Krakow Part 1....

As you know we visited Krakow a couple of weeks ago with two of our friends. We spent three nights and four days there. The flight took about two and a quarter hours and it was already dark when we landed. We took a taxi to our hotel which was about 15 minutes outside of the centre of Krakow. We had booked the Galicyia hotel online and weren’t disappointed, it was really clean and comfortable.

As we hadn’t taken much luggage it didn’t take long to hang up our clothes and jump in a taxi to take us into the centre to have a look around and get something to eat. First we found a bar and ordered a beer each. The bar staff didn’t speak much English and when the waitress brought the beers she pointed to a flyer on the table but we weren’t sure what she was talking about. Eventually we figured out that if you bought four of this particular beer you got a free glass tankard! We ordered another four beers and got two. Of course we had to go back the following day and do the same so we could have a tankard each – well you would wouldn’t you?

We had a walk round and decided on a traditional Polish restaurant for our evening meal. We had a look at the menu but were unsure what to order so the waitress recommended the Country Trough – we agreed as we were starving and a trough sounded good! First they brought the drinks (most important) and some chunky, homemade slices of bread with two dishes – one containing pork dripping full of bits of pork and the other contained cream cheese with onions. You might be thinking YUK but let me tell you we devoured all of it and it was delicious!

The trough was literally a huge trough carved from wood filled with huge chunks of pork, beef, lamb, chicken wings, ribs, roast potatoes, dumplings and rice. We devoured that too, but could hardly walk by the time we’d finished.

The bill came to 126 zlottys (about £42) for four of us. We put 2 x 100 zlotty notes on the bill but were careful not to say thankyou as the waitress picked it up. You may think this strange but we had read that if you say thankyou it means keep the change and that would have been one hell of a tip! Of course once she brought the change we did leave an appropriate tip and the food and service were so good we ate there the next two nights!  The following night we did actually say thankyou as the waitress collected the money and the bill and guess what?   She didn't bring any change!

Stuffed and content we managed to stand and button our coats then set off for a walk round the city, calling in a couple of bars for a drink before we got a taxi back to the hotel.

Krakow Part 2 coming soon.