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| Camel toes,
cheap wine and a bad joke |
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Pros: amazing city, many interesting
sights, cosy hotel, intelligent and friendly local population
Cons: none
Krakow,
Poland
Sunday, Oct 05, 2003 15:34
ive just left krakow, and i can honestly say i think i have found
the perfect european city, but more about that later...sorry but
this ones a long-un
my last log was left in Graz in Austria where i flew back to london
for a few days before returning and heading north to Vienna.
after a long train journey and faced with a complicated underground
system (its not really) and with two rejections from full hostels
i finally dumped my bags at around midnight. luckily the next day
was superb, vienna was all that i had imagined with a lively town
centre and a wealth of ornate buildings including the exceptional
St Stephens Cathedral with its patterned roof tiles and the imposing
Habsburg palace seemingly surrounding the old town. after a quick
look at all the mainstream sights, i managed to find a lesser known
series of buildings inc. one called Hundertwasser House which was
designed in a contemporary and very abstract manner somewhat like
Gaudi's work in Barcelona...the highlight for me was the Toilet
Of Modern Art, where u pay 50 eurocents to have your own artwork
displayed for a short period..har har!
the afternoon was gloomy and by nightfall the heavens had opened,
so there was not really a chance to see vienna by night, most cities
i believe look better at night. Given the rain and my limited time
i was keen to escape the western european feel and head into Hungary
and peak behind the old iron curtain. The next morning i headed
to a town called Sopron (pron Shop-ron)just over the hungarian border
and the change was immediately apparent. The magyars as the hungarians
call themselves are a proud race that is the one exception in this
region that does not descend from the Slavs, hence the language
is entirely different, even an accomplished linguist would struggle
with this one! after finding that sopron couldnt keep me entertained
for too long and with the added crappy weather, i decided to cancel
my accomm. for that night and catch the evening train to Budapest..luckily
i convinced the owner that i shouldnt pay half the cost of accomm.
and instead bought a couple of pints at the bar to help me on my
way!
the trip on an old rattler, complete with the smells of thousands
of cigarettes, body odour and god knows what else, was fantastic,
a carriage to myself and sweeping views of the hungarian plains,
complete with the stunning colours of sky you see just after a storm
at sunset..ahhhhh the romance! the train eventually wobbled into
Budapest...
id heard so many good things about Budapest and i was especially
keen to spend some quality time just exploring aimlessly, with a
few museums and sites mixed in...my decision to head straight to
Budapest was rewarded with great weather and revealed a bustling
historically rich city divided by the Danube into Buda (mostly older)
and Pest. the first day i ventured out with the intention of getting
to know hungarys history..i began at the national museum (a logical
place i guess). what i was most interested in and I guess this is
one of the fascinations about eastern europe that alot of travellers
seek out is what things were like under nazi and communist rule.
The House of Terror(one my sister Nat recommended)was just the thing.
its within the famous building Andrassy 60 where both the Nazi and
Communist regimes had their hungarian HQs. v high tech displays,
with authentic memorabilia, almost too much information! videos
of elderly people recalling the brutality, hundreds of real personal
files kept by the socialists etc the tour takes you up to the top
level and then in a lift right down to the basement where both regimes
kept political prisoners and dissidents...it was quite morbid, many
of the rooms used for torture inc. an authentic padded cell, standing
cells, cells with 2 inches of water so prisoners could not sit without
getting wet, gallows and electric shock room...as you exit the building
the mood lightens though as the eventual moves towards democracy
are displayed..all in all a great experience, one i can thoroughly
recommend!
after getting to know some of the other guests at our cosy hostel,
and realising that alcohol was ridiculously cheap a few brews were
sunk that evening and in the wee hours..hence the next day only
one thing was on the agenda..Thermal Baths. Budapest, well hungary
i guess is famous for its underground thermal springs which supposedly
cure your ailments..mine was a severe hangover on the local beer
Dreher. We picked a bath and headed down only to find that it must
have been an open day for retirees, invalids and assorted freaks
of nature, no bikini-clad beauties here. luckily for us, patrons
are required to wear swim suits..phew! the thermal bath system takes
you from a 32 deg bath to a 36 then on to 40 eventually which is
quite relaxing. though the hangover went i was still feeling queezy
at the sight of 70 yo grannies in two piece swimwear...ever wondered
what an already wrinkly person looks like after being the in water
for an hour?? hooheerrrr...
after a bit of a steam room and sauna it was off to the massage
table, where i lay out before a very suspect male masseuse...after
a couple of touches on my exposed behind, my suddenly it wasnt so
enjoyable but thankfully it was over fairly quickly, my mate Brett
though wouldnt have a bar of it and promptly took off! classic.
the next day more sightseeing was on the cards and after a leisurely
late start we bounded off for Parliament and massive gothic building
up against the banks of the Danube..supposedly modelled on the British
houses of parliament. the tour led us through the house of reps
an amazingly ornate room, the guide told us that until very recently
massive blocks of ice placed in underground vents cooled the building
during summer, outside the chambers were lines of cigar holders
with numbers, each for a member who if only attending a short session
could place his cigar still lit and return to continue the cigar
afterwards..the story goes that an especially long speech in the
house was called a Cigar Burner!
after a few days in the city, myself and other travellers dubbed
the city the Land of the Camel Toe. those who now this term, would
be amazed at the number of women who must misread labels on underwear
or worse still dont mind having a front wedgie!
another night was spent getting to know a larger array of eastern
european alcohol including the local wine from the Eger region including
the famous Tokaji a sweet wine with the smoothest of smooth textures,
local Vodka (not so smooth), i think its cheaper than water and
later on though probably not local several tequilas at a bar called
Old Mans Music Club. As the university term has started again the
city is brimming with students, our hostel was smack bang in the
middle...
knowing exactly how to cure the hangover the next afternoon we headed
to the baths yet again this time the much cleaner and flashier Szenchenyi
baths (see pics), mostly outdoor. these baths also had a giant whirlpool,
ahh the memories of spending endless hours making our own in that
shitty aboveground pool!
and gaining a decent hunger..we decided to head to a place recommended
by some other travellers i met..the Mongolian BBQ. 5 of us rocked
in at about 7.30pm for the feast. All u can eat and drink for 3600
Forints, thats around 10 quid, superb. contrary to what we thought
the manager actively encouraged us to down as much alcohol as possible,
remarking "this is only your second beer?" we left there
in a very jovial mood at a quarter to 1...the poor little hostel
only had one toilet...it wasnt to know!
nursing another hungarian hangover i ventured out alone up to Mt
Gellert where the statue of freedom stands, a woman with outstretched
arms looking over the city..quite cool. the afteroon was set aside
for a more active pursuit, caving under the city. thousands of year
of underground thermal flows has carved out caves in the limestone
and as the water table has dropped many of these are now accessible.
with a group of 18 or so of us,we headed in fully garbed with overalls,
helmets and headlamps. the basic idea of caving is to explore and
contort your body into foetal like positions to squeeze through
tiny gaps and holes, two of which were called the Wedgie and the
Birth Canal! being slight of frame i managed fairly easily but some
of the larger people would simply not have fit, luckily alternative
routes were there. this was great fun and a good group, though some
of the other aussie boys were keen to find out the effects of farting
in confined spaces! classic.
after a quick jaunt up to Szentandre (St Andrews in English) (near
the famous Danube Bend north of the city) and some touristy shopping,
and another trip to mongolian bbq the next night, my week in beautiful
budapest was up..though sad to leave i was keen to head up to Poland,
deciding to bypass Slovakia given that i only had a week left of
the trip in all.
the night train through slovakia to Krakow left at 7pm and would
have us pulling into Krakow at 6 the following morning. Id heard
a couple of stories about polish thieves on trains who flog stuff
from your bags while you sleep..but being fairly consciencious in
this area i made sure i lay ontop of my bag, locked it etc unfortunately
the american girl who i was travelling with was not so lucky...although
i literally only slept for half hour spurts, someone had managed
to pull open our squeaky door, climb above her, grab the bag and
steal about 90 US dollars worth of hungarian money...thankfully
all my stuff was accounted for but its still a bit unsettling that
these guys do it so easily
so now Krakow, and as i said an amazing city. arriving in the morning
i had plenty of time to acquaint myself with the city. a number
of things set this city apart i believe, firstly its significance
as part of the Piaste bishopry and medieval poland, the home of
one of the only non-italian popes, the largest town square in europe
Rynek Glowny, a rich but now almost forgotten jewish history, the
funkiest of funky bars, an intelligent and friendly local population,
mostly very confident english speakers, a splendid old town overlooked
by Wawel Hill and castle, the sharply bending Vistula River surrounding,
the fact you can walk into almost any restaurant and be guaranteed
of a filling, inexpensive and uniquely Polish meal but most of all
its probably the cheapest city in Europe!!, a half litre of beer
cost you around 220 Zloty (around 40p - the only cheaper i think
is Prague)
next day we almost missed the bus to Auschwitz, this is where the
bad joke came in im sure you can guess what it was..anyway after
a long bus ride, the tour started at 11 and went for 3.5 hours,
very good for aroudn 4 or 5 quid! the tour started with a short
movie, which though blunt brought our minds to the horror of the
place we were about to see. Auschwitz itself was more a labour camp,
though many thousand of people were starved, overworked, shot or
tortured here. The buildings actually look fairly modern, well built
three storey brick structures. Each contains a museum of some kind,
some with restored rooms but most filled with evidence of the atrocities
committed. Rooms of shoes, human hair, suitcases, clothes, toothbrushes
and combs all kept by the SS and Nazis to send back to Germany..none
ever arrived. then we were shown some smaller gas chambers and the
incinerating room, much of which is still intact. the stack above
these rooms is located a mere 100 metres away from the residence
of the camp commander whose family including 3 kids played happily
in the backyard.
A bus then takes you to Birkenau where the majority of mass murder
was carried out, the vastness of this place is amazing over 3kms
long with thousands of blocks which were full of Jewish, Gypsies,
german criminals and many more. it is simply too hard to describe
exactly how bad it must have been, living in the conditions they
did. A particular point called the Unloading Point along a straight
railway line is significant. here a photo stands of a nazi doctor,
who based on physical appearance is deciding whether people go left
or right..life or death, well at least a slim chance of life, its
quite spooky walking over this very spot. the tour eventually takes
you to the 4 massive gas chambers, where over 1.5 million people
were lead to "take a shower and disinfect before going to work"
after gassing an electric lift raises the bodies into an incinerator
above. these building were destroyed by the fleeing nazis, but much
of the structure is still there. A monument although im not sure
what its meant to represent, stands closeby.
it was back to the city though. although the weather for the 3 days
i was there was not the best, Krakows (pron, KrakoV)many underground
bars kept me out of the rain. i met a belgian student in a diner
and he said hed show me some good clubs/bars etc, i was hugely impressed
by the place as once again all the pubs, clubs and bars went off..on
hearing my accent a couple of people made sure that i tried the
local vodka, this somewhat more potent than the hungarian type.
somehow midnight became 05,30 in the morning and i needed some sleep!
thankfully poland turned out a freezing rainy day, perfect for a
hangover and some much needed catch up on the travelogue! and finally
some pics which youll see above...
am in a town called Wroclaw (pron. Vrots-wav, go figure!)another
great little town in western Poland, but unfortunately its raining
and cold yet again...so im heading to Berlin tomorrow afteroon,
for a few days before i fly out to London..stay tuned, there should
be one more youngieonsafari! |
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