Krakow in 35 degrees

Heading to Krakow in Poland on Day 4 of our big trip seemed almost easy, having navigated the flights over from New Zealand, then traipsed through Paris and London on our own. The first big mission, however, was getting from Reading to Luton, about an hour and a half's drive. I had every confidence in Barb. After all, she's driven for years, car, buses, all sorts of airforce stuff, I figured getting through the English countryside would be a breeze. And she'd got back from Luton on Tuesday (yep, that's right, just before our mad dash to Paris).

A minor point about the English countryside that I had missed until this Thursday was that the roads are just a little different to New Zealand's. Just a little motorwayish different. (I love the way all the roads are called by letters and numbers - makes it a lot easier to fit on a map! - but you wouldn't want to be out by 1 or 3... the M1 takes you somewhere a little different to the M4).
But then again, it was 3.30am, we had merely to leave Reading by way of the M4, find the M25 and then exit to The North on the M1. No kidding - the signs (of which I neglected to take a photo) pointed travellers either to London, or The North. That's like, all you people who live outside London, we can't be bothered to mention any names of towns. You just live up there somewhere.

(It wasn't until a few days later when travelling, again on the M4, to The West, that I realised they don't bother to put the names of towns on the signs, as if they did, the signs would have to be freakishly big for the sheer number of places they would list). Now, I won't lie, the presence of roadworks on the M1 (or was it the M25) worried me a little. I had seen signs mentioning that if we were heading to Luton, we should be in the left lane. That would be the lane some distance yonder, over the guardrails, traffic cones and so on.

What didn't worry me so much was the speed at which we were able to travel. 80mph wasn't uncommon. Speed cameras would snap for those going above the average speed. Which meant we could travel to the conditions (and fast, which did a lot for my fears about getting to the airport on time). Suffice it to say, we soon found ourselves in a small village, making our way to a large carpark. A quick hop on the shuttle, and 15 minutes later we were at Luton. On time (by which I mean, we were there before the check-in counter closed at 6.30am - who am I kidding... we were first in line)!

Avoiding the large stag party (all in t-shirts labelled on the front 'Dave's Krack-off June 2010' and on the back variously 'Goon', 'Groom', 'Seamstress', and the one I liked (t-shirt that is)... 'Token Aussie'), we sat down for breakfast and to breathe easy for the first time in a while.

So, finally, Poland. From the air, Poland looked like a large country with lots of substantial houses, surrounded by a lot of land.

Some facts for you: houses are generally built from concrete blocks, with very thick walls. Often they house a few generations. 70 per cent of Poles live in rural areas. Motorways are good, other roads are not. Seatbelts in the back seat (apart from for children) are not compulsory. Speed limits appear optional.

Our arrival at the airport amused me. We landed, then disembarked the plane only to embark a bus. Then into the airport itself. (As we flew EasyJet, and I'm just a little Scottish, we didn't pay the extra to queue-jump, but did strategically position ourselves so that at every point we would be first in the queue of people who didn't pay extra). However, the first block was at Customs.

Three lines for EU people, and one line for the foreigners. EU people made up about 80% of the total, so I thought we would be through pretty quickly. We were about third in our queue. I hadn't counted on the first person in the queue taking longer than all the EU people together. So, slipping across the rope barrier (avoiding the customs officers in khaki carrying guns), we finally made it out into Krakow airport, to collect our lonely bags orbiting the carousel.

Wow - Krakow! 35 degrees and, need I say, it was HOT! Off to the back seat of a Citroen that would see a lot of me in the next few days, we roared into Krakow. Our driver was Jacek (said Yat-sic), Boz's (or Bozena's - said Beau-jaina) brother. Boz is Barb's sister-in-law. Jacek doesn't speak any English. Pete (Barb's brother) doesn't speak much Polish. So, there we were, Jacek, Pete, Barb, Me and Jacob (Pete and Boz's son). (Jacob speaks both English and Polish, but as he is two, is not so good at the translating).

Krakow (or Cracow - with a v at the end) is a stunning city. It was one of the few Polish cities to be saved from major destruction during many wars, and you could easily spend days here. For us, however, we had an afternoon before heading to Falisewice, 60 miles hence.

Our first stop was the Royal Wawel Castle. It sits near the city centre, and is built atop a hill (as every good defensive castle should be). Having seen Hever Castle in the mellow English countryside just days earlier, this castle was totally different. One similarity, however, was the crowds of tourists. Sigh. We chose not to join the huge queue, and instead made our way to a souvenir shop and stocked up on t-shirts and postcards Polish.

Now, an old myth or legend (or true story - who knows) of Wawel Castle is that a dragon lived in a cave beneath it. So off to the dragon's cave we went - down into the bowels of the hill on a dizzying spiral staircase. We wound down, down, down into the muddy base. Yes - it was believable - a dragon could have lived here.

Exiting back into the heat, we found a variety of stalls with souvenirs, including many dragons. Jacek kindly provided us with ice-creams, and we made our way on the shady side of the street towards the main centre.

While exploring Krakow was definitely on my list, walking any distance in the heat didn't feel a good plan. We had seen the tourist golf-carts earlier, so after a brief negotiation, we found ourselves set for three hours. So, Krakow proper. We did the Jewish quarter, the central city and hopped out to see Schindler's factory. This is where I really got closer to World War II and the persecution of the Jews. Seeing the ghetto where there was a mass extermination, the memorials to the people killed, and the variety of synagogues was eye-opening. In Poland, World War II is not that long ago, and you can point to the places from where the Jews were taken. Heavy.

But the city itself was beautiful. I didn't get a shot of the gardens that ran from Wawel Castle to the main square, but they were almost reminiscent of the Champs Elysees - without the traffic. The city was really easy to get around, with heaps of stalls in the main square, selling all sorts of amber and other trinkets for the tourists.

The city really did cater for tourists, and the horse and carts traipsing through the square (complete with tourists) while we ate our second meal of the day at 3pm (the first was at 6am) was pretty cool. This, I have to remind you, in baking heat. However, it was only the first 'main meal' in the middle of the day that we would have in Poland - one of our first learnings was that the family where we stayed ate their main meal in the middle of the day - a traditional hot cooked meal, with meat and vegetables. Yes, there was cabbage, in case you were going to ask. But only with one meal, and it was done beautifully. There was more noodle soup than anything else... apart from the cake. But these and other stories I will tell in my next blog or two.

Krakow - beautiful city, old cobblestones vying with modern roads. Golf carts galore for the tourists and a fantastic castle to boot. Old and recent history give this city a definite personality. It is a survivor.

More from London

London was a city that felt like it has been photographed millions of times (well, there were millions of tourists with cameras on the day we were there), but this page has a few of the photos I took, of things that took my fancy.

The first picture was taken as our bus whizzed by Trafalgar Square. Named after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (the most decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars), I guess it wasn't surprising to see that Admiral, Lord Nelson abounded. Well, in statue and in ship if not in body.

Something that not all of you Londonites (all those friends and family who have lived in, or near London, or just visited there a long time before me!) will know about the newest shrine to Nelson (erected May 2010) - a giant ship in a bottle, of which I took a photo as our bus whizzed by Trafalgar Square on our second time through.


I was stunned at just how many statues there were in London (and Paris) - something I never have noticed in Wellington (but since returning, I have been looking at the architecture more, and discovered there are statues in Wellington). Funny how visiting other countries makes you much more aware of your own

So, Nelson. I was surprised to see how 'real' Nelson is to the inhabitants of London. In Windsor Castle (many days later), there was a whole room dedicated to Admiral Lord Nelson and the battle of Waterloo (and not a small room either!).

This leads nicely in to my thoughts on World Wars. Here in New Zealand I've never really thought much about the wars - apart from where they touched my own family history. I had a great-great-grandmother, Annie Robinson, who lost two brothers in the First World War. Then, twenty years later, she lost two brothers in the Second World War. Can you imagine her sending away her sons in the knowledge that wars are real, and do kill people? And when I say she lost brothers and sons, that's a euphimism for the fact that they were brutally killed. On purpose. By someone else. In peacetime, that's called murder.

Anyway, for me, the wars are about my ancestors losing people. In London, I saw the results of the bombing of the 1940s. It is in the gaps in the streets (more often than not filled with brutish 1950s buildings) and in the scars on the buildings. We saw some of these scars as we travelled the streets of London. In Poland too, I noticed that World Wars were not far from the surface. I guess that in New Zealand, we are physically remote from the actual events of the wars, so are not reminded of how many lives were affected, less than one hundred years ago. Sometimes distance and isolation is a good thing.

Back to London! Another fascination for me was seeing the names of things that I know - Paddington Station, Edgeware Road, Leceister Square... all names on the monopoly board. Combine this with famous brands, and history - shops that were established in the 1700s for example - for a Kiwi girl, these things made London very familiar, yet hugely different. To me, England is what New Zealand will look like when it finally grows up (in about 1,000 years).

How was this for mixing famous names (Twining), ancient history (I mean, Twinings Tea started operating in 1706. That is 63 years before Captain James Cook set foot in New Zealand, and 136 years before my family decided to settle here (in Nelson)) and a fascinating piece of architecture (check out the size of the buildings either side!)?

Another new thing in London were the many elephants scattered around the streets. Each was painted or decorated in a different way, and apparently represented the work of different artists. They were placed on the 1st of June, and would be auctioned off at the end of June. Fundraising for some charity or other. These elephants were in Green Park, just beside Buckingham Palace. It was a little odd to see them there - from the pomp and ceremony of The Mall and Buckingham Palace, to a group of... fantastically painted... elephants.

Not the Tower of London as our guide hastened to tell us, the Tower Bridge was an instantly recognised landmark of London for me. And for Liliane, who knew its name, and a few nights later, showed me that it featured in her Peter Pan DVD. What surprised me when I watched the opening scene in the DVD is how true to life the London scene is - I was able to tell Liliane that I had seen many of the types of houses in which the Darlings lived. Speaking of the houses, I was surprised to see so many brick houses - I simply hadn't realised that the majority of people in England (OK, so this may be a gross generalisation) live in brick, terrace, houses - all joined together! It was almost odd to come back to Wellington, to each house with its own land, completely separate from its neighbours.

The photo above was taken from a spot quite near the actual Tower of London. I didn't take any photos of that place - some say it is the most haunted building in England, and I have to agree. Terrible things happened there - the building has an horrific aura, and although I would dearly love to see the Crown Jewels, and (before my trip) was keen to go inside, nothing will get me inside that place. Cold, dark, dank and haunted. 1,000 years old (started by William the Conqueror), so ancient and historical - what I went to see, but no way. Nohow. I will leave that for others less aware of ghosts.

Many people seem to remember St Paul's being black. On the day I went, the sky was certainly black, but the church was white. I found the sheer size of this beautiful building hard to understand, but my favourite story (from our guide) was that there were pineapples on the top of the building. Pineapples, guilded in gold. My initial reaction was that the guide was pulling my leg, but no, squinting up (and avoiding the raindrops) I could see these ornaments for myself. This was one of the few stops on our whirlwind tour of London, and I'm so glad I got off the bus, listened to the stories, and had a closer look for myself. Beautiful building, I will be back.

"Look up, way up, and between these buildings on your right!" Doing as our guide had told me, I managed to capture a quick photo of the 'wedding cake church'. Our guide explained that a baker's daughter was getting ready for her wedding, and wanted a fantastic cake (probably one that would blow away her in-laws, and all her friends). The man, wanting to please his daughter sought his inspiration everywhere, until finally, looking to the skies, he saw the steeple of this church. And so was born the first tiered wedding cake. Cool story, huh!