Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts

Friday, October 13, 2006

Part 18: Back to Krakow!

Back to Krakow!

Date: Thursday, Aug 03, 2006
Place: Krakow, Poland

Due to the 8 hours wait at the border crossing, I did not arrive at Krakow until 1 pm (It was supposed to arrive at 6 am). It was so late, I had to give up my original plan about making a daytrip to mountain resort town of Zakopane.

Though I do love Krakow, I thought I had already overstayed there (I stayed for 5 days and 4 nights the week before). I was ready to move on. returning here by accident did not really get me excited at all.

I went to the window at the train station and reluctantly paid that 103 Euro for the ticket from Krakow to Sighisoara, Romania (considering the cost of living in Eastern Europe, a price like that is more than outrageous). No sleepers are available for this route, I was told. Only regular compartment seats are available (the types I hate most). I bought the ticket for the train 381.

Wandering around the streets of Krakow for one last time and having my last order of Polish Pirogies (now I started to hate these things), I went for some food shopping. The ride would last for almost 20 hours, so I did need enough food and drinks.

Arriving at the platform around 10 pm, I was about to board the worst train ride in my whole life.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Part 17: An Even Longer Wait (to Cross..)- Back to Poland

An Even Longer Wait

Date: Thursday, Aug 03, 2006
Place: Ukraine-Poland Border, Poland

Another overnight bus between Krakow and Lviv, just with opposite direction.

However, how could I imagine that it would take me 8 hours just to cross the border? I have traveled across the border between US and Canada and it is usually not very pleasant. Though mostly I have no problems to get into the US, some fellow passengers on my bus sometimes were grilled for more than 20 minutes. Thus, sometimes, it took as long as an hour for everyone on the bus to pass the custom and ready to go. It is sometimes quite unpleasant to travel across the land border from Canada to US.

However, this experience traveling from Ukraine to Poland surpassed all other unpleasant experience.

Exiting Ukraine shouldn't be that difficult but it took 2 hours. Some people had to fill some forms (look like a very long form) if they brought artwork out of the country. People also cannot bring too much money out of Ukraine (though I'm not sure what is the limit). But then, it shouldn't take 2 hours to process these forms and registration (there were only 2 people in our bus needs to fill out that form).

Then, getting into Poland is much worse. The lines towards the Polish custom was so slow that even a glacier may move faster. Overall, it took 6 hours to get into Poland. They checked every vehicle in such detail. It was lucky we were on a bus (so didn't need to drive). However, we did not really have a good sleep on that bus either.

I know now Poland is in E.U. and they hope to become part of Schengen District. Since now they are "the East Front" of the E.U., they have responsibility to guard the border, to prevent any unsavory people or things (drugs, weapons) flowing into the E.U land from their east neighbors. But, can they learn some efficiency management from their western neighbor?

Getting into Poland, another unfortunate day was in front of me.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Part 13: Back to the (City of) Glory - Krakow, Poland

Back to the (City of) Glory

Date: Sunday, Jul 30, 2006
Place: Krakow, Poland

So I am back to Krakow again. Last time I visited it was in winter, 2 weeks before Christmas. The temperature was low (about minus 3) but the city still beautiful. And its Chrsitmas Market is full of fun. (seehttp://travel.saricie.com/Eurotrip_Winter/Krakow.htm for pictures)

Due to that last visit was short (and the day is even shorter, it turns dark around 3:45 pm in December), I did not travel to some outskirt attraction, like the Wieliczka Salt Mine, or the famous Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Now this time, summer is in full swing when I arrived (and the sun usually doesn't go down until 9:30pm), so I hoped to see more of this city of glory.

Unlike last time that I stayed in a regular hotel (it cost only 47 US$ in December but cost more than $80 this summer), this time I stay in a youth hostel. Checking on both www.hostelz.com and www.hostelworld.com websites, I found there are dozens of youth hostels in this very touristed city and the number seems to increase every week. Checking on some reviews, I chose a very new hostel called "Good Bye Lenin" (http://www.goodbyelenin.pl/). I chose this place partly because it uses the name of one of my favorite movies.

Also, it is near the Kazimierz, a old Jewish neighborhood recently turning very trendy. Actually, this neighborhood has gone through a huge cultural revival after it was featured in Spielber's "Schindler's List."

Well, the hostel is in a nice single house (unlike many Eastern European hostels are located in an apartment building) and has a courtyard for sitting, drinking, and even barbecue (they did host a barbecue the first night I arrived). Strangely, there are very huge presence of Dutches: some of them got drunk quite often...Okay, I ended up in another party hostel...

Walking past the Main Market Square (Rynek Glowny) several times in my stay. I still remember this is the location where two Veronicas briefly encountered in Kielowski's 1991 masterpiece "The Double Life of Veronica." Krakow looked much quainter in that movie. It was from the time when Krakow wasn't discovered yet by mass tourism. Now Rynek Glowny is swarmed with tourists and most storefronts in the Square have long converted into expensive restaurants, coffeeshops, or souvenir stores.

I planned to stay three days here in Krakow. So two afternoons here I could travel out of town to see other famous sites in the outskirt area (both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites). I went to see Wieliczka Salt Mine (www.kopalnia.pl) on Friday afternoon. Deciding doing it myself, I was able to get there by a suburban train. However, it took awhile for me to find the entrance to the Mine and took me even longer to find a right bus back to Krakow. Charging 65 Zloty (16 Euro) for foreigners, it was not actually cheap to get in. After getting in, it is much cooler than above ground (which was great because there was still heat wave going on in Poland that afternoon). It is a little Disneyland like but at least the Salt Mine Cathedral is impressive. There is a wall cameo of "The Last Supper" and a sculpture of the late Pope John Paul II. And everything is made of salt rocks.

The next afternoon, I paid 99 zloty (and then I found I was overcharged!) to join a tour to get to Auschwitz, to see possibly the most (in)famous Nazi concentration camp in history. The experience definitely is depressing. Strangely, it started to rain midway through our tour. It did not only rain but was pouring. Since few of us actually brought umbrella with us, we had to brave the rain to finish the tour. By the time we finished Auschwitz II-Birkenau, I was soaking wet and felt quite miserable. It was eerie to compare to what people had been through right at this same site.

I also traveled to a suburban district of Krakow, called Nowa Huta ("New Steelwork" in Polish see http://www.nh.pl). It was one of only two full-scale Soviet planned communities ever realized, with blocks of monotonous buildings and large boulevards. It was actually nicer than I expected. The buildings are monotonous but not ugly (compared to those I saw in St. Petersburg, Russia). Also, there is quite a lot of green space around and a nice park. Ironically, the Central Square is renamed "Ronald Reagan Square." Yes, the communism has long dead, even in the heart of a Soviet-style community.

After staying in Krakow for more than 3 days, I thought it is really time for me to continue my trip. I did know the next countries I plan to travel to are more difficult to travel around. They are not as developed as Poland definitely (they are not even in E.U. yet) and somewhat feels a little scary to travel there. But the journey has to go on...

Next stop: Ukraine.

Downloadable "In Your Pocket: Krakow" Guide

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Part 12: Heat Exhaustion in Warsaw, Poland

Heat Exhaustion in Warsaw

Date: Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006
Place: Warsaw, Poland

Now I know how hot it can turn out in Central Europe.

When I traveled in the Baltics, the weather was nice. The weather in Tallinn was especially cool. Though I did hear the heat wave in Western and Central Europe, I did not feel much about it. Until I reached Warsaw, Poland.

I stayed in a youth hostel called "Oki Doki" (http://www.okidoki.pl), which is a quite cool hostel (though the staff tends to act a little aloof). However, the room was feeling hotter and hotter and it got closer to the dusk.

The second day in Warsaw, I just did not feel well at all. I think the temperature was maybe 35 (Celsius) degree or higher that day. Whichever bus or tram I jumped on, there was no air-condition. What worse was, most of those buses have the windows sealed off or make them very difficult to open. That makes those buses like toasting ovens! After walking under the scorching sun and sitting in some "ovens" for two hours. I decided to head somewhere cooler. Why not a nice museum? At least from my experience in Taipei and New York, big museums usually have quite powerful air-condition. And it is nice to have these artworks around.

Not at the Poland's largest museum. The Polish National Museum (www.mnw.art.pl) mostly is not an air-conditioned place. It is enormously huge but again, with most windows sealed off. Only two special exhibition rooms have air-condition, so I came back again and again (one is the Chinese bronze vessels exhibition, which is quite nothing compared to the collection in Taipei). After seeing the museums for 1 hours, I felt more exhausted.

Originally, I planned to stay in Warsaw for 2 nights. Because the exhaustion in the second day, I had to take it slow and prolonged my stay for another night. Not that Warsaw is that beautiful or interesting that I wanted to stay longer, I told the people I met in the youth hostel. I was just tired.

Warsaw is actually an interesting city to visit. It is definitely not very beautiful (the most beautiful city in Poland will always be Krakow). Its old town is small and looks fake (all the old town was destroyed in world war II, so the current "old town" was rebuilt after the War and merely 50 something old). But there are some interesting museums to visit. The third day I was there. I went to the relatively new (opened in 2004) Warsaw Uprising Museum (www.1944.pl). The whole museum is dedicated to the heroic and tragic (they failed eventually) uprising against Nazi regime in 1944. The exhibition is quite inspiring and part of it, touching. Of course, one of the great things about the museum is: it is air-conditioned.

The most famous building in Warsaw is actually built after the WWII - the Stalinist style "wedding cake" Palace of Culture and Science. It is an enormous building right in the center of Warsaw's central business. I can see it from the windows of Oki Doki Hostel actually. After the communism fell in Poland, this building still serves its purposes for cultural activities. However, its kinoteca (cinema) now features movies from Hollywood. I saw the huge banner of the upcoming attraction "Garfield: The Tales of Two Kittes" hanging high up at the entrance. Poland has definitely long left its communism past behind.

If they can put air-condition in their national museum....

Downloadable "In Your Pocket: Warsaw" Guide