Beautiful Polska Part I - Wroclaw and Krakow

This was the trip I did back in 2009 to visit my colleagues hometown in Wroclaw, Poland. I lived in Dublin during this time.

I arrived at Dublin airport just an hour before departure and online check-in is a lie! Ryanair said online check-in can reduce the time of queuing and can be at the airport half an hour before take off. Well that is a complete lie! Imagine if everything pre-booked and pre-registered or pre-check in, if all people doing the same, the other end must be congested because people are after the same thing and they are after the same plane in this case. There’s no such thing as ' minimizing queuing by online check-in'. It made me thinking I shouldn't have checked- in online because the more people made it online the lesser the people need to queue at airport check-in. Same goes with priority boarding that gives passenger to board first but when the boarding opens to regular passengers, they run passing the last group of priority list. I was in that group of regular boarding haha.

Like a miniature model facade

The flight time was about 2 hour. Wroclaw airport was small, sort of regional airport within a country. I spent
couple of hours in town center before the friend i'm visiting, picked me up to his place. The weather was raining and cold the whole time I was there, it was the starting of summer month and I didn’t bring any warm jacket. It was sort of a wrong timing because the week earlier it was sunny and warm. I thought it would be sufficient to bring normal long sleeve t-shirts during summer but it did not. The building facade at Wroclaw square is like a miniature model, full of color and interesting composition. With its colorful brick it is the main attraction of the town.

Colorful and celebrated facade

My Polish friend has an apartment in Wroclaw, located on top floor of 6 storey apartment complex about 20 minutes driving from town center. He was staying with his twin brother and we used to hangout alot while they were Dublin. They only have 2 single beds so he got me an inflatable mattress for my stay. BUT he didn’t get the pump because he honestly thought that we could take turns to blow the mattress using our own breath. It would take us forever. He tried, I tried too but it didn't work. Luckily his brother was in town so he called him to buy the pump.

He drove us to town and we were searching for a nice restaurant to have our proper dinner before club. It would be nice to have traditional Polish meal but it was kinda difficult to find any. When I was sharing with other Polish roommate, I had a taste of Pierogi -a traditional polish pastry and it was nice.We ended up at this middle east restaurant called SPINX , so yeah middle east restaurant in Poland.

I'm not really a party animal but sometimes I like to see the crowd and enjoying the fast adrenaline , most nightclubs start early and finish early in Poland. We went to IN GUSTO nightclub and it was close to main Square. There was another nightclub next to it on the basement. I enjoy techno/house club but knowing it is full of teenage asshole inside, its best we skip it tonight he suggested. Smoking still permitted in enclosed public place in Poland not like in Ireland. But smoking inside nightclub was terribly stinks as the smoke stuck to our cloths. We left the club around midnight , back home the party continues with HIS collections of euro techno/house anthem . Sound much better than the nightclub me think.

Freedom from destruction freedom to have a new soul and life reborn

Originally I planned to stay in Wroclaw for 2 nights and 1 night in Krakow but realizing Krakow had much interesting sights to see I left Wroclaw sooner.
But I booked Flamingo Hostel only for 1 night at the next destination. Getting off Krakow train station I quickly ran to the hostel in hope they had 1 free bed . But no luck! It was full house. It wasn’t a surprise because Flamingo Hostel was best hostel worldwide in 2007 voted by customers who booked via Hostelworld website. The receptionist suggested to go to Faust hostel as it might have free bed and they were. But they only had double bed for 160 zlotich or around 36 Euros per person. That wasn’t expensive for one and it’s located opposite Flamingo Hostel.

That night was final match of Polish Soccer League or something that I encountered from the train to Krakow that a huge die-hard soccer fans gathered out on the main streets cheering up supporting their teams. It was a whole shouting and cheering the whole night that they even had a large parade on Szewska Street. I stayed in the hostel avoiding the mess. The next morning I checked-in Flaminggo Hostel into this 4 bed dorm.

An Icon of Krakow

Had a little chat with the hostel roommates, he said normally people go to visit Salt Mines that has the biggest underground church. The tour took 4 hours by bus and guided by an English guide. Krakow City Tour brochure mentioned there were 2 Must See places in Krakow  1)  Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp 2) Wieliczka Salt Mine. These 2 trips just fitted my 2 days in Krakow. With the cloudy and rainy weather  the Salt Mines underground tour was perfect and I left the anticipated Nazi Camp Tour the next day.

Continue in the second part HERE.