While Kraków’s main square,
Rynek Główny, makes all the postcards and photographs, it is Plac Nowy in Kazimierz that has emerged as the spiritual centre of Kraków sub-culture. Lacking the splendour of the
Old Town, Plac Nowy is, if anything, something of an eyesore – a collection of unkempt buildings surrounding a concrete square filled with chipped green market stalls and rat-like pigeons flapping about. If you want something completely different from the Old Town, however, here it is.
Plac Nowy started assuming its shape in 1808 having been incorporated into the Jewish quarter in the late 17th century, and its Jewish connections are highlighted by an oft-encountered local insistence on referring to it as Plac Żydowski (Jewish Square). For over 200 years it has served as a market place with its central landmark, the Okrąglak (rotunda), being added in 1900. The rotunda was leased to the Jewish community in 1927 serving as a ritual slaughterhouse for poultry right up until Nazi occupation. Following the war it resumed its role as the centre of the market around it, a function it still carries today. Butcher shops still occupy the interior, but the real action is to be found outside where hungry locals are happy to line-up outside the dozen or so hole-in-the-wall fast food hatches that operate from the rotunda, eager to taste the best 'zapiekanka' in Poland. Placing their orders through the small windows you’ll find everyone from police blokes ignoring emergency calls on their walkie-talkies, to stick-thin party girls getting their week's worth of calories with this legendary Cracovian street food. Visiting Kraków without eating a Plac Nowy zapiekanka would be like visiting Dublin without having a Guinness.
Surrounding the Okrąglak (rotunda) are some 310 trading stalls, and you’ll find something going on daily from 5:30am till early afternoon. Fresh produce, sweets and random rubbish are constant guarantees but weekly highlights include junk/antique sale Saturdays, Sunday's clothing market, and Tuesday and Friday morning's bewildering small critter expo/pigeon fair. A photo essay waiting to happen, arrive early to the latter to learn the answer to the riddle, 'How many rabbits fit in a suitcase?'
As trade dries up for the day the area takes on a new guise: Kraków’s premier pub crawl circuit. Find the academics with beads, beards and secondhand books in places like
Singer,
Alchemia and
Les Couleurs, while the similarly dark and arty
Mleczarnia down the road (ul. Meiselsa) boasts the city's best beer garden during the warm months. Full of shambolic charm, Plac Nowy is beginning to diversify to a degree with glammy pre-club places like
Le Scandale and
Baroque, and
Taawa - the first danceclub to open on Plac Nowy.
Sadly plans are now afoot to renovate this historic square with the controversial winning design already receiving a rubber-stamp. Shockingly, the numerous market stalls which have been a part of Plac Nowy since its beginnings would disappear, a permanent stage would be installed at one side and parking on the square would be prevented. While the city has scored successes with similar revitalisation projects, there's nothing flaccid about the fizz of Plac Nowy and we're encouraged to hear that a lack of funds has delayed the start of the project indefinitely. Still, soak up the bohemian atmosphere of the area now before it's all swanky cocktail bars and stupefying street performers.
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Having visited Plac Nowy on numerous occasions im horrified to learn of the proposed renovation of this unique area hears hoping the lack of funds continues for some time to come.