Caffe Avec

December 8th. Krakow, Poland

@brittarnhild

This is my most colourful nativity. Made by chocolate paper, bought in Krakow in Poland a few years ago.

One of the things which made the deepest impressing during our stay, was a visit to the old salt mines. There, deep into the earth, you now find a world of its own, with a huge cathedral, and with hostorical tableauxs. Had there been any chance at all undet the stars, I would have brought Mary, Jospeph, baby Jesus and the donkey home with me. It would have made the most marvellous highlight of my creche collection, wouldn´t it :-)

Krakow impressed me in several ways.
Like the coffee houses. It was after visiting Café Camelot I got the idea to start Caffe Avec, this travel blog, and if I ever write a coffee house book, I know I will have to go back to Krakow to sit in the cafes there, writing.

And who knows, while I am there I might even find a nativity carved in wood?

 

Cafe Camelot in Krakow. A favorite!!!!!

It wasn't untill our last day in Krakow that we discovered this small cafe which we completely fell in love with. I had found the address somewhere online, and had to trust Terje's map reading to find it (he is a map reader expert though....). It wasn't hard to find though, just around a couple of corners from the Market Square. Once inside. we found a small table in a corner, sat down, looked around, looked at each other, big smiles on our faces. This place looked like cafe heaven.

 If......if I ever end up writing my coffee house book, this is the place I want to sit when I write. Drinking coffee, sipping a glass of wine, eating a pastry, ordering a light lunch when I get hungry. Look at the people, try to understand, or at least figure out the conversations, breath the atmosphere and the romantic pink, enjoy the handcarved wooden dolls.

I could follow the world reading one or more of the many international newspapers offered in the cafe, or I could not........

  
From our corner, it was nice to sit and chat about our days in Krakow. The city we knew almost nothing about when we came, the city we knew we would wrap up and keep in our hearts.... unwrap again and again......as memories and  hopefully as more visits in the future.

I hope you have enjoyed my Caffe Avec posts from Krakow. The next post in this series will be from Prague/Praha. Another city with great coffee houses.

 
 A directory of Krakow's coffee houses

Cafe Camelot's website

Which one of the four coffee houses in Krakow I've written about would you like to visit?

Wedel's Chocolate Lounge, and Colours of Krakow

We met old friends at the airport when we landed in Krakow. We changed cellphone numbers and one afternoon decided to meet for coffee. When we met we had already realised that Krakow is a coffee shop heaven, but still we were unprepared conserning the chocolate and dessert heaven inside Wedel Chocolate Lounge at the Market Square. Our friends had had an early dinner and wanted dessert. terje and I had planned a late dinner and ended up with our desserts first. I don't need to write that we were not very hungry when we finally sat down for our dinner.

Five people and quite a dessert table!

While eating we exchanged stories from the student days we shared as students in Trondheim in the late 70ies, early 80ies. Laughter, do you remember........are you still in contect with him.....with her......what happend to....... The hours passed too quickly.

The stories we shared are not blog stories.......I do have some fun for you though. A colour walk in Krakow. I bought Krakow, A City of Colors during our first day there. Wonderful title, but though the book was okay I didn't find mych colours in it. Krakow do have colours though. A rainbow full. Come along on my colour walk.

 

 

 

Demmer's Tea House in Krakow

Just behind Our Lady's Church in Krakow there is a small tea house. We passed it several times and I knew that I had to have a cup, a mug of tea there some time. The opportunity came one afternoon when I needed to rest my feet, needed travel diary writing time, while Terje still wanted to walk along. We decided to split (the one and only hour during our five days in Krakow), and while Terje explored "new" streets and corners, I sat down with my moleskin and my guidebooks.

From the window in Demmer's Teahouse I could see over to Our Lady's church. The beautiful church with the lovely twin towers from where I enjoyed the trumpet music at all hours of the day.

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Pages were filled in my moleskin from our visit inside the church, where the highlight is Veit Stoss' s triptych altar called The Lives of Our Lady and her Son Jesus Christ

The altar was made between  1477 and 1489, and the complete altarpiece consists of more than 200 carved figures.

 

By the way - the tea was lovely, when Terje came back I had just ended the pot, and I bought a bag of Mieszanka Wawelska to take home.

Krakow. Let's get started

If I ever end up writing a book about Krakow (unlikely, but you never know the future, do you.....) I would love to write a coffee house book. I had read somewhere before coming here that Krakow had alot of nice restaurants, coffee houses and tea houses, but never did I imagine!

It started already the first afternoon. We had had lunch outdoors at the Market Square, we had walked around, listened to the Trumpeter, enjoyed the art in Our Lady's Church and decided it was time for a coffee. We passed several places and at last found ourselves in a small place called Kawiarniw Bankowa (at least I think that's the name), where Terje had a Kawa (coffee) Murzynek, I had a Kawa Kapitaliska z rumen.

There we sat, candles on the table, a nice, quiet atmosphere, sipping our coffee, reading our guidebooks. Even dreaming of being able to read Polish.

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My Krakow Coffee House book will be a book where I combine visits to the coffee houses with walks in this beautiful city. At every new coffee house I will lay my Moleskin Travel Diary on the table and share my writing and my photos, sketches and clippings with you 

Are you ready to come along. This coffee house's travel tales will be The Trumpeter of Krakow, and the doves on the Market Square.

 The next Coffee House and the next travel tale.....well, that chapter is not written yet.