Krakow Poland, day1 - 17th May 25

 Hi all

Yesterday we made the not so fast rail journey from Prague to Krakow and got to our great apartment at around 5:30pm. So not much to report from yesterday, apart from the view of the Wawel royal castle from our window.

Last night we had our first Polish dinner, in a great restaurant just next door, Pod Baranem - herring, then beef tongue with horseradish for Norm and Stroganoff for Felicity, fantastic. We have booked it again for our last night here.

Today it was a rainy 10 degrees day, but we headed out to explore the old town of Krakow, with one of the largest town squares in Europe, and more than a few churches per square Km! 


We visited a few of the churches, including the cathedral and an 11th century gem, a former nunnery, which is still in great shape. The old church is on the top right below, it was a fortress church which withstood the 13th century tartar invasions and protected the locals.


After lunch and a beer we headed up to the Royal Castle (Wawel) which was the royal palace for centuries before the Poles moved the capital city to Warsaw. While it was pretty crowded going up the hill, we managed to get in to the castle apartments for a self guided tour - thankfully, as our days of following a guide around while they hold an umbrella in the air are well past us (occasionally though necessity wins out).


The castle tour was well worth the money ($20) as we walked through royal rooms from the medieval period up to the 19th century, with furnishings and art work from all the periods in between. However, perhaps the most impressive piece was this 2005 large porcelain creation, about a metre across, by a Polish artist.


As we headed back through the castle and old town gates, the rain was starting to get serious - so time to head back to the apartment for a rest before (another?) polish dinner somewhere, there are plenty of options in this city of Literature and Gastronomy (so there, Launceston and Hobart!).

More exploration tomorrow - all our love from the travellers (minus Holly 😢). ❤️🍷⛪️🧳


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready for our next European Adventure

Image
 Hi all Only another month before we head off to Europe again! This trip we won’t visit Italy, much to Norm’s continued disappointment about the “we can’t go to Italy every year” rule! However, that will be balanced out with the fact that all of our trip this year will be “North of the Rhine” and as we know Dr Felicity, the Romans never made their presence felt there! So, while much appreciated in past trips - no Roman ruins this time Norm. Still, there will be plenty of Cathedrals to fill in the void. So this year we plan to start our journey in Munich, then a revisit to Vienna and Prague before our first visit to Poland. Thanks to the fact that Qantas still has some economy frequent flyer flights available, in contrast to the hen’s teeth business class, Holly will be joining us for the first two weeks of the trip.  Felicity and Norm are looking forward to trying Finnair business class for the first time, another swipe at the ridiculous Qantas fare prices and our failure to f...
Read more

First day in Munich - 29 April 25

Image
 Hi all After an early morning (6am) flight from Hobart we caught our Qantas/Finnair flight to Munich via Singapore and Helsinki. The somewhat grumpy check-in person at Qantas informed us we were taking a big risk booking a seperate flight from Hobart to Melbourne, so she couldn’t book our bags all the way through. She said it wasn’t worth the risk and we should book with Qantas all the way next time - Norm said, “and pay the extra $8000 compared to Finnair”, she said she would - bugger that! Anyway, we had a smooth flight, albeit long, and arrived in our apartment just off old town Munich just before lunch. Public transport is a dream here - we bought a group ticket for all 3 of us (could have had up to 5 people) for all travel around greater Munich for the 5 days we are here for about $60 each. Caught the S ban into the city from the airport in about 35 minutes. We had a quick look around the local area ,Marienplatz, just to be sure we had landed in Germany! Beautiful as expected...
Read more

Munich day 2 - 30 April 25

Image
 Hi all After long day yesterday, where we picked up Holly in the late evening after her trip from Hobart, we thought we would have a lie in this morning. However, we all had a good post jet lag sleep and were up for a walk around the Munich Altstadt this beautiful sunny morning.  It was only a short walk from our apartment and it wasn’t long before we found a few churches to explore, once we had spent a few hours in the old king’s Residence (palace). There was plenty of opulence on display from the 15th to 19th century when the Bavarian princes (Electors) were in charge. This included the hall dedicated to their ancestors that Holly is starring at above. Normie made the sacrifice of a long narrow climb to the top of the St Peter’s church tower to get the picture in the top frame. Holly and Felicity stayed in the comfort of the church in the bottom right hand picture below. The walk was flat and the town is very easy to get around with some great, car free and pedestrian frien...
Read more