Other cities live in the present or in the future. Cracow lives in the past alone, by forces drawn from it, with life stolen from it, life smouldering beneath grey ash. Everything in Cracow is old: even youth blossoms more solemnly, seems less lasting, and diffuses more rapidly into the harmonious tone of the whole. Any newer building or freshened-up frontage stands out glaringly in old Cracow, on whose countenance chips, wrinkles, mosses and moulds are like scars carried off the historic battlefield of the ages.
Józef Ignacy Kraszewski
