Wawel and Pawel
It was my final day in Krakow, even though this is the first post I’m writing. That’s not a paradox. I made notes for the other days in a notebook, but didn’t bother on the last one, so I’m typing this while the memories are still warm. Warm-ish. Much like the weather. And before either Wawel or Pawel have made an appearance, here’s a small joke: today involved both, even though neither has yet been introduced. Trust me, it’ll make sense later.
I got up reasonably early and checked out of the hotel by 8:30. The luggage stayed behind while I crossed the square to Starbucks. I hadn’t prepaid for hotel breakfasts, and I didn’t fancy the cost or the volume. Starbucks does good coffee, ham-and-cheese croissants and cinnamon buns. In fact, I only used the hotel breakfast twice. A worthy start to the day.
My plan was to walk down to the Royal Castle. Locals call it “Wawel”, which is a word I’d been saving for this moment. It was about three‑quarters of a mile away (the castle, that is, not the word), and I made a brisk walk around the eastern side of the Planty to get there. The weather was bright but breezy. Right on the proverbial jumper/no‑jumper boundary. I tied mine around my waist and hoped for the best.
Castling About
At the castle I found a queue, because we British love a good queue. The ticket options were bewildering. I’m not a “museum” guy, so I chose the free option of wandering the grounds and paid 19 złoty for access to the viewing platform. That ticket also included the Royal Gardens, though I’m not convinced I ever found them.
First up was a trip to the gents. Priorities. I’m getting old, you know. And anyway, there had been some beer involved the night before.
The viewing platform sits on a tower in one corner of the balconied courtyard. Access involves a lot of stairs, which you pay for. I was given a credit‑card sized badge indicating my ticket type. At the top the view was decent, but not the panoramic sweep I’d expected. A huge brick tower blocked the river to the south. The cathedral blocked the old town to the north. Partial viewing platform, then. The courtyard looked good, at least. On the way back down I presumed I was supposed to give the badge back, but was met with a look of indifference bordering on confusion when I attempted to do so.
That was me done with castling. I wandered down to the riverside, where there’s a fire‑breathing dragon. Well, a bronze statue with a gas connection. It flames periodically, and there’s a virtual geocache requiring a photo with the dragon mid‑flame. The legend behind it tells of a dragon living in a cave beneath the castle. In medieval accounts, the creature terrorised locals until a clever cobbler fed it a sulphur‑stuffed sheep. The dragon exploded. As legends go, it’s quite a finale.
Kazimierz Calling
I crossed east into Kazimierz, the old Jewish district. It’s more of a party town now. Most Jewish residents were forced into a ghetto across the river in the 1940s and then onto far worse fates. Kazimierz today is filled with synagogues, street food stalls and tidy buildings. It was busy, but not quite as pretty as Krakow Old Town.
By now it was about 1pm. I had to decide whether I had more tourist in me or whether I’d finished. I’d walked a fair distance and still had most of a mile back to the hotel. Plus it was warming up. So I called time on the holiday. Back at the hotel I had a very nice salad and a cold drink in their restaurant. Then I recovered my luggage and snoozed in a lobby chair for an hour.
Pawel Awaits
My lift to the airport arrived at 4:30, and we were there by 5. Here’s the other half of the title joke: Krakow Airport is named after Pope John Paul II — Jan Paweł II in Polish. Wawel and Pawel. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Except I wasn’t. It was my last day.
As there’s only one BA flight a day, check‑in desks aren’t open all the time. That meant standing around like a lemon for 50 minutes until we were two hours before takeoff. A queue formed behind me. We British, huh? Security was straightforward, but airside isn’t impressive. The airport is arranged so that one end handles flights outside the Schengen Area. Once you pass passport control, you’re committed. Thankfully there were toilets, a bar and a snack shop.
Passport control took ages. The border guard was apologetic and chatty about the new EU biometric checks. They don’t work well. Boarding started 50 minutes before departure. Early, I thought. Too early. The plane was still being cleaned, so we stood on stairs for ten minutes and then on the tarmac for another ten. At least the weather was nice. The flight left on time and arrived at Heathrow on time too.
The Long Road Home
The car park had lost my pre‑booking and tried to charge me five days at public rate. A queue developed behind me while I negotiated over the intercom. Once driving, the M40 access from the M25 was shut. The M1 was apparently horrendous, so the sat nav routed me around Hemel Hempstead. That put me into vaguely familiar territory, so I made the bad decision to continue to Milton Keynes and onto the A5.
The dual carriageway on the A5 in MK was down to one lane. The single‑lane section north of MK had lorries everywhere. I needed food and a toilet, so at Weedon I headed back to the M1 and stopped at Watford Gap. McDonald’s apparently doesn’t do milkshakes late at night. A shame, because that’s all I wanted. I grabbed a bottle of strawberry milk instead.
My next bad decision was staying on the M1 rather than taking the M6. Normally fine, except a key junction on my cross‑country route through Ibstock was shut for resurfacing. I had to U‑turn in the road and pick my way through housing estates to get back on track. What should have been a two‑hour motorway cruise became over three hours of detours. I got home at about 1:30am and was unsurprisingly tired the next morning.
Another good day. A long one. A complicated one. But a fitting end to Krakow.
