""Matura" maturity examination celebrations." Top 5 Page for this destination Krakow Local Custom Tip by breughel

When we were walking on the Planty gardens near the St. Anne church close to the Jagiellonian University colleges we saw a lot of young people about 18-19 years old grouped in front of the St. Anne (SW Anny) church. Inside, the church was also full of these young people attending a mass.
All the boys were wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie, some had a rose in hands. The girls where all dressed with a white blouse and a black mini skirt. There were hundreds of them celebrating something we as tourists ignored.
We supposed, as we were at the end of June, that this celebration had something to do with the end of their studies.

Indeed at the end of the secondary school - lyceum there is a maturity examination called in Polish "matura" that consist of the final written and oral exams from selected subjects. It is the final step of high school education and a big event in a life of a young Polish man and woman.

The examens are in May; from a Polish website I found this photo which shows very well how young men and women are dressed. I suppose that in June there was the celebration for those who had succeeded. The flowers were for St. Anny or the girl friend?

My wife made the remark that in Krakow girls at high school may wear mini skirts in all quitness while in some districts of Brussels girls in mini skirts are nowadays "not welcome" ("not welcome" is an euphemism, of course).