Another 4 days, where have they gone?!
On Wednesday, we spent the morning doing some gift shopping in Kraków city center, which was only 5 minutes from our hostel. We also started a game of ‘who can find the most useless item for less that 30 zloties’ – a game that has yet to finish but I believe we are ending a few hours from now.
That afternoon, similar to how we rented some electric scooters in Riga, we found that in Kraków you were able to rent some bike-esque electric vehicles (with seats, handlebars, lights) to ride around the city streets. Of course we had to have a go.
It was immense fun, though we were even a little bit dubious of their legality! Certainly had some funny looks from the locals… Amazingly, none of us had any proper crashes, though there were a few instances of us over-zealously leaning over the edge of the flat-edged tyres and nearly chucking them up the road!
We also had a short go in a mirror maze and tried a VR roller-coaster which was an enjoyable side-track.
That night we had a meeting to discuss how things had gone so far and gave a final goodbye to Dan who would be leaving early on his own the following day.
On Thursday morning, I went on my own to pick up Tom Clist from the airport and upon returning to the hostel we did the obligitory explanation of everything he had missed!
Thursday afternoon we actually split the group. I had found that a good hill climbing friend of mine, the Harvey family, were visiting Kraków that week and so went to meet them for ‘a couple’ beers in a pub in the square.
– Above photo courtesy of Allan Harvey
Poland tip – if they ask if you want a small or a large, bare in mind that the large will be a two-pint glass! Something I became painfully more aware of as my afternoon went on!
Meanwhile, the rest of the group attempted to visit the Oskar Schindler’s Factory museum, but found it was fully booked…a common issue we’ve had with a lot of activities in Poland it seems. Instead they went for a walk, then we all met back at the hostel that evening.
We thought we’d do something different that evening and so went on a free ‘horror’ tour of the city which was very interesting albeit slightly chilling.
On Friday morning, we got the bus from Kraków to Zakopane in the Tatra mountains.
The weather forecast for the weekend was wet and stormy, however we decided to risk it at least for one night so we could get some camping in.
Friday afternoon, we got the lift up to some of the higher Tatra Mountains, and finally invested Tom Clist as a Network member. We did this exactly on the border of Poland/Slovakia, at a nippy 1955 meters. I think we may struggle to one up that investiture ourselves.
– Above photo courtesy of Tom Williams
That leads us to this morning. I woke up at about 8 o’ clock and you could see the clouds in the distance. We opted to quickly get the tents down as the rain started – with the assumption that according to the forecast it was going to get much worse.
And it did. We got a bus into the town and upon exiting, it was by far the worst rain we have had so far – beyond torrential. Luckily, we managed to find some shelter in a restaurant and planned for the rest of the day, while trying to dry off a bit.
We were limited in options due to the weather, so everyone apart from me went off to a local water park – while I planned to try and send the gifts we’d been carrying for a few days back to England. Suffice to say, it was a failed attempt as I didn’t find anyone who could speak English… Hopefully Czech will be better?!
Tonight we are staying in a rented apartment, with the intention to spend tomorrow morning doing some more activities here then we’re heading back to Kraków to get a bus to Prague, Czech Republic. Going to be busy!
