Hi friends and family! We want you to know that we love you and miss you and think about you a lot. We have found it difficult to make the time and find the energy to write these first couple blog posts on our foreign travels just due to getting used to the rhythm of traveling. But we are adjusting and are excited to share our first couple weeks with you!
We flew into Krakow, Poland to start our tour of central/eastern Europe and who-knows-where-else and immediately got two small shocks upon arriving: 1) the hottest, most humid environment we felt we’d ever been in. Seriously, Krakow in August seemed to put Raleigh, NC to shame. I’m not sure we brought the right clothes for this…. and 2) We walked off the plane onto the tarmac, through the airport, and out to the cab stand. That’s it. There was no immigration check of any kind. We felt Polish already! (I learned later that one is supposed to get a stamp on one’s passport to legally stay in the country, but that many places do not have the funds to staff immigration officials, and so there is nothing at the airport.)
We didn’t let the heat stop us from exploring, but it did slow us down and made mandatory the drinking of decent quantities of beer as that was one of only a few things we could get cold (along with ice cream, and every once in awhile, soda… oh yes, and iced coffee for Brian once he figured out how to ask for it). There was no air conditioning, and by day 6 we fled to the mountains to embrace some cooler weather. But before we fled, we had a wonderful time exploring the city and a few surrounding must-see sites. I’ve described several below for those interested in more specifics.
The real adventure, of course, comes simply from being in a foreign country, navigating foreign customs, transportation systems, and language. Luckily, Krakow is quite the sophisticated city, and tourists and English are common enough that we could challenge ourselves without feeling completely lost most of the time. Additionally, we found the Polish most welcoming and friendly. And most were very patient and willing to try to communicate with us in a mixture of English and Polish as we attempted complicated pronunciations of simple phrases. (I think years from now, when I no longer remember any Polish words at all, I’ll still be able to ask “Do you carry peanut butter?” in any Polish grocery store, so often did we ask that question.)
Among the things to do and see in Krakow, Poland, we hit a few major sites in between walks around the city, meals, and beers… though really, we also count meals and beers among the “things to do”.
In fact, let’s just start there.
Zapiekanki is a Krakow street food favorite, and the Platy Nowe is the place to get it: a circular building in the middle of the Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, that houses about 10 different zapiekanki stands. Zapiekanki is a large slab of bread (think of a loaf of garlic bread sliced lengthwise) topped with cheese, canned mushrooms, and a myriad of other toppings and sauces depending on what you order. It’s like street pizza that is nothing like pizza, sounds kind of gross, and tastes delicious…. especially after a couple beers, but even without.
And now for a few tourist destinations well worth the time and effort…
The Mound: Two miles west of the city center lies Kosciuszko’s Mound, created to commemorate the Polish leader, Kosciuszko, who gained military experience in the American Revolution before becoming a military leader in Poland. The fortress around the mound is now a museum dedicated to some of Krakow’s military history as well as Kosciuszko’s life. The mound is literally a small hill with a path to the top that one can climb to get panoramic views of the city. Despite the crazy heat and humidity, we were happy to make this our first activity in the city to get a bird’s eye view of Krakow and learn a bit of its history.
Free Walking Tour of Old City Krakow: This was a really fun tour that led us around some of the interesting sites of Old City and regaled us with entertaining stories and facts from across the centuries. We learned about the various architecture of the area, about Pope John Paul II’s (or JP2 as we were told on one tour) presence as a student and later visits as a cardinal, about the university, the churches, and Wawel Castle. And yes, the tour was free (though tips are encouraged), and the tour guide was quite entertaining. Our tour guide even recommended a place to eat lunch when we told him we wanted to try a milk bar. He asked if we wanted to “try a milk bar” or go more “authentic.” We opted for more authentic and were not disappointed.
The tour was ~3.5 hours, and our tour guide was very good at emphasizing the magnitude of the atrocities that occurred. Additionally, there are blocks currently memorializing the victims from each country. These we found worth exploring after our tour and were very well done.
All in all, this visit made for a very humbling last day in Krakow, ending a great first week of learning, exploring, and sweating… Next post we’ll share our crazy mountain experience. Even the PCT couldn’t prepare us for it.