Krakow
I didn’t make it to Poland on my last trip to Europe and I was a little disapointed to have missed out on Krakow. Matt and Wes were keen as beans so we organised a bus back from Cesky Krumlov and an overnight train from Prague.
The overnight trains are always an interesting experience; sometimes they’re fun and others a bit of a nightmare. Ours was fun despite a couple of those confusing/concerning moments that are occurring to frequently for my liking.
The first was that I’d managed to purchase couchette reservations but not actual tickets for the journey. This was despite making it abundantly clear (or so I thought…) to the lady at the sales desk that I wanted both. Luckily the gentleman managing the couchette car was understanding and Wes had enough Euro to cover the three tickets.
The second was that I woke up on the train at 7:30 despite the fact we were supposed to arrive at 6:15am. After quizzing the Canadian guy who’d joined us about whether he knew what was going on, I decided I’d better speak to somebody. Luckily there was a simple explanation (a 2hr delay we’d slept through) and we were still on route to Krakow.
Once off the train we walked straight down and checked into the “Good Bye Lenin - Let’s Rock” hostel (such a stupid name that I insist on using the full version…. like “Warner Brothers’ Movie Word - Hollywood on the Gold Coast”).
The common room was buzzing with people eating breakfast and getting ready for the day. I got talking to a girl who was recruiting people to take a trip to the Wieliczka salt mine.
The tour of the mine was definitely a little kooky which suited me just fine. A few other people said they thought it was lame so it’s obviously not for everyone. In essence, you end up ~100m underground where there quite a few interesting exhibits carved from salt. The salt varies in colour from snow white to quite dark due to impurities.
There is a bar at the very bottom so we had to have a beer underground, if only in to observe the effects in the name of science. It was a low point for some and I’m pretty sure a few others hit rock bottom that afternoon.
Other highlights in Krakow were the coffee shops and restaurants in the streets that radiate outward from the Town Square as well as the jazz and blues bars in Kazimierz (the old Jewish Quarter).
Of course, there is also Auschwitz/Birkenau where no words can really describe the experience. I have put up a small set of photos that might begin to give some indication of what a chilling and desolate place this is.
