Krakow, Poland: Photo Tour

In our nearly six months of travels this year, we've visited about 16 countries, and about 40 or so different towns and cities. Some had great food, or amazing history, friendly people, or breathtaking landscapes. But out of all of these places, Krakow is the one I could most imagine myself living.

Don't worry, Mom, there's no move to Poland in my future (so far as I can see, anyway). But Krakow is just so appealing. It has that elusive "thing" that makes people (or us, anyway) want to stick around for awhile and enjoy. It's the perfect size: big enough to have plenty of neat neighborhoods and great food options, but small enough to get around on foot or public transit pretty easily. The gorgeous spring weather probably had an impact on how much we loved the city.

Yes, Krakow is a place I could call home... except for one major factor. Pigeons.

Pigeons!!!

I know, there are pigeons everywhere. But there are flocks and flocks all over Krakow, each bird seemingly trying to get tangled in my hair or eat one of my toes for lunch. If only they were well-behaved, then maybe me and Krakow could get it together. But alas, back to the U.S. I will go. (Please forgive me my anti-pigeon rant. Tom has already heard it about 40 times. One of the joys of spending each and every day with only one other person is that we hear each other's stories and ideas again and again. But, hey! That's why we have a blog!)

While we were visiting Krakow in early June, we spent much of our time wandering around the old city. It's large, but very walk-able, with lots of little shops and restaurants begging for our zloty. The entire old city is encircled by a green park, which was fairly bustling each time we visited. We passed several hours people-watching as joggers, bikers, dog-walkers and lazy strollers wandered by. Even outside of the historic center, the city is vibrant and fun.

Tom and I also took a day trip to tour Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum. We highly recommend that anyone visiting Krakow take the short trip over. It's one thing to learn what happened during the Holocaust, but it's another thing to be there. Suffice it to say, it was an incredibly moving day.

Now onto the photos.

Wawel Castle grounds

Tom outside of Wawel Castle

Bike paths along the river.

This park runs all around the old city (Stare Miasto)

Sunset in the Main Market Square

Vendors in the Main Market Square

Free lemon vodka at Trezo

Yes, I know it's weird to eat lasagna in Poland. But it was amazing.

This amazing.

Musicians playing for us while we ate

Somehow Tribeca, a small coffee shop and restaurant, ended up being our hangout for the 5 or so days we were in Krakow

Probably because of these: delicious lattes, and croissants filled with either chocolate or raspberry

Zapiekanka, which is sort of like a Polish version of pizza. It's tasty.

Beers in a garden

Getting rained on. 

Climbing the tower in the Main Market Square

Tom climbed too

View from the top

Us. (Please note the new green scarf. Thank you, Krakow. And Tom, who got sick of looking at my other one and so purchased this one.)

At Auschwitz-Birkenau

This inscription is written in many different languages at Birkenau.

-R

South America Round-up

We spent 2 wonderful months in Argentina, with brief detours into Chile and Uruguay. Now that we've fled to Europe, here's a quick roundup of our impressions of our time in a small slice of South America:

Best Food
Rachel: The asado we made one night in El Chalten. But really, the lamb and beef all throughout the country were awesome.
Tom: Parilla La Cabrera in Buenos Aires. Amazing steak, made even better by the 40% discount if you dine at the absurdly early hour of 7PM.

Best Ice Cream
Rachel: Jauja's, El Bolson. Specifically the Tiramisu or Coco flavors.
Tom: McDonald's Oreo cone.

Chill little El Bolsón

Favorite Town/City
Rachel: El Bolsón. It was so chill and we met some really friendly people. Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay comes in at a close 2nd.
Tom: La Colonia, Uruguay. Cobblestones everywhere, beaches, and great biking.

Best Hike
Rachel: For views, the hike up to El Pitriquitrón was the best. For the full experience, I preferred the W trek in the Torres del Paine.
Tom: Fitz Roy Range, El Chalten.

Favorite Quirk
Rachel: Everything is served with dulce de leche.
Tom: Empanadas are everywhere--breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Least Favorite Quirk
Rachel: The siesta's ever-changing hours. In some places, the siesta was from 2 - 5, but in others, it was from 1 - 4, or 3 - 6... and some places didn't observe it at all! It made running errands incredibly difficult.
Tom: See Rachel's favorite quirk.

Favorite Wildlife
Rachel and Tom: Penguins, hands down. There's no kind of wildlife that can beat the little penguins we saw at Punto Tombo.

Best hostel/hotel
Rachel and Tom: La Barraca Suites in Bariloche. It was small but cozy, with great views of the national park. The owners were awesome and it was such a great value.

View from our hostel in Bariloche

Worst hostel/hotel
Rachel and Tom: We stayed one night at a very odd hostel in Puerto Natales, Chile. It smelled pretty bad there and we're not sure if the eggs at breakfast were really eggs. We left very quickly the next morning.

Next time in South America, I will...
Rachel: Stay on an estancia and spend a week riding horses with some gauchos. And improve my Spanish!
Tom: Hike the Lost City route in Colombia. And Machu Pichu in Peru.

If you could change one thing about Argentina, it would be...
Rachel: Making the roads more pedestrian friendly. Or somehow shrinking the country so as to avoid 25-hour bus rides.
Tom: I'd ban instant coffee.

If you could take something from Argentina and bring it to the U.S. it would be...
Rachel: A penguin. Amazing views. Or, the general laid-back vibe around the country.
Tom: The glacial water of Torres del Paine... nothing beats drinking from a stream without the need for iodine tablets or filters.

12 Things We've Lost or Damaged in 9 Weeks

This will be a long list, but a short post. We're flying to Turkey today, and I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on all of the things we either broke or, more commonly, lost during our two months in Argentina.

1) Olive Oil. Three bottles lost... at least one of them had to be my fault.

2) My only winter beanie.

3) Socks... many.

4) Tupperware.

5) Kindle. This is the last screen it ever displayed.

6) My Chromebook didn't react well to the spilled jar of pickle juice.

7) My camera decided to shut down on me in El Chaltén, although $75 in Buenos Aires fixed the problem.

8) An ATM ate my debit card and wouldn't regurgitate it.

9) My hiking shoes decided to stay on a bus somewhere down south. These found their way back to me on another bus, though I still have no idea how...

10) Electric razor. [Rachel's note: Guess the beard is here to stay.]

11) Ultra-light traveler's towel.

12) And finally, Rachel's Chromebook. This problem isn't as fixable as mine was, but as long as you keep whatever you're working on away from the black hole, it works fine.

When you pack up and move most every day, it's easy for things to fall through the cracks or break. We were actually reflecting on this when we arrived back in Buenos Aires from a jaunt in Uruguay. Rachel's Chromebook had just broke, and that, in our minds, was the final straw. It was late, we were tired, and we were just getting off the crowded underground subway line when we felt a splatter of goop hit our backs and legs.

We turned around, saw nothing, and then a woman was at our sides telling us how a pigeon had just flown by and plopped one on us*.

When we got to our hostel, we sent all of our things out to be washed and then stepped into the shower. But since I didn't have a towel anymore (as per the list above), I had to use my long underwear to dry off.

We'll replace things eventually, but for now, there isn't much for Turkey to take from us.

-Tom

* For those travelling through Buenos Aires, it turns out that the lady and the goop were actually distractions to give a friend the opportunity to pickpocket us. It's a common scam that we weren't aware of at the time. They didn't succeed.

What a difference 4 miles makes.

You know when you're on a long road trip, and the scenery slowly changes? Maybe the dusting of snow turns into feet within a few hours, or skyscrapers turn into smaller apartment buildings which turn into sprawling houses? It's usually a pretty gradual process, and it's hard to recognize it's happening.

A hotel on the beach

During the 4-mile bus trip from Valparaíso to Viña del Mar, the view changes entirely. Instead of Valparaíso's colorful small homes dotting the hillside, Viña del Mar's beach is lined with 20-story resorts lining the beach. Viña del Mar has lots of manicured parks and condo buildings with fountains in the front. There are horse-drawn carriages. Instead of climbing mountain-tops, tourists flock to Viña del Mar for long walks on the packed-full beach. It's pretty much a quintessential resort town.

Horse and carriage rides

After a day of sitting around the beach and walking around a massive mall (in a quest to find the impossible: decent coffee), we returned to Valparaíso, amazed at how just a few miles could so completely change the look, feel and economy of a city. 

One of Valparaíso's many funiculars

For folks considering a budget trip to this part of Chile, I'd recommend doing something similar to what we did. Stay in a hostel in the hills of Valparaíso and take the funiculars up and down the mountain. Marvel at the views. Find a quaint little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. (And ask locals for recommendations of what areas to avoid. Some parts of Valparaíso aren't the greatest.) Then when you've had enough of Valparaíso's gritty charm, take the bus to Viña del Mar to sit on the beach, eat some gelato, and really feel like you're on vacation. Repeat as necessary.

-R