true? Beats me. Too much research would spoil them. But their somber aspect is wholly fitting for a city whose primary tourist destination, at least for non-Poles, is famous not for what it is, but in remembrance of what was lost.

"Schindler's List," about a Catholic businessman who improbably saved the lives of his Jewish workers, was made on location here, more or less--the quarter where the Jews lived for centuries was filmed as if it were the ghetto, the site across the river where the Nazis confined the Jews as a prelude to killing them.

If the ghetto has changed so much it wouldn't be recognizable in a movie, the Jewish quarter is a blend of desolation and rebirth. The Communists weren't the biggest enthusiasts for a murdered culture and religion, so for nearly half a century the neighborhood wasted away. Now, with the regime gone and the sort of worldwide cachet that only Hollywood can bring, it's a stop on Jewish theme tours, which has in turn encouraged rebuilding.

There are eight synagogues as well as kosher restaurants, a few small hotels and galleries, and a graveyard that is in truly pathetic repair, most on or near Szeroka Street. The streets are cobblestone and some of the wrought-iron fences built to resemble menorahs, with the tips shaped like candles. Some buildings are still abandoned while others have been converted into vacant lots. Hardly anyone's about. The net effect is to emphasize what's missing--at least 100,000 Jews.

On the edge of the quarter is one of the most striking cafes I've ever been in, and I've spent even more time searching for such places than for the perfect city. It's called Singer, in mysterious homage to the sewing machines that are on every table. There also is one outside, which serves as an announcement of the cafe's location. Otherwise, even those who are looking for the place might miss it.

The typical cafe in, say, Paris, opens outward, spilling over onto the sidewalk. Watching the world go by is part of the service provided. In Krakow, the cafes are the reverse: closed in on themselves, even claustrophobic. They feel like caves.

Singer goes the furthest in this direction. The curtains are drawn while the lighting, as usual in this city, is almost entirely by candle. On the wall is disturbing, nightmarish art. This was clearly a little grim even for Krakow; all 14 tables were deserted. Singer is a good place for writing a suicide note.

Cafe Camelot, Krakow. (By Richard O'Rourke/The Post)

Bleakness nourishes my soul, so I loved Singer. But it's not my favorite cafe in Krakow. That honor goes to Cafe Camelot, which might just be my favorite cafe in the world. It's spread over three rooms, one of which has a table perched in the window, if you feel like eating on a stage. The key room, however, is in the back, where it would take an effort to ascertain what season or, for that matter, what decade it is.

There are candles, of course, some on tables and some on the wall in sconces. (Control the candle market in Krakow and you'll be richer than Bill Gates.) Everyone talks rapidly in Polish, including the two young girls finishing off ice cream sundaes and the couple either beginning or finishing a love affair, it's hard to tell. The cigarette smoke is bearable, not always a given in nicotine-happy Eastern Europe.

The specialty is apple pie, which I had all over Krakow and always tasted the same--moist and sweet, the apple in little pieces as if it had been put through a paper shredder. On top is poured some avocat, a white liqueur that is disgusting on its own but good like this.

Eating, it should be clear by now, is good in Krakow. Restaurant menus are often helpfully translated into English, but it's reassuring that the English is so rudimentary. Nor is the food designed for those who miss America.

Hawelka Restaurant, in the central square, would for instance be delighted to serve you boiled pork knuckle, "trout from water," "duck by Krakovian art in mushroom sauce," plums rolled in bacon, "sort of dumplings of potatoes" or buckwheat groats. (Personally, I recommend the pear pancakes.) Founded in 1876, Hawelka is a national institution, the kind of place where retired generals come to eat--perhaps because the walls are adorned with portraits of their fabled predecessors.

I also admire Pod Aniolami, another underground place, which warned that "restaurant credit cards are not respected" and offered as its specialty baked fired pork for about $500, which at that price must mean the whole pig and a lot of fixin's. It'll be sad when such places are replaced by fast-food joints, as I fear everything eventually will be. About 100 McDonald's now are open in Poland, and they're being supplemented by 30 or 40 more a year.

There are other things to do in Krakow besides eating, drinking and hanging out, although these are clearly priorities, indulged in by many and frowned on by a few. It's always been that way. In 1540, a popular pub in the central square was closed for being immoral. "People idle their time away there, drink and conduct themselves immorally with harlots," the writer Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski complained.

I don't know about the harlots, but Frycz-Modrzewski would find much to censure today. "Drink Bar!" "Dance Bar!" "Ice Bar!" advertise three different establishments. Everywhere the beer is good and the national brandy, Slivovitz, powerful enough to clean out your carburetor.

There are many antiquarian bookstores, always a sign of a civilized society. Krakow is a city of verse: Half the living Nobel laureates in poetry can be found here, Wislawa Szymborska full time and Czeslaw Milosz part time, although little of their work is about the city.

Another, more occasional, poet also has roots in the city: Pope John Paul II. And then there's Adam Mickiewicz, the great national poet whose fame in Poland is equaled by his obscurity elsewhere. Only the visitors most intimately steeped in Polish Romanticism will make more of an acquaintance of him than the statue in the central square, a popular perch for birds and, on the lower reaches, students.

Things are casual enough in the city that the Krakow Philharmonic is easy to slip into on a moment's notice. On the other hand, that might be due to the program, a special percussion evening. Some of the audience, having had enough loud thumping noises, slip away at intermission.

The philharmonic is cheap, but the music in the streets is free. The sound of a man playing mouth pipes drifts into the St. Peter and Paul Church. It's raining, which makes the ancient Krakow medley sound even sweeter. Except, it soon becomes clear, this is a new Krakow medley. It's the theme song from "Titanic." The 1990s can only be evaded for so long.

On the way home, as a sort of control, I stopped in Prague. Krakow may be the fairest of all Polish cities, but I wanted to see how it measured up against some real competition. And it's impossible to deny that Prague is achingly beautiful. The view up to Hradcany Castle from the river, or the panorama from the castle gardens across the rooftops, made me feel as if I were in some Technicolor movie fantasy--it was too heart-stopping to be merely the real world.

But beauty isn't everything. You couldn't turn around without kicking a tourist, there were more signs in English than in Los Angeles, instead of soap the hotel room offered a condom, and while no one would want the Communists back, in their absence the whole city has been tarted up, Prague as reimagined by Disney.

I had only been in the city for about five minutes when I received my first clue. By the time my cab got to the hotel--a matter of moments, actually; from the train station, you could have hit it with a rock--the meter had reached the local equivalent of $40.

It is impossible to argue with a souped-up meter in a foreign language, although I tried. Right then, I wanted to get on the first train back to Krakow--empty, inexpensive, pleasant and all mine.

Details: Krakow

Getting There: Krakow's airport is relatively small, and while it's possible to make connections through Warsaw, I was quoted a round-trip fare from Washington of around $1,000. Instead, I took the Polish airline LOT from Dulles to Warsaw, and then the train from Warsaw to Krakow (about a five-hour trip). LOT (1-800-223-0593) is currently quoting a round-trip fare of $598 from Washington to Warsaw. The train fare between Warsaw and Krakow is $17 second class, $24 first.

Where to Stay: Never having been able to resist the lure of staying in converted palaces, I opted for the Grand (5/7 Slawkowska, telephone 011-48-12-4-21-72-55; fax 011-48-12-4-21-83-60), which charged about $200 a night for a double, including breakfast. The room was, well, roomy, but otherwise nothing too special. Its location, however, was terrific--a block from the central square. The Grand's restaurant was an alluring palace of mirrors and light, but I never ate there because it always looked too empty.

There are other hotel possibilities, many of them cheaper but few of which seemed particularly interesting. In booking a room, the two things to keep in mind are avoiding if at all possible the Communist cinder blocks and making sure you're either in or close to the old town.

Where to Eat: As opposed the lackluster hotel situation, there's almost too much choice here. Hawelka, on the main square, is a good introduction to local cuisine. Directly above is another restaurant under the same management, Tetmajerowska. This is one of the most expensive places in the city, which means approaching $100 for two. Since so few Poles can afford this, it seems to cater mainly to traveling businessmen. I tried it out--hey, it was research--and would recommend it at half the price.

Chimera is at 3 Anny St.; Singer is at Izaaka 1; Pod Aniolami at 35 Grodzka and Camelot is on Jana near the rear of the Grand hotel.

Information: "Krakow: The Guide," by Joanna Markin and Bogumila Gnypowa, taught me everything I know about Krakow. Issued in English by the firm Pascal, it's sold everywhere in the city for about $9. It offers 330 pages on the city, compared with Lonely Planet's Poland, which has fewer than 50.

For more information on Krakow, contact the Polish National Tourist Office, 275 Madison Ave., Suite 1711, New York, N.Y. 10016, 212-338-9412, http://www.poland.net/polandtravel.