Kraków

Ancient Polish capital, touchstone of each of my travels to Poland, a city I have lived in for one summer, walked through endlessly, and explored with both of my sons … I love this place! As a child raised by Polish-American parents who spoke Polish as their first language, I heard from them the story of “the trumpeter of Kraków”, the bugler who, from the high tower of the Mariacki Basilica, sounded the alarm during an invasion by the Tatars in 1241. Spotted and targeted by their best archer, the story goes, the trumpeter was shot in the throat by an arrow as he was playing the characteristic bugle call as a warning to his fellow citizens. His bravery and death are commemorated to this day by a live playing of the Hejnal Mariacki from this very tower every hour on the hour, each time broken off abruptly…