Notes from a Kraków Soundscape

DAY ONE in Kraków has been a sound experience.

When I arrived at my hotel, I checked the time and dashed upstairs to the roof terrace bar, ordered a glass of wine and waited.

The hejnał would start any minute. My first of the trip.

Then the little window in the cathedral spire opened and the trumpet appeared. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck in anticipation, and as soon as it began, I was covered in goosebumps.

It happens every time I come.

A legendary tradition that still feels mystical and otherworldly, and a story I was first told by my dziadziuś (granddad).

Later, it was the familiar clip-clopping of the elegant horse-drawn carriages around the old town, beautiful creatures in their ostentatious garb.

And now while I’m sitting in a music café, with the doors open onto the square, a jazz pianist is playing the grand piano and is accompanied by those same horseshoes on the cobbles outside.

He’s completely in his own world.

And when I close my eyes, I’m transported back half an hour to a small, low-key cocktail bar, where 1920s jazz and the quiet chatter of friends were the soundtrack to the new novel I’m reading.

All of these different sounds, alongside the visuals, the reflection of the pianist’s hand in the piano, the only part of him I can see from my seat, have reminded me how important sound is to our experiences, and therefore how we design them.

You don’t always need a carefully curated playlist.

Sometimes it’s the sound of swifts flying overhead, the horses on the cobbles or the sound of wine being poured into a glass that sets an experience apart.

Sounds I heard in Kraków

The hejnał
Horses’ hooves on cobbles
Rain spilling over a blocked gutter
The Polish language
Live jazz piano
Quiet, personal conversations, sometimes whispered
Swifts overhead
Church bells ringing
Applause
Wine being poured into my glass
The “shutter” on my iPhone camera
My own snoring (which woke me up at least twice during an incredible very much needed massage)