A few months ago we sat down and went over all the places we have visited in the last few years. We realised we've spent the most time in Italy, closely followed by Germany. Knowing we love both countries we've spent a lot of time exploring various towns and cities throughout each, trying to immerse ourselves in the local culture.
However in visiting the same places several times, it means we haven't explored as much as Europe as we had hoped. So we've sat down and made a rough plan of where we want to travel in the next 12 months, hopefully trying to visit as many new countries and cities as possible.
First on our list was Krakow in Poland. We've visited Eastern Europe several times, in Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Croatia before it became part of the EU. Eastern Europe is much less touristy than Western Europe and we've found the locals are always welcoming, plus the East is much cheaper to visit than the West!
We flew out of London very early on Thursday morning and arrived to a very cold and foggy Krakow at lunchtime. Having had a very stressful evening prior, when I realised I had booked our accommodation for the complete wrong dates, resulting in us having to find new accommodation at the last minute, we were relieved to find the apartment we had booked was lovely and we could check in immediately. We were also greeted on arrival with cookies, coffee and vodka, which was a great introduction to Poland!
We knew Poland would be colder than London, it hovered between -1 and 3 degrees when we were there, so once we arrived we had a hot shower and put on a few more layers before heading out to explore the city.
Our first port of call was to find somewhere for lunch. Having only had a couple of muesli bars and some biscuits, we realised were starving.
We stopped at a restaurant called Chimera, one of the most famous restaurants in Krakow because of it's cheap and delicious salads. The restaurant is divided into two parts, with a salad bar upstairs and a more formal dining area downstairs. Wanting somewhere cosy and warm we headed down the steps into a cave like restaurant that made us feel like we were back in Turkey.
The food was fantastic, I had mixed Pierogi and Bradley had Pork, which we followed with dessert of Cheesecake and Pascha, also a cheese dessert.
When we left the restaurant we discovered it was already starting to get dark. That's the only thing with travelling in Winter, you only get a few hours of daylight to explore.
Krakow is one of those cities, like Prague, that really comes alive at night, and gets more beautiful as the sun goes down and the lights of the city come on. Being close to Christmas, the Christmas market was just opening and the addition of Christmas lights and decorations made the old town look magical.
Krakow has the largest Medieval Town Square in the world, and the entire Old Town was one of the first sites chosen to be put on the UNESCO world Heritage List. The Old Town used to be surrounded by a moat, but this has since been filled in, and is now a park.
We
spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Old Town and
gazing into shop windows before heading back to our apartment to warm
up. We ended up having a simple dinner of bread, salami and cheese
before hopping into bed. It's hard to stay up late when we had to get up
so early for our flight!
We were woken up extremely early the following morning by someone doing very loud building work in our apartment block, but this was soon stopped after Bradley went upstairs for a chat with the apartment owners. Not sure why anyone would start loud hammering at 7.00 a.m. in the morning!
So instead of getting up and having an early start to the day, we thought we'd go back to sleep for another hour or so. Unfortunately we continued sleeping a bit too long, and woke up again at 11.00 a.m.
We had hoped to get up relatively early and get to Wawel Castle around 9.30 a.m., but there was no way that was happening now! So we got ready and arrived at the castle just after lunchtime.
Wawel Castle was built in the 13th Century atop Wawel Hill and was the residence of the Polish Kings for centuries, before being turned into a Museum in the 1930's.
What probably draws a lot of visitors are the bones of the Wawel Dragon, a famous dragon from Polish Folklore. He lived in a cave at the bottom of Wawel Hill and was slain by the Polish Prince Krakus, who founded Krakow and the Castle over the dragon's cave.
This was really the only reason I wanted to visit the castle, and unfortunately even though we arrived just after lunch, this part of the castle was already closed when we arrived.
The castle is free to visit and wander around the grounds, though you have to pay if you wish to visit the Cathedral or any of the interiors such as the State Rooms and the Crown Jewels.
In front of Wawel Cathedral
The Wawel Cathedral is over 900 years old and was the original coronation site for the Polish monarchs. The Cathedral is also the main burial site for the monarchs, and there are several burial chapels underneath the cathedral.
The interior of the church is beautiful, with a huge gilded altar and several amazing paintings, but unfortunately we were unable to take any photos of the interior.
My favourite part of the castle was this beautiful interior courtyard, which was home to the State Rooms. We decided not to visit the State Rooms, and were happy to just wander around the courtyard and admire the amazing workmanship.
After visiting the castle we headed over to the Kazimierz district, the Jewish Quarter of Krakow. This was the centre of Jewish life for hundreds of years, before it was destroyed along with most of the people that lived there during World War II.
In the years following the war and with the rise of communism, the district fell into disrepair and it was not a safe place to visit. Within the last 20 years however Jewish culture has emerged once again, and the district is now full of art galleries and restaurants, and the buildings have all been renovated so it is a thriving once again.
Having only had a coffee and shot of vodka (when in Poland..) so far that morning, we stopped for lunch at a tiny hole in the wall place and ordered two Zapiekanki for lunch. Zapiekanka is a Polish baguette topped with cheese and a variety of other ingredients, usually chives or mushrooms.
Having only seen them from a distance, we underestimated how big they were, we definitely could have shared one and still have had some left over!
The Saints Peter and Paul Church
St Mary's Basilica
Having only seen the Old Town at night time, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring during the daytime, and discovered all the buildings were painted beautiful colours, very similar to Prague.
We also stopped at the Wedel Chocolate lounge and ordered some hot chocolate with a huge helping of whipped cream on top. There were lots of varieties of hot and cold chocolate, we just chose the standard dark chocolate. A bit too rich for me, but still delicious. Maybe more so because I was so cold!
Couldn't help getting it all over my face!
We walked down several back streets until we found ourselves at the City walls, The walls themselves were extremely similar to the ones we had seen in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, our favourite town in Germany. Unfortunately we couldn't walk these walls, so we admired them from below and continued our exploring.
We were lucky that the Christmas markets opened the weekend we were in Krakow. While not quite as good as the German and Austrian markets, they were still lovely to wander round, with the majority of the items on sale being some kind of fake fur accessory, whether you wanted a hat, scarf or gloves, everything was available!
The markets did have some of the best food we have ever seen at a Christmas Market. We started with Pierogi and then had a second course of pork skewers with vegetables and potatoes. The pork on offer was huge, and we could only finish one between us.
After stuffing ourselves full of food, we headed back to the apartment, the next day would be another early start, heading out to the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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