It’s Sunday morning here and I have a few hours on a train that I think is going to a place I can’t pronounce somewhere in Poland. The conductor will let me know if I screwed up soon enough.
Why am I in Poland in the middle of winter? Well obviously, it’s cheap and tourist free. Usually I just pick a spot as far as the lowest number of frequent flyer miles will take me. The downside is the 12 hour layovers that get added to the “free” trip. Not to mention the $250 service fee for the joy of it all. When for $500, I could get to the same place in half the time.
Poland is a good jumping off spot for the rest of Europe anyway.
I started out in Krakow to work out the jetlag and load up on perogies. I have done all the Holocaust sites on previous trips and once in a lifetime is plenty. This time I mostly just a walked around. It’s a very touristy city even in the winter so I tried to find neighborhoods where locals hang out. The Jewish quarter between the big plaza and the river isn’t much to grab your attention in the daytime but really lights up with bars and restaurants at night.
The other reason I chose Poland was for a little medical tourism. For a fraction of the US price I could get some aches and pains looked at before the final push on the cabin next summer. There is a clinic an hour outside of Krakow that specializes in a full body check-up for under $2000. 3 days of poking, prodding and scanning. I am still waiting for the final report to be translated but initial prognosis is I will most likely be dead of old age in about 30 years. Or with the continued over indulgence in day old donuts and half-price holiday candy, in 10. Either way plenty of time.
Between medical appointments, there was a lot more walking to kill the time. It doesnt seem to be a very rough winter so far. Other than a layer of crusty old snow, its just cold and gray. With the bare trees, it reminds me a lot of Cleveland, Ohio in a typical November.
So far, I have found Poland to be perfectly safe for walking around. Looks a lot like any rust bucket town in the US without the fear of an imminent beat down People are very friendly and speak English pretty well even after they say they only speak a little bit. It is a good thing because I speak, read and write absolutely no Polish. Not even hello. “Polish is considered to be one of the most challenging languages to learn in the world. In fact, Statista places it in Category IV of the hardest languages, which means it takes roughly 44 weeks to achieve “general speaking and reading professional proficiency” in this language”. I pulled that quote from this Polish teacher’s website. because when I was trying to explain it in my own words, it sounded too whiney and making it up. I like Poland but learning Polish is way too ambitious of an effort for an occasionaI 2 week visit.
I did notice a faint smell of diesel exhaust and fresh
asphalt in the air. I can smell a fart in a windstorm so I might not be the best judge of how bad the place smells. I kept an eye on the the air quality via my weather app. Hopefully it is just due to calm winter air that has settled in and will blow out with the next storm.
Once the medical stuff was done, Katowice Poland list it’s luster and it was time to move on. And coincidentally the train is pulling into the station of the town I can’t pronounce, Przemyśl, Poland. I do not know what’s here but since I am now, time to take a look around.
I only have my phone so the written updates will be less than thorough and ridden with typos. I did update the photo page to link to my google photo list from my Travel photo page between posts.
The IG-ish page has been getting some updates too.
Here are links to my previous Poland trips…..
4 comments for “Poland”