Poland

Monday 8th July

Krakow

We set off this morning, leaving Bratislava for Krakow, Poland!

It was an 8hour bus journey through the most beautiful countryside crossing through Slovakia into Poland. We also saw some interesting structures along the way.

I quite enjoy our bus rides, they're relaxing and fun, we have our little picnic lunch and snacks and it's a great way to see more of the country. Today however my bladder decided about 3/4 of the way there that it had had enough and I was desperate to go to the toilet. Now our trusty old flixbus's always had a toilet on board but I'd never had to use one yet, I built up the courage and made my way down the bus, trying not to fall over as we went over bumps and turns. I climb down the stairs and open the door to the little cubicle. Oh my gosh the smell was the first thing that hit me, then as the bus is throwing me around I'm trying not to touch anything and I open the toilet and I nearly puked, it was so full it was all sloshing around the bowl. There was no way NO WAY I could possibly do anything and stay uncontaminated. Disgusted, traumatised and dousing myself in handsanny I made my way back to my seat bladder still full and hoped there weren't too many bumps for the rest of the journey!

We arrived in Krakow later that evening and it was like going back to winter, it was so cold! I feel like a wintery vibe is exactly how I imagined Poland to be so I'm super happy. It's so beautiful here already, I can't wait to explore!

We made our way across town from the bus stop to our accommodation on the other side of the town. Our accommodation is amazing, it's in a typical Northern European apartment building on the first floor and it is just so cute! It's cute and grand at the same time, I feel so posh! The decor is so cool and the most amazing part though is that there is a bath in the middle of the room! I love it, it's amazing!

We nipped out to find a grocery store to get something for dinner and realised that it is actually really cold, which is a bit of a shock to the system and also that Poland is so incredibly cheap!! It is by far the cheapest place we've been so far.

We got our dinner and spent the evening relaxing and enjoying our luxurious apartment by having a bubble bath while watching David Attenborough on the Tele.

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Tuesday 9th July

Krakow

Today was such an amazing day! I love Krakow!

We headed out to explore the old town and my golly it's beautiful, I think I've fallen in love with this city.

We wandered into the Old Town and through the main square its and just typically Northern European and just the feel in the air is magical, the city feels like being at a Christmas market it's incredible. It's beautiful!

They also seem to have a thing for goats playing a recorder here!

One of the things Sam was excited about seeing in Poland was the CD Projekt Red building, the company that took the Polish book series The Witcher and turned it into a very successful video game series (one of Sam's favourites), which is now also a popular Netflix show. So we walked out of the city and found the building!

We then returned to the Old Town and continued to wander around, marvelling at it all.

Our meanderings took us out of the main area of the city towards the Wawel Royal Castle and we saw a chimney cake shop known as Kürtőskalács in Polish (and which is the Trdelník that I'd had in Vienna). It's kind of like a sweet pastry with caramelised sugar on the outside shaped in a cone and then filled with different fillings. I had to introduce Sam to these, so I ordered a strawberry Nutella one and Sam ordered a chocolate Brownie one, mmmmm they were so good!! The people in the shop took so much care in making them as well, it was so lovely!

We sat on a bench, people watching at the foot of the castle eating our delicious treats and then went for a walk down round the castle and across a bridge out of the city. It is so beautiful here.

We walked along the river for a while and had beautiful views of the castle.

A little while later we started to head back to the Old Town. We were just wandering the streets, marvelling at it all and soaking up the atmosphere when we stumbled across a hidden Harry Potter cafe. It was so exciting!! We followed the little sign that we'd seen, into a building and continued to follow the signs until we came to some stairs leading to the underground cafe!! It was so cool! It felt so secret! We went down the stairs and it was amazing! It was incredible! It was the most well done Harry Potter thing I've seen, all the decorations and decor were incredible! We decided to order a pumpkin juice, which for all the muggles out there tastes like a healthy carrot juice concoction, which was actually very tasty. The cafe was amazing and had board games to play while you ate and drank, so we found snakes and ladders and had a wonderful time playing that and sipping on our juice! It was so magical and I think what made it so incredible was that we just completely stumbled across it!

We eventually left the world of magic and wandered back home for dinner, a bath, and some David Attenborough.

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Wednesday 10th July

Katowice

We said goodbye to Krakow and hopped on a bus for Katowice Airport. We're flying out of Katowice tomorrow and so are just staying out near the airport because we couldn't get to the airport in time in the morning if we didn't!

We drove through Katowice on the bus and it looks so different to Krakow, it's all big buildings and looks much more like a business city. We arrived at the airport, and headed inside to find some lunch before walking to our accommodation. It is freezing here!! We tried to get food from a few different places in the airport but none of them were serving food! Uh oh, the airport is the only place we have to get any food from! We found somewhere that was still making food and got a delicious looking Polish dish/ fast food called Zapiekanka that was essentially a baguette cut lengthways with topping and sauce on it, and it was exactly what we needed, it was so tasty and just good cozy winter food (even though it was summer!).

After our feed, we walked from the airport, down little country lanes, passing fields and a few houses and arrived at the cutest accomodation! It was a little room in an almost motel kind of looking place. We had a little room and then there was a shared bathroom and little kitchenette to make a cup of tea. It was so cozy and felt like we were in a cottage in the Polish countryside!

We had a nice chill afternoon, staying in the warmth of our little room, just hanging out.

Eventually when we got hungry we rugged up and walked back over to the airport to see if anyone would serve us some dinner! Everything was shut except for a little sandwich/news paper store so we found some nice looking sandwiches to take back to our little room for dinner!

We were so tired and knew we had to be up ridiculously early for our flight tomorrow so had an early night, loving every moment we had spent in Poland.