Monday 20 June We arrived in Krakow in the early afternoon and had a nice coffee in a café at the station before trying to find our accommodation. The weather was fine, so we walked the approximately 850 metres to the Air BnB apartment – outside the old city centre. We've realised that we're both fitter on this trip to Europe than last time 5 years ago, thanks to more exercising and walking before we left. This has made the amount of travelling walking we've done a lot easier. Fortunately the apartment it was nicely located in a quiet street, large and comfortable. After settling in we took the afternoon easy apart from shopping for some groceries.
We did some research about local eateries before heading into the old city. Wroclaw is one of the oldest cities in Poland and has gone through the usual cycle of growth, disasters, invasions, destruction and regrowth. One big difference is that it was not destroyed in the first or second World Wars, and so the historic buildings are originals – not ‘fakes’ as they claim cities like Wroclaw are. It also claims to have the largest city square in Poland. A little rivalry there.
A nice touch is that for many of the important buildings, there is a small bronze model nearby with information about it in Braille. This means that blind people can also get an experience of the building. The old city was build on a highly defensive river location with a high wall and other physical defences which effectively protected it, but which have largely been removed, and replaced by parkland which makes the city unique. The town square is indeed huge, bigger than anything I’ve seen in Italy or France, and dominated by a large market building in the centre – a poplar arrangement in Poland.
Rather than just wander the streets looking for food, this time we carefully selected a restaurant for dinner via the internet. When we arrived it was closed – not open on Mondays! So, we wandered the streets looking for food.
Not far away, we found another restaurant in the ‘Milk Bar’ style with relatively cheap Polish food and nicely decorated, with and English menu, Polskie Smaki. Because we’d arrived a little late, not everything was available, but here was still a reasonable choice. We had also decided to just have a light meal, and not order too much.
Frances ordered Duck Pierogi, filled with duck, fig, lemon and basil. I ordered a Polish Meat Croquette. For sides we had fried beetroot, shredded carrot and shredded cabbage. The food was excellent, Frances particularly enjoying the Duck Pierogi which had a really unique flavour. They also had little bottles of wine, so Frances had a chardonnay which was quite good, while I had a local beer.
We did some research about local eateries before heading into the old city. Wroclaw is one of the oldest cities in Poland and has gone through the usual cycle of growth, disasters, invasions, destruction and regrowth. One big difference is that it was not destroyed in the first or second World Wars, and so the historic buildings are originals – not ‘fakes’ as they claim cities like Wroclaw are. It also claims to have the largest city square in Poland. A little rivalry there.
A nice touch is that for many of the important buildings, there is a small bronze model nearby with information about it in Braille. This means that blind people can also get an experience of the building. The old city was build on a highly defensive river location with a high wall and other physical defences which effectively protected it, but which have largely been removed, and replaced by parkland which makes the city unique. The town square is indeed huge, bigger than anything I’ve seen in Italy or France, and dominated by a large market building in the centre – a poplar arrangement in Poland.
Rather than just wander the streets looking for food, this time we carefully selected a restaurant for dinner via the internet. When we arrived it was closed – not open on Mondays! So, we wandered the streets looking for food.
Not far away, we found another restaurant in the ‘Milk Bar’ style with relatively cheap Polish food and nicely decorated, with and English menu, Polskie Smaki. Because we’d arrived a little late, not everything was available, but here was still a reasonable choice. We had also decided to just have a light meal, and not order too much.Frances ordered Duck Pierogi, filled with duck, fig, lemon and basil. I ordered a Polish Meat Croquette. For sides we had fried beetroot, shredded carrot and shredded cabbage. The food was excellent, Frances particularly enjoying the Duck Pierogi which had a really unique flavour. They also had little bottles of wine, so Frances had a chardonnay which was quite good, while I had a local beer.
