The Journey continues in Krakow, Poland

Hi there! I’m writing this from the airplane, a few hundred miles off the southern tip of Greenland. I’m catching up with my final installments of my European Adventure. Deb and I traveled to Krakow, Poland for my final weekend abroad.

We had a lay over in Warsaw, so that gave us the opportunity to sample our first Polish beer, Zywiec. We started chatting with a guy while we were waiting and he told us that this was the best choice. Once again, mostly all Polish beers are pilsners without tremendous differences.

Flying over the country I could see the mostly rural terrain. It was slightly rolling, without much forest left. In the very south there were some snow-capped peaks. I did see a couple in an old VW bug with snow tires and snowboards in the backseat heading for the slopes.

We arrived at night and it was pretty quiet in our part of town. The next morning we awoke to find out that we were in a pretty run down area. I was a bit worried that we had traveled all this way to a dump! All the buildings in the area of our hotel had not been maintained in years. The plaster was literally falling off the buildings. The streets were also very dirty, the cars had dirt all up the sides like they had just driven in a snowstorm in Colorado.

Fortunately we would find out later find out that the entire city was not like this. We were walking distance from the restored historic center of the city, with the Wawel Castle and Main Square enclosed by an ancient circular wall. This area by the hotel was the Kazimierz District, the old Jewish Center . . .

This next building on the right had a mesh around it to keep the plaster from falling on peoples heads!

The cars also park on the sidewalks in some areas.

After a short walk we were heading towards the Wawel Castle. There weren’t many bikes here like Berlin. There was a recreational bike path that ran along the river.

The Castle was pretty impressive. We didn’t pay to go inside since they wouldn’t have let me take pictures anyway. I would have wound up trying to sneak some shots, getting caught, and then left to rot in a Polish prison. I didn’t want to take the chance.

The next series of photos are all from the Wawel Castle.

Leaving the Castle we headed out onto the streets in the center of Krakow.

Our next task was to sample the world famous Polish Vodka. We bought two small bottles to sip on as we walked. Technically you aren’t allowed to drink on the streets here like in Berlin, but it was chilly, and we had to keep warm somehow!

The next stop was the Main Square.

These two guys tried to kill me.

I asked these horses if they were fast. They said, “Hell Yeah! The carriage needs disc brakes to stop!”

All of this walking around leads to a powerful hunger. Plus it was cold and we wanted to warm up. I needed to try out the Polish pastries. I finally got a really good European éclair! We bought a lot of stuff and got cookies to go. The girl behind the counter looked at us like we were crazy!

The pastry shop was outside of the main tourist zone, near a market where locals were buying food and goods.

Daylight was waning so we headed back across town through the center. I like the old buildings and the textures.

Talkin’ Smak down at the Smak Bar. It was funny to see a lot of English words that are turned into Polish words by adding a “Y” onto the end.

Back by the hotel there was this crazy old cemetery. The stones were haphazardly placed, all much too close to each other to actually have graves. I’m not sure what the story with it is.

Well that’s the end of my first blog from Poland. We headed back to the hotel to rest up before hitting the streets for some nighttime fun!