Warsaw and Krakow
Initially we were supposed to spend just a day in Warsaw, and move to Krakow for the “real” site seeing. We were told by more than one person that there’d be little to see, and one day was enough. So we booked just one night in a hostel, but after the first evening walk through the old town (the hostel was right on the outskirts of it) we booked the 2nd night as well. I must say, the only thing we did not like about Warsaw was their “pirogi”. “Pirogi” is what they call “pel’meni”, but we just like Russian version better.
What we saw of Warsaw was very clean, well taken care of, and just very nice to look at. The streets, the old buildings, the parks, the squares – pictures will hopefully tell the story.
Aside from the pirogi the food was great. There was a street market right next to our hostel, and we kept them in business for the 2 days we were there. Our lunches included sausages, pickles, bread, waffles with boiled condensed milk, and lots and lots of Kvas.
Another thing that was right around the corner from the hostel was a daily fountain laser show that is choreographed to music, and tells stories; we wanted to post a video, but it turned out to be crappy (the video, not the show, you may blame the camera operator if you will)
We also covered a great deal of sites with Jewish history – we did the entire Jewish Warsaw walk which tells the story of the Jewish history of Warsaw, and commemorates the victims of the Holocaust.
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| 2011.08.20 Warsaw |
From Warsaw we took a long train ride to Krakow. It took us almost all day, so we had a chance to catch up on our reading. Not on writing though, sorry. Krakow is another beautiful city however we felt it was too commercialized, too touristy. It also felt like too many youngsters come there just to drink. It might’ve been the impression we got from our 1st hostel. We, being the good tourists, covered most of the ground– the Wawel castle, the squares, the old Jewish neighborhood Kazimierz and more. Also followed most of the recommendations from Vahe, and enjoyed them tremendously (thank you very much, Vahe)
The tours offered by the local agencies are mostly very expensive, so we only took the one that we absolutely had to being so close to the place – Auschwitz. No matter how many times you hear about the Holocaust, the feeling does not change…
Luckily that evening we happened to hear some live music, and stopped by to see what was going on. Turned out to be a courtyard with a bar, and a band playing on stage. They were playing mostly rock-n-roll covers, and were super good at it. Beer was good too. They were also very funny apparently, but we did not get much – they unfortunately were being funny in Polish.
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| 2011.08.22 Krakow |
As we are writing this, we are sitting at a café in Berlin waiting for Olga to come join us. Last day in Krakow we went to the bus station to get a ticket to Prague, and it turned out to be more expensive that we’d hoped, so right there on the spot we decided to go to Berlin instead – the tickets were cheaper, and it would add to our trip.
As we are finally posting this online, we’re in Prague after a full day of site seeing. Hopefully soon enough we’ll post our impressions of Berlin (and Dresden, which we visited on the way to Prague), and of course Prague itself.
To all our friends who are going to BM – have a blast! We wish we could’ve joined you this year.

