Straight back from holiday and into work for a full day (well a full day by a retiree's standards ... 7.30 - 11.15 and 1.00 - 4.00 but that's pretty full for me these days)
My washing machine is acting up, I struggled to wash and dry all the clothes and quite frankly, right now, I can't face the joy of replacing it. I know it is not worth getting it fixed as I think it is the programmer that is up the pictures and the machine has to be 12 years old or older so it is probably near the end of its life. We will watch and see.
Anyway, on to happier things and the first of my holiday reports
Friday 16th March 2018
The one where the scene is set
For many many years, Nigel and a have wanted to visit Poland, to visit Kraków particularly. This was not borne of a desire to see the beautiful old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, but rather the stopping off point for Auschwitz, a place we both longed to visit. It seems strange to say one wants to visit such an awful, terrible tragic place but we wanted to visit because we felt we should. We felt the hundreds of thousands who met their death in this awful place deserved people to visit, to remember and to pledge to ensure the world never forgets. I have taught about the holocaust for most of my teaching career and have tried to ensure the children understand a little of what happened, relevant to their age of course. When we went to Israel in 1998 and visited Yad Vashem, this made us even more determined to make our own private pilgrimage to Auschwitz.
For years we had toyed with the trip. We had considered building in a speedway trip with it. We had considered a driving trip. We considered a trip hiring a car and seeing Prague and Warsaw too. In the end, we were spurred on by Alice and Gareth who came round to talk about how to tackle a road trip to California, using a little of our expertise with that, and they ended up telling us of their trip to Kraków and inspiring us to get off our backsides and actually do it.
A trip into Hays Travel to see our friend Vicky and we were sorted. We are NOT European travellers. We thrive on very very short breaks to Europe. Three days in Rome, three days in Bruges, three days in Ghent, Amsterdam and Ypres, three days in Paris ... You see a pattern there. (Ignore the one day in Venice of course). So when we found out we could fly from our local airport with a budget airline, fly out on a Friday morning and come back on a Monday afternoon, stay in the hotel Alice stayed in which looked good, do the Auschwitz tour and the salt mine trip and that Kraków had a Hard Rock Cafe ...well we were sold.
The trouble was ... Maybe for the good as we would have procrastinated ... The flight times changed in April giving too little time so we booked just five weeks before we were due to travel. The deed was done.
The one with the travel
The beauty of flying locally meant a short journey and a sensible start time. The down side was the cats still had to go the day before and the airline was budget. It was a novel experience for us having luggage limits. We are blessed with our airline miles programme to have unlimited luggage. I was worried how we would manage with a 20kg limit between us. We went out and bought a special lightweight case and I was worried we would not get anything in. The crazy thing is you need almost the same toiletries for two weeks as two days. But when teeny bottles were decanted I was set. We were a little concerned that Kraków had been a balmy 7 -10 degrees the week before ... And as it happened the week after ... But the Friday to Monday we were there was due to have a Siberian blast hitting Europe. It meant cold at home with temperatures around freezing for the weekend and In Kraków, it meant temperatures between -5 and -10 which the websites assured us would feel like -17 oh and and snow. Oh heck ... How to use my 20kg for winter woollies and thermals.
As it happened our case, stuffed with every snuggly item imaginable still only weighed in at 16kg. Result!
We arrived at the laughingly named 'Bournemouth International Airport' ( I am sorry it is only ever Hurn which is a very small local airport with delusions of grandeur) and followed the instructions to the cheap parking I had booked. We were not happy bunnies. It turned out it was off-site parking in a field and Nigel and I were not happy. Nigel went in to check and then rang me ... I was Stood outside with the man ready to take my car to some random field ... To tell me he had just booked the proper on-site parking at a bargain price. I bluffed until he returned and then, in true wifely style, had HIM tell the man he was not needing to take our car. We were £20 down but felt much happier.
Bournemouth airport is cute. It is the sort of place where you get the impression the same lady sells the drinks, opens the check-in desks, runs round to the cafe and then mans the boarding gates before becoming cabin crew. Ok so that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the gist. The check-in opened, and we proudly dropped off our underweight case and headed to the airside section. The buckles on my boots set off all sorts of alarms and I was checked, body checked, scanned and then rescanned. It appears my trousers had a tiny piece of metal ... like a staple ... Sewn into the waistband at the back. Very random. I was checked so much I was just waiting to hear the snap of a rubber glove for the next stage. But then my carry on was checked again, my liquids swabbed and eventually, having done all but an internal, they decided I might not, after all, be an international terrorist and I might be allowed to proceed to the departure lounge.
The cafe was actually very good and we enjoyed a lovely toasted cheese sandwich and gorgeous fat fluffy chips for breakfast. All very relaxed.
We had paid the extra for assigned seats ... With Ryan Air everything is extra. Extra for bags, for assigned seats, for priority boarding, for air to breathe etc. In case you haven't seen this before this Fascinating Aida song with the incredible Dilly Keane explains it.
Please don't watch it if you are of a sensitive disposition or dislike foul language.
But if you are not bothered by that, enjoy the clip. It still makes me laugh and like all good comedy is so true. There is really no such thing as a cheap flight when you add all of the other things on.
We boarded via the Tarmac and steps ... Bournemouth doesn't do air bridges .. and surprisingly we did turn left on the plane, but only because our seats were at the back so we used the back steps.
Oh my goodness, we have been spoilt with Virgin... These seats were small, no mesh pocket, no tv screen, no frills. However, they were clean and serviceable and it was only a two and a half hour flight. Then the bonus happened. We were granted the holy grail on Ryan Air ... A spare seat. We were pretty much the only row of three seats with just two passengers. We had an empty seat between us and room to spread. perfect.
The two and a bit hours went smoothly and we landed in a very wet Kraków. We knew Friday was going to be wet but not so cold.
We dismounted via the steps, onto the bus and into the terminal.
Passport control was swift ... We are used to America where the photos, fingerprinting etc take an age. At the moment we are still an EU country, so it was brief and swift.
One of the nicest things I think there is about travel is that moment when you see that first glimpse of your bag on the carousel and realise you won't have to cope with just the emergency knickers in your hand luggage. Pure joy.
We had booked private transfer and an extremely charming and smartly dressed young Pole was there with a sign with our name on. He took us to his very smart mini van and we were on our way. One of the things that struck us was how polite ALL of the Polish people were. It was outstanding.
We watched eagerly out of the windows and It is always exciting to be in a new country. What little we saw on the road in looked very pretty and reminiscent of Germany or Bavaria. Before we knew it we were outside the Raddison Blu which was extremely centrally located. I would recommend it to anyone staying in the city.
Check in was smooth and they even rang to confirm our tour times and then we went up to our sauna ... sorry room. The air con seemed not to work and it was seriously majorly hot. The laugh was when we asked for a fan so the menopausal woman in our party wouldn't kill anyone, they bought a heater first of all. Such a laugh.
This was our room with a view over the park that surrounds the old town and where the clippety cloppity horse drawn carriages pass by.
We unpacked ... Goodness me that is quite a novelty for us as most of our holidays are road trips where we live out of cases ... And with a borrowed brolly we headed out.
It was very wet, but heck, it's only water. We headed to the market square which was indeed large and beautiful. We walked through the sukiennice, the Cloth Hall. Considered the world's oldest shopping mall, the present Renaissance structure dates from 1555 and features in its interior many food stalls and small shops, terrace cafes and flower stands that surround the statue of Adam Mickiewicz. One of the main attractions for us was it was undercover and so dry. We marvelled at the building though not at the overpriced and oft tacky souvenirs. More pictures of the building and the stalls follow in another instalment. I did like a hat but at £40 I wasn't so tempted. However, I might be ... Over the next couple of days. I was fascinated by all the Amber. I didn't realise Kraków was the Amber Capitol of the world.
We are not good at Europe. It scares us. We are not into bars and drinking and nightlife. We are not into foreign food .. that scares the hell out of us. We are not into foreign languages and local delicacies. We did a quick look at some restaurants although to be honest we both knew where we were eating. Then we spotted a delicatessen come supermarket. Heaven. Food we almost recognised. We bought a bottle of very reasonable wine for later and several polish pastries I couldn't begin to pronounce... I actually took a photo of the ones I wanted and when I got to the till showed the picture and asked for two. I bought 4 big pastries for a pound!
It was very wet so we looked briefly around the square - more to come on subsequent days, and then headed for our dinner venue.
In all honesty, it will probably be where we eat every night as its food we know we love. The Hard Rock Cafe ... Our fourth in as many months. Yes I know we are boring. Yes I know we should try local food. Yes I know we waste these opportunities, but let's face it, we are not going to change.
We were seated straight away and whilst it is a tiny restaurant the food was very good. They had a new veggie burger and it was lovely ... And the meal with drinks and desserts was only £30 including tip.
and unusal take ona selfie - both of us int he same picture. The mirror behind Nigelw as too good a chance to miss. And I could nearly see him over the huge sharing dessert
No - I hadn't been drinking (yet) I was just so glad to be in the warm and dry
We took a few photos of the square and then wandered back to the hotel. There was a definite chill in the air but even with the window open to let the cold in, the room was still sauna-like.
A nice evening relaxing, drinking wine and writing this diary was the perfect end to the day. We even had a phonecall from Disney which we took as we stood in the window watching the snow fall outside. Finally satiated we turned out the lights as we both eagerly awaited the reason for trip ... Tomorrow.
As this is a scrapping blog, primarily, there ought to be a little scrapping on here too.
Different holiday this time. This is another page for the Gone with the Wind tour album - our room at Nottoway plantation. It looked beautiful and was quite exciting, but it was like sleeping in a museum and we were terrified of damaging anything. And the step to get up to the bed would wear get boring very quickly. But it sure was an experience to have.
- Today I am thankful for
- a productive day
- time, at last, to stop and do my blog
- the prospect of putting my feet up tomight - my legs are tired after the trip and then work.