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Published: September 17th 2008
Until this trip, much of our limited knowledge of Poland stemmed from several drunken outings with UQ Boxing to the Polish Club in Brisbane; these outings were always followed by next morning headaches, and only the tatters of any Polish cultural knowledge remained. So it was that we entered Poland armed with vague memories of drinking vodka with gold flecks floating in it, and 8% Okocim beers. Of course the UQ Boxing coach was also from Poland and this raised our expectations of meeting lots of small, friendly, yet potentially dangerous people.
Due to a tight travel schedule, we had a limited time in which to explore this country, and so we settled on spending a few days in Krakow, before moving on to Warsaw. You wouldn't think it but Poland is actually a whopping great country - 312 000 square kilometers in area - and is right in the middle of Europe.
It took us 8 long hours to travel by train from the edge of east Germany to our first stop. This would normally have been enjoyable, considering our preference for train travel, but these trains were older, not air conditioned, and the temperature outside was bloody
Pick a Flavour - Any Flavour
Much to choose from in Krakow's home-made vodka rangehot. To top it off, we managed to drink our entire supply of water in the first two hours of the journey - mistakenly thinking we could buy more on board. A dehydrated and disheveled Toby and Emma were very pleased when the train eventually rolled into Krakow station and they could peel their sweaty bums off the faux leather seats. Despite the heat, looking out of the windows on the train ride was quite interesting. We had seen some soviet-inspired buildings when we were in Germany and the Czech Republic, but the view from the train proved that the closer you get to Russia, the more abandoned concrete monstrosities you can see. There were huge factories with broken windows and rust stains on the walls from decaying fittings - everything was oblong and industrial looking.
Krakow
When we arrived in Krakow though there was less in common with the communist remnants of the surrounding countryside. Krakow is very European, with lots of churches and ancient fortifications remaining - at least in the center of the city. Krakow is also the place where we started playing “spot the boobs”. Coming from Oz and now living in China, you never
Church of SS Peter and Paul in Krakow
Showing life-sized statues of 12 apostles. The church dates from 1600s see statues of half (or fully) naked people around. In Krakow they can be seen holding up the roofs of buildings and dotted around parks, though the true home of boobage is surely St Petersburg where we felt it important to document a few in photos. Something you can all look forward to in the next blog 😊
The best part of Krakow (for us at least) was the town square. Our guidebook says that town squares are typically Polish and they are found in every town and city. Krakow's huge cobbled square is lovely, and is the largest medieval town square in Europe. Among its features are the tiny St Adalbert's Church, as well as the much larger St Mary's Church and a massive cloth hall in the middle which was being renovated while we were there. The pigeons in the square outnumbered the people - though there were plenty of both, and stately horse drawn coaches with coachmen in fine livery did circuits of the square for the punters. The particularly nice thing about all this was that their square was so large that there would have had to have been at least 30 cafes and restaurants
Krakow Market Square
View from restaurant - most with seating on the square, so you could watch everyone walk or drive by. What's more, the Polish government must have introduced a baby bonus or something because there were weddings galore, with gorgeous brides being pulled around the square on the coaches with very proud grooms.
One of the first things we did on arrival in Krakow was to set off in search of some cheap Perogi - a traditional Polish dish of boiled semi-circular dumplings. These appear at first glance to be similar to the dumplings you can get in China - but Perogi aren't made with rice flour, they are filled with artery clogging goodness and are perhaps a little more delicious. These dumplings are stuffed with a variety of fillings - potato, cheese, mushrooms, beef or (our favourite) cabbage. A plate of Perogi in a small cafe in Krakow only set us back a few dollars, and was very substantial.
One of the absolute best meals we had on the whole trip was also in Krakow, in a restaurant called 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. This is situated in the old town, and is primarily known for its traditional French cuisine. The inside of
the restaurant is underground and is decked out with antiques and candles.
Normally, a restaurant of this standard wouldn't have fitted into our backpacking budget. However, if you stop by the restaurant at lunchtime, they do a set-menu of traditional Polish food - for a very reasonable price. So we were able to feast on the best Perogi we have ever tasted, and the most mouth-watering beetroot soup. In England, beetroot comes vinegar-soaked and cold, in a glass jar. In Australia it comes as a topping on your beef. In Poland, they managed to make it taste absolutely divine! For two food lovers, we were in our element.
Over the next few days, we visited the area of Kazimierz - which used to be a largely Jewish neighbourhood. It is now a trendy area - full of bars and restaurants, but some of the buildings are a bit shabby and derelict. We felt that, despite the newer parts of Kazimierz, the streets still retained a certain air of sadness - but perhaps we only felt this was because we had visited Auschwitz the same day.
We also explored the rest of Krakow's old quarter and the huge castle
at Wawel Hill - a place that was home to the Polish Kings for over 500 years. Castle fatigue had set in by this part of the trip though and we moved through fairly quickly.
One afternoon, we discovered a tiny little shop in the old quarter that makes its own Polish vodka in all different flavours. This place is so small and nondescript from the outside that we walked past it twice - but it was well-worth going in. There were loads of flavours of vodka to choose from - ranging from blueberry, to melon, to honey ('Krupnik') - and the great thing is that you can 'try before you buy' for free. We also sat at the bar and bought all different vodkas by the glass, which was fantastic.
Auschwitz
We couldn't go to Krakow without making a trip to the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp - which is an hour away by bus. We took a tour, and our tour guide was excellent - we found out at the end of the tour that his grandfather had actually been imprisoned at Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and was one of the few to survive to
the end of the war. His grandfather had been a local baker who provided bread for the local Polish people living nearby. He was imprisoned for giving a little extra bread to some of the starving Jews.
Visiting Auschwitz is a very strange experience. You know that atrocities have happened there, but yet when walking around the now clean and clinical buildings, it is really hard to comprehend the sheer number of people who died there. What brought it home for me, was when we saw the personal belongings of some of the people who were taken to Auschwitz.
There is a room full of human hair - the hair of the prisoners - which the Nazis used to sell. There is a room full of shoes - of all different sizes. Children's shoes too. The new arrivals at the camp had all their belongings taken away immediately.
The thing that stayed with me the most though, was when I saw the room full of suitcases. The Jews were told to write their names and dates of birth on their suitcases before they went to the camp, so that their belongings didn't get mixed up with anyone else's -
this being part of a cruel cover story that they were being taken away to be resettled. Unbeknown to them, their suitcases would be taken away anyway on arrival, but I found it so sad to see all those names and birth dates, all handwritten, all unique...Something about the simplicity of such an act - writing your name on your belongings....it stuck in my mind.
As part of the tour we visited the Auschwitz II camp briefly as well. Much of it was taken apart after Poland was liberated but it's still enormous. It also functioned as an extermination camp, and is many, many times bigger than Auschwitz I. The number of people that died there is just beyond belief.
Warsaw
After a few days in Krakow, we caught the train to Warsaw. We only had a brief time in the capital city, but what we saw of it, we really liked. There are some huge buildings - one of which, The Palace of Culture and Science, greets you as you leave the main train station. The Palace is 237m tall and is a Soviet monument designed as a 'gift' to the Polish people, which they no
The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw
The tallest building in Poland - it is the first thing you see on leaving the train station doubt appreciate as a reminder of Russian dominance during the cold war. Ironically, when we walked up close we noticed that the lower levels have been converted to a cinema.
We had lunch in the old town, which was very much like other old towns - pleasant to look at, but expensive to eat anywhere. Then in the afternoon, we walked to Lazienki Park (The Royal Baths Park) - which is still superbly manicured and regal. There was a free open-air Chopin concert going on next to the Chopin statue, so we sat on the grass to listen and relax. Afterwards we wandered over to the Palace on the Water (Lazienki Palace) - a grand looking building, with peacocks strutting around it. It actually felt a bit sad that with such a beautiful palace and gardens that are so well looked after that there is no Polish royal family. They certainly left their stamp on the place while they were there.
It was only a whirlwind visit to Warsaw, but it's on our list of places to return to.
Overland from Poland to Russia......and a quick glance at Lithuania
We needed to travel overland from Warsaw to
St Petersburg, and quickly. I'd anticipated that this might not be a straight forward journey due to the distance that needed to be covered and the visa issues with various countries that lay in between us and our next destination. However, after doing some research, I was certain that we could travel via Lithuania and Latvia - thereby avoiding Belarus and its transit visa requirements.
We decided the best thing to do would be to book our Warsaw to St Petersburg train whilst in Krakow. After spending a good 20 minutes in the wrong ticket queue at the train station, we found the 'international ticket queue for foreigners' and joined the line. There were two separate ticket desks, behind each of which sat a non-smiling, very bored-looking woman.
So, armed with a piece of paper from our hostel with our travel details written in Polish - we approached the desk. I knew that we definitely did not, under any circumstances, want to get a train that went through Belarus. We did not have the correct transit visas, and I knew that it would be impossible to get the visa within the short time we had to make it to Russia
- so I tried to make this one single fact very clear to the ticket woman. I felt fairly certain that I got this point across, as she spoke reasonable English, and I did lots of pointing at the Polish on our paper, while saying “not Belarus - train through Lithuania”, and the woman nodding and saying “yes” in agreement...... So it was that we left the ticketing desk with two tickets to St Petersburg, leaving the next evening, that took us straight through Belarus.
Unsure what to do next, and a little hysterical, we visited the information office near the train station and asked them how we could change our tickets or if it was possible to get a Belarus visa in Krakow. Although sympathetic to our predicament - they couldn't help us. After much wandering around and some discussion, we decided to see if we could get a refund on the tickets - and thought we might as well try our luck with the second ticket woman at the other desk.
As it turned out, there were no trains at all that go from Warsaw to St Petersburg via Lithuania - only buses. The second ticket
St Andrew's Church
One of Krakow's oldest buildings - dates from 11th century woman explained this to us. We would have to catch an overnight bus from Warsaw to Vilnius, and then from there, we would need to separately book an overnight train to St Petersburg. She quickly changed our tickets to bus tickets instead, and refunded us the difference. We were happy travellers once more!
We needn't have been: a standard coach doubling as an overnight bus is possibly the worst way to travel. If you have a sleeper-bus, like those seen in Vietnam, with beds and plenty of leg room, then it's a fine way to travel. Unfortunately for us, no sleeper buses in Poland, so we were stuck on a standard coach, with 50 other people and no leg room for our 12 hour overnight journey to Vilnius.
As uncomfortable as it was, I was just glad we were finally heading in the right direction. Plus, we had a group of nuns sitting in front of us, which, for some reason, makes me feel more relaxed when travelling on unlit motorways at night.
Never take 'no' for an answer...
We arrived in Lithuania at 8am, hungry and having had about an hours sleep that night, but the first
thing we had to do was book our train ticket to St Petersburg. From research on the internet, I knew there was a direct train leaving that very night that took us through Latvia.
With some trepidation we located the (deserted) ticket booking office in record time, but behind the desk sat possibly the sourest-looking woman we had encountered so far. We showed her the train that we wanted, and with a roll of her eyes, she told us “no, there is no train to St Petersburg today”. So, we tried again, with some more gesturing and a bit more pointing at the paper..... “No”, she repeated, without emotion,“there is no such train from here”.
What to do now...
The lack of sleep and concern about making it to St Petersburg on time had begun to stretch our patience a bit thinly. If we didn't arrive on time we couldn't catch our train to Mongolia, if we couldn't make it to Mongolia, we couldn't catch the connecting train to China... We bickered about what to do, wandered around the station aimlessly for a while and gazed longingly at the McDonalds across the street....
Eventually we spotted another
office called 'Sales'. It was empty except for another deadpan but professional looking woman behind a desk. We explained to her what we wanted, showed her our paper, and waited nervously for her response.....suddenly, she broke into a smile, and said “of course, there is direct train. It leaves tonight. Soft sleeper ok?”
Thank You Jeebus!
Buoyed by our successful ticket purchase, and pleased to have got rid of our enormous backpack in the luggage lockers at the station, we set off to find food, much needed coffee, and to spend the day checking out Vilnius.
The city was deserted on the day we were there. I don't know why - there was just no-one around. Many of the shops and some of the cafes were also closed, so we figured we'd probably arrived on a public holiday. Or maybe all the locals had left town for their summer break? Whatever, it was quite pleasant to stroll undisturbed through the old town - which has some churches and buildings, and pavement cafes and the usual old Europey stuff. Despite our initial enthusiasm for exploring Vilnius, and despite the litres of coffees we drank trying to wake ourselves up,
we were unable to get excited about the place.
We did manage to catch our designated train out of Vilnius that evening, and the rest of the journey to St Petersburg passed without incident. We shared our soft sleeper cabin with a very friendly and very helpful Russian lady, who offered us food, smiled at us a lot, and negotiated with the border guards for us when we passed over the border. In fact, the border crossing from Lithuania to Russia was over in an hour. Very efficient and much quicker than expected actually.
In summary: go to Poland, it's tops. Krakow is cool, and as for Warsaw, Chopin in the park with a few thousand Polish people defies description. We'll be back.
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