Krr-azy for Krakow.
In Krakow, we stayed at a wonderful Hilton right outside of
the main center over by the once Jewish ghetto of WW II. This was the first time that we stayed out of
the city center on our trip. What we have come to
figure out from this stay is that if possible, always book a hotel inside the
center of town. That way, we can park our car
in a garage and not worry about having to find parking. It also removes the worry of it possibly getting broken into. We really
haven’t worried too much about anyone breaking into it, but better safe than
sorry.
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| Lily made friends wherever we went. |
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| A lovely little bakery in Krakow. |
If you plan on doing a whirlwind trip like Martin and me, know that most hotels charge around $30/day for parking. I always factor those costs in when deciding on a hotel. You can book a hotel for $150 but after taxes
and parking, it can cost upwards to $230. Keep those costs in mind.
One little tidbit, most of the hotels we have stayed in so
far have all been less than $200. I
don’t think that will be the case for some of the hotels down the road, but for
the most part, we are getting off cheap.
All hotels (with the exception of Krakow) have been in the center of town, close
to all the main attractions and sights. All the hotels have been given a rating of 4-5
stars on hotels.com. Our hotel in Prague
was wonderful and it only cost $100/night.
Our hotel in Krakow was only $125.
So, if you plan correctly, it is quite do-able to stay in a nice hotel in
Eastern Europe for pretty cheap.
Now for Krakow. We
loved Krakow and we loved the Polish people.
The Poles have a wonderful sense of humor, they love to talk, give
directions and best of all; Krakow is still relatively cheap (meaning food,
lodging, clothing, etc.)
Early the next morning, Martin and I took a taxi from our hotel down to the city center
because we found it easier than getting over to the metro. The center is so fun. We walked through Cloth Hall, which is a big
old Renaissance-style building in the center of the square that has different
little shops on either side of the walkway. It is called cloth hall because in the Middle
Ages it was used as a cloth market.
Most of the items that were being sold were knick-knacks
and Polish souvenirs, but the building was so old and beautifully decorated that it was fun going from booth to booth. It also made it fun for us to just people watch.
After the cloth market, Martin and I walked over to the McDonalds just off the main square. Not because we wanted a greasy, rubbery hamburger, but because we wanted to see the old vault/tavern that was found in the basement while McDonalds was excavating the site.
We strolled through Krakow and walked through the Walwel Basiclica, Walwel castle (which was amazing) and then
ran into a Polish festival. We loved the festival so much that we stayed there for quite a while looking (and tasting) all the different foods, candies and especially more people
watching!
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| Don't you love my new best friends? |
From the festival we headed toward the Jewish ghetto and
walked around. It was still old and
dark, although it is picking up in popularity in the past twenty years as up and coming. However, for me, after having done Auschwitz the
day before, I was kind of done feeling the heaviness of that period and so we
didn’t stay for long.
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| These flower bouquets were everywhere throughout the city. I fell in love with them. |
When we felt we were good and done with the city center of Krakow, we checked out of our hotel and took off for the salt mines. I really
didn’t want to go on the tour of the salt mines but Martin did, and I felt like we had been doing everything
that I wanted to do, so it was time to relent a little.
When we got to the mine, I asked the ticket
agent if it was do-able to take a stroller down into the mine. I was told, “no problem” and so we started
the descent. Little did we know that we
had to carry Lily and her stroller down a winding staircase with 360
stairs! It was almost 120 meters (390 feet) down and felt like we were in the center of the earth.
By the
time we got to the bottom, I’ll admit, I was sneering a bit at Martin. Then the guide proceeded to tell us that the
tour would be 3 hours long! The sneering started to turn into loud grumbling on my part. It was
already 3:00 pm and I knew that we had a long drive ahead of us. So basically, I didn’t start
the tour off really on my best foot.
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| Down in the underbelly of the mine. |
However, through the course of the tour, it started getting really interesting. We learned that once salt was much more valuable than gold because it helped to preserve food. The preservation of food meant life was sustainable, and that is was what really mattered. In fact, the word "salary"is derived from "sal" (salt) because at one period of time, workers were paid in salt, not gold. Throughout the tour there were sculptures carved from the salt of all sorts of different subjects. There were also areas that depicted of the miners and how they mined from the 1300-1800's.
After 3 hours, Martin and I were both itching to get out and on the road. Lily was just itching to get out of her stroller. So we pulled a "we gotta get outta here card" and were swiftly taken up out of the mine by the fastest running, open air elevator I have ever been in. It was worth the 3 hours just getting to ride in the elevator.
Soon we were out of the mine and into our car. The roads here in Europe are very easy to navigate IF you
can read the road signs. When reading
the different street names, it has become very funny for Martin and me in
trying to sound out the different names of the streets (especially funny riding the metro in Russia). By the time I have sounded it out, I can't remember what I have just read. This is a little frustrating for Martin while
he is trying to navigate through the busy streets.
While the road from Krakow to Budapest (our next
destination) is a well-marked freeway, I decided that I wanted to go another
route because I wanted to stop in the town of Eger in Hungary. Not so smart, but Martin was willing to take
a different route and we set out to discover new land. We were fine until around 9:00 pm when the
sun went down and we were about to enter into Slovakia. It got even sketchier when the map that we
had just simply stopped. Luckily Martin’s
adventure races came in handy. He can
read a map by just fixing his positions on lakes. Plus he has an amazing sense of
direction. Without a beat, he’d look at
the map and say, “We need to head this way.” I’d be like, “Okay, because I have
no idea where we're going.” Finally at around 10:30 pm, we found ourselves on a small road
with only one lane and trying to make sense of the road signs. I was more than nervous. Even more nervous that there would be another car coming in the opposite direction on a darker than dark night.
Finally after what seemed like hours, we saw a sign that read, “Slovakia.” I still can’t figure out how Martin did it, but we knew we were at least going
in the right direction. About an hour
later we stopped at the first gas station and decided it was time to break down
and finally buy actual road maps of Europe.
NO more guessing where we were going!
The only problem was, that it was in Slovakian. Close enough.
We reached Eger, the town I wanted to see, at about 1:00 in the
morning. Martin was taking a quick
30-minute nap while I drove through the town looking at it in the dark. I mean if we were going to come all this way,
I was at least going to see it--even if it was in the middle of the night!
From Eger, we arrived in Budapest at about 2:30 in the
morning. We couldn’t find the hotel I
had booked and we were both too tired to try and deduce where it would be, so
Martin paid a taxi to guide us to the hotel.
Best 10 euros ever spent.
When we drove up to our hotel, I was giddy. First, because we had FINALLY arrived and
second because the hotel was beautiful! I knew
I was going to have a magical time in Budapest.
I can’t wait to tell you about the city that I fell
completely in love with. It was just magical from the moment we arrived.
To be continued…
