I'm On Food Overload.

 Our last two days in Krakow were spent eating, seeing the castle and cathedral on the hill, eating, buying porcelain, and eating. We tossed around the thought about buying dishes, which we don't need, and finally decided to go for it. My attitude is we really loved the colorful patterns and will probably never return to Krakow, plus the dishes we bought in 2001 on our first trip to Italy bring us so much joy when we use them, this could happen again with these plates.
 Life is unpredictable. Enjoy it while and if  you can.
 But first, food. The night of my 'fly through the air,' we decided to have pierogis for dinner and dessert. We found the place we wanted to try not far from our apartment (everything is in walking distance), but all their tables were full, so I suggested we do a tapas bar type of night and go from one to the other. We walked across the street and had the sampler plate for dinner which was very good. These places serve 10 meat and vegetarian pierogis for 14 zloty, which is about $4 total. The water cost as much as dinner.

  Then we came over here for dessert:

  We chose 9 flavors, one of each, and shared. The price you see above are for a full plate, but we opted for a variety, so paid per dumpling. They were 1.60 each or $.40 each. You do the math. The white stuff is sour cream...and yes, I took this shot after we'd eaten half of them already.

  Our last day we had to get to the castle and cathedral, which we were told was just a 15-20 minute walk from our apartment. When we arrived, we realized we'd past right by it or near several times already heading elsewhere.
 First we had to eat. Rick Steves suggested a place facing the Planty, which is the coolest thing about Krakow. When the Austrians conquered Krakow in the early 20th C, they decided to knock down the wall and fill in the moat which surrounded the town. The Poles made a park out of it and planted trees and grass all around the city. It's beautiful! One area has a pond and lots of trees with benches along the walkway where people sit and just enjoy.
 But back to the lunch we had. I'm still grossed out thinking about it, and I'm writing this days later. First, they brought us cabbage and pickles. Loved the pickles especially...not sure I mentioned having one with Monica on our walking tour, but it took me back to Mama's deli on Palm Ave. in San Mateo when I was growing up. They had the best sour dill pickles ever...and these were like that.

I had been thinking about Matthew's fabulous potato pancake since the night he had it and I was damned and determined to have one for lunch. Unfortunately the only one on the menu came stuffed with meat and had 2 sauces with it.  And more cabbage, which I barely touched. Needless to say, I did not finish this..it was enormous. The meat was tender chunks of beef and tasty, but those sauces made the pancake pretty smooshy. It was flavorful, but just so much! 

  Matthew had trout...I was glad he didn't order a side dish because I needed help with mine. He finished the trout, which I bypassed due to small bones I hate fighting, and also helped me a little. All that food and he never gains a pound.

  And he's had beer at almost every meal except breakfast!

  This is the only proof I had we made it to Wawel Royal Castle. This is the interior of part of it...on a warm day which made it difficult. We didn't see much because we opted not to buy entry tickets for the whole thing. It wasn't just hot, it was also crowded and we'd already done that in Prague. But we did buy in to see Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Lady with an Ermine. It's beautiful, a bit larger than Mona Lisa, and in its own air-conditioned room with guards that walk you in and stay. The strangest thing is this piece went missing for hundreds of years, and after it reappeared, someone in the 19 C decided it should have a black background instead of what daVinci painted, which was grey and blue.

Not allowed to take pictures of the picture. The city symbol is the dragon, so I have this picture instead: