Today was fairly straight forward. I had decided to catch the expresss bus to
Krakow. I knew it left at 10am and would take five and a quarter hours to make
the trip.
Although I had set the alarm, I did not need it as the voices of a rock concert
sound crew who had stayed the night awoke me a bit earlier. Breakfast was the
usual sliced bread, pate type paste, processed cheese and a chutney type
spread. In addition there was honey, tea and coffee.
So I was able to head out from the hostel about 9:15am. Alex and Johanna gave me
a good farewell with Alex appologising for any noise the groups had made the
previous couple of nights. He said that it was not his usual type of guests.
Normally he would have a much more international mix of visitors staying.
That's OK, you have to take what you get in any hostel, as you travel around.
In general terms it was a pleasant small hostel. It was clean and tidy and the
staff did their best to be helpful and pleasant. The rooms were comfortable and
I would be happy to stay there again. The only problem for me was that the WiFi
system did not work. There was no way that I could connect with the Internet on
either my PC or phone Internet connection.
So I wheeled my case down the road to the bus station; a 15 minute walk. Then I
watched the various buses come and go until the Krakow Express pulled in around
9:56am. Each bus bay has a steady sequence of one bus replacing the departing
one. It all seems very carefully planned. Once of the two bus drivers stoad my
bag in the side bin and I climbed on board to pay the 40 PLN fare. The bus was
not full and most people had a double seat and there were other spare seats
unused.
I was thinking that my stereotype of Eastern Europe would be slack time keeping.
But this has not been the case of any transport I have been on so far. Right on
10am the door closed and the bus backed out ready to head for Krakow.
We headed out into the morning rush traffic and creeped along the road from
traffic light to traffic light. It did giv me a chance to see more of the city.
I noticed the number of parks we were passing and thought how colourful the
trees must look in Autumn.
But we soon got speed up although road works did slow us down several times on
the trip. The other slowing cause was when the bus drove through the middle of
small towns along narrow streets which were never designed for buses or the
large trucks we where passing. I saw some very picturesque views in the towns
including old gateways in the way, churches etc. It would have been good to
have been able to stop long enough to take photos.
The countryside was Spring green, actually today, damp Spring green. There were
woodlands but much more was recently ploughed long narrow fields. At times
there were rows of what looked to me like young broad bean plants. There were
lots of large fields glowing bright yellow as the crop was in flower. Also
common was long low plastic tunnels stretching in long lines across the fields.
Through the end of some I noticed lettuce growing. The tunnels were more common
toward Krakow, so I assumed that these were vegetable being grown for the city
market.
There were trees in blossom in many places – some were orchards, but the rest
were just single or a few more\, trees growing around a house. Houses were
modern looking and any assumption that there would lots of old picturesque,
but poor and decaying buildings just didn't hold up' Yes there were some, more
being in the small towns, but not the number I would have expected. Generally.
I was getting an idea of a good rural economy.
Oh and I did see one grazing cow. It was the only livestock of any variety seen
in the whole journey.
However, stopping, other than for compulsory stops, was not something we did
very much. In all perhaps four stops were made along the way. One stop was at a
roadhouse for a toilet break and smoking opportunity. The two drivers also
interchanged at stops.
We got to Krakow on time and merged into the slowly moving main street traffic
before reaching the bus station which is next to the railway station.
As happened last time, I found it confusing trying to find my way from the bus
to the tram stop. Once again I ended up going through the shopping mall but
only for a short time before I emerged into the street and could make my way
along to the bus and tram stop. The hostel's instructions tell you to take the
underpass under the road but that is not correct. It just confuses the issue.
After waiting at the stop for tram #2 I found out that it was not running
because of road works. OK try buss 522, that is suppose to be a two stop ride.
In fact I found it went on a longer route, one full of traffic hold ups. Just
when I was wondering where on earth I was I began to recognise the area ane
knew that my bus stop was coming close. It was about stop 6.
However, it was only a short walk along the road, round the corner and along to
the hostel. Little over 100 metres all up.
At the hostel Brian, staff receptionist, was there to meet me and some others
arrive soon after me. He invited us all to a free dinner at their other hostel
a 10 minute walk away. I think that all the private room guests went along. A
chance to chat with Canadians, Italians, Spanish, Polish and a couple of guys
from the UK. Tea was a simple cooked vegetable mixture with couscous. It was
nice and a good way to get to meet others. I headed back to the private rooms
while many of the others headed off for a quiz night at the nearest Irish Pub.
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