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 10
th or 11
th 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:
