I had somehow managed to go nearly two and a half months traveling overland through Europe, by every conceivable form of public transport, and not gotten lost. Until Gdansk. I had a very simple direct north-south regional train from Gdansk to Torún, but no seat reservation. Trains in Poland, especially regional trains, are ALWAYS late. My train to Torún was late and the train heading east? Showed up the exact minute that mine should have. I got on it. An hour later I was getting off in Malbork, cursing myself. Good things can't last forever!
I did eventually make it to Torún later that evening and got to my hostel without issue. Little did I know, however, that I was going to be the only person in my hostel! Torún is a nice city, but its hard to truly enjoy a place when you feel a bit cut off and alone. Even the girls at reception weren't all that interested in having a chat with me.
The city itself is very nice. The beautiful main square is filled with nice old buildings, the towers and walls near the river are in very good condition, the birthplace and childhood home of Copernicus makes for an interesting, albeit brief, stop and of course, walking along the famous Vistula river, on which the city is built, made for a pleasant stroll.
While I was in Torún I also tried some very interesting food. The first was cheap Indian food, for which I had a coupon, making it even cheaper. Lets just say that cheap Polish Indian food served for a cut rate price tastes very different and not quite like any other Indian food I've ever had. The other food I tried in Torún was baked pierogies - different from the boiled meat/potato/cheese filled dumplings I'd had my whole life back in Canada. They taste and look very similar to Cornish pasties. My advice: avoid Indian food in Poland and the baked pierogies are very good!
Krakow
I left Torún for Krakow, which was to be my last stop in Poland. I had a very good hostel recommendation from my friend Neil and I had several things I wanted to do in and around the city. What I didn't expect was to meet so many cool people during my stay there or for Krakow to become the favourite city of my entire journey.
I arrived in Krakow very early in the morning after a painfully long overnight train ride in which my entire wagon was filled with teenagers whose hormones were raging and whose flirting didn't subsist until 2am. I also shared a cabin with some elderly Poles who decided to have a heated 4-way conversation at 4am. 2 hours of very uncomfortable sleep? Good way to start a new city!
Thankfully, the hostel recommendation was amazing. Immediately after arriving there I met my favourite member of the fantastic staff at Greg & Tom's, Jo, and she showed me to the common area where I snuck in a couple of hours of sleep before the hostel, and its restaurant, got busy. I was able to check in not long after and met two people (of four) who shaped a large part of my time in Krakow: Justine, a girl from Edmonton at the tail end of her two year UK working visa (like mine); and a guy who will henceforth be known as 'The Creepy Guy' (TCG). A weird guy who only wore Cuban heels and who followed me pretty much everywhere I went for 4 straight nights.
It was also through Justine that I met Sam (3/4), a fellow long term wanderer who'd been in Europe for many months and who'd been going wherever the wind blew him. I'd eventually meet up with Sam again a month later, but at the time the three of us had a great time partying and hanging out in Krakow.
I spent my first day stumbling along through a pair of very good walking tours. The old centre has a lot of nice looking buildings and statues, important historical, religious and cultural places and is just a very beautiful place to walk around. In the afternoon I went on a walking tour to the Jewish District. Unsurprisingly, given the proximity of the largest death camp from the Second World War, the Jewish population in Krakow is very small and has dwindled over the years. The district now serves as a cool night spot with pubs and restaurants and as a solemn reminder of the terrible things that happened there. It was quite nice to see all seven synagogues (finally not just yet another cathedral!), a few places where the movie Schindler's List was filmed and the museum which is now in Schindler's old factory.
My second day was spent recovering from the fantastic nightly pub crawls and in going to one of the places I most wanted to see in Poland: Auschwitz-Birkenau. I went with a guided tour, and I feel like the extra 5 euros I spent was worthwhile. The tour took us directly to Auschwitz with a video about the camp playing on the way, included a very good and knowledgeable local guide, took us directly to Birkenau from Auschwitz, and then deposited us back in Krakow at the end.
Auschwitz is a solemn place and it may not be for the faint of heart. Nothing is grisly. If anything, the whole site is incredibly clean and well maintained. But, there will be moments when you're walking around and a view, a section of barbedwire fence, a building, one of the multitude of displays, or something else entirely, will hit you with the full force of what the place was and what happened there. I think everyone should visit Auschwitz, and I think its important that people continue to go there. I can't fathom how someone can be racist, in any form, after being in a place like that. I think that alone should make it a mandatory visit for everyone who can get there.
I met Kayleigh (4/4) on my second night in Krakow, but I was so unremarkable she didn't remember me the next day - or maybe, just possibly, she is an awesomely crazy Scottish girl that doesn't always remember what happened the night before. I do think she was, in some way, responsible for the large cut on my knee when someone tried to haul me up to dance on the bar. Suffice to say, the night life in Krakow is exciting and dangerous.
My third day in Krakow was spent recovering from yet another pub crawl by heading to a milk bar for pierogies and by visiting the Wieliczka Salt Mines. I had no idea what to expect or think in going to the mines, and I hadn't planned on going, either, if Justine and Kayleigh hadn't dragged me along. Boy, was I glad they did.
The Wieliczka Salt Mines have been producing salt and making whoever owned them rich for hundreds of years. There are reportedly several thousand rooms cut through the rock following the veins of salt, but during the tour we "only" visited about 40 of them. One of which is a massive cathedral over 100 meters underground carved entirely out of rock salt. The carvings, reliefs, salt chandeliers and rock salt statues are amazing works of art and I would consider it a must see when visiting Krakow (now that I know about it).
My last day in Krakow was a bit of a sad one. Early in the morning Sam had left to go up into the Tatra Mountains with his Polish friend and Justine was flying back to England. We managed to finally get her the sweet pierogies she'd wanted to try since arriving in Krakow, even if we had to brave a massive deluge to eat them. Thankfully, we're hardy Canadians from the north and a bit of hard rain just meant we had to eat with our feet off the ground as the rain pounded down around us.
My last night in Krakow was going out, as was becoming usual, on a pub crawl hosted by the hostel with Kayleigh and an American girl we'd met at the salt mines, Melissa. It was an eventful night featuring a party tram, Kayleigh biting me, TCG following me from the tram to the club as I lost both Kayleigh and Melissa, and finally getting back to the hostel to get a short amount of much needed sleep before I got on the train. It was with some grogginess, and a lot of sadness, that I left Krakow early the next morning on my way back south after a fantastic two weeks spent in Poland.
Conclusion
If you've read this far and you're still not convinced that you should visit Poland, this may not be the blog for you. Either that, or far more likely, I'm a shit writer.
As I said in the first line of part 1, I love Poland. Writing two blog posts about the country just served to remind me how much I enjoyed everything I saw, the people I got to meet and the great things I got to do. I left with an appreciation for the language, which can be extremely difficult to pronounce and even harder to figure out its meaning. I left with a huge appreciation for all the friendly Poles I met, who I talked to and partied with, and who continually surprised me with their genuine smiles and their sincere generosity. I also left with the full intention of going back some day in the near future!
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