Sunday, 19 August 2012

 

Start: Lviv 10:20

Arrival: Kraków (PL) 17:30

Total: 335 km

 

 

 

 

On Sunday morning, we made our way out of Lviv. Nothing wakes you up like a drive over cobblestoned streets and tram tracks. But soon we were out of town and made good speed. Until we reached the first village. There were many people on the street, dressed in their Sunday best, heading for church. We patiently waited for the path to clear. A few kilometers down the road, the same scenario. In every village, the church service seemed to be either about to begin or have just finished. The crowds around the churches were even more impressive than the ones a week ago in Romania. The 70 kilometers to the border took us more than two hours.

 

Approaching the border checkpoint, we remembered our experience at the Transnistrian-Ukrainian crossing. As far as I could tell, the officer had not registered Sonia in her computer. And our dubious lodgings at the edge of Odessa had not bothered to register either of us with the authorities. Would this prove to be a problem on our way out of the country?

 

We need not have worried. The checkpoint was rather chaotic and involved lots of running around looking for someone in charge, with large families eager to press ahead of us and generally holding everybody up, but once it was our turn to speak with the officer, we got dispatched in less than three minutes. No bribes or fishy fees asked by any state employees on the entire trip.

 

The officers at the Polish checkpoint were more organised than their Ukrainian counterparts, but they were a lot less friendly. For some reason, we always seem to stumble upon grouchy Polish people. Maybe theirs is just an overall grumpy nation, maybe it's their strategy to discourage too many tourists or maybe we are just unlucky. I've met some really awesome Poles too, but the scales definitely tip heavily to the morose and surly side.

 

 

 

Back in the EU, we bumbled on along the Polish "highway". Bus-stops, pedestrians, speed controls, roundabouts out of nowhere, an endless traffic jam for no good reason. After a while, I started to understand the Polish grumpiness. But after a pitstop at a fastfood joint, we were ready to face the vagaries of the old town of Kraków.

 

Our hotel was located in the old part of the city. That had the advantage that we could just step out of the hotel and be right in the tourist area, but the disadvantage that we would have to brave the labyrinthine warren of tiny one-way and pedestrian-only streets to reach said hotel in the first place. Sonia was the perfect guide through this challenge. In retrospect, it might have been better to leave the car outside the old part of town and walked a kilometer or two to our lodgings.

 

Once at the hotel, we quickly dropped everthing into our room and headed out to profit from the last bit of sunshine and do some sightseeing. The first ‒ exceedingly welcome ‒ sight that we saw was an ice cream stand near the old fortress gate. Now Poland might have its faults, but there is one thing that they do like no other: soft ice. The heavenly, endlessly twisted-around chocolate and vanilla delight atop an edible cone. It's what I'm most looking forward to whenever I drive through Poland.

 

Enjoying our soft ice, we strolled along the cobblestoned streets of the old town. Like Lviv, this place was what I love to call a "tourist trap", with too many souvenir shops, too many people and music that is much too loud. My sister and I prefer small, unassuming places that no one is keen on visiting except for us. The hidden gem, the unexpected revelation, like Čachtice in Slovakia, Tokaj in Hungary or the Merry Cemetery in the Maramuresh. But now we were in Kraków, might as well enjoy it. We marvelled at a horse-drawn white carriage seemingly right out of a Cinderella storybook. Being in a tourist hotspot did have its perks.

 

At the tourist office, we saw an advertisement for trips to the camp of Auschwitz and a salt mine. A visit down an old mine sounded tempting. Unfortunately, we would not have time to see it. However a few years later, after a trip through the beautiful country of Belarus, we did go see the salt mine of Wieliczka, and it was a great experience. I can only recommend it.

 

We strolled on and found a small park with a beautiful fountain, its waters sparkling in the rays of the setting sun. It was getting late, and except for a couple of hot chicken wings and a delicious ice cream, we'd had nothing to eat since breakfast. When the restaurant mile on the Rynek Główny, the main marketplace of Kraków, beckoned, we answered the call. We found an empty table on a crowded terrace and ordered some food.

 

The restaurant was really busy and our order took a while to materialise. Finally, the waiter dumped two plates in front of us and, before I could order more water, left again. The legendary Polish friendliness. No matter, the important thing was, we now had food. Sonia tasted her dish. "It's rather cold," she said. "Not really cooked through." Odd, seeing how long it had taken them to bring it. With a sympathetic smile, I turned to my own, rather greasy but at least hot, dish. The first few bites were promising.

 

Suddenly my fork clanged on something. I took a closer look. There was a not-too-small shard of glass lying among my pasta! I removed it, rummaged through the food and located two more small shards. What to do? We called the waiter and showed him the shards. He was unimpressed and I had to insist that I wanted another plate. With an annoyed look that seemed to insinuate that I might have put the shards in there myself, he took the plate and left. A minute later he was back with what looked suspiciously like my old plate. By now my sister and I had lost our appetite. After a meticulous analysis, I had a few more bites, then asked for the bill. The waiter neither asked whether we had liked the food, nor did he give an explanation for the glass, an apology or even, Heaven forbid, a rebate. Here was one restaurant that would never see us again. But, hey, it was our last day of holiday, so we took it with a laugh.

 

The next day, we drove all the way through Poland, arriving in Berlin towards the evening. Almost home. In Germany, we were greeted by an unpleasant heatwave. We learnt that, while we had enjoyed pleasantly moderate temperatures on our trip, Western Europe had been sweltering under a heat spell. Aren't we lucky.

 

And so, two weeks of adventure and new impressions came, all too soon, to an end. 5,851 kilometers, our longest road trip ever. Looking forward to the next journey.