Back to Kraków for a moment. On our last day there I got this idea into my head that I would buy an old voluntary Socialist militia motorcycle helmet. I saw two pizza delivery guys ride in them. The helmet kinda reminds of the old Italian style dome helmets and thought it would be a perfect Sunday drive retro gear. In front of the hotel was an Army surplus store, which to spite me was opening late that day.
While waiting for the store I decided to walk around a bit and ended up finding something much more interesting than the helmet a few blocks aways. Located in the area of town known as the Old Kleparz (after a village that used to be there back, back in the day and has been incorporated into city proper) was an outdoor market with all kinds of local products. Some of the stands were in more permanent buildings, or something we would call trailers in the States, but the middle of the market was dominated by wares displayed on tables under more or less roofed walkways. The stands were more or less organized into areas according to the kind of merchandise they were offering. It wasn't unusual then to find a number of stands next to each other selling exactly the same thing at exactly the same price. This applied to merchandise such as vegetables of course, but even to slippers or kitchen wares.
Here's an example of four tables selling cheese. I was surprised to see that nearly all of the customers had an allegiance to a particular vendor, beelined straight for them - some even had rather personal conversations throughout the transaction. I asked the cheese ladies if I could take a picture of them and while they all agreed, one of them tried to hide under the table - she's the second one from the left, only the top of her head is visible left of a lamp post.
A stand that surprised me offered sleeping gowns to women. I couldn't think of a less sexy way to display these articles and the color scheme has reminded me "it's a boy" "it's a girl" "it's a (we don't know, let's get a yellow one)" baby clothes.
Finally on the way out I finally hit the jackpot - old man vests. Phil this one is for you. Now we know where they come from.
Back to Kraków for a moment. On our last day there I got this idea into my head that I would buy an old voluntary Socialist militia motorcycle helmet. I saw two pizza delivery guys ride in them. The helmet kinda reminds of the old Italian style dome helmets and thought it would be a perfect Sunday drive retro gear. In front of the hotel was an Army surplus store, which to spite me was opening late that day.
While waiting for the store I decided to walk around a bit and ended up finding something much more interesting than the helmet a few blocks aways. Located in the area of town known as the Old Kleparz (after a village that used to be there back, back in the day and has been incorporated into city proper) was an outdoor market with all kinds of local products. Some of the stands were in more permanent buildings, or something we would call trailers in the States, but the middle of the market was dominated by wares displayed on tables under more or less roofed walkways. The stands were more or less organized into areas according to the kind of merchandise they were offering. It wasn't unusual then to find a number of stands next to each other selling exactly the same thing at exactly the same price. This applied to merchandise such as vegetables of course, but even to slippers or kitchen wares.
Here's an example of four tables selling cheese. I was surprised to see that nearly all of the customers had an allegiance to a particular vendor, beelined straight for them - some even had rather personal conversations throughout the transaction. I asked the cheese ladies if I could take a picture of them and while they all agreed, one of them tried to hide under the table - she's the second one from the left, only the top of her head is visible left of a lamp post.
A stand that surprised me offered sleeping gowns to women. I couldn't think of a less sexy way to display these articles and the color scheme has reminded me "it's a boy" "it's a girl" "it's a (we don't know, let's get a yellow one)" baby clothes.
Finally on the way out I finally hit the jackpot - old man vests. Phil this one is for you. Now we know where they come from.
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