In which I go to an awful lot of museums and eat an awful lot of pork.
Day 15, 18th September 2023: Prague
I woke up slightly fuzzy headed, but was quickly revived by a smoothie and a ham and cheese croissant. I made my way across the Charles Bridge, where I felt like a salmon against the stream of tour groups and people selling tat, and met up with a girl from yesterday to do some exploring.
Our first stop was the castle, which isn’t usually my cup of tea but this one was actually pretty interesting! It’s more like a small self-contained town complete with a Basilica and a Cathedral, which had the most colourful stained glass windows I’d ever seen. My favourite part was the Golden Lane, which is a stretch of absolutely tiny houses that had originally been built into the arches of the castle walls. They had now been restored to represent some of the different uses over time, from old taverns and apothecaries to interwar houses.
Mid-day through we were flagging a bit, so headed to a small restaurant just outside the castle and refuelled with a cherry beer and a plate of halusky, which turned out to be tiny gnocchi-type dumplings fried with pork and cabbage, and really hit the spot.
After a bit more wandering to make the most of our ticket price, we headed off for more food, and ended up at a beer hall type place called Lokal which had been recommended to me by a guy in Brno. I had pork goulash and Czech bread dumplings, which was absolutely delicious but I was also absolutely stuffed.
I headed back to the hostel for a bit of a chill and digest. Realising that if I didn’t move I’d just end up napping and wasting the evening, I headed back out to meet up with some of the group again at the metronome monument. We drank watching the lighting flash all around but luckily never got a soaking, and then went back into town for yet more food.
After a day of a lot of walking and eating, it was safe to say I was very excited to go to bed that evening!
Day 16, 19th September 2023: Prague to Berlin
I woke up pretty early and headed out of my hostel around 8, intending to do one last hurrah of Prague before my train at lunchtime.
My first stop was Arctic Bakehouse, where I started with a giant and delicious chocolate hazelnut swirl. I then went to the museum of the Czech resistance, which is free and located under the St Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. It was a small but great museum about yet another bit of history I didn’t have knowledge of.
I had a walk around the old town, stopping at the Lennon wall and the Frantiskanoska Zahrada garden, then picked up some supplies for my train.
The train had a great view as it crossed the Czech border, as the tracks hugged a windy river valley with towering sandstone cliffs either side. Things flattened out on the approach to Berlin, and I rolled into the Hauptbahnhof about 5.
My hostel was definitely more of a youth hostel than a party hostel, but it was still decent, and I dumped my bags and headed out on a walk to make the most of the last bit of daylight. I crossed the river and found the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate, then went to pick up a salad for some vitamins.
It turned out that each evening the Bundestag had a free light display, so I installed myself on the steps with my snacks and watched the show. It was half an hour long and told the history of parliament in Berlin, with captions to follow along on your phone. It was surprisingly good and I headed back to my hostel to wile away the evening with my new roommates.
Day 17, 20th September 2023: Berlin
Even on my first morning I’d already realised that three nights was nowhere near enough time to properly explore Berlin, so I definitely think I’ll come back sometime. I’d booked a free walking tour in the afternoon, so I had the morning to fill.
I eventually succeeded in getting a day travel ticket from the station, then headed to the Deutschland museum as my knowledge of German history was pretty lacking. The entry was quite steep (€17), but the museum was pretty good, and themed rooms ran through key periods from Roman times to present. It was a bit marred half way by multiple loud school groups with no concept of personal space, so I was glad to escape by the end.
I did a quick flyby of Checkpoint Charlie, which I hadn’t realised is just now in the middle of a normal road, and then had a little look into the temporary Bauhaus exhibition. Starving, I went to a recommended kebab shop in Charlottenburg and got a fantastic salad-filled Lahmacun wrap for only €2!
My tour was focused on the build up and aftermath of WW2, and focused on the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate and various memorials in the area, and even included Angela Merkel’s favourite kebab shop. It was a really good tour and very eye opening.
Afterwards, I met up with two girls from my hostel at a lovely riverside bar, and then we headed over the river to a beer garden that served traditional food in a canteen type setting. I got weißwurst and chips for novelty’s sake, which actually tasted better than it looked!
Day 18, 21st September 2023: Berlin
I got up a little earlier with the aim of ticking off as much as possible on my last full day in Berlin, and did some hostel bookings for my next week or so in Poland.
I started off at the DDR museum, as most of my knowledge on the division of east and west Germany comes from the film Goodbye Lenin! It was a really great museum with lots of interactive exhibits and even an entire recreated flat. There were a lot of college students, but it was far more bearable than yesterday!
To carry on my cheerful theme I then went to the Stasi museum which is located in their old office complex. It was really alarming the amount of data they collected on so many people, and the scale of the admin must have been phenomenal.
Thoroughly hot and hungry at this point, I went to a collection of food trucks near the Ostbahnhof and got two giant baozi for a mere €5. I then walked along the largest remaining section of the Berlin wall at the East Side Gallery.
At a station I attempted to book a seat reservation for my next leg as they had sold out online, but I was turned away for my rudimentary German not being good enough. Understandable, but a bit rich considering the ticket lady next to my man was speaking perfect English with a smile to her customer!
A lady on the tour yesterday had recommended the Jewish museum to me, so that was my final stop of the day. It’s in a huge concrete and glass building that is designed to have everything slightly wonky, with the aim of making you feel slightly uncomfortable or out of balance all the time. It worked. It was a good museum but naturally quite oppressive, so I was ready to leave at the end. My ankle had also started to ache from a day shuffling around museums, so I picked up some pasta from the shop and power walked my way back to the hostel.
Day 19, 22nd September 2023: Berlin to Wroclaw
I’d intended on spending a nice chill morning at a climbing wall, but after I’d failed to get a seat reservation I instead needed to make a longer and slightly more epic journey to my next stop.
I ended up taking four trains via Cottbus, Görlitz and Zgorzelec, and as everything was miraculously on time I pulled into Wroclaw at about 3.
My hostel was all newly fitted but bizarrely dark and quiet, so I headed into town to check it out. I didn’t expect much of Wroclaw as I was just using it as a springboard to go to Krakow tomorrow. However, the town was surprisingly nice, with a huge town square fringed with historic buildings.
I was a little tired of various forms of sausage at this point, so I hunted out a Thai restaurant and eagerly tucked into a feast, albeit not at the spice levels I’m used to back in Leeds!
Day 20, 23rd September 2023: Wroclaw to Krakow
I had the morning to kill in Wroclaw, so I walked around town and along the waterfront, then stopped at a cafe in the square for an iced cappuccino.
I got into Krakow about 3, where it was absolutely bucketing it down. The station dumped me out into a seemingly endless shopping centre, but I managed to find my way out and head into the old town to get to my hostel.
It turned out that the hostel was actually just a spare room in someone’s apartment where they’d squeezed in as many bunk beds as possible, which was a little weird! I waited for the rain to ease off a bit by booking some hostels and tickets for the Wieliczka Salt Mine, then went into town for the now obligatory wander.
The old town was ringed by a lovely strip of parkland, and I walked up to the castle for a look around. It’s always nice when you can get into the grounds to appreciate the view without having to shell out a fortune! I then hunted out some dinner, settling for an incredibly messy lamb and feta burger.
Day 21, 24th September 2023: Krakow
It was a slightly weird night’s sleep, as we were interrupted about midnight by someone checking in late, someone in the room mentioning that the noise from outside was quite bad, and then the landlady going on a really long rant to the poor girl!
I slipped out early for my train to Wieliczka. I’d erred on the side of caution and got there far too early for my 9am booking, so I had a little walk around the town and got a mediocre cappuccino.
I didn’t really know what to expect from the mine, but it was far cleaner and more commercialised than any I’d been in before. It was absolutely massive, and the tour went through lots of different sized caverns linked by tunnels.
Unfortunately, the guide for our group was pretty useless, and had a bizarre way of just repeating a few sentences in a slightly different way rather than actually explaining much of what we were seeing.
Fortunately, it was redeemed at the end with the option of going to an additional museum, which I had assumed was just a room but was actually another guided tour. Luckily, the guide for this was different and she explained everything that we should have been told before!
To fill the afternoon, I went to the neighbourhood with the Schindler’s factory (tickets had sold out long ago!) and went for some late lunch, followed by a climb at a wall called Mood. I was also in a bit of a mood as it was really busy and the comp wall took up so much of the wall space that there weren’t loads of normal routes at each grade. I’d climbed everything I could in an hour or so, so headed back into town for some food.
There was a market in one of the squares with a stall selling traditional food, so I made a beeline for that. There was a group of disorganised Spanish ladies in front of me who all changed their minds multiple times, and I was nearly at the end of my tether by the time I got my food! I got a big pot of bigos and bread, and then retreated quickly to eat it in peace!
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