Day 1
I didn't have a full first day 'cause I got to the hotel around 1pm, but since the city center is pretty small I still managed to see a lot. The very first thing I did when arriving in Cracow/Kraków was to get a Polish pretzel, Obwarzanki, at the airport. I got the one with cheese on top - I thought that one looked the least boring haha. It was actually pretty good; way more fresh and not nearly as dry as it looked like it would be. After getting my stuff to the hotel, I went to that cafe where I sat and wrote my last blog post, Cafe Charlotte, which I read about on a blog. After that I went to the market at Ploc Nowy, which is a lot bigger on the weekends, but there were some booths open. After a quick pitstop at the hotel to leave my laptop, I went on a vintage-store-hunt. I found a few and ended up with two jackets. I'll write a blog post later about the different stores! After walking around the city for a bit, I had late lunch/early dinner at Pijalnia Wódki i Piwa, which has SUPER CHEAP food and drinks. The food was good and the atmosphere was great - recommend! They're known for their shots, so I decided to go back the day after with my dad to try some Mad Dogs: vodka shots (you can't go to Poland without having at least one vodka shot!) with Raspberry sirup and sriracha! Actually, pretty good! I don't like eating and drinking alone so instead of sitting down at a restaurant somewhere for dessert or a glass of wine, I got a Matcha Latte and a brownie and worked on an assignment for class at Starbucks before watching a movie in bed.
Day 2
The second day, after a really good breakfast with my dad at the hotel plus a latte at Choco Cafe, I spent two to three hours at a spa called Eco Plant Spa (I'll write more about this in a later post) - it was super relaxing (most of it..) and I felt like a new person after! A little later, after some sightseeing and lunch (Pierogies, Polish dumplings), I met up with my dad in the Jewish district, Kazimierz, where we had a beer at a place called Alchemia - so cool! Then for dinner we wanted to try a local place a guy at work had told my dad about: Polskie Smaki. We had a TON of food and was super full but had of course room for a beer and some shots at Pijalnia Wódki i Piwa and Bania Luka. As well as a mulled wine - yummy! Poland has some great bars haha!
Day 3
Same good breakfast at the hotel, nice warm shower, and relaxing while watching the second half of a movie I had started on Netflix before more exploring! I started the day by going to a coffee shop called Massolit Books & Café. On my way there though, I spotted a vintage military shop. I had read about these while researching vintage stores and wanted to have a look. I ended up buying a vintage military jacket for only 50 Zlothy! It has patches of the Polish flag on it, but I'm planning on putting cute ice cream and muffin patches over them haha. Since the weather was so nice and I wanted to see a different part of Kraków, I walked all the way to the Kościuszko Mound, which is about an hour walk from the city center. After having a well-deserved pot of tea at a place called Bunkier Cafe, I met up with my dad on the main square to do a tiny bit of sightseeing (the main square and Wawel castle). Then we had a two-part dinner: first pierogies (dumplings) at Gospoda Koko, then a fancier meal at Kogel Mogel. To top off the evening, we went to a couple bars; first to Singer, where we had a shot of Cointreau, and where they had Singer sewing machine tables as actual tables (so cool!) and then to Eszeweria where we had hot beer! The hot beer was actually really good! I think I'm going to try to make that myself when it gets colder out.
Overall, Cracow/Kraków, was a really cool experience! There are a ton of other places I still have on my list of places to go, but I'd definitely go back to Kraków at some point; great prices, friendly people, a ton of cozy cafes and cool bars, and beautiful city centre! I'll post a mini-guide to Kraków in a couple of weeks. I'm back next week though, thanks for reading <3