Krakow Poland
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
1
30
45
Trip End
Apr 29, 2008
Krakow,
Poland
Thursday, August 23, 2007
We arrived in Krakow in the evening, and cut through the charming old town to find our hostel. After settling in, we took a stroll around the down town and snapped some photos, and made friends with Joanna, a fellow Canadian staying in our hostel. That night there was a massive thunderstorm. I was pretty wiped out, so I slept through most of it, but Terri told me the next day that the rain was coming down so hard that it was tough to see out of the window to the street. Exploring town the next day, we saw trees ripped right out of the ground, and even found a car crushed under a massive tree that had been uprooted during the storm!
We took a free walking tour on day two to learn our way around town and get a bit of history
01 Got Head?
. Along the way, we made friends with Iliana, an American, and the tour guide Pawel. Pawel is just new at the game, but his free tour was excellent. Anyone visiting Krakow definitely wants to look him up. Check out his tour at www.carpediem.info.pl.The five of us decided to go out that evening, and Pawel introduced us to a really fantastic Shisha bar in town, where we had a nice smoke and enjoyed some of the best belly dancing I've ever seen.You pretty much can't visit Krakow without a trip out to Auschwitz. We went. I'm not too sure what else to say about it.
Iliana introduced us to a German kid that was touring around Eastern Europe in a rental car, who gave us a lift out to Zakopane. It sure beat taking the train. Zakopane is a Polish resort town in the south right on the border of Slovakia in the Tatra mountains. Skiing is huge in the winter, and hiking in the summer. It was heavily touristed. The town was rammed with people taking in the sights. It was a really beautiful place. We got a quiet, comfortable hostel, and did almost nothing the whole time we were there. It was very relaxing, and we needed it. We'd enjoy going back another time, and try being a bit more active.
We took a bus up to the city of Wroclaw. Alright, now for a Polish lesson. Joanna (who is actually a native Polish speaker) took a very long time trying to teach us how to pronounce the name of this place properly
02 Michael Jackson
. W is pronounced like V, C is a ts sound, and the L is pronounced like W. The R is rolled. So, put that all together, and you get Vr(rolled)watswav. Thank goodness Joanna taught us how to say that, because otherwise I don't think we would have been able to communicate where we wanted to go with the bus driver. At any rate, we got there without any trouble. We checked into a nice new hostel right downtown. It was directly above a KFC, so the ENTIRE building smelled like the Colonel's Secret Recipe of Eleven Herbs & Spices. Often, it was quite enticing, but other times it sort of made me want to puke.Wroclaw reminded us a lot of Brugge in Belgium. A large, yet quaint, old town dominated the tourist scene. There was also a river that cut close to the downtown that we spent some time around. The people of Wroclaw have an obsession with gnomes. Apparently that got it's start during protests against the Communist government. There was a certain group that engaged in completely ridiculous protests, including demanding the release of Santa Claus, and dressing up in gnome costumes, or like the Smurfs. Because of this, nowadays the people enjoy putting tiny bronze gnome statues all over town. It is sort of like an Easter egg hunt, looking around the downtown trying to find them all.
Finally, it was up to Gdansk on the Baltic Sea. We were met at the train station by a nice local lady that had a flat for tourists right across the street. Great location, great price. And we got our own room. You can't beat that. We did a self-guided walking tour and visited a resort town close by called Sopot. The weather wasn't exactly conducive to going to the beach, but we gave it a shot.
Poland was another one of those backpacker paradises. Friendly people, great sights and low prices are everywhere. We'd definitely like to come back.
Next stop: Portugal. Stay tuned...
