Days 28-29 – Sightseeing around Krakow: Katowice to Krakow

Sunday February 1, 2015, 85 km (53 miles) – Total so far: 2,340 km (1,454 miles)

Day 28: Katowice to Krakow – 85.4km

My trick of drinking loads of water before going to bed again did the trick and I woke up without any hangover to speak of. I actually felt pretty fresh!

Myself and Fearghal took a few photos outside before I headed off. He said that he had to prove to people back home that he had made a confirmed sighting and that I was still alive! With that all taken care of I bid farewell to Feargal, the last friend from back home I would see for quite some time.

***A shot of myself and Fearghal before leaving. Fearghal took this shot so technically it’s not breaking my no selfie rule!***

***All set and ready to cycle off into the cold***

I had a huge amount of urban sprawl to navigate through once I left the hostel. There was something like 20-30 kilometres of never ending suburbs and satellite towns. If I was able to take the main highway this wouldn’t have been too bad but unfortunately for me bikes were not allowed on this section of road. Thus a frustrating morning started as I had to navigate around back roads and frozen cycle paths trying to find my way back onto the parts of the highway where bicycles were allowed. I wasted a lot of time going down dead ends and cycling carefully along snowy and icy cycle paths but I finally made it out of the urban sprawl and back onto regular roads.

***One of the only shots I got of Katowice. You can see the mysterious “Spodek” spaceship like structure peeking out to the left of this photo***

***Taking a break while trying to figure out how to navigate around the labyrinth of roads and cycle tracks running parallel to the bicycle restricted highway***

***One of the many frozen cycle paths which I had to carefully cycle along***

Once out into the countryside I was under pressure to reach Krakow before dark (this was becoming a common theme!) I had no option but to put the head down and cycle at a fast pace all the way to the edge of the city. My hard work paid off and I arrived into Krakow just before darkness fell. Here I was able to follow cycle paths most of the way to the old town where the hostel I had booked was based.

***Finally emerging out into the countryside***

***Arriving into the outskirts of Krakow as darkness begins to fall***

I had planned to take a day off in Lviv to meet friends I had made during a previous trip around this region last year. The main guy I knew however was unable to get the time off work so I had to plan my arrival to coincide with a weekend. This meant that I had 5 days to cover the 350km which lie between Krakow and Lviv. Realistically I knew this should only take me 4 days so I decided to take a day off here in Krakow where there were a lot of things to see.

One of the main reasons I had chosen such a northerly route through Europe in the winter was so I could revisit this region which I had enjoyed so much during my previous trip here last year. I had also hoped to take a side trip to Kiev by train but unfortunately I did not have enough time to spare for this as I had taken so long to get through France and Germany. This was a bit disappointing but getting to Istanbul for the start of March so I could start the lengthy visa process for Central Asia was the most important thing. Therefore I made do with a day off relaxing around the city of Krakow.

Day 29: Rest day in Krakow

For my rest day in Krakow I decided a bit of good old fashioned sight seeing was in order. One of the main things I was interested in seeing was the old Schindler’s List film set which had been left half forgotten in an old quarry in one of Krakow’s suburbs. I met up with a friend of a friend that morning and over a hot chocolate in a cafe she was able to give me exact details on how to get there along with plenty of information on the surrounding area.

The film set for Schindler’s List had been built as an exact replica of a concentration camp that lay just hundreds of metres from the actual site of the concentration camp itself. This original concentration camp had long been demolished by the Nazis however some very small parts of the replica still remain hidden in the base of the quarry. This has mostly been demolished also but there were still some interesting things to see and the location itself was well worth the trip out here to see. There’s a much more detailed post on the camp here if anyone wants to read up on the location further: https://polandian.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/schindlers-list-death-camp-krakow-off-the-beaten-track/

An abandoned fort which lay nearby the Schindler’s List quarry. There have been renovation plans for this fort for for the past couple of years but every time renovation starts someone is either seriously injured or dies of a work related death. As far as I remember this has happened three times now so people have just given up on it now and it lies closed and forgotten.

***Lime kilns from when the quarry was operational, whether these were the lime kilns from the original concentration camp or a later addition I’m not entirely sure.***

***I heeded the advice and found an easier way up!***

***An overview of the quarry from one of the old lime kilns***

A reconstruction of the tombstone roadway for the Schindler’s List film set. The original concentration camp had been built upon an old Jewish graveyard and the main roadway through the camp was along the old tombstones. This meant that the prisoners had to walk on top of their graves when walking around the camp. A similar tombstone roadway was built here for the film using casts from original Jewish tombs.

***Old fence posts from the Schindler’s List concentration camp***

***One last view of the quarry from the other side***

***A view of Krakow from a viewing point above the quarry***

After a good walk around the area and climbing to the main viewpoint over Krakow (I couldn’t see much as there was a mist down over the city) I made my way back to the city centre. I spent the rest of the evening wandering around the architecturally impressive old town taking in the main square, seeing the various churches and climbing up to Wawel castle to see the sun set.

By the time I had descended form Wawel castle it was dark so I found a small restaurant the guy on the desk at the hostel had recommended. For €3.50 I was able to have a soup and a huge plate of chicken, chips and a salad. The cost of living over here was insanely cheap.

After this I headed back to the hostel. With a big cycle ahead of me the next day I was hoping for an easy enough night. This of course didn’t happen. For the first time on this trip I was surrounded by other tourists so inevitably I ended up having a few drinks with them in the common room/bar of the hostel. Soon enough we had a collection of 15 or so people from nearly every corner of the world. Free vodka shots were poured out by the hostel and things started getting hazy!

We headed out to some of the nearby clubs as part of a hostel deal which included loads of shots and pints. Due to having to keep the weight of my luggage down I’m unable to justify the weight of jeans on this trip so I had great fun trying to get into the clubs in a tracksuit! I only ended up being stopped at one of them, in Ireland you wouldn’t have a chance of getting into any clubs so I didn’t mind too much. The drinks kept flowing and it ended up being 2:30am before I finally saw sense and decided to call it a night. I was surprisingly hammered, the vodka shots had done their job well! It ended up being a surprisingly good night actually with good craic between all the hostel guests. When I got back to the hostel I collapsed in the bed forgetting to set an alarm and forgetting to drink any water. Tomorrow morning was going to be fun…