Krakow bound; free walking tour, cheap shots, gherkin chasers couch surfing, unexpectedly cold weather, Zapikanki, and new friends from all walks of life.
Due to road works and getting a wee bit lost, we rocked into Krakow at 6:30PM. Meeting up with our lovely Krakow host Karolina, we dropped off our bags, got ready and headed out to explore the city by night.
Heading to the largest town square in Europe, enjoying a beer with two of Karolina’s friends in one of the oldest pubs, followed by a delicious food known as…Zapikanki.
Our host Karolina 🙂
Zapikanki is half a ciabatta covered with your choice of toppings. They were huge so Tim and I shared and we were both pretty full!
Ours had spinach, corn, spring onion, bacon, tomato, mushrooms and garlic mayonnaise. They cost from $1-$3 (AUD) and are very filling.
Deliciousness
Next Karolina took us to a nearby vodka bar where we enjoyed €1 vodka shots followed by eating a gherkin (instead of a liquid chaser), which kills the taste of the vodka. Next we enjoyed lemon infused vodka, which tasted delicious.
Starting to get full Karolina said it was time to go to her Italian friend’s house where lasagna was waiting for us!!! Not knowing how we managed to fit it in, we enjoyed a slice of lasagna too 🙂
Geni, Pio and Keena were hilarious, I think it took us about 10 minutes to take a group photo. Pio was using his fancy voice recognition phone to take the photo and the amount of times we had to command the phone to take the photo before it would register was hilarious. We were all in stitches of laughter by the end 🙂
Next we had fun with Pio’s Bambino, the car was tiny!
Classy
The way we acted, you would have thought we had been friends for years
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Today we found a Free Walking Tour in Krakow, which started at 11AM and 3PM, we decided on the 3PM ‘Jewish Quarter tour’.
Meeting at the St Mary’s Church in the Town Square, we were split into separate groups of 30, had a quick briefing and then left for our tour, which started with us following the footsteps of former Jews from Krakow.
We walked at least 5km over the 2.5 hour tour, which ended at the Shawshank Redemption factory. Our guide was very knowledgeable and explained a lot about the Krakow history and the horrors that the Jews went through during World War II.
Tim and I were unfortunate to have arrived in Krakow on one of their coldest days in awhile. Only wearing a thin jacket, we found ourselves getting colder and colder as the day went on. By the time night had fallen the temperature was reaching 0°C, heading towards -2°C and our stomach muscles were hurting from shivering so much!
When we met up with Karolina at 7:30PM she took us to an authentic Polish student place to eat, where you can buy cheap local food.
Defrosting, we enjoyed our feast! The amount of food was unbelievable, especially because it only cost $6 each, tasted great and was very filling.
Gherkin soup, pork schnitzel with potato, salad and mushroom dumplings.
Defrosted and warm again we headed to a nightclub where a few of Karolina’s friends were. Enjoying a drink here we headed to one more drinking place and then headed back to Karolina’s.
We had such a great time with Karolina and her friends. Everyone were warm and welcoming, it made us wish we could have stayed longer. Karolina was such a lovely, kind hearted host, we felt lucky to have had the chance to meet her and that she accepted our request 🙂
Krakow is a beautiful city, with so much to see and do. I highly recommend visiting if you ever plan to make your way to Poland, as the history and architecture is very interesting, the food tastes great and the people are really friendly.
Tomorrow we were making our way to Budapest, Hungary via Auschwitz concentration camp.
