Jean's Europe trip 2006
Part 2: Poland

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  Poland: Kraków

On Friday, 15 September we flew from Prague to Kraków on Czech Airlines. We arrived at Kraków airport in mid-afternoon and took the train into the city. This actually involved taking a shuttle bus to the train station, and then an interesting journey of 20 minutes or so through the countryside (farmland dotted with houses and small villages) to the city. Map of central Kraków. Wikipedia's entry for Kraków.

The place where we were staying (Blue Hostel) was less than half a kilometre from the train station, but the entire plaza around the station was under reconstruction and I was having difficulty orienting myself with the map I had printed off a website, so finding it turned out to be more of a problem than I had expected. Getting directions in garbled English only served to confuse me more, but we eventually stumbled (literally, given the uneven ground) upon the correct street and found the building. I hate cobblestones! Wheelie luggage and cobblestones do not get along at all well. If I never stumble over another bloody cobblestone in my life, it will be too soon! Photo right: Jean in Kraków's main square, cathedral in background.

The hostel in Kraków was an experience in living closer to the way the locals live. For example, although I had a private room, my allegedly private bath was in fact shared with another room. I suppose that's an improvement over sharing the shower and toilet with 15 or 20 other people, though, as in the rest of the hostel!

Our rooms were on different floors of the building, and the hostel shared the building with several businesses and a bunch of private apartments. My room was in a small section of the first floor (the floor above the ground floor); the main hostel was on the fourth floor. The main hostel was quite nicely renovated and very bright and cheerful. There were two large dormitory-style rooms, one a 6-bed coed dorm and one a 4-bed room for women only. Other rooms had 2 or 3 beds and could be rented as single, double or triple private rooms. All of the main hostel rooms shared two bathrooms. Shared kitchen; lounge area with television and an Internet computer (no charge). All fairly standard hostel arrangements.

You may wonder why we were staying in a hostel instead of a hotel. I wanted to be within a short walk of the main square and 'old town' of Kraków, but the choices that I could find on the Internet appeared to be either expensive hotels or cheap hostels -- nothing in between. As hostels go, this one wasn't bad, and the location certainly was convenient!

So... we arrived, handed over a wad of cash in prepayment for the rooms, and got settled in. I was presented with a most impressive set of old-fashioned keys, because getting into my room required 3 of them (not counting the key to the front door of the building). One key opened the door off the first-floor landing, leading to a small vestibule with two doors leading off it. One of those doors apparently went into someone's apartment; I never saw the occupant, but I did occasionally hear voices and smell food cooking. The other door, opened with a second key, led into a small kitchen area, from which 3 doors led to the bathroom, another guest room, and my room. A fourth door (presumably leading to the other apartment) was permanently closed and blocked by the kitchen sink. Probably the whole area had once been one apartment and then subdivided into smaller ones at some point. Photo left: Kraków's main square, cathedral in background.

The whole building was quite rundown but being fixed up. Yuri (the hostel owner) kept making references to the differences between the ways things were 'in the Communist years' and the way they are now. He was very interesting; I wish I had taken notes. And I wish I had been able to get some photos, but the building was the sort of place where you really couldn't capture what it was like (too dark, where flash didn't help; or no way to get more than a small portion into the frame; or both). Photo right: Kraków's main square.

So... off we went into the old town. Kraków was not bombed during the war, so it's in good condition. Crossing the street outside the hostel (at the crosswalk at the corner) was an adventure, given a complete lack of breaks in the traffic (which included streetcars as well as automobiles and trucks). After observing the locals, we concluded that you simply marched across the road and trusted that vehicles would stop, and indeed they did. By the end of the week, we were showing the newly arrived tourists how to do it. Photo left: Cloth Hall, in Kraków's main square.

The main square is huge (guidebook says it's the largest in Europe). It has a large building (Cloth Hall) in the middle, St. Mary's Basilica on one corner, and some statues and a fountain scattered around, but is mostly a huge empty space surrounded by wonderful old buildings, most of which have outdoor cafes where you can sit and watch the world go by. We were pleasantly surprised to find that no one tried to move us on quickly (even at relatively busy times), so buying one drink sufficed to allow us to sit for an hour or more, which was as long as we wanted to stay. Photo right: Kraków's main square.

This square, designed in 1257, was once the main market for the city. Fortunately, these days it's remarkably clean, even with the horses around. We were lucky to have beautiful weather during the first few days of our stay, so we could fully appreciate the square and the rest of the old town. Photo left: Kraków's main square.

The main square really came to life after dark, but even during the day there was something going on, mainly people performing. Performers included small ensembles playing traditional Polish music (particularly polkas); young people doing gymnastics to the accompaniment of various recorded music; and several people made up to look like statues (white or bronze), standing on boxes; and one young man in armor. After dark, a group did fire-dancing, twirling long flaming ropes (not sure what material they were made of). Some of the performers did a great job; others were clearly learning their trade. All, of course, had a collection box for money. Photo right: Entertainers in Kraków's main square.

The first night (Friday) much of the square was closed off by barricades, as some event was going on. There were local performers on a stage, singing and dancing, apparently competing for prizes, and various other things going on. I got tired fairly early (10 pm or so) and went back to the hostel, but Daniel stayed out until well after midnight and told me the next morning that he found the whole thing quite fascinating and he'd enjoyed it very much. Photo left: Entrance to castle.

Saturday and Sunday we wandered around the town, local tourist map clutched in my hand. I can't recall the sequence we did things, not that it matters. Photo right: Some of the buildings in the castle grounds.

We inspected the Cloth Hall, which was full of stalls selling a variety of things, from tacky souvenirs to quite nice amber jewelry, chess sets, leather products including slippers and handbags, wooden and metal puzzles, swords and daggers and armor, and lots of items that I've forgotten. On the last day I bought a pair of amber earrings there, one of the few 'souvenirs' I purchased on the whole trip.

We ate in various establishments, finding a nice selection of dishes. Fortunately most restaurants had a menu in some semblance of English, to help us guess what we might be ordering. Pork was the main affordable meat. One time we found a Russian restaurant. Photo left: Courtyard of one building in castle grounds.

We visited Kazimierz, part of which is the old Jewish quarter. It was never turned into a ghetto; instead, the residents were shipped off to a ghetto somewhere else. There were some interesting buildings, but we didn't go in any of them to examine the interiors.

We also did not take the usual trip to Auschwitz, which is located not far from Kraków. Neither of us wanted to go, because we thought it would be too distressing.

One day we visited Wawel castle and ate in an outdoor cafe there. The food was quite good, and reasonably priced; the portions were about right for me. Photo right: Bread vendor.

While we were there, some buses arrived, bearing signs about 'Miss Universe'. The place was crawling with photographers, and a bit later, a large group of well-dressed young women with good figures and too much makeup came by, demonstrating that indeed high heeled shoes (especially with stiletto heels) are not a good choice for walking on cobblestones.

All the tourist souvenir stalls in town featured dragons: stuffed, puppets, metal, you name it. There is a legend of a dragon in the area. One of the attractions at the castle was the "dragon's cave", so of course we had to go through it. Photo left: Dragon sculpture.

To get to the cave, we climbed down a long narrow winding set of steps. Then we walked through several connecting high-ceiling caves (not featuring limestone) and emerged outside the castle walls, where we found a metal sculpture of a dragon. Photo right: Castle as seen from river.

We took a river cruise. The river front in Kraków is totally different from the one in Prague, where the river is a focus of the city and quite beautiful. Kraków seems to turn its back on its river, with much of the river having only a small and uninteresting 'nature strip' between a stone or brick wall and the water. Near the castle the nature strip is being developed into more of a park that people would enjoy visiting. Photo left: River park as seen from castle.

The old city of Kraków is surrounded by a fairly pleasant park with lots of benches to sit on. One day we walked most of the way around the old walls. The weather was getting overcast at this point, so we suspected our good luck was about to run out. Photo right: Park surrounding old city walls.

Poland: Zakopane

I had pre-booked for us to stay on Tuesday night at a guesthouse in Zakopane, a town near the Slovakia border in the Tatra Mountains. We left our computers and most of our other belongings at the hostel in Kraków and took just a small bag containing a change of clothes.

Alas, rain fell, so our visit wasn't nearly as enjoyable as it might have been. We were almost happy to learn that the cable car to a peak in the mountains was not running (due to seasonal maintenance), since we probably wouldn't have been able to see much in the rain anyway. We'd both been looking forward to standing with one foot in Poland and one in Slovakia, but alas it was not to be. Photo left: Street scene in Zakopane.

We had also wanted to take a bus and then a horse-drawn carriage to a lake in the mountains, but decided that didn't sound too exciting in the rain either, so we skipped it. This left not much to do except wander around a bit, during which we found a great barbecue place to eat in.

The Szarotka guesthouse in Zakopane wouldn't take my credit card, so after paying for the rooms I was a bit short of cash. Time to see if I could get an ATM to give me cash out on my credit card. I was delighted to discover that the first thing the machine asked was what language I wanted: Polish, German, or English? After that, it was as easy as at home, and the machine accepted my card. Photo right: Market in Zakopane.

The guesthouse was pleasant, but a bit of a hike from the main shopping street, and even further from the bus station. (Map of Zakopane.) Being unsure where we were when we arrived, and unimpressed with the wet weather, we took a taxi from the bus station to the guesthouse. On Wednesday when we were ready to leave, there was little rain (though still cloudy and threatening), so we decided to walk to the bus station.

The walk turned out to be a bit longer than anticipated, because the spot marked on my map was in fact the place to catch the bus to the lake, not the bus going back to Kraków. Eventually we found someone who spoke enough English to show me the correct place on the map, and we found it okay after that.

And so back to the city, and another evening in the big main square. Relaxing and enjoyable.

The next morning when I emerged for breakfast, I learned that there were political demonstrations going on in Budapest (our next stop, to which we planned to fly the next day). After some discussion, we decided to cancel that part of the trip and go to Germany and Switzerland for 10 days, instead of the 4 we had planned for after Budapest.

I'm annoyed that I skipped Budapest, even though everyone else (including Eric) was much happier that I had done so. I know it was a sensible decision, but heck! sensible isn't always a high priority with me.

Next part: Germany and Switzerland.