Day 3 - Krakow to Stockholm

---

No sun cream needed to be applied today as the forecast was a little overcast followed by thunderstorms and showers! We sorted ourselves some breakfast in Mosquito, packed up our bags and left them in the luggage cupboards at the hostel before we checked out and headed down to the Jewish district to look around.
We headed more south an we had done in our two previous days, down past the Wawel, to see a number of Synagogues and churches. A couple of which were quite exceptional whereas others just looked like a town hall or similar. There were a few instances of some interesting street art which I probably enjoyed looking at more than half the buildings we had come to see. The weather held out for us for a bit longer than expected and long enough for us to make it to 'Milkbar Tomasz' (via the main square and therefore more invitations to the gentleman's club!) which was a reasonably priced cafe recommended in my Lonley Planet travel guide. It was a great recommendation it turns out, I went for a Spanish omelette and Dan had an Irish breakfast. With all the sites we planned to visit covered, we decided to just head to the airport a little early as we needed to check in still. We collected our bags from Mosquito said our goodbyes (Do Widzenia) and left to walk the 10 mins to the train station. This is of course when the rain which had held off all morning fell and my god did it fall hard. I think it may actually have been the worst rain based weather I've ever seen and it came out of no where. We were forced to shelter under a coffee shop front for about 15 mins before deciding to dash for a taxi in a slight break of the pour down. Having got to the airport and changed shoes and socks, we went to check in. It was a very good job we got their early the check in girl must have been on her first day or something as it took her an absolute age to process her queue! At first we were raging but then it was so pathetically slow there was nothing you could do but laugh. Finally onboard our Norwegian flight, we relished the extra legroom and free wifi you get as standard however, we didn't appreciate our fellow passenger we shared a row of seats with who sniffed and snivelled his cold back up his nose every 10 seconds, BUY SOME TISSUES MAN! We breezed through arrivals at Stockholm (there was weirdly no immigration?) and hopped on the smart and impressively efficient Arlanda Express into central Stockholm where we headed off to find our hostel the AF Chapman, located on an old sail boat. After a far less personal welcome compared to Gosia at Mosquito, we checked out our small room and made up our beds before heading out to dinner in Gamla Stan, the old town area/island in Stockholm. We attempted 3 restaurants, once we made our way through the maze of alleys that is Gamla Stan, including our planner Tripadvisor recommendation, all of which were fully booked, before finally settling for a slightly cheaper tourist trap place. The food was alright (we both had meatballs, mash, gurkin and lingonberries) but nothing special. The food was quite pricey for what it was but that was nothing compared to e cost of a 330ml San Miguel at 89SEK (about £8). All in all dinner cost us over £27 each for 1 drink, 1 course and a small tip! Welcome to Sweden! I popped to 7Eleven to get a few pre-bed snacks as dinner hadn't even filled me up and we headed back to our cabin (cue the 'Master Bates' and 'Seaman Stains' jokes) to retire for the evening. Our beds were comfy but the idiots returning to their cabins later made ear plugs a must and our nights sleep below average sadly.

---