After getting up relatively early, I decided to take the train at 9:30 from Krakow Glowny and reached the town of Tarnow one hour later. From the train station I headed towards the city center, whch took me about fifteen minutes to reach. I then passed through Plac Sobieski and Plac Kazimierz Wielki with the statue of Adam Mickiewicz. Continuing on I reached Plac Katedralny, where the Cathedral stands. I entered the church, which unfortunately had a mass going on so I had no way of walking around. Constructed during the 14th century in the Gothic style but refurbish in the 19th century in the Neo-Gothic one, it holds two immense sepulchral monuments; one Gothic-Renaissance belonging to the Tarnowski family and the other Baroque to the Ostrogski family. After exiting, right in front of the bell tower, stands the Mikolajowski House, dating to the 16th century and the oldest standing in Tarnow. From there I reached the Rynek: the main square. At its center stands the Gothic town hall with beautiful renaissance grotesque heads and faces in the roof rim, and the circular tower jutting out. Unfortunately the museums around town, including the one in the town hall were closed, so I had to rely on seeing the city from the outside only. From the main square, I headed north, passing by the pretty tenement houses and reached Plac Rybny. Here used to be the Old Synagogue of which only the Bimah remains, a four pillared podium from which the Torah was read. In fact before the war, nearly 45% of the population was Jewish, the being completely eliminated by the Nazis. Not far, a little outside town, I also visited the Jewish Cemetery. One of the largest and oldest in Poland, it was also closed, but I was able to peer over the low wall the large amount of headstones which were fortunately left untouched by the Nazis.Walking back into town I crossed the main square again and decided to look for a place to have lunch. I found a restaurant called Tatrzanska where I had a tasty duck meat with gooseberries. As I came out from the place, the sky was starting to become black and menacing to rain; I thus decided to head quickly to the bus station and take the next bus back to Krakow.
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