Holiday Snapshots

One

Our tour guide, Luke, of Crazy Guides, arrives to take us to Nowa Huta in the ‘Trabby’. It’s pale blue. It’s also made of fibre glass, and pretty old. When I get in, the interior reminds me of the first car we ever had. It has seat belts, but he advises us not to wear them! It has very few controls. There’s a sort of bar on the dashboard that I hang on to. The gear lever is also on the dashboard, and looks complicated. The car smells heavily of fumes, and apparently you have to add oil to the petrol before driving. It has a manual choke, which brings back lots of memories of learning to drive and inadvertently flooding the engine!

Later Luke shows us the engine. There isn’t a lot to it. I think he realised when he was referring to the horsepower of the car, and I had absolutely no idea how it compared to my car, that he was speaking to the uninformed! ‘Not much to go wrong’ we comment, however Cat spots that the engine is worryingly close to the petrol tank!

It rattles a lot as we move through the traffic, and especially when we pick up speed. Apparently he can make it go quite fast, and can even take corners on three wheels. I’m quite glad he doesn’t attempt it with us in the car.

When we arrive in Nowa Huta, he just mounts the kerb to park the Trabby. ‘We don’t bother to lock it, no one is going to steal it!’ On the return journey, I sit in the back, and find myself almost banging my head on the roof as we go over any bumps.

Two

We eventually find the minibus that will take us to the salt mine. It’s already full, and there are no seats left. The driver nods at us when we ask if we can get on. We have to stand, but the journey’s 'only 20 minutes'. He lets other people on after us, and it begins to be a bit of a crush. There are so many nationalities; someone comments it’s like the United Nations on a bus!

We set off. It’s pretty packed, but we keep stopping and the driver lets more people get on. We begin to wonder if someone is actually sitting on the driver’s knee. The windows steam up, so much so that we can’t really see out, though I am at least getting a little air from the sun roof above my head.

Eventually someone gets off (a struggle, but they manage) and Cat gets a seat. The guy next to her is listening to the ‘Wake Up to Wogan’ podcast. Things are getting more surreal by the minute. Only the Brits are discussing the journey. I'm thinking it's that Dunkirk spirit starting to come out!

We turn off the main road. It can’t be far now. The road gets progressively worse, and is full of potholes. At one point my feet actually leave the floor as we go over a bump, and Cat leaves her seat. It’s starting to feel like some form of torture for tourists!

Eventually, after about 35 minutes, (it seems longer), we arrive. When the bus stops, for a few moments, no one moves, not quite believing that we’ve arrived. I think none of us are sure how to extricate ourselves without tumbling into a heap.

The return journey seems like an anti-climax, as it takes about 20 minutes, and everyone gets a seat!

The continuing search

Along with my never ending search for Jesus in a snowstorm*, I’m always on the look out for lime vodka, ever since we bought some at a fair in Cheltenham a few years ago. It was the stuff of legend, but it didn’t last long, and I’ve never come across any since.

Looking at the list of vodkas in the bars of Krakow makes me very optimistic. They seem to have all sorts of flavours. In the first ‘tasting’, I try mandarin, which comes in a chilled glass, and is lovely. We then decide to visit the Vodka Bar, which advertises that it has 108 flavours of vodka. We only try two, (well, it is only early evening) but they have the elusive lime vodka. And it is really something special.

Cat asks where we can buy it, and the barman directs us to a shop in the main square. It’s a couple of days before we start the serious search, during which we try other varieties, including cherry, lemon, honey, and just plain vodka. Nothing comes close, though the ‘Polish Flag’** cocktail is pretty special.

When we start the search, every time we ask, we’re offered lemon, and having no idea of the Polish for ‘lime’ try to explain that it’s like lemon, only green. It doesn’t get us far. We are offered a ‘lime infused’ Finlandia, but I’ve tried that, and it’s a very pale imitation.

In our last night, and in the last shop – one of the 24 hour Alkoholes – we’re again offered lemon, or mandarin. I opt for mandarin, as it’s the closest I’m going to get.

The search continues.

*He exists, I saw him once at Milan station. As far as I’m concerned it should probably be a place of pilgrimage!
**vodka and grenadine

A whole new world

Last week I was in Krakow. Poland. The first time I’ve ever been to a country that for much of my life has been inaccessible because it was behind the ‘iron curtain’. The fact that you can get there so easily now, on a cheap flight, still rather blows my mind.

One of the first things is that we’re spending zloty, not euros. It’s also different to be in a country where you can’t even attempt the pronunciation of most words. Thankfully, most Poles speak good English. We’re already visiting too late to avoid the country being infiltrated by the big corporates. As we travel into the city on the mini bus from the airport, we pass two drive-through ‘golden arches’, and pass an Ikea (our third of the day). Thankfully, Starbucks doesn’t seem to have arrived as yet, but Tesco’s has.

Unlike many Polish cities, Krakow wasn’t destroyed in the war, and it’s retained its medieval centre, which is beautiful, with buildings like something out of Grimm’s fairytales.

I knew very little about Krakow, or indeed Poland, before we went. It turns out to be an amazing city, with an incredible history, but also one that brings home to you the horrors and excesses of the 20th Century. We may only have had a few days, but I feel we got the ‘flavour’ of the city. It was all rather fabulous. And yes, there is much more to Polish cuisine than beetroot* and cabbage! There was also quite a lot of vodka!

*Though beetroot soup turns out to be a bit of a revelation