Two broke girls go to Krakow – A Three Day Adventure
Okay, when I say we are broke, we are in the very lucky situation of both having decent jobs. But with the cost of living crisis in the UK, times are harder for everyone. Plus! my best friend Cerri is joining me on her last holiday as a single woman because she’s getting married so we didn’t really have the spare funds to go anywhere but decided to go for it anyway and eat beans on toast for the next month! This isn’t one for the backpacker lifestyle because Cerri isn’t the biggest hostel fan. So see this as somewhat luxury travel on a budget.
Krakow has been on my list for years and I’ve heard about it being very affordable. We wanted to go somewhere where we could have fun, relax and party and feel a bit pampered.. all in 3 days.. is that even possible?. Let’s find out !
*All recommended places are linked in the text 🙂
Day 1
We flew from Bristol airport arriving at 11..30am and headed to our hotel. We arrived by 1 but couldn’t check in yet! So we decided to head over to nearby restaurant Bistro Blonia for some lovely food and of course a nice glass of wine. I love that in a lot of European countries you can order a carafe, its often just the perfect amount for lunchtime. I had really lovely gnocchi meal and we shared a white house wine, delish!
By the time we were done it was pretty much check in time of 3pm so we headed back to the hotel and hooray! Our room was ready.
We stayed at AC by Marriot hotel. We got the twin room for a fairly reasonable price of around 90 euros per night. Bear in mind the rooms were absolutely huge with all the facilities we needed, a balcony terrace and access to the swimming pool area, sauna and jacuzzi included.
Me, being the ever excited itinerary planner dragged Cerri on a 4pm walking tour around the whole old city. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big fan of the walking tours in any city I visit. Cerri however was sceptical as she thought that 2 and half hours sounded like a lot of walking. I’m glad she put her trust in me though because we both had a great time, learned a lot of history and got some great recommendations of other things to do! The tale of the fire breathing dragon of Krakow was fascinating and its a must-see.
My favourite part was visiting the castle as it was really stunning! We also met a fellow Welsh person! So rare! The walking tour was with Walkative. They are an independent group and run tours in many cities. I would definitely do other tours with them.
We had a bit of a panic that we had become criminals as we were unable to pay for a tram ticket into town with card so had to steal a ride (sorry Krakow trams!)
That evening thanks to Ania the tour guide’s recommendation we found ourselves 2 floors underground in a very traditional polish restaurant called Goschina Chata.
I was delighted to hear the traditional music, see staff dressed in folk dress and be bombarded with delicious looking dishes! I chose mutton with dumpling and Cerri had polish sausage and potato cakes which were beyond incredible. If you visit Krakow this place is a must!
Tired and full after the meal we headed home early to get some rest.
Day 2
The next day we headed into town early for breakfast and found a little café with very reasonable prices and tasty food! I need to mention the bread in Poland. It is ridiculously good and I will be trying to find it in my local polish supermarket.
Anyway, we wandered around the old town a bit and wanted to do a bit of souvenir shopping and exploring. We stumbled upon the fanciest shopping arcade I have ever seen. Three floors of designer shops including a ridiculously beautiful delicatessen and a wine bar serving food from the deli! Obviously we were well out of place but we were still made to feel welcome with a smile while window shopping. I’d recommend going to Vitkac Krakow for anyone else who likes to pretend to be fancy or treat themselves to a posh pastry.
We explored market square and the stalls there and waited to hear the trumpeter of Krakow. Then we took a little wander over to Kazimerz as we had heard good things. After a slightly aimless wander around taking in the scenery we settled at wine bar BARoWINO because wine. They had a huge selection of wines and were very friendly. It was a lovely place for a good glass of wine and a natter. Kazimierz was very quiet while we explored. Maybe we went to the wrong part but we eventually found the famous bread bar, some hipstery shops and the Synagogue so I’m calling it a win.
We headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and dolled up ready for a bar crawl with Krawl through Krakow.
After a tactical Langos we met at the Adam Mickiewicz statue in the main square. We both had the plan to be sensible so that we could make the most of our last day.
Pro tip : Don't go on a bar crawl thinking that you can be sensible.
As it was a Thursday night it was on the quiet side with only around 15 of us. We headed to the first bar where we were given an hour of unlimited drinks. The others in the group were nice. We found it was mostly guys and they were from America and Netherlands. We played drinking games like drunk Jenga so soon got to know each other. After the hour we headed to Let’s sing karaoke bar. This was our favourite bar. You could ask the DJ for any song you liked. He happily obliged and seemed to enjoy his job. The words were on a big screen and off you went with your microphone. We had a good laugh here!
The last few places and been little more than just the group. However the next places was a very popular club. A lot of young people and a mix of polish people and tourists. A good mix of girls and guys too. We met some very friendly polish people, danced the night away and did way more vodka shots than planned.
The next place was a bit of a let down as it was very empty but as you can imagine we were too drunk to care. I think it would be a much better crowd on a weekend, even just from numbers of the pub crawl itself. I would also recommend being careful with buying drinks from the places they take you to at the end of the night as we found it to be very pricey as if they were taking advantage of drunkenness. Although this was a minus point for me, I’d still recommend it as a fun experience.
Unfortunately we met our downfall at the end of visiting this place (hello again vodka shots) which resulted in having to drunkenly find an Uber home.
Day 3
We woke up feeling expectedly awful and had to go for the hotel breakfast. Trying to pull ourselves together we went downstairs and enjoyed what we could actually eat of the breakfast. It really was a shame that we were so hungover as the selection was absolutely amazing! It even included prosecco which we didn’t want to so much as look at with our sorry tummies.
We left the hotel eventually after some recovery, determined to do something with our day! We were on our way to Wielicza to visit the salt mine!
…And what a beautiful town it was. Leafy and gorgeous with a tiny train station and atmospheric older looking cafes and restaurants around. The salt mines were signposted so we followed them and still took a wrong turning into some gardens. It really wasn’t our day. Regardless we arrived at the salt mines at around 20 past 4 with the next English speaking tour to commence at 5. The tour costs 116 PLN (about £23) for a full priced ticket and runs every hour on the hour. After a very strange long iced cream (are all iced creams like this in Poland?) it was time to start the tour.
Our tour guide was fantastic! She greeted us and informed us we would be walking down many stairs and would be 62 metres underground. After an apprehensive glance at each other we started the journey to the salty underworld. Our guide was funny and passionate about her job even when explaining rules and had about 40 people to guide around. She deserves a gold medal in my opinion. It was almost as if the tourist route followed the best for last mentality. Pickaxe carved tunnels turned into chambers which turned into lagoons, churches and ballrooms. Small statues turned into sceneries which turned into chandeliers and pieces of art. All made out of salt.
It was so impressive and mesmerising. It felt so peaceful down there even amongst the other tourists. Maybe that had something to do with the air quality. Whatever it was I´d highly recommend visiting such a unique and special place.
Proud of ourselves for making it through 2 hours of underground-ness and considering salt cave weddings, we went to get a bite to eat near the train station. This is when our misfortune continued. No, the restaurant was fine! It was quiet but personally I was happy as I finally had the chance to try pierogi!
The disaster was however, my stupid hungover brain didn’t realise that I’d left my phone and my salt souvenir on the table. I didn’t even realise until we got all the back to the hotel. At which point the restaurant had closed. To make matters worse we would be flying home before the restaurant opened again. As you can imagine panic ensued. What would you have done in this situation reader? I’m intrigued to know, please tell me in the comments.
We left at five in the morning, tired and phoneless but made it home safe and with memories to keep.
So that is the end of our short and sweet little trip to Krakow. I hope you enjoy reading it and that it inspires you to take a budget trip with your bestie!
