A big day today, Julie’s birthday. It’s a pity that neither Rosemary nor I spontaneously remembered to say ‘Happy Birthday’, poor Julie had to separately remind us both! Still this year, I had remembered to bring a card with me from the UK and this, together with her many other cards brightened the breakfast table enormously. We were moving on today so breakfast was a relatively early affair and we had the car loaded and were on our way by 09:20. It is about a 5 hour journey to Kraków from Poznań and apart from wanting to get it over with, we were day keen to do the journey before the heat of the promised sweltering day really kicked in.

There is not much to relate about the journey – the countryside was again reminiscent of Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire, huge fields full of ripening crops of wheat and so on. The roads by and large were very good and smooth, apart from some sections where they could give the UK’s appalling roads a run for their money. We saw our first slight inclination, too low to call a hill, about 50km from Kraków and by the time we were in the outskirts of the city the surrounding landscape was a little more interesting, with small rolling hills everywhere.

It is always a bit of a challenge finding an address in a totally strange city, particularly so when in a different country where there are subtle differences in road signage and the way that other drivers use the road and available spaces. Still, we managed to find our apartment complex, a modern development consisting of several separate blocks with tended gardens in between. We went to the manned 24-hour reception and there were given the keys to the apartment together with an electric key fob to gain access to the underground car park and the apartment block itself. Following their instructions, on the descending ramp to the garage we couldn’t get the zapper to work but finally the door opened and as it did so, a car emerged so we allowed it to pass and then went in. It was an extremely spacious, spotless car park with numbered bays, numbers that didn’t seem to follow a logical sequence and we struggled to find ours. The reason became apparent when one of the security guards found us – they had directed us to the wrong garage area! It had been the exiting car that had triggered the lifting of the garage door, not our efforts. When we finally got to our actual entrance, all went swimmingly and we found our allocated slot without much difficulty.

Our apartment on the second floor was accessed via an elevator and we soon had our assorted collection of bags inside it. This one consists of two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom but there is no real sitting area, other than around the small kitchen table. It is all very new and modern and will be absolutely fine.

It was a little further to walk into the city centre, a matter of some 15 – 20 minutes but quite manageable. We went in search of the Tourist Information office, there was one that was open until 19:00 and as it was now well after five, that was our only option. We needed a map of the city, together with some recommendations as to what to do and where to eat. Rosemary had very kindly insisted on treating Julie and therefore me, to a birthday dinner so we needed to find a suitable restaurant and we figured that we would find somewhere amongst the legions surrounding the vast city square. Here are a couple of paragraphs copied from Wikipedia on Kraków :-

Kraków (/ˈkrækaʊ, -koʊ/, also US: /ˈkreɪk-, ˈkrɑːkaʊ/, UK: /ˈkrækɒf/,^[2][3] Polish: [ˈkrakuf] ( listen)), also spelled Cracow or Krakow, is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century.^[4] Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596^[5] and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, economic, cultural and artistic life. Cited as one of Europe's most beautiful cities,^[6] its Old Town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The city has grown from a Stone Age settlement to Poland's second most important city. It began as a hamlet on Wawel Hill and was already being reported as a busy trading centre of Central Europe in 965.^[4] With the establishment of new universities and cultural venues at the emergence of the Second Polish Republic in 1918 and throughout the 20th century, Kraków reaffirmed its role as a major national academic and artistic centre. The city has a population of about 770,000, with approximately 8 million additional people living within a 100 km (62 mi) radius of its main square.^[7]

It really is an impressive space and there are some lovely buildings surrounding it and in it. However we will be spending the whole of Tuesday hereabouts so we didn’t do any meaningful sightseeing, instead we were looking for a restaurant but first we needed an aperitif and we had drinks in one of the cafes. Then we went in search of dinner.  One of the ones that was recommended looked very promising, it had two halves, one that specialized in Italian cuisine and the other in traditional French- style food and we chose that half. The restaurant, called Wentzl is described in  our copy of The Rough Guide as follows :- ‘Top-quality international cuisine with a French accent, attentive service and seating by the main square. It’s deservedly expensive, with main courses of goose, lamb, steak and fish, weighing in at around 70 – 90zl.’ Actually the main courses were rather less than that and whilst the meal was more expensive than others we’ve had, it didn’t break Rosemary’s bank, juts bent it a little! I had a fabulous steak tartare followed by delicious lamb, Julie & Rosemary both had smoked sturgeon salad followed by steak on a hot stone, again very good indeed. One point I would like to make is that the sturgeon that Julie & Rosemary ate was most probably a farmed hybrid called ‘Bester’ – this is a name made up of BEluga (sturgeon) and STERlet ( a species of small sturgeon). Whatever, they enjoyed it and the entire meal was a huge success – thank you Rosemary! My present, by the way, we have yet to find, Julie wants some more amber jewellery, I am told…