Krakow in November

The restaurant is just across from the Wawel Hill. It's in the back of a hotel, so it was kinda tricky for us to find the entrance at first. You can go through the hotel or through an entrance on the left side.

We only went to this restaurant because a man in a beer costume in the main square gave us coupons for beer - buy one get one free.

When we got to the restaurant it seemed like a well-oiled tourist-trap machine. So we were a little nervous. We were first directed to the coat check, which costs 1 zl. per coat. Then we were seated. Our waiter spoke very quickly, some memorized English introduction I guess. We ordered our beers and then mulled over what to do next. Living in Prague, we're used to the custom of taking advantage of tourists, so this is why were on edge. However, I was starving, so we ordered a starter of Ruskie Pierogie (with cheese and potatoes). They were boiled AND fried and absolutely delicious! It was definitely enough to share and cost about 10 or 12 zl. The menu didn't seem too bad, normal prices, so we thought maybe it wasn't a rip off after all. However, when we got a shot of some red liquor withour bill, we were scared we might have to pay for it. The bill was fine, though, no charge for pickles (which were given to us prior to the pierogie) nor for the shots.

Not a bad place to eat, but the atmosphere might be a bit too "professional" for your comfort. If you get the 2 for 1 beer, though, I'd definitely give it a try.

I read about Bar Vega in my Let's Go guide, and it was just around the corner from our apartment, so we gave it a try. The food is already prepared, which I didn't know from the descriptions I had ready about it, but it was pretty good and cheap. I tried some bulgar dish and my boyfriend had some vegetarian goulash. Nothing to write home about, but if you're vegetarian and on a budget, it's a good place to go. Dishes were mostly between 7 and 9 zloty.

Open:
1. April to 31.10 7:30am to 7:30pm
2. November to 31. March 8:00am to 5:00pm

In order to see the mines, you must take a tour. English tours are 61 to 64 zl depending on which month you go, or 46 to 49 for a reduced price ticket (children 4 to 15, students with student ID card). Children under 4 years old are free!

**If you want to take pictures, you need to pay 10 zl and they will give you a badge to put on your shirt. The tour guide will probably notice if you don't have the badge so I wouldn't recommend trying to get away with picture-taking without it.

web site: www.kopalnia.pl

Check the web site for tour times in various languages. Tours are very frequent in July and August, much less so in the winter.

My boyfriend and I were unsure about whether to go to the salt mine. We both thought it sounded really good, but some reviews I had read said it wasn't worth the price. We did go, however, and I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would! Also, we got student tickets, which helped us out a lot.

Getting there: I had read about lots of minibuses you can take, but when we were there, I didn't see any, so we took the regular bus. Perhaps these minibuses are more frequent in the summer. The bus was quite confusing. Take bus 304. The bus is on Pawia street, on the other side of the huge shopping center from the main train station. A one-way ticket costs 2.60. If you use the machine at the bus stop, you can also use notes, but if you use the machine on the bus, you need coins. You cannot buy tickets directly from the driver. The info sheet we picked up at the tourist office said that the trip would take 30 to 40 minutes. It took us 50 minutes. The first twenty or thirty minutes were spent just traveling around Krakow, so if you can find the bus 304 stop on the other side of the old town, it might be more comfortable. The next problem we encountered was, where do we get off the bus? The girl at the tourist info office said to get off in the center and that the town is not big, but it's not true at all. We definitely passed a stop called "centrum" or something similar, but luckily a woman on the bus helped us. Unfortunately I still don't know the name of the stop, but it's the second to the last stop on 304. You will see on the right side of the bus, a footpath that goes straight downhill beside a walled cemetery. This is where you get off, follow the path down until you reach a busy street, turn left and you will see the billboard for the mines. You will then see the entrance and follow the path up to the ticket office. The walk from the bus stop takes about ten minutes.

The tour: I was also unsure about how long the tour would last, as every source I had varied from 1.5 to 3.5 hours. I think our tour was about 2 hours long. When it finishes, you have the option to linger in the restaurant or continue to a tour of the museum. The museum was included in the price of our tickets, so we went along. This took about an hour, but the tour guide really rushed us. I don't know if it was because it was the end of the day and our tour guide was eager to get off on time, or if we started the tour too late or what, but it was a little bit annoying. She didn't give us much time to explore each room and she got angry at some members of our group, who lingered behind after she had moved on to another room.

On the tour, you will start with a lot of steps going down. Then you will see lots of different rooms, salt sculptures and chapels. We got to see one chapel that they only open in the winter, because they want to preserve it. We also learned about the history of the mines, which was interesting. The museum has examples of salt crystal formations, historical documents from the mine, and tools that were used in excavating the salt. If it doesn't cost extra, it's a good deal and I recommend it, despite being a bit rushed.

All in all, I had a good time on the tour, but I can imagine the tour groups might be much larger and less pleasant in the summer months. Our group was only about 15 people and was pretty pleasant. Plus, it's just a cool experience, if you've never been in a salt mine before :)

web site in English: http://www.polskie-smaki.pl/en/Contact.html
(I swear, when we were there the sign said they were open just til 9pm, but according to the web site it's open til 11!)

After our not-so-wonderful experience at the much-recommended Pierogarnia, we came upon this "little" restaurant. Like the Pierogarnia, Polskie Smaki offers self-service Polish food at good prices (about 7 to 9 zlotych for an order of pierogi, which is generally 8 or 9 pieces). Most other dishes on the menu seemed to be around 10 zl. Drinks between 2 and 5 zloty, and soup about 3 or 4 zloty. The service seemed much friendlier than at Pierogarnia. There is a more easily viewable menu (in Poilsh and in English), and there are more drinks available, including water and bottled beer, but no beer on tap. Also, you get real plates and silverware, and the place is quite big, capacity of 70 guests! But it still feels cozy!

We tried the ruskie pierogi (filled with cheese and potato) as well as the ones filled with cabbage and mushrooms. Delicious! One thing to note: the pierogis are topped with pieces of ham/fat, so if you're vegetarian, try to ask them to leave it off!

They also have three different soups. We tried the borscht. Delicious and wonderful on a cold day! Without drinks, we paid 22 zlotych for two plates of pierogi and two soups. They also have a self-serve salad bar that looked pretty good, and of course there are plenty more (meaty) Polish dishes on the menu, all at good prices.

We went here twice! A great place for good food and nice atmosphere for a cheap price! But beware, they close at 9pm!

To get there from Rynek Glowny (the main square in the center), just walk up Slawikowska toward the train station, then left on Tomasza. The restaurant is on your left.

Both of our guides listed Pierogarnia as the place to go to try pierogis, but we left unimpressed. On the plus side, this tiny "restaurant" (more like Polish fast food?) is now open 24 hours. However, I wouldn't call it a restaurant. It's self-service and there are only four or five tables to sit at. It's tiny and if it gets busy you can feel a bit rushed. Also, your food is served on styrofoam plates with plastic utensils. The only choices of drink are about five flavors of Cappy juice or a drink called Kwas, which looks like beer but is not! I gave Kwas a try but it was possibly the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth.

The pierogi were not bad, but I think we had better ones elsewhere, plus with a nicer ambience.

One last complaint was the horrible dance music blasting on the radio. Were they trying to make us feel rushed? I don't find that kind of music pleasant for eating.

Overall we were pretty disappointed, especially as both of our guides raved about this place. We'd sooner recommend Polskie Smaki, which I review separately in this journal.

Wawel Hill is one of the first things you'll read or hear about when you look into visiting Krakow. On a map it looks like Wawel Hill is outside of the city, but it's really not. Krakow is very tiny and Wawel is no more than ten minutes' walk from the center. Maybe less.

There are several attractions at Wawel Hill, so you can pick and choose what to see or go ahead and see it all! There are lots of signs around the city directing you to Wawel, but you can't miss it when you come upon it. It is indeed a hill, surrounded by a wall. There are two entrances, just walk around and find them, or follow the crowd. Dogs, luggage and food are not allowed inside the walls. There is a place to check your luggage if you are carrying something big with you. Backpacks seemed to be okay :)

If you're on a budget, keep in mind that the State Rooms and The Lost Wawel (archaeological exhibit) are free on Sundays!!

The first thing you should do, if you want to see the State Rooms or Royal Rooms, is go to the ticket office. Tickets for these exhibits are limited and are given to you on a timed basis. The Royal Rooms also includes a tour. Go ahead and get your tickets and if you have lots of time before your tour or timed ticket starts, check out the other sites.

Wawel Cathedral

Viewing the cathedra itself is free, but to visit the royal tombs, the bell tower and the cathedral museum (located in an adjacent building), you have to buy a ticket in the office across from the cathedral’s entrance. Tickets for adults are 10 zloty, for students are 5. You can also rent an audio guide for 5 zloty. We went without the guide, but if you can afford it, it’s probably much better with the guide.

We also visited the royal tombs, the bell tower and the cathedral museum, but I have to say, you wouldn’t be missing too much if you skipped out on this stuff. The royal tombs feature a lot of coffins of dead Polish kings and other important people. It might be pretty interesting to someone with a good knowledge of Polish history but unfortunately that isn’t me, so it wasn’t too interesting.

The bell tower involves climbing a lot of wooden steps and viewing the church bells. If you’ve climbed any church towers or viewed bells before, this is nothing special.

The Cathedral Museum is not terribly exciting either. It has a lot of stuff upstairs that was worn by John Paul II. Downstairs are some cool medieval objects, but the museum is only four rooms and if you're on a budget I'd probably skip this stuff.

State Rooms

I probably wouldn't pay a lot to see the State Rooms, but since we saw it for free, it was pretty nice. Everyone else seemed to rush through, but we took our time, trying to read about everything. Mostly there was old furniture and paintings to see, not much about the history of the State Rooms. Still, it was nice and some of the rooms were quite impressive. Also, it's not too crowded, since the tickets are timed. This means, the ticket you get will have a time on it and that is when you can go inside the exhibit.

One problem we had with the State rooms was the setup. Each room just has one sign, listing the objects to see all over the room. It would have been much more comfortable to have signs on each object. Oh well.

The Lost Wawel

This exhibit is also free on Sundays! If you're into archaeology, this is a very cool exhibit but it's small and gets very crowded. There are lots of tiles and pieces of pillars on display from the earlier buildings on Wawel Hill. You also get to walk through a couple of rooms on a boardwalk, where you can see the foundations below you of ancient structures. Pretty cool, but beware, you will probably have to push through (or be pushed) some large tour groups and student groups!


For info on the other attractions or to check out prices, see the web site: http://www.wawel.krakow.pl/en/index.php, very helpful :)

Krakow is a pretty small town. We didn't realize just how small til we arrived. If you look on the map, you can see the center (Stare Miasto) is surrounded by a ring road. It's incredibly easy to walk all throughout this center, not to mention beyond. Our first evening, we were wandering around Kazimierz (the Jewish quarter), and decided to walk across the bridge to the other side of the river. It's not far at all from the center! I was surprised and I think this may have influenced my choice of accommodation. I remember thinking some hotels or apartments looked out of the city but actually the city is very small so keep this in mind when you are booking your accommodation!

Also, we never used public transport except for our trip to the Wieliczka salt mine. This bus took twenty minutes just to get from the train station to the other side of the city center!! It would have been faster to walk and get on the bus at a later stop!

If you do need to use the bus, you can buy a ticket from a machine on the bus, but you will need coins. Some bus stops (like those at the train station) take ten or twenty zlotych bills as well as change.

It took me a good three days just to make a decision on where to stay. Do we want privacy? Do we want breakfast included? Is it worth 150zl a night to have a private room in a hostel, with shared bathroom facilities? Should we just do a shared room and pay a bit less? or pay a bit more and get the privacy and comfort of a hotel?

Eventually it was the last minute deals from Old Town Apartments that swayed me. What's the difference, anyway, between a hotel and an apartment, other than the free breakfast? Well, I guess I didn't think about the staff that's always on hand when you need something in a hotel... still, I was pretty happy with our choice. I would definitely recommend an apartment if you are staying several days, or if you need to recharge (laundry, etc) in a homelike atmosphere during your extended travels.

Check out the web site:
http://www.warsawshotel.com/Europe/Poland/Krakow/Apartments/All

It may not always be the cheapest option. We saved quite a bit, getting ours at the "last minute." In the summer, this probably wouldn't be so possible. It would definitely be a good deal to split an apartment among several people. Our apartment, for example, can sleep four people, but we were only two.

The apartment comes with sheets and towels (extras are there just in case, as well as extra pillows and blankets). There's a washing machine, washing powder, ironing board, cooking facilities and dishes in the kitchen, refrigerator, and satellite tv. Definitely a nice place to stay when you've got a few days and you might want to spend some time inside, doing laundry and recharging :)