Emma in London & now in Melbourne: Going East… Krakow

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Going East… Krakow

To use up the last of our holidays for the year, Ollie and I went away for a 4 day weekend. We drew Krakow out of the hat and that was that!

Krakow is a nice town to wander around. It is a uni town so has quite a fun vibe. And the architecture feels a bit more Western than Eastern. We spent the first afternoon strolling through the old town which took just a few hours. The main square was bathed in the late afternoon sun and surrounding the city wall is a lovely park area (The Planty) that we walked the length of. We found a cosy little place called 'The Living Room' which was perfect for a few glasses of red before dinner. Just as well because dinner at 'the place to eat good traditional Polish food' was awful :-( I couldn't finish the stuffed cabbages in tomato sauce - and that was me done with the local specialties for the rest of the weekend.

Fortunately we ended up eating pretty well over the rest of the weekend though. We found a great breakfast spot nearby called Charlotte. We drank cheesy cocktails, the local vodka (cherry & lemon flavours) and beer. I ate a burger for lunch one day (like London, Krakow is going through a burger craze) and then we ate at french restaurants for two nights. The steak tartare, chateaubriand and creme brûlée at a restaurant called Cyrano de Bergerac was excellent - surprisingly one of the best French meals I've ever had.

Over the next couple of days we had a relaxed time but still squeezed in quite a few sights. We walked through the Jewish Quarter, visited Wawel castle, went to Schindler's Factory (which is now a museum) across the river, spent a day at Auscwhitz and toured two concentration camps, and hired bicycles to ride all along the 'Wista' river.

The weather was amazing for the whole weekend - I was wearing T shirts! And the AirBNB apartment we stayed in was excellent. A great weekend.