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Thrusday 7th Sept 2006
Sometimes you choose to go on holiday. Sometimes the holidays choose you.
Veronika's work unexpectedly shut down for a week and we were left with time on our hands. We had planned to visit Slovakia's Tatra mountains sometime in October but we'd already been warned it would be very cold. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to seize and visit the mountains while the weather was still warm. To add haste to our impetus, 20cm of snow fell in the Tatras that night.
While studying the maps we also noticed that Krakow, another destination on our hit list, was only 200km over the border in Poland. Fate was now not so much nudging as wildly semaphoring us in that direction, so we loaded up the car and headed off.
From Prague we headed down the motorway, turning right and Brno and heading east into Slovakia near Zilina. We stopped for lunch here and sourced some Slovak currency. Zilina has some nice buildings but is grimy and industrial, a feature to be repeated often in Slovakia. The people are no happier than in the Czech Republic either. We headed further east and up into the Tatra's, our damp and grey journey illuminated briefly by a rainbow that seemed to promise better things.
Our introduction to the Tatras wasn't inspiring. The peaks were covered in clouds, the weather grim and the scenery mediocre. We opted to stay in the slightly run down hotel "Panorama" in the mountain resort of Strbske Pleso. The interior was better than the exterior and a nicely furnished double room cost us 1200SKK/night or about 30 Euro (they did sting us an extra 160SKK/day for parking!). We reasoned that if the weather improved we'd want to take advantage of it quickly and, although we could have saved money by staying further away, we might miss an opportunity to walk in the mountains.
The next morning the weather was still grim so we had a tour round the area, visiting the nice little town of Levoca (with its hilltop church) and the damp and hilly Slovensky Raj. We rounded the day off with a short (3 hour!) walk to a mountain lake in the failing light and dined very nicely that night in the 'Slovak Restaurant' near our hotel. We retired early, for the weather forecast predicted better things to come!
The next day dawned with warm sunshine and a stiff breeze and we were out of the hotel by 8am. We had picked a circular route across the Bystre Sedlo at 2400m above sea level and requiring a six hour round trip. The star was a bit damp and cold but the sun soon sparkled above us and the mountains peaked out from their veiling mists. The path was well marked and as we cleared the tree line we were treated to a beautiful deep blue sky and glittering patches of snow. We sat and ate lunch in the lee of a boulder and luxuriated in the sunshine. At the top of the walk, the snow underfoot was getting thicker and softer so we shortened the walk. We turned back at the lake, 200m below the summit and followed a shorter trail back though the 'Chata pod Solisko' (roughly 'Hut under Solisko') to our hotel and another session at the rustic 'Slovak Restaurant'.
We lit out from Strbske Pleso the next day, heading for the border and a little town called Červený Kláštor (Red Monastery) that a friend had recommended. We reached the town around 3pm and found a well equipped camp site by the river. Červený Kláštor is paired with the Polish town of Sromowce Nizne and the two are now linked by a shiny new, EU funded bridge. It is therefore possible to stroll from Slovakia into Poland and back again in the space of five minutes. So we did.
We officially entered Poland a little further up the road at the town of Niedzica. Just across the border we stopped for morning tea next to the castle, which is perched on the edge of a man-made lake. From there it was a slow and pleasant journey through green hills to Krakow. Polish roads seemed to be better developed and Polish drivers better disciplined than the Slovaks who are even more suicidal (if possible) than the Czechs. I was passed at one point on the outside of the corner, across a double white line, in the rain - a feat only equalled in my experience by drivers in Auckland, New Zealand.
When we reached Krakow, a little after 1pm, we stopped in a shopping centre to stock up on Polish Zloty and eat lunch (pizza) and ice-cream (also Italian). Krakow is a nice little town, described in our guide book by a local architect as "not too big, not too little". We would agree. We parked within walking distance of the centre of the city and sought out a pension. We found one nearby and secured a double room in an apartment of three for 120PLN/night or about 30 Euros. The first night we shared it with a family visiting Krakow from Warszawa and their 3-year old, Amelka, gave Veronika and I some elementary lessons in Polish.
From there it was an easy stroll into the centre and our first stop was a chocolate café for iced coffee and hot chocolate. From there we walked into the centre of town and the 'Cloth Hall' which Krakovians claim is the world's oldest shopping mall, in operation since 1300. The centre of Krakow is much like Prague's Staré Město (Old Town Square), a large marble lined square bordered by cafés and souvenir shops. This is not as bad as it sounds. While we didn't see anything in the stores but the usual useless tat, the restaurants were well populated and thriving. We did a tour of the city, walked out to the botanic gardens and sat and watched the sun go down.
The next day we set out early to see the jewel in Krakow's city centre - the Wawel. The Wawel is the traditional, hill-top castle which is common to most well preserved eastern European cities. We arrived before the buses and managed to have the place (almost) to ourselves. Since it was Sunday, entry was free but we couldn't get into the Cathedral because they were at mass. The Wawel is a graceful and well preserved collection of palaces, cathedrals and fortifications. One court in particular was graced with colonnades of double tier arches and a white marble floor which was almost translucent in the early morning light. Sadly I completely failed to get an adequate photograph of this.
To round off the day we trekked out to another old fort on the rim of the city. The idea was to get a view of Krakow from the outside, but the weather was against us. We caught a small bus out to the fort but it was raining when we got there so we waited for the rain to clear a little and then walked back into town. We stopped to look at a few churches and a cemetery, both of which Catholic Poland seems to have in great numbers.
Poles seem to be a bit more easy going than their Czecho/Slovak cousins and in Krakow we felt none of the heavy tourist stigma that attaches to foreigners in places like Prague. Even the waitresses were amused at our attempts to speak Polish and Veronika got a couple of complements on her pronunciation. A refreshing change from Prague where my halting Czech is usually greeted with a smirk and rolling eyes.
After our Tatra-excursions we were getting progressively more exhausted so we retired for the afternoon to a pub and had a few of the local (gassy) beers and an early dinner. We had a couple of hours to kill before we could reasonably go to bed so we wandered back to the main square where they'd laid on breakdancing and a concert for us. A fine way to round up our visit to Krakow. Veronika and I were both taken with the relaxed atmosphere in Krakow and rated it ahead of Vienna, Budapest and Prague and equal only with Avignon in the South of France. If you're in this part of the world you could do worse than stop in to see Krakow.
On the way back to Prague we took the opportunity to stop at Oświęcim, a little town 60km west of Krakow. It's better known by its German name - Auschwitz. There we stopped in at the Birkenau museum and walked through the remains of the former concentration camp. Veronika and I had both just read Tom Keneally's "Schindler's Ark" (later renamed for the movie, Schindler's List). She for the first time and I for the third or fourth. Some of the book is set in Krakow and some in Birkenau.
The camp was quiet and birds wheeled in the sky but the air was heavy with more than just rain. Most of what is left is a vast array of brick chimneys, the remains of the prisoners' huts. They look almost exactly like ranks of tombstones and performed much the same purpose. The huts housed 400 prisoner's each and up to perhaps 100,000 people were interned there at any time. More than a million Jews, Poles and Roma arrived at Birkenau and never left.
A sombre way to end a holiday but we both agreed an important one.
