I Like This - A Personal View

We got on the train at Warszawa Centralna at 6:15 am. Comfortable 6 person compartments with outlets for charging your laptops. We had coffee, slept, watched the scenery. We could have had a Polish, English, Swedish or "healthy" breakfast in the restaurant car. At 9:20 am the conductor apologized for arriving in Kraków Glówny 4 minutes late. Our connection to Wieliczka was waiting 2 platforms over, more like a commuter tram than a train.

Wieliczka is a very small town. Population a little over 19,000. It seems you can almost see all of it from the train station. April is a good time to visit the place - very few tourists.

click on blue markers to see photos

I knew from Google maps that we could walk from the station to our hotel. We started of and soon we were by the entrance to the salt mines. The streets in this Medieval town are all twisty and I was not sure which way to turn. I stopped a nice, older, "local" looking couple to ask for directions. Guess we are not the only tourists in town - a couple from Glasgow heading for the first, morning tour of the mines. We all had a good laugh, exchanged niceties about our native lands and were of on our way. Briefly I considered bringing up my 3 year stay in Glasgow but I am sure that would have ended in a lengthy conversation and maybe even entanglements. It was too early for that. We wanted to get to the hotel. So I left it alone. Trust the hardy Scots to be sightseeing in Poland at the end of March.

Turns out Hotel Galicja was right round the corner just past the giant "SALT MINES" signs in 3 languages and a large tourist bus parking lot. Only 3 buses but room for many more. Bet you this place can be a real zoo during the tourist season.

Although I have intellectually accepted that this is not the same country I left a quarter of a century ago I still harbor some deeply held old assumptions that once where very useful for getting by in a country stricken by the malaise of Soviet style communism. I expected the service to be resentful, accommodations shoddy and the reservations somehow problematic.

Well, I was wrong. Everything was fine. It's not a great or modern hotel but it is cosy and familial. In the off season you can get a 3 person room for 250 z? (about $75 depending on the exchange) and that includes a "Swedish" breakfast.

It was a nice room, up one flight of stairs. A little odd shaped with a very fancy modern shower. We liked the shower because the one in the Warszawa apartment sucks.

We unpacked and got ready for some serious touristing - it's off to the salt mines.