Our Second Day In Krakow (Pictures)

31/05/2010 – 21:57 - Day 6 – Krakow, Poland

Unsurprisingly, today we had a bit of a lie in. For me usually, 9:00am isn’t much of a lie in but it was today! We took our time getting ready and made it out the hotel for 10:15. We headed straight for Wawel Hill – the castle and various other sights as it was the last major thing to see in Krakow city.

When we got there we were impressed with the architecture of it all, but very disappointed at their admission policy to certain places. We went to the ticket office and saw that the Armoury and the Lost Wawel exhibit were both open till 12:00 on Monday, but were free so we quickly made our way over to the Armoury as it was 11:15. We needed a ticket. Back to the other side of the castle, to the ticket office we went. “Sorry, all tickets are sold out!” That is what the ticket woman said. We were very pissed off that the ticketing system for ALL barring 1 exhibit (which had no limit to tickets) that this particular ticket office catered for were “sold out” that is, they give a limited number of tickets out, for set hours and times during the day. Had we known this (our guide book failed to point it out) we would have gone much earlier. We sat for a while in the ticket office, quite annoyed.

We eventually decided to buy the ticket for the exhibit – called Dragons Den – and as we knew it exited the hill, went to have a look around the cathedral before going into the Dragons Den. Before entering the cathedral we saw another ticket office, this time for cathedral based activities. These weren’t limited and we were quite pleased to find that we could buy tickets for the bell tower, the royal tombs and the cathedral museum. The Wawel cathedral was beautiful inside, much like that of the Vatican, unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. The bell tower was good fun, albeit a very narrow and compact route through the tower! The royal tomb was good, very interesting to see all the kings of Poland there as well as Generals of the army in the Second World War Even more interesting, and somewhat harrowing, was the tomb of the recently deceased President and his wife, who died in a plane crash, along with many other Polish officials. There were a lot of people in the cathedral, and it did annoy me quite a bit as many of them were school children, but to see many Poles crying and touching the tomb of their recently deceased leader and his wife in a tragic accident was very sad.

Before we left Wawel via Dragons Den, we decided to have lunch at the café in Wawel. We both had Perogi and a drink for less that £6 –something that would never happen in the UK (that is a meal at a tourist attraction for such a low price). Dragons Den was a underground cavern beneath the cathedral/castle, where a dragon was once fabled to have lived… it wasn’t great and left me disappointed with Wawels ticketing system. I was really looking forward to some of the other exhibits that we never got round to seeing, and now won’t have time to on this trip.

So, we had finished lunch by half 2, and with nothing to see in Wawel, we decided to go on another Lonely Planet tour walks, this time of the district Podgórze. The walk took us to some weird but wonderful places – over fields, past churches and along roads. It ended with a visit up Krakus Mound (an unknown sourced manmade hill) and then a walk downhill to the ruins of Podgórze concentration camp. A harrowing experience in its own right, seeing remains of tombstones of the Jewish cemetery that previously occupied the land and abandoned SS Officers houses left me with strong thoughts and feelings of sadness.

Auschwitz and the Salt Mines tomorrow, an early start and long day with mixed emotions awaits.

Pictures

The abandoned house on a residential street in Podgórze of a former SS Officer

Me and Laura on top of Krakus Mound - very windy!

Me on top of Krakus Mound

Laura in Dragons Den
Me squeezing through a gap in the bell tower
Wawel Cathedral
St Marys Basilica at 7am yesterday morning (30/5/10)

Greetings from Krakow, Poland!

30/05/2010 – 08:38 - Day 5 – Krakow, Poland

Luckily the hotel yesterday (29/05) took care of our bags for us and we headed to Letany Park in North central Prague in the morning after a late wake up (9am) and breakfast.

Letany Park was rather nice, with a massive monument/dome at the top with a restaurant and vistas overlooking old town and the Jewish quarter. We slowly made our way back down into the Old Town and headed back to Wenceslas Square for a final meal at the Black Baron – for lunch. I had the usual and Laura opted for a goulash for her final Czech meal. Fine choices all round I say. In the afternoon we sat for a bit in the old town square, listening to some music from the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries, which was being played in the square.

After sitting there for an hour or so we went to new town to try and find me a cap because I’d burnt my head the previous day – sods law! We couldn’t find one I wanted there, so I knew of a C&A on the outskirts from my previous visit to Prague and we found a cap – yay! £3 as well, bargain!

After that little quest we went to the supermarket in new town that we knew about, stocked up on sandwiches, biscuits and drinks for the evening and slowly made our way back to the hotel to collect the bags and then onto the train station.

We got to the train station stupidly early, out of nothing better to do and we both people watched for a few hours, taking particular delight at a man whose luggage consisted of a dining chair amongst other things, a drunk man, lots of young people dressed in all white (about 300 – we still have no idea why) and a dog which looked like a lizard!

When we finally got on the train, we realised we had actually got tickets for the couchettes, up to 6 people per cabin! Luckily, hardly anyone was in our carriage and therefore only one other person was in with us, which was what we were expecting in the first place. A young man from Brazil, we chatted for a bit, about football and travelling amongst other things, but to me he was quite quiet and reserved. There was also a Canadian girl, whom I admit looked younger than us, also on the train, in the next carriage, she seemed travelled.

The sleeper itself was OK, nothing special. The bed was comfortable enough, I had bottom bunk on one side, the Brazilian lad on the other and Lilly was on the middle bunk above me. I slept OK I guess for a first night on a train, at least next time I’ll be a little more relaxed.

I woke up properly at about 5:45am; I couldn’t really get to sleep after that, knowing that it was 40 minutes before we arrived. When we finally got to Krakow we slowly made our way from the station, to and through old town. We saw quite a few drunks still out from the night before, which gave us a wonderful first impression of the place. However, we had a stop in the main square at 7am, the sun just peering over the buildings onto St Mary’s Basilica in the town square. I had to take a picture there and then, but I fully intend on going back there in a bit, it was beautiful!

We eventually found our way to the main road out of Krakow that our hotel was on, and got the bus from there – about 2km to the hotel. We’ve now checked in, showered and soon will be ready to explore Krakow fully.

19:45 – Day 5

We headed back out at about 10am, and proceeded to walk around the outskirts of Old Town before starting at the Barbican and making our way through old town, following our guide books recommended walk. On the way, we booked our tours for Auschwitz and the Salt mines, we are doing both in one day, on Tuesday, so essentially tomorrow is our last full day in Krakow. We got both for £30 each which I think is a bargain.

Anyway, our walking tour was really good, the fine weather helped. We climbed the old town hall tower, but it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, there was no place to step outside on top, just windows. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant, with the idea that a big lunch/small tea was a better idea. We went to this place near Wawel Hill (which we are planning on exploring tomorrow) and the portions were disgustingly huge. Seriously, they were horrible. I hate wasting food, I wasted about half of it today. I really didn’t like the place, they even had a massive trough like basin for throwing up in in the toilets – nice establishment! £6, I thought how big could a portion be?!

Never mind, shortly after finishing our meal, the skies opened once again, this time with thunder. We sat outside, under some shelter hoping it would pass and after about 10 minutes it did. We then headed to another suburb of Krakow – Kazimierz. We walked around on another guide book walking tour, and saw lots of beautiful churches and very old synagogues – it was the old Jewish quarter. The tour ended at the only Jewish cemetery left in Krakow – it was very sad to see graves of 6/7 year olds that lived and died during the war.

Just as we had finished that, the skies opened yet again, we jumped on a tram and headed for the train station, where we booked our tickets for Warsaw, about £10 each. Another bargain! Roll on Wawel Hill tomorrow, and hopefully better weather! Will be catching up on sleep tonight methinks, and nothing better to send me to the land of nod than some Polish beer. I bought 4 cans from the petrol station for 3 pounds. Zywiec, 5.6%! No wonder they are always bloody pissed!

A (predominantly) sunny day in Prague!

28/05/2010 - 21:33 - Day 3 – Prague, Czech Republic

Well, it was our last full day in Prague today. Knowing we could possibly have the bags all day tomorrow gave us great inspiration to see the rest of the city and we’ve pretty much done that today! I slept reasonably well last night, albeit with the aid of earplugs.

In the morning we went up to the other side of the river, and slowly made our way up the cobbled streets, eventually up the castle steps (which for an unfit blob like me were very steep) to the entrance of the castle. We had a look around there for a while, and then headed into the cathedral within the castle complex – St Vitus Cathedral. The queue for it was quite long but very worthwhile as it was beautiful inside, much like I would expect somewhere in Rome.

We stopped for lunch just outside the castle, had a sandwich each and a small rest. The weather at this point kept changing from showers to sun.

After lunch we headed along the top of the hill where the castle and various other sights lay, such as the Strahov Monastery and the Loreto. It was very steep and I surprised myself with my own fitness. We then headed along the forest area adjacent to the monuments to the funicular, when we slowly made our way back down towards Charles Bridge and the other side of the river, where our hotel was. The weather in the afternoon was very good, even got a little sunburnt on the bald head!

This evening, yet again we had a meal out, for a very reasonable price. I finally tried the goulash today, and it was great.

Who knows what we will do tomorrow, very little if we have our rucksacks. If the hotel will lock them away for the day, another day of exploration awaits – hopefully.

Day 2 in Prague

Well we've had a lovely first full day on our trip! After getting up unusually early for me and Tom (8am lol) we had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then made our way to the Jewish Quarter of Prague. We were hoping to see some of the main synagogues, but they wanted a stupid amount of money for us to get in, so we just wondered round for a bit, and then went to the Old town where Tom persuaded me to go to the top of the town hall tower with him (v high!). We also got to see the Astronomical clock chime 12 noon, from the crowd gathered around it I was expecting something amazing, in fact it was rather underwhelming! After looking round Old town we went back to the hotel for about an hour- it was raining and we were quite tired after walking round all day. After a bit of rest we went back out to look around the new town, and to find somewhere to eat. In the end we took the advice of our DK guide book and went to a restaurant called 'U rejrodu' where I had traditional goulash (v yummy), and Tom took the recommendation of the waiter and had a pork and dumplings dish (apparently a lot nicer than yesterdays pork and dumplings lol). I have a funny feeling neither of us will want to see another dumpling after this trip! After having our meal we got the metro to 'Vysehrad' which is situated on a cliff, from which you can see over Prague- very pretty, especially as the sun was setting. A brilliant second day of our trip!

A post with pictures!

27/05/2010 - 21:22 - Day 2 – Prague, Czech Republic

I always find sleeping in a new place for the first time difficult, there after it’s rather easy and it all feels so natural. This was the case last night. Despite being stupidly tired, I still managed to wake up several times in the night to various noises, drunk Czechs in the next room, traffic and Laura’s coughing fits. Unsurprisingly getting up at 8am (7am UK time) was rather painful and I had a pretty bad headache.

Nevertheless after a shower, lots of drink, breakfast and some painkillers I was set for the day. The breakfast was pretty good for a freebie, Czech tea not being a complete disaster being a highlight! It was actually rather good.

We headed out at about 10am for the Old Jewish Quarter, but didn’t go into anything because it was £15 to go into all but one sites. The other cost £5 alone. Unsurprisingly the two we had set our hopes on seeing were in separate categories and we couldn’t justify spending £20 on a cemetery and the oldest synagogue in Prague!

We spent the rest of the morning looking around Old Town, scaling the old town hall in the process. Probably shed a few pounds in the process! Great views from the top! We then came back down, and had some lunch on Náměstí Republiky before looking round some of old town and some of new town in the afternoon – a particular highlight being the St James Catholic Church, which was worth the wait (we went earlier in the day and it was closed!)

We went for tea at about 6pm, slightly later than yesterday, I had the same as the day before, although better sauce – there are those pounds again! I also had a couple of Pilsner Urquells to wash it back too which, conincidentally are cheaper than cokes. You can get a large beer at the place we ate for 31.90 crowns, around £1.25, yet a 20cl coke (less than half the size of the beer) was 44 crowns, £1.50!!

I digress, after the meal we then headed to Vyšehrad for a quick walk up a hill for a nice view over Prague before coming back to the hotel, and here we are now!

View from Vyšehrad

Me with a pint of Pilsner Urquell

The organ at Church of St James
View from the top of the Town Hall - facing Church of our Lady and further behind in the background, Powder Gate
It was a long was up the town hall...
Laura by the Astronomic Clock

Hello From Prague!

26/05/2010 – 21:11 - Day 1 – Prague, Czech Republic

Well we are here safely. We went to Bristol last night - Laura's mum and dad took us down there, which was very kind of them. We stayed the night with my uncle and aunt who took very good care of us - their hospitality is second to none and we are both really really grateful to them for letting us stay last night, and taking us the airport today.

Flight was smooth and on time, no signs of Iceland number one volcano screwing things up. We got into Prague around 5pm local time, where we got our local transport sorted for the next 3 days (bought 3 day passes each, which are about £3.20 for the day).

We first of all went on the underground to the main train station where we bought our onward tickets to Krakow of Saturday night - we leave here at 9:30pm local time. I budgeted around £60 each for the tickets, turns out to have been just under £40 each which put a massive grin on my face. No problems so far!

We then got back on the underground and headed for the hotel, checked in and headed straight out for something to eat - neither of us had had lunch! The hotel itself is pretty neat, massive room, good facilities (including decent speed wifi!) and the staff seem friendly enough!

The meal we had was also great. We went to the restaurant the Black Baron, I went there in 2008 with Dad when we came to Prague to watch the Villa play Slavia Prague. The restaurant is on Wenceslas Sq. and serves good food for a good price. I had a pork leg with dumplings and pickled cabbage (traditionally Czech or what!) for about 120 crowns, or £4.50, the beer was even better value - 23 crowns, 75p!

We're back in the hotel pretty early. We paid a brief trip to the supermarket but are here early mainly because we are knackered and the skies are currently open and it's pissing it down! Here is to better weather and more energy tomorrow so we can really get out there and see Prague!

3 days to go!

So close now, we cannot wait!

Just to let you know, the posting of comments should be working now, it's been playing up but seems to be OK now so feel free to leave your thoughts and messages throughout the trip!

My sunglasses have been cancelled... they didn't have them in stock. However, the good folks at vision express can do them in one hour, so I'm doing it tomorrow!

TTFN!

One week to go!!!

I just want to say how exicted I am to be going on this trip with Tom! I've been to a few places around the world, but this will be a completely different experience to anything I've ever done before. I can't wait to see how the cultures of the many countries we are visiting compare, and hopefully try some things I've never had the chance to do.

I also want to thank Tom for all the hard work he's put into organising this trip- if it wasn't for him then this trip would not be happening, and my holiday would probably consist of a week in Cornwall.

I can't believe that in one week we will be leaving to go on this amazing adventure, and I can't wait to share it with my best friend <3

Ash Cloud

Trying to keep one eye on the degree is hard when you may have the horrors of having to sort out an alternative way to get to Prague! We've got a contingency, but it would involve leaving London first thing on Tuesday morning, some hours before we actually need to leave. Let's hope the winds up in the skies do us a massive favour.

Oh and first hiccup, my prescription sunglasses won't be ready in time! Great! Probably will have to have them posted somewhere in Poland, which I suppose is another advantage of getting the unlimited calls, I can ring them up in advance as it covers the whole of Europe/World depending on the package. Might be worth getting the world one tbh. 

In other news, I've installed Skype back on my laptop, will be taking it with us. Toying with the idea of getting credit, bit annoying the UK mobile networks are being stubborn to sign up to the unlimited calls package. Anyway, if you have skype, add me at tom.coe. As far as I'm aware Laura has one but if we do get the credit then it will just be on one account so I'll refrain from posting hers here as well. If you do add me, please let me know who you are if you have a vague username. Cheers.

Vietnamese Visas Sorted, Russian Train Tickets in hand....

Well at least the e-tickets! It's all feeling very real now. Only 14 days to go until we leave the UK for 105 days. Scary stuff!

I've now got all of my stuff to take, although I'm waiting on my perscription sunglasses, and it will be pretty hit and miss as to whether I get them or not.

Also need to sort out travel insurance, but that can be done in a few seconds.

Testing Out the Post by E-mail Function!

If this doesn’t work, hmmmm.

Anyway, we’ve sent off for our Vietnamese visas. They got to the consulate yesterday, so expecting them back next Monday/Tuesday.

After that in terms of visas, it’s just the Cambodian visas to sort.

We’ve now reserved our hotels throughout most of the trip. After Vietnam, we visit Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and finish at Singapore before travelling back to Malaysia for our flight home on the 8^th September. It’s all feeling very real now.

The e-mail post function is probably not going to be used very much, although I have it on good authority that Blogger (the site our blog is hosted on) is banned in China.

I’ve also been getting stuff for the trip as well. All I need now are my final round of injections (on the 22^nd) as well as getting some swim shorts and new trainers. Feeling all too real!

When I have time I will post a “page” of our provisional travel plans. We’ve “booked” very little. 2 flights, our hotel in Prague and a couple of trains and buses in Europe as well as a tour in Mongolia. This gives us a lot of flexibility. We have a lot of refundable reservations though.