We left our apartments at 8:45 on Saturday morning and walked to the tram stop. The trams weren't as frequent, but we caught one and arrived at the train station by 9:20, which was an hour before our train was scheduled to depart. We had to wait until about 30 minutes before it came before we knew what platform it would be on. We went there and waited and were part of the mad rush to get on the train.
We were happy that we had reserved seats. It took about ten minutes once the train had started until we were able to get to our compartment and get settled in, but we had a space, and it was comfortable and nice. The air conditioning was weak, but worked well enough when the train was running. We enjoyed the trip - it was very smooth - through the countryside. The first part of the journey was especially nice travelling through the low mountains with a river alongside the tracks.
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| Train from Prague to Krakow |
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| The Czech countryside |
The trip took us most of the day - we were scheduled to arrive at about 5:30 in Krakow. After about 2.5 hours, the train had emptied quite a bit, and so our girls went and hung out with the Stice girls and the adults shared a cabin. I read, and we talked and just had a nice day. For the kids the highlight was probably the assortment of candy that I had bought at the train station that we ate for snacks while we traveled.
Our apartments were in different buildings a few blocks away from each other, so we split up at the train station. We needed to be at our apartment before 6:00 so that we could check in. The Stices had been sent a code for their apartment, so didn't have the same time constraint. We planned to meet them in the morning to go to Auschwitz. We found our street and our apartment quickly. It helped that I am pretty familiar with this part of Krakow since I was at a conference here two years ago.
We checked into the apartment, which was the nicest one we've had on our trip - and probably ever in all of our travels. Then we went and ate - a quick dinner at McDonald's since we'd just had road snacks all day and were hungry. The McDonald's had seating in the basement which was very neat and fit in with the architecture of the old city very well.
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| Sodispar Luxury Old Town Apartments - stay here if you come to Krakow! |
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| The kids room - biggest room with the best bathroom ever! |
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| Basement of McDonald's |
After we ate we wandered a bit, and found out that it was Krakow days. We saw the old square and a bit of a concert with a Polish rock band. We then found a place with ice cream and got some cones. We found a grocery store and stocked up on breakfast items, and then headed home. We got a bit turned around and ended up circling around the old town for awhile. We arrived home in enough time to get settled in for the evening. We had an early day planned for our trip to see Auschwitz.
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| Art along the wall in Old Town |
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| Archway |
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| Inside the walls of Krakow |
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| The main square and old market - with traditional horse carriage for flair. |
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| Souvenir market in center of old square |
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| View of people on square |
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| Exploring old town. |
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| There's always room for Ice Cream (Lody) |
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