Dear all,

Krakow, Poland 5th ~ 8th September

After an uneventful flight we landed at Krakow airport at about 9:30am. It was a simple matter to find our way to the railway platform and buy a ticket to the town centre. The modern train whisked us silently to the middle of the city in about 20 minutes. Lugging our rucksacks over our shoulders we made our way to the left luggage lockers. We easily found one, stuffed the bags inside and left them until we could retrieve them later. We were unable to check in to our apartment until 16:00 and in fact we didn’t even know where it was exactly until they sent us the promised information later that day.

Gardens surrounding the old-town

We had booked a walking city tour so made our way to the meeting place where we met Anja and about 20 other tourists. She escorted us around the old city which is really quite lovely, full of impressive buildings build over different centuries in different styles. It has the largest medieval square in Europe which is completely encircled with restaurants and cafes. The late Pope John Paul II plays a large part in modern Krakow, many buildings and roads are named after him as well as the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, another son of the city.

The market square in Krakow

At the corner of the market square is a large church, St Mary’s, and every hour of every day a trumpeter plays an unfinished melody from the tower. The story is that he was trying to warn the town of an impending attack but was shot by an archer before he could finish the trumpeted warning. The story is complete fabrication, but is none the less a good one. It is the same trumpeter who plays over a 24 hour period, then has 5 days off to recover !

Trumpeter plays from the very top of this tower

The next day we had a trip to the salt mine, the largest one in Europe. It is about 15km away so after another train trip we bought our tickets and ventured down into it. Getting down is about 400 steps which takes a bit of time, and then the tour takes a couple of hours and covers about 2-3 km, all of it subterranean. We eventually reached 160m underground at the deepest point. The miners had carved some of the rock salt into stunning sculptures, mostly religious in design. Once the tour was finished we took a lift back to the surface, a small lift, a very very small lift with 9 of us crammed into it. It would not be good if you were scared of small places !

Some of the wonderful galleries and caves in the mine


The final full day in krakow took us onto the water. We went on a boat tour along the Vistula river. It took about an hour and was very peaceful if not very informative. Still, a nice time was had by both of us.

Pondering the Royal Capital of Poland

The food was very good wherever we ate, with Italian cuisine the main import. I tried the Polish dumplings once – rather bland, quite like eating over-cooked potatoes in a pasta shell. We had an excellent meal on our final night, a rather posh Italian themed place serving gluten-free pasta.

There was a fine pub/bar directly opposite our centrally located apartment, although in truth I doubt you could ever be more than 100m from a bar in the old-town area. While we were sitting there one evening a couple sat down next to us. The chap went inside to order a drink but then the waiter came out to take the order. The lady tried to explain that “he has gone inside, did we do wrong” in the broadest Birmingham accent you have ever heard. The waiter was obviously lost, not recognising the language even though he probably spoke 8 fluently, so I stepped in and explained what she said. So, I managed to become a translator between Brummy and Polish – I knew my school language lessons were not wasted. Interestingly, the women assumed we were, I think, Polish, and proceeded to explain how pubs worked in the UK. We didn’t have the heart to tell her we were British. Another time a Swiss man joined us and he told us he was there to remember his wife who died 3 months (or maybe 3 years) ago since this is where they had their honeymoon. He was quite charming if a little drunk and had many stories of his travels including working with a person from Tonga. It turns out we are the first people he has ever met who had been there.

The final morning saw us wandering in the market, tasting smoked cheese and cranberries and sipping a delicious coffee in the market square. We then made our way to the train station hoping to leave our luggage for a few hours but were unable to find a free locker. So we humped the bags around the station complex for a few hours, stopping to have a fast-food fish and chips before boarding the train for a 6 hour trip to our next destination -Vienna.