Krakow

Friday, June 03, 2016
Krakow, Southern Poland, Poland
Not a good night's sleep our first night in Krakow. Our room was clean and the shower was hot and strong, but the hostel kitchen backed onto our room. They were still inthere partying at 2 am. There was supposed to be silence between 10pm and 7am. I mentioned the noise to the owner/manager and there was no noise the second night. The owner/manager had only been there 5 days - he spoke very good English (has worked in US and Sydney). I think we'll go more upmarket with our accomodation next time - Krakow is the in place for party weekends and the party folk seem to stay in the appartments and hostels in the old town. Not that there's anything wrong with that - oh to be young again!

We slept in longer than planned, since our sleep was disrupted . I'm sure it took us 30 minutes to get from the station to our hotel when we arrived! And took 15 min to get back there to go to the salt mines - familiarity! Before the salt mines, we queued to reserve our seats to Warsaw tomorrow - this queue was slow, nearly 30 minutes. But reserving is free in Poland (apart from EIP trains). 

 It took 22 minutes on the train to Wieliczka salt mines. We got the 11am tour - took about 2 hours, plus the queuing time to buy the ticket and the queuing to get back out in the lift. The lift was 3 cages above each other with 9 people in each. My flash wouldn't work, so Bryan took all the photos. They're on Facebook. Everything was rock salt - the floor had blackened and the walls had too to some extent. The ceilings were grey and white. The tour was well worth the 84 zlotties plus 10 to take photos (about $A30 each). The tours were back to back - sometimes we had to wait for the tour in front to move on. Once I stayed just a tiny bit longer to look at the old mine workings, and was surrounded by the German group behind us . There were 800 steps and 380 of them were in one go at the beginning. We ended up being over 130 metres underground. 

Once back at Krakow Glowny we headed for the other end of the Old Town where the castle is. The old town is surrounded by park with beautiful tall trees. By the time we got to Wawell castle, I was flagging! We hadn't had breakfast or lunch and I'd walked and stood for too long. A beer and something to eat was a must. I should've gone for a salad - the meat and sauerkraut was too much! I didn't realise it came in a cob. The waitresses were all dressed in traditional costume, and we received complimentary cherry liqueur after the meal. Very nice.

Walked back to the market square - it is huge, there is a building in the middle. Then back to our room for an hour or so. We went back to the same restaurant for dinner. Bryan had duck again but I was still quite full, so had the pear, goats cheese, capers and olives salad which was scrumptious. Spent about 90 minutes there just watching everything in the square. The main attraction tonight was break dancing, and the pub crawlers.

Just loved Krakow. Still a lot of things to see there. I think we'll be back

 The eco cars are like large golf buggies. If we'd had time we'd have taken one.
 
Other Entries

Comments

greghills
2016-06-05

Just oozes living history, Kraków, as do many European cities I guess. Some like Kraków, just seem to be more majestic. Would love to get there one day.

2025-02-11

Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank