Get Yourself to Kraków!

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I lived in Germany for nearly three years, moving back to the states in 2012.  Tom had moved back to the states about 10 months ahead of me.  While living overseas, Tom and I did a good amount of traveling.  Some of it together and some of it solo.  Trips included Italy, France, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, England, Scotland, Malta, Latvia, Belgium, Romania, Spain and of course traveling around Germany.  Our travels, however, never included Poland.

When we moved back overseas last year, this time moving to Italy, I promised myself we would not leave Europe again without getting ourselves over to Poland.  The main draw for me was getting to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  I'm going to dedicate a separate blog post about our visit there but I want to first share about our time in Kraków.

We had a long weekend in January over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and we were trying to figure out what to do.  We had originally planned on driving south of Tuscany to visit the Umbria region but every agriturismo we reached out to was going to be closed in January.

Tom was researching other possible trips and found insanely cheap plane tickets on EasyJet heading up to Kraków.  For about $100 the two of us flew, round trip, from Venice to Kraków!  We found great parking by the airport that only cost 20 euro for four days and autostrade tolls were just 11 euro.

Tom also found a great AirB&B right around the corner from Kraków's main square.  It's called "20 Steps to the Main Square," here's the link.  The host is terrific; location is phenomenal, and we couldn't beat the cost.  It was about 35 euro a night.  Needless to say, transportation and lodging costs were the cheapest part of our trip, which is usually not the case when you're traveling!

We did very little traditional touristy stuff in town.  We didn't go into any churches or museums.  We just did a lot of enjoyable walking around and exploring, shopping and eating.  The historic Old Town area is terrific and we also went down to the Jewish Quarter.  

Every meal was delicious.  We tried several soups (beetroot, mushroom, matzo ball and a few more), LOVED Polish dumplings (pierogi) and had mulled mead at several different restaurants.  We tried goose, duck and a couple different fish dishes.  I had my first Polish wine, a Riesling.  We also tried 12 different kinds of vodka at a local bar called the Wodka Cafe Bar.  Who knew you could get vodka flights!      
Camelot, Bierhalle, Kogel Mogel, Cafe Camelot and Pod Aniolami (Clockwise)
Bring on the soups!  Pod Aniolami, Klezmer-Hois, and Kogel Mogel
And here are some of the libations.  My favorite was Tom's fruit salad hot mead.
We might have gotten a tad bit overzealous at Duty Free in the airport on the way home.  Before this trip we had one single bottle of vodka in the house that we bought at a distillery in South Carolina when we were there for Maxwell's wedding.  We brought home six bottles of vodka from Poland.  In the photo below you see the bottles but you can also see, in the background, one of my new Polish pottery pieces - a tea pot and warming stand.  We plan on using those for hot cider and gluehwein at parties.    
I would recommend any of the restaurants we visited.  We were really lucky to get a table at Pod Aniolami.  We did not have a reservation but fortunately they were able to get us a table downstairs.  Ambiance was terrific!  Check out their website for more photos and a nice video. 
So...here are some of the things I loved about Kraków.  I already mentioned the fantastic Old Town area, very walkable and tons of shops and restaurants to check out.  I LOVED that they still had all their Christmas lights up.  Christmas lights just do something special to a city.  Music in all of the restaurants was REALLY good.  Like so noticeably good that we noticed it!  The Polish people we met were very warm and welcoming and most did speak some English.  I have never seen horses so decked out as the ones in the Old Town market square.  We splurged and did a carriage ride.  I just felt so light and relaxed while there.  It really was a VERY special trip.  Possibly in my top five but definitely top 10 trips.  I would go back and highly recommend visiting. 
Saint Mary's Basilica
Cloth Market
Town Hall Tower
Our beautiful horses
Other decked out horses
Christmas tree still in market square!
I LOVE Christmas lights.  So festive and beautiful.
So those are just some of the highlights from our trip to Kraków but THE highlight was certainly our trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  I think it's a pilgrimage every human being should make.  Keep an eye out for a future blog post on that.  To bring this one to a close.  Here is a final photo of me and Tom on our last day.

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