We spent most of last night debating what to do for the next 8 days. It turns out most of Poland has next week off, and all of the places we were planning to stay next week are booked. After a lot of discussion we came up with three options. 1. Stay around here and explore Krakow and the Malopolska region in depth. 2. Drop down towards Vienna, where the Austrians only have Wednesday off, so things are a little less hectic. 3. Spend three days exploring Krakow, and then drive straight thru to the Baltic States, where they also only have Wednesday off. Explore the Baltic states and then return and finish Poland.
Ton got out a piece of paper in the end and wrote down the day by day plan for each option, and we decided to stay in the area. It turns out rental cars are ridiculously cheap this week, we can rent a nice car for about $13/day so moving around will be easy. We love the campground we are in, the facilities are first rate, and the owners are bending over backwards to help us, and the price is very good. Also, there is quite a bit to see in this region, and Krakow is reported to be a city that merits multiple days to see.
With our plans decided we started our day by heading over to the airport to get our cheap rental car. The first place we went tried to rip us off by demanding we buy full insurance coverage from them because we could not produce an international drivers license. The insurance they insisted on was 3 times the cost of the car rental. They really had this act down, first refusing to rent the car, then as I was about to walk out, the guy said let me see what I can do to help you. That’s when he hit me with the I can rent you the car if you buy our outrageous insurance. We walked out, went down to another rental agency and 20 minutes later we were on the road in a nice Corolla. It ended up costing us $20 dollars more for 8 days than the original place. The international drivers license never came up.
We decided to head into Krakow and run a little reconnaissance on the old town. Krakow is the second largest city in Poland, and the most visited by tourists so the downtown was pretty busy. Its near the end of the school year so there were lots of students on field trips in the old town.
Our quick pass thru town showed why it is a big tourist attraction. Unlike most cities in Poland Krakow was not fought over in WWII, or subjected to any bombing, so the medieval and 18th century buildings have survived intact. It was the ancient capital of Poland before Warsaw, so it has always been an important city, resulting in a lot of interesting buildings. Also, it has one of the few intact Jewish quarters in Central Europe.
After walking quite a bit we were a bit hungry so we headed down to a smaller market where there were a bunch of small food stalls. There were several kebab stands, and a couple of small pastry stands, but we were there for a Polish specialty called Zapiekanki. This is a recent food development going back to the 1970’s. At that time the communist government decided to allow a limited number of private food stands to operate, from this loosening of control came the Zapiekanki. It is a half of a baguette covered in cheese, ketchup, and other toppings. During the communist era the toppings were basic, today they can be quite exotic. The one we choose was called the Diablo, and included hot sauce, jalapenos, mushrooms, and Arab sauce. It was delicious and pretty spicy.
By now it was pushing 4 o’clock so we launched ourselves into stop and go rush hour traffic. Greta Garmin led us down a major road heading north out of town. The traffic was moving at a crawl but we were going with the flow. Then Greta told us to turn left onto a road that looks like it will be completed in about 2027. I had bad words for Greta, but she insisted that the construction site was the way and would not pick another route. We finally had to put her in timeout and break out google maps to get to the campground.
After having the campground to ourselves for two nights we now have neighbors from France. When, the wife saw our plates she was very happy and hit me with a blast of French only to be disappointed when I told her in very bad French I was American and couldn’t speak French.
