Vibrant Krakow

---

We almost didn't make it to Poland... If it weren't for Leszek (Polish friend from Jyväskylä) and his recommendation to come here, I think we probably would've skipped this country altogether and that would've been a huge mistake because I absolutely love this country!

We arrived after a long bus ride from Vilnius and realized that the third was a holiday. The holiday is to celebrate the creation of the Polish consitution in 1891 - not sure exactly what the holiday is called in Polish. How do I know that this was the cause for celebration? We happened to meet some Polish students at our hostel in Vilnius and Karol (the more talkative one) was like a walking encyclopedia about Poland. Anyway, there was a parade going on in the city centre and it totally brightened my mood. I get a bit surly after long bus, train or plane rides. I'm not a huge fan of the actual travel part of travelling.

We stayed at the Orange Hostel (which I definitely recommend if you ever find yourself in Krakow) and decided to explore a bit. This is when I began falling in love with Krakow. The city has such a vibrancy to it. There was a lot going on while we were there - in the square, there are tons of street performers to watch; shopping for people on a budget or if for those wanting to spend some serious money; and beautiful churches, museums and old buildings. If you're wanting to eat savoury food, there's plenty of that too! Meals are CHEAP (I'm sure I'll be saying that even more when we hit some of the other countries). You can get a hearty meal and a beer for about 13 ZLT or approx. 4-5 EUR. We're trying to be as thrifty as possible so we didn't want to go places that required admission, but we were never bored in the three days we spent in Krakow.

After drinking Finnish beer for four months (which is the worst beer I've ever tasted), it was refreshing to drink some tasty Polish beer (try Tyskie - might be the wrong spelling) 😊. There are kiosks and bakeries everywhere which sell mouth watering pastries - so if you're on a diet, this city is probably not the place for you.

The day after our trip to Auschwitz, we did some more exploring and met a guy named Mike from Cambridge, UK. We explored the part of Old Town that we hadn't seen yet and also went to the castle where we saw an amazing church and a great view of the river. There are plenty of parks in Krakow as well and we were lucky enough to be able to stroll through them in gorgeous weather. After saying bye to Mike (he went back to the UK that night), we went to a bar that was recommended to us by Karol. One of his close friends is a barman there and he sent us there with a note telling his friend to make us the best drinks he could think of. We ended up staying for a couple of drinks because the first one was so good! We also saw a couple whom we had met on the bus to Auschwitz and they joined us for a drink. It's amazing how many people you meet while travelling - everyone is so friendly and open to meeting new people. You rarely encounter shy people and you end up spending a lot of time with people you've just met.

We could've spent an entire week in Krakow and we probably wouldn't have gotten bored. But, there are still many places for us to see and it was time to move on. We were told that we absolutely had to see the mountainside so the next day we went to Zakopane...

---