Oscar Schindler's Enamel Factory

Schindler's Factory is one of the well-known museum in Cracow. In the fast it was a former metal item factory, but now it hosts two museums: Museum of Contemporary Art in Cracow and Historical Museum of the city of Cracow. Before, it was the first this kind of factory in Malopolska. It's located in district Zablocie, on 4 Lipowa Street.

National Museum in Cracow

One of the most popular museums in Cracow is National Museum and its name sums up pretty everything. It was established in 1879 and is the main branch of Poland's National Museum, which has several independent branches located in main Polish cities. The Museum contains 21 departments. They are divided by art period. In addition, there are eleven galleries, two libraries and tvelwe conservation workshops. The Museum owns 780,000 art objects from classical archeology time to modern art and it especially focuses on Polish painting.

City gates and walls in Cracow

When we talk about Cracow city gates, we mean seven (or nine, depends on the way of counting) entrances to the city located in different areas around the oldest part of the city (today the Old Town). The gates were the parts of the city walls. Building of the city walls started in 1285 and it was changed through the years when the building was modernized and modified. Today we can admire only one gate – Floriajn Gate. But the oldest one was a Butcher's gate which was later replaced by Mikołajska Gate. Other gates were: Grodzka Gate, Sławkowska Gate, Szewska Gate, Wiślna Gate and New Gate. 

In 18th century old fortification started to be a problem, because it turned out into a dirty place full of trash and people from shady surrounding, so areas close to the city walls started to be a dangerous place with dirt and unpleasant smell. Because of that it was decided to destroy the walls and only because of Feliks Radwański, the professor of the Jagiellonian University, the piece of the walls could be saved – close to Barbakan and Floriańska Gate. Because of the stubborn professor nowadays people can admire the wonderful and renovated piece of the city walls and gates in gothic style.

Floriańska Gate is one of the best-known Polish gothic towers, which was built in 14th century (1307) for the protection against Turkish attack. The Gate towers is 33,5 meters tall. The Baroque metal part of the roof, which crowns the tower as made in the 15th century. Also, Royal Route begins at Florian Gate. Royal Road starts in Florian Gate, goes through the Main Swuare and Grodzka Street and finishes at Wawel Castle. Florian Gate is one of the most famous places in Cracow, admired by tourists as well. For example, so sure during many trips, like this one, you can have a chance to see Florian Gate and listen to its story from the guide.

Cracow then and now

It's hard to deny that an old photography has a charm. It's very interesting to watch how a city has been changing through the years. Nowadays, many buildings look different or they disappeared and their place took modern ones. A good example of the change is Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, which was destroyed during World War II and built again after so that nowadays it is much different than the city from the beginning of the XXth century. 

Cracow has changed as well, like any other city, and you can see it while looking at the unique vintage photographs.There is a project where you can find the same place but during the past and presence so you can compare how much it changed (or how much it did not changed). The idea became very popular and it gained a big number of follower in social media. It proves that people are curious how the cities looked in the past. Discovering that is a wonderful experience. 

Sometimes old photographies can be found on Planty or other popular places close to the Main Square, where thay are displayed. There are also websites with archives of old photos. Lots of the websites dedicated to Krakow post old photographies as well. It helps to learn more about history of Cracow, past and changes. 

You can find the examples of the old photographs here, here or here.