The weather is starting to cool down and I find myself wearing my thicker winter jackets while people at work are still in light jackets or just plain long sleeved tops. The weather is of no consequence though as it’s all part of the parcel and I’m embracing everything.
I’ve just returned from a nice long weekend in Krakow. We were very fortunate as the weather was beautiful and sunny. I went with two fellow Aussie working holiday-ers, one of whom I haven’t seen in 10 years.
I didn’t have any expectations of Krakow and was so impressed with the friendliness and receptive nature of the people we came across.
Krakow reminded me of Prague but far less touristy and with its own charm.
We spent 4 days there and managed to fit in a visit to Auschitz (the concentration camp featured in Schindlers List), underground salt mines, Wawel castle and many a pub and restaurant throughout the main market square/city centre.
One of the highlights was definitely the underground salt mine as it had lakes and crystallized caves. Our tour explored 135 metres down and 2kms in length but we were told that we hadn’t even covered 1% of the mine!
The city is rich in history and I realise that I’ll find that everywhere I go in Europe. I wasn’t particularly enamored with the cuisine I had already eaten my fair share of dumplings and schnitzels in Berlin and Prague.
We tried out an Argentian steak restaurant one night and both the food and wine was excellent.
We also did a Communist tour around Nowa Huta district where I drove a Trevant!! Hopefully it wasn’t too scary an experience for our tour guide!
Apparently it’s against Polish law to sing and dance on the street and if you get caught, you get fined!
It won’t surprise you to hear that the Polish law enforcement aren’t very popular. We did a fair amount of singing and dancing (complete with kebabs) on the cobblestone streets but managed to evade trouble.
We joined a pub crawl on our last night there and lo and behold, we met a group of travelers from Perth! Even more incredible that one of them is a colleague of one of my closest friends in Perth. I couldn’t believe it! We often say it’s such a small world but to come across that even in a place as large and as populated as Europe just astounds me.
memoirs of a Chan 