Krakow

May 20th to 23rd, 2025- Cybulskiego Guest Rooms

No riding (but a lot of walking)

Gordon: Our first flight, the puddle jump from Victoria to Vancouver, was delayed by two hours, so we had to accept a new routing on a Lufthansa flight through Munich. Our bikes didn’t make the transfer at that airport, but in the end we only arrived in Krakow four hours later than our original schedule, and our bikes were delivered to our hotel the following morning. These sorts of delays seem to be increasingly common in our overburdened air travel industry. Ruth and I were a bit proud that we were almost unfazed by the challenges. Panic set in briefly when we were waiting for our luggage and Ruth realized she had left her purse on the plane. Fortunately, it was retrieved quickly, and all was well.

We are spending three nights just outside the historic core of Krakow, and so far it has been very pleasant. Spring arrived with us, with sun and a 21 degree high on our first full day. The city itself is charming. It is described in our guidebook as the premier tourist draw in Poland, and we have seen ample evidence of that. There were a row of Ryan Air planes parked at the airport, and the historic city core reverberates with foreign languages, mostly English. Still, the tourist throngs do not detract from the attractiveness of this old, royal city.

We went on a walking tour of the old city yesterday afternoon. It was led by a native of Krakow who had completed degrees in history and architecture here. Over the 2 1/2 hour walk he gave us a good introduction to the history of the city and Poland generally. While I haven’t done independent research to confirm his facts, Bartek claimed that 50 percent of working Poles, including his wife, who is a school psychologist, earn minimum wage, which is about CAD 1300 per month. If true, it certainly seems inadequate, based on our glances at real estate listings and restaurant prices. On the plus side, university tuition is free, leading to a student population of 200,000 in this city of a million.

Ruth: Today we joined a tour of the Jewish neighborhood Kazimierz and the Jewish ghetto. Krakow was home to 68,000 Jews before the Second World War, of which only 3,000 survived. Today a community of 1500 Jews, mostly Orthodox, live in Kazimierz.

The Jewish ghetto was purposely located in a factory district in order to provide a convenient labour force. This is where Oskar Schindler’s Enamelware Factory is located. Schindler, made famous by the Steven Spielberg film, saved 1000 of his Jewish workers from the death camps.

Gordon: We could spend many more days in Krakow visiting churches and museums, but we hear the siren song of the countryside. We ride 80 or 90 kilometres to the northeast tomorrow. Ruth is now wishing that she had done a few more training rides in the past month.