Krakow, Poland

We had an awesome time staying with Dave in his flat in Krakow! Most importantly i got to talk about Buffy!!! :D Saw Wawel Hill, the Jewish quarter and various other bits and pieces. Krakow is a very pretty city (providing you can navigate your way out of the bus terminal!)
Pic is kindly stolen from Dave's blog ;D

Kłodzko, Poland

Great fort (one of two that protected the city) with a massive maze of tunnels which are part of the defenses. Lots of crawling through tunnels which Ve of course loved! Forgot our camera that day though :P

Kletno, Poland

Absolutely beautiful area! Unfortunately no useful buses but got a lift off someone on the way there and walked 4km with all our gear the next day :P Saw Cave Bear’s Cave, uranium and flourite mine (no radiation where we though luckily!) and a geological museum with an absolutely amazing collection of different rocks and fossils – even included a fossilized nest of dinosaur eggs (see pic)!!! The mine was surprisingly fun as well, especially cos the tour guide spoke no english and only a couple of german words and our polish is very dodgy. Made for lots of charades etc cos we were the only ones on the tour :)

ok i am clearly aaaaaagggges behind so am gonna do a super quick catchup...

Wrocław, Poland

A beautiful city filled with dwarfs and sweaty fit people ... lol the marathon was on while we were there – hence the fit people. The dwarfs on the other hand, we first noticed when we were wandering around and saw a little brass dwarf sitting in chains behind a metal security grill on a random window. After noticing another couple we asked at the tourist info and ended up searching all through the city for them which was a lot of fun :)

Also saw an unbelievable panorama painting that was hundreds of metres long and set up in a round building with 3D objects like trees etc placed in such a way that you could only tell what was real and what was painting if you really searched! Combine that with the clever lighting and it really felt like you were there with the soldiers! It was pretty old but had been carefully preserved even during WWII and the communist era and depicted the Polish fighters defeating the invading Russians – based on an actual battle.

Pic here is of artwork on the street of people dissappearing into the ground - a reflection of life under soviet rule.

Šwiecie farm stay, Poland

Stayed for 3 nights at an “Agroturistyka” accomodation which is basically a farm stay. Lovely family and Ve got to play with the little girl Julia, not to mention their pet dog. Amazing homecooked Polish food, which we’ll definitely have to try to recreate back in Oz.

Also met another great couple who were staying a the same place while renovating their house near by. Amazing houses round here (in what used to be called the Sudetenland i think) which are all massive, old, german things with arches in the barn and cool stonework. They took us to visit some friends who had also renovated their house into this amazing, cozy little house furnished and decorated with all sorts of recycled bits and pieces and lots of art since the owner is an artist!

They also kindly gave us a lift back to Jelenia Gora the following day so we only had one bus to catch which was such a relief :)

This pic is from a beautiful walk we did around the river near Swiecie

Jelenia Gora, Poland

Had a fun day of about 9 hours travel to get less than 100km! Turns out the town we were going to in Poland is close to current town in Czech Republic but the border crossing isn’t open so we had to go via Germany! We do get to say we “walked to Poland” though, since we opted to walk across the border rather than train :)

Visited local ruined castle (Chojnik) which had a pretty (though steep) hike up to it. Awesome castle with great view and Ve even got to have a go using a crossbow! Pic here is one of the courtyards in the castle.