Aleja Gwiazd, Kraków

Aleja Gwiazd is Kraków’s Walk of Stars, laid out on Czerwieński Boulevard beneath Wawel Hill. The stars along this riverside promenade celebrate outstanding musicians and bands from Poland and abroad. This is a project created jointly by Kraków’s authorities and RMF FM, and it has been growing since two thousand and eight.

Its first music star was unveiled by the Canadian singer Céline Dion on the twenty-eighth of June. That opening gives this stretch of boulevard a distinctly international note, even under the presence of Wawel above it. The walkway does not stop with music.

It also includes stars and handprints of independent-film directors who came to the Off Plus Camera International Festival of Independent Cinema. Notice the names and impressions set into the route: they connect a public walk by the Vistula with performers and filmmakers whose work reached far beyond Kraków. Aleja Gwiazd turns this small section of the boulevard into an outdoor record of cultural guests, where music and independent cinema share the same pavement.