About Konrad
Guide, comedian, teacher, researcher (usually in that order, occasionally all at once).
The short version
Konrad Beerski (born Konrad Piwowarczyk) has been walking people through Kraków in English, French and Mandarin.
A licensed tour guide in Kraków, with more than twenty years of guiding visitors behind him.
A tour with him is not a list of dates read out in front of a monument. It is the city told as a run of stories, with the awkward parts left in, because those are usually the good ones.
Polish is the language he grew up in, which is why some of the jokes land differently once they are translated. He will translate them anyway.
What you actually get
On a walk, what counts is holding a group for two hours, answering the question that was really asked, and knowing when to stop talking. Ask him anything along the way. If he does not know, he will say so, and then guess entertainingly.
Why “Drunk Like a Pole”?
Because Napoleon said it first.
At Somosierra, in 1808, a Polish light cavalry squadron charged a fortified mountain pass held by Spanish artillery: uphill, into the guns, in a few minutes. It was the kind of thing that is either suicidal or brilliant depending on whether it works. It worked.
The story goes that Napoleon, told afterwards that the Poles had been drinking, replied that he wished all his troops were drunk like the Poles.
Kraków is a city that has been besieged, partitioned, occupied and rebuilt, and has kept its sense of humour throughout. That is the spirit these tours are told in.
Did Napoleon really say it? The line has come down in several versions, and the tidiest ones are usually the least reliable. It is a good story, it says something true about the place, and it gave this website its name. That will have to do.
Beyond the tours
Stand-up comedy, language teaching and academic research: the three other things that take up Konrad's time.
See the projects →