Poland

So my first trip of the year ended up being a 3-day soujourn to Poland last week. I admit I don't know a lot about the country or culture, but the opportunity to visit Auschwitz was what attracted me. Aside from the cheap flights of course! Auschwitz is a place I've always wanted to visit, and I believe it is an important place to visit because of it's historical significance. Also, we have a Polish sous-chef at work called Gosia who I really like and who had told me Krakow was a beautiful city, so a Polish adventure it ended up being.

When my flight arrived in Krakow at 4pm, it was getting dark. And when I got out of the train which had taken me from the airport to the centre of town, it was pitch black. Unfortunate, as I didn't get to see any sights that first night. I walked from the station to my hotel, which was only a block away (yes, I planned that), checked in and dropped my stuff off. It was a nice little hotel, simple but spacious, clean and comfortable. I then decided to go on a walk to find food. On this walk I discovered a 4-storey shopping mall called the "Galleria" so went for a bit of a wander inside. It was fairly standard, with all the chain stores they have here in England, as well as some other shops that were new to me. They had a huge Sephora which I wandered around longingly, and some really cute jewellery stores. It was funny because they also had some shops with names like "Pretty Girl" and those sort of terrible but lovable English-as-a-second-language type names. Anyway I found a mini-mart and got some food for dinner. The Polish currency is the Zloty, and a salad is typically around 8zl, piece of fruit would be 3zl, large chocolate bar 11zl, loaf of bread 6-8zl. Got my food, went back to the hotel, turned on the TV but everything was in Polish (funny that) so turned it back off, got out my book and ate while reading. Had a lovely hot shower, then went to sleep early (had been up at 5.30am that morning so safe to say I was pretty tired!

This was the selection of Vodka at the tiny mini-mart. It's true, Poles love their vodka!

Polish Zloty

The next day I got up at 7am and went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast (included in the price - win!). The buffet was ACE. Cereals, fresh fruit, yoghurt, hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, toast, rolls, sausages, lots of salads, cheese, cold meats, tea, coffee, juice....it was freakin' great! I decided on scrambled eggs on toast with some ham cause I figured that would be the most filling. Once I'd finished I also grabbed an apple and nutella sachet (had to) as snacks for the day ahead.

Best breakfast buffet ever! This is maybe half of it.

After that I checked out of my room but left my big bag in the luggage room, and took my smaller bag with me for the day. I went to the train station to see when the next train to Oswiecim was, which turned out to be in about 1.5 hours. Which was sweet as because it meant I had time to go and wander around Krakow. Whenever I get to a new city, I love to just go wandering around. I love looking at the buildings, the people, the menus on restaurant windows, the parks etc. And boy oh boy is Krakow beautiful. It's got so much character to it, with lots of old, colourful, statuesque buildings. I walked through to the main market square which had big St Mary's church in one corner, restaurants along the other sides and the Cloth Hall on the opposite side. There's a big memorial in the middle too. It's super pretty. Super instagrammable. Haha. So I just wandered around here for a while, taking in the sights and sounds and getting pestered by pigeons. Then I slowly made my way back to the train station to catch my train.

All these photos are in the market square

Oswiecim is 50km west of Krakow and was my destination because it's where Auschwitz is located. I'm gonna do a full post on Auschwitz next because I think it deserves one in itself. Anyway, the train was quite old and rickety and slow, so the journey took about 2 hours. The countryside that I saw on this trip was pretty dire, if I'm honest. Krakow centre aside, I don't think Poland is a very pretty country. The landscape was very grey, there was hardly any greenery anywhere, there were heaps of creepy woods with those super skinny tall trees and there weren't any hills or mountains or anything nice. Complete opposite to NZ. When I got there, I walked the 2km to the camp and began the tour. I was there for about 2.5 hours, which I will detail in the next post. After that I got the train back to Krakow, picked up my bag and hopped on another train up to Warsaw. This train was really nice with HEAPS of legroom and it wasn't overly crowded which was nice! The train took 2 hours to get to Warsaw, and because it was pitch black I didn't get to see anything out the windows. But I had my book so it was ok :) Ended up getting to Warsaw central station around 10pm then I got a cab to the apartments I was staying in. When I opened the door to my little apartment I was stoked - it was very modern and fancy, with cool light shades and a nespresso machine! Plus a super comfy queen bed. Happy Dale. Wished I was staying there longer!

Awesome bed

Nespresso! Yussss.

Nice little bathroom

The next morning when I looked out my window there was quite a bit of snow on the ground! According to my phone it was 1 degree, and it certainly felt like it. I tried out the nespresso machine (delicious!) then checked out of my lovely room (sad). My phone said it was 25 minutes to the train station so I decided to walk it so I could see a bit of Warsaw. In stark contrast to Krakow, Warsaw is very urban, with sky-scrapers and lots of metal and glass. There are electronic bill-boards, lots of advertising and the business of a captial city. It was interesting enough, but I definitely prefer Krakow. From what I saw of it anyway. Got the train to the airport, did a bit of duty-free browsing and then made the journey back to London.

While I liked Krakow and had a very moving and worthwhile experience in Oswiecim, I don't think Poland is a country I'd go back to. I'm glad I went, for sure, but there wasn't enough oomph (for lack of a better word/phrase) to make me want to go back. Though they do know how to put on a great breakfast ;)

Until next time.
xx