I got up, had some hotel breakfast and headed out on foot for the Old Town. First, I figured I’d stash my luggage in a locker at the train station so I wouldn’t have to bring it from the hotel later, in case I was pressed for time. I had got a little sunburned the day before, so I first had to acquire some sunscreen from the apoteka. I walked along the Nowa Swiet (New World) to Castle Square, and then followed it into the Old Town. I’ll just let the pictures tell the story for the most part here.
I visited the MariaSokolowsky Curie Museum, which was $2.75 admission, and was small, but informative about her life and career.
I hit a bit of a wall at this point, and walked down the hill from the Old Town to the Multimedia Fountain, and I sat down against a wall and rested and people-watched for a while. From there, I walked to the Warsaw Uprising Monument, which was massive.
Next was the POLIN History of Polish Jews Museum, which set me back a whole $7.50, but was well worth it. The museum kicked off in the 10th or 11th century, with the arrival of Jews in what’s now Poland after emigrating from the Middle East, and followed their history through the centuries to the present day. I didn’t know that 80% of the worlds Jews lived in Poland before World War II, for instance, and that Poland had traditionally been much more accommodating to them than other countries.
It was only a couple of hours until I needed to catch my train at this point, so I started working my way back to the central station. I stopped and bought some postcard stamps at the post office. Molly’s flight into Warsaw was departing late, putting her connection to Krakow in jeopardy, so I tried to work out some logistics with her in case she missed her flight, but I eventually got on my train to Krakow.
The train to Krakow was much less modern than the train from Brzeg, with no digital monitors in the cars and no air conditioning. It was stifling in there, and I’m glad I’d brought a big bottle of water along, although it was still pretty miserable. I had to make an unexpected train change on the outskirts of Krakow, but I figured it out without too much trouble.
The marked route from the train station to Old Town Krakow takes you through a huge shopping mall, which I’m not sure is necessary. Anyway, it was about a 20-25 minute walk from the station to Hotel Globtroter, which was located on a beautiful square above the frattiest dance club imaginable.
I got checked in, bought some bottled water and snacks at the nearby Zabka, and wrote postcards with some Polish sports talk show on in the background while I waited for Molly to arrive. Her flight was late from Warsaw as well, so no problem with the connection, but public transit didn’t operate that late from the airport, so she had to take a shuttle. She finally rolled in at about 1 a.m. and we crashed for the night.
This is Day 5. Here's the full list of posts from this trip:
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