Keeping up with the locals in Poland

In April 2019, I went out to Krakow to see my friend Marcin whom I met through the Camp America Scheme the year prior.

I caught a flight from Edinburgh Airport as it was the cheapest to fly out from there, and it meant I could stay with my friend Danny for the night to catch up. I caught a flight from the airport around 1pm, meaning that I would arrive into Krakow around mid afternoon.

I found Marcin in the Krakow Airport entrance area and we made our way to the airbnb to dump our luggage. We headed out into Krakow old town to have some food and drink. It seems as though it was a good time for us to come to the city as they were preparing for a local festival in the city and there were people dressed in fancy dress and weird costumes but we decided to call it a night fairly early on so we could get up early and go sight seeing in the morning.

Highlights of the trip included the following and I would reccomend these to anyone wishing to go to Krakow.

- Wawel Royal Castle and the Castle grounds

- Kazimierz, The Krakow Jewish quarter

- Krakow Old Town

- The Great Barbican

- St Mary's Basillica

- Rynek Glowny - The Krakow Main market Square

- Wieliczka Salt Mine

Most people would also say that one of the must see attractions is Auschwitz, I really wanted to go and see it but unfirtuantely it was closed on the day I wanted to go which was poor planning on my behalf.

We met up with one of Marcins friends and found a hardrock cafe for lunch and later on we found this really cute bar by the side of the river Vistula where you can sit in deck chairs and enjoy some grub and beer called Krakowski Zakaski.

We then endured a 5 hour train ride back to Marcins hometown of Poznan.

We went to Poznan zoo as it's renowned for being the best zoo in Poland. I also realisedjust how tall Marcin actually is compared to me. Either he's just rididulously tall or I'm just stupidly small as he's almost 2m tall.

Marcins mum also took us both out for a meal in one of the restaurants in the Poznan shopping mall where I had the best cheesecake of my life to date. Had to get marcin to translate for the both of us as she didn't speak much english but she was ever so lovely.