Day one in Krakow

Dark cold and wet morning in Eastbourne So about a month ago I was reading ‘The tattooist of Auschwitz’ and deciding that the ‘See Auschwitz’ that was sitting in my bucket list ... needed to be ticked off! A early Sunday morning I started looking at flights and Hotels in Krakow and within a couple of days I had convinced Ashleigh, got the time off work and booked our trip.

This then leads to us dragging our tired little body’s out of a warm cosy bed at around 5am to get ready on a dark cold and wet morning in Eastbourne. We are kindly getting a lift from Ashleigh’s dad to the airport and after a ‘smooth’ drive there, we say goodbye and make our way to the north terminal. As we are boarding the little train, a family runs over looking very stressed and asking if this train goes to north terminal, we reply in the very British ‘I hope so’. As we get off, they all run off into the distance and we later bump in to them at check in. They look even more stressed as EasyJet are saying that their hand luggage is too big and is making them check it it, I over hear the staff members saying they only have 10 minutes till boarding closes. Me and ash have all the time in the world and while this family are running around ... we stroll through security, have a little look in the shops, buy some drinks and wait for our gate number. Slightly later than planned we get gate 46 and make our way down to board. This seems like an eternity, we were supposed to take off at 9:30am and we are not even on the plane at this time. Then over the tannoy system, they announce that they want to remaining passengers to check in their hand luggage due to space. Me and Ash keep quite and just walk through with our backpacks (there is absolutely no way that we are checking in our backpacks) we then get told that we have to go down stairs to board (which I know means we are walking to the plane) worth noting that it has just started chucking it down and I have my camera in hand ... not ideal.

Almost felt like we had landed in Spain

We get on the plane a little bit wet, get settled and not long after we are speeding up the runway for take off. This is definitely one of the more bumpy take offs that I’ve experienced and it felt like it took a week to get above the thick English cloud... but once we did the views were incredible, the blankets of cloud looked like a carpet and almost un realistic.

I would never say I feel comfortable flying but views like this I’d say are worth the uncomfort. The flight was fairly smooth and once the amazing clouds had cleared I started watching ‘El Camino’ the Breaking bad sequel. Time flies and before I can even finish my film we are coming down to land. As we are descending there is no sign of a city anywhere all just farmlands and I begin to wonder if I have booked a flight to the wrong airport. As we land and disembark the plane we walk out to hot sun and blue skies, almost felt like we had landed in Spain. We head over to security of this tiny airport and getting past security takes an age. We head to level one, make our way to the train station and buy a ticket to ‘glowney’ which is the main train station in Krakow. This cost 9zloty each (which is less than £2) the whole process of getting to the city centre was super easy, the trains were spacious, on time and only took about 20 minutes.

No clue how the hell to cross a road

When we arrive in Krakow the first thing we experience is a shopping centre. For some reason the main train station is situated inside a mall. We head to the exit and being super hungry we see a Burger King and go to buy chips and use their wifi to find our hotel. I decided I take us the scenic route to our hotel which turns out to be a mistake as it’s super warm and our bags are super heavy. Anyway I take us through the gardens and down a long road past a couple of museums and so far the city looks awesome! Lots of people in no real rush to go anywhere, it so far feels very chilled and very safe. We didn’t know much about Krakow before but one thing we’re certain of ...is that we have absolutely no clue on how the hell to cross a road here. They are like zebra crossings but with lights, but the lights don’t work and the cars seem to stop, but the trams don’t seem to stop and once you’ve got around this you then have to dodge the hundreds of electric scooters buzzing around. Anyway we get back to our scenic route with heavy bags and after about a 40 minute ‘long way’ round we make it to our hotel and check in. We are staying at Hotel Galaxy (all booked as a trip through easyJet holidays) and the staff spoke perfect English and were very friendly.

We are room 534 and we head in the lift to go up and we are chatting for a few minutes in the lift before we actually notice the lift hasn’t moved and we need to tap our key card first. Our room is very nice although is pretty much your standard hotel room, but we have a river view, spa included and free breakfast. We quickly dump our stuff and I take us back to the main square via a ‘faster’ route. Ashleigh is not impressed with some of the dodger looking roads I took us down, so we head in to the main road and end up finding a cute little polish market (we are guessing this is just on a Sunday) there was kids singing polish songs and lots off food/drink/craft stalls, it felt almost like a cute Christmas market. We then wander into the main square and it is absolutely packed.

So far it has been a fairly quiet city but it’s because every tourist must be here. It’s beautiful in the square and there are statues and fountains and incredible buildings all around, but the sheer amount of tourists found it hard to appreciate so we walked up a few of the streets to look for a restaurant, what we actually ended up in, was a Carrefour as ashleigh was looking for chocolate and crisps.

BAM The worse wee I’ve ever needed

We end up choosing our restaurant which is in the corner of the main square (perfect for enjoying our pizza, trying a local beer and watching people pass through the square) We have English couple sitting next to us and about 10 minutes after we sat down they were leaving. As the guy walks off I get Ashleigh to shout over to the guy because I thought he left his jacket. She tells him and he awkwardly explains to her....thats a blanket. I look at her like she’s a weirdo and like I have nothing to do with it.

After 2 beers and a delicious meal we are leaving the restaurant, I think to myself ‘do I need a wee’ No I’m fine. We walk literally 5 minutes out of the square and BAM The worse wee I’ve ever needed. We have a half hour walk back to the hotel, we do not pass a single public toilet and I’m not joking every step was agony and I thought I was either going to wet myself or burst my bladder. Ashleigh is acting like a smug mother who’s telling me ‘ I told you you should have gone earlier’ and had zero sympathy for shameful need a wee walk. After probably the best and longest wee ever recorded we head down to our spa. The changing rooms are mixed but the showers are separated. The pool is looks soo inviting but is so disappointingly cold that neither of us can brave it tonight, so we head to the sauna and then to the hot tub and relax after a long day. Once we get back to the room we pretty much crash out asleep.