Krakow is for the restless. Day five. Old Town

Once again, I wake up bright and early. And the reason for this is not even the change of time zones (in Poland the time is an hour behind the Ukrainian time). At home I can sleep until 11. No, for some reason it’s always like that when traveling. You’re exhausted, fall asleep “without back legs”, and then you just wake up and go about your business.

Went out to the living room with my laptop, decided to get a little work done, checked the comments on the blog at the same time. A lot of new ones, modeled them, but it’s hard to answer – the keyboard on the laptop works every once in a while. I booked a hostel for the night for 30 zloty.

By this time the landlady is serving breakfast. I make sandwiches with butter, sausage and cheese, and drink tea. It’s enough for the first time. Today I don’t plan to leave Krakow, but just wander around it at a leisurely pace, with a glimpse of the historical center.

I don’t want to carry my things and then walk around and look at different parts of Krakow on foot, so I decide to take public transportation. After packing my things, I go out and buy a 24-hour ticket at the nearest streetcar stop. It will be enough for me to leave for the train station tomorrow and go back to Przemysl.

In the meantime, clouds rolled in and a light rain began to drizzle, but it stopped quickly. I got to the Hostel Deco with a transfer, where I left my things in the locker. They tell me that I will be able to check in after 14:00, but I don’t need to check in earlier. I go for a walk.

I take the streetcar and bus to a couple of stops and get off near the park. My mood is lousy. I sit down on a bench and start sadly surfing the Internet until I realize that I can’t do that! I don’t have much time to see even the basic sights of the city, how can I afford to waste these precious minutes?

A chocolate bar and muesli with yogurt help to recharge my energy and mood. After that I take out my camera and without much preparation go for a walk through the streets of the historical center.

To be honest, I’m not particularly impressed. It looks very much like the Ukrainian Lviv. However, there is a lot to see here, even despite the huge number of tourists. Especially if you have time to take a leisurely stroll around these places in the evening, in the company of a loved one, holding hands and dreaming….

After wandering around a bit I go to the train station. There I buy tickets for tomorrow for Kraków – Przemysl with a transfer to Rzeszów and with a strange section on the InterRail Bus, which I will chase with three policemen the next day =) But that’s a separate story.

In the meantime, I buy more yogurt and decide to go to the aviation museum. The recently visited aviation museum in Kiev left good impressions, so after learning about a similar one in Krakow I decided to go. I came to the stop of streetcar 10, which goes there and… I mixed up the directions! It went back to the center, to the fortress. I decided to go towards the embankment, where I spent my time with pleasure, until the clouds came and the rain started to fall.

I decide to eat at the mall. I go back to the train station. There’s no point in my movements, I’m just riding around using my pass 🚊

I buy “something” with chicken, salad leaves and tea. It tastes bad, has zero usefulness, and the price is 23 zlotys. But it’s nutritious. I go to the exchange office and change another 30 dollars. It’s a lot, of course, I would have had enough of what was left, but I preferred to have a hundred zlotys in cash. That way I felt safer.

But I find a branded Swatch outlet. It is a brand of cheap Swiss watches which position themselves as inexpensive accessories (it is called Second Watch), but the watches look very good. Saw a model I’ve been wanting to buy for a long time. Here they cost about 150 dollars, as much as they should. In Ukraine with its taxes under them there is a price tag of almost 6 000 hryvnias, which is 300 dollars. Thus, you can buy abroad, save a lot of money and get back TaxFree. You can even go to the next time for this watch specially 😎

I arrive at the hostel. There is another girl at reception, again a fellow countrywoman – from the city of Ternopil (the one from Fine Misto). She gives me the key to the room. The system is interesting. Here, instead of room numbers, there are names. For example, I lived in Jazz. The decoration was appropriate.

In general, the hotel was dark, there were a lot of nude photos on the walls, and there were two girls in lingerie sleeping in the room. I even at first I thought I was in some themed hostel. 🔞😀

In fact – everything is pretty good. The only thing – in my room the door closed with a strong slam. Well and my constant attempts to forget the key card in the room.

I wanted to go to shoot night Krakow, but the plans were spoiled by the sudden rain, so I had enough to run to the nearest store, buy some fruit and chocolate, then get comfortable in the room and start working on my laptop.

I decided to take a new towel, they gave me a deposit of 10 zlotys at reception. I took such a salutary shower and went to bed. Tomorrow – the return trip to Przemysl with adventures like chasing a bus with the police and a four-hour service in a pizzeria.