Road Trip: 13 Days in Poland + Germany (Part 2)

Rynek Główny, Kraków, Poland

Looking back on our trip through Poland, the one thing, above all others, that made our trip truly incredible are the Poles themselves.  Not only are they kind and hospitable beyond expectation, they are joyful in the simple pleasures life has to offer.  Their traditions, cuisine, art, and faith (I’ve never seen a more colorful cemetery as I did in Poland) are such beautiful expressions of who they are as a people.  I loved this about Poland, and we were incredibly fortunate to have spent some of our time in the country with a great friend, Monika, and her family.  After visiting Warsaw, we drove to her family’s home on a farm in the southern part of the country where the boys got a chance to play soccer with their friends and roast kielbasa over a fire pit, while Dave and I stuffed ourselves with plates full of amazing home cooked food (it’s hard to say “no thank you” when you don’t speak Polish, so we had the excuse to keep eating) and washed it down with home made moonshine.  It was such a magical experience . . . even if our memory of it is a bit foggy.  

Fifth Stop: Sandomierz and Stalowa Wola

To break up the drive, we stopped in Sandomierz, a small village on a lake where you can rent boats or head up the hill to the square where there are restaurants, shops, and a market in the center.  We stopped and picked up some gifts to bring home with us, and it was here where we made a giant mistake (more on that later).  We then traveled on to meet up with our friends for the night, and the next day, we set out for the mountains and were lucky enough to have our friend and her two boys join us.

Stalowa Wola, Poland 

Sixth Stop:  Szczawnica

There are two mountain ranges in the south of Poland, the Pieniny Mountains and the Tatra Mountains.  Zacopane, a popular mountain resort just a few hours from Kraków, is in the Tatra Mountains, while Szczawnica is in the Pieniny Mountains and bit farther off the beaten path than Zacopane.  In fact, we were incredibly lucky to have Monika with us as a majority of the tourists were Poles themselves and we met very few people who spoke English.  Aside from Szczawnica being the picture perfect setting for mountain views, I loved being among Poles enjoying their summer vacations.  We stayed at Hotel Batory, which was a short uphill walk from the town center, a perfect location with amazing views.  In the morning, we took the shuttle out of town toward the mountains for a hike, had a picnic lunch (bagged lunch bought at the hotel), and were able to take a traditional river raft back into town.  The Dunajec River sits between Poland and Slovakia, a truly beautiful landscape carved between the mountains, and that wooden raft was a thankful place for us to sit after a loooonnngg hike (which was hard on the littles, but totally worth it in the end).  For the sake of our extremely tired kids, we decided to eat at the hotel that night, which was a fantastic meal (one of the best of the trip).  We sat outside and watched the sun set over the mountains with good company, good food, good wine, and happy kids . . . does life even get any better than that?

Eat:  Hotel Batory

Stay:  Hotel Batory

Do:  Hike in the mountains, ride on a wooden raft on the Dunajec River, climb and zipline at Ablandia Ropes Course

Me on the left, Monika on the right

Seventh Stop:  Kraków

Kraków, without a doubt, was my favorite city of all that we visited.  We found our apartment on Airbnb in a great location for a truly reasonable price.  As soon as we arrived, we headed toward the main square for dinner where there was a stage set up with dancers in traditional costumes and music that just filled the atmosphere.  After dinner, we stopped at the market stalls in the square, where we returned the next day and bought a large handmade tapestry for our wall and a sheepskin rug, our only real purchases of Polish goods to bring home.  We bought a few pieces of handmade pottery as gifts, but only small ones as they had to survive the trip home.  I only wish I had bought some for myself!  The next day, we visited Wawel Castle, though we were slightly unprepared and missed our opportunity to buy tickets for specific exhibits as the tours are extremely limited and need to be purchased ahead of time.  But we used our trusty guidebook to learn about the buildings, the architecture and materials used to build them, as well as their use during the WWII Nazi occupation.  The kids loved crawling through the “dragon’s den” underneath the castle and hearing about the Wawel dragon.  We took a long route back to our apartment to visit Kazimierz, the former Jewish quarter of the city, and we visited the Remuh Synagogue and Old Cemetery.  Most buildings here were rebuilt after the war, and following the destruction of the cemetery we visited, the broken headstones were repurposed as building materials for the walls surrounding the property, a somber reminder of the city’s history.  

Kraków was such a perfect way to end our time in Poland, as it’s a great city to wander.  Some of my favorite moments of our adventure together were just walking the streets and squares, and stopping to take it all in.  

Eat:  Miod Malina 

Stay:  Apartment in the Old Town

Do:  Wawel Castle, wander in the square in Old Town, visit Kazimierz; lick the walls of the Salt Mine (if you’re like my kids, barf)

Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial

If you find yourself in Kraków, you should visit Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a place that must be experienced to be fully understood. 

On our last full day in Poland, we booked a day tour of Auschwitz and the Salt Mine.  I was fairly confident that my boys would be prepared to handle the experience of visiting the museums at Auschwitz and Birkenau, but I was unsure of how I would react to the emotional experience of being there, so I wanted to make sure they understood what they would see as well as why it was important to see it.  And it was very important that we all see it, to pay honor to the victims of genocide and understand how many lives were destroyed by hate.  It’s an overwhelming experience, to say the very least, but at the end of the tour, when the guide showed us the gas chambers that were destroyed by prisoners after a group of women were able to steal explosives, we were reminded of the people who were willing to fight, to the very end.

Children’s Camp, Birkenau Death Camp

Eighth Stop:  Berlin.

We returned to the place where we began, and took the opportunity to visit the TV tower and take in the city one last time.  We bought tickets ahead of time and just as we reached the top, the late afternoon glow over the city was just amazing, a perfect way to end our adventure.

In case you’re wondering what our grand mistake in Sandomierz happened to be, it was leaving behind one of the boys’ day packs that was holding some souvenirs, Jackson’s Olympus camera, and our brand new GoPro.  Worse than losing the items themselves was the memory cards that were inside the cameras containing images and video that hadn’t yet been uploaded.  A good 24 hours had passed (and we were hundreds of kilometers away) before we even knew it was missing.  It turns out, Sawyer had put it down in front of a food cart when his hands were full with a hot dog in one hand and ice cream in another (ah, the things kids get away with on vacation).  Monika helped us make some phone calls and we had little hope of ever seeing any of the items again, but a few days later, we got a phone call that it had been turned in, everything in it exactly the way it had been left.  We wrote thank you notes to Mrs. Marzena, the good samaritan/food cart operator who turned in our bag, and sent them with Monika (the true hero of this story!) who picked it up for us before returning to the US a few weeks later.  It’s a small example of the kindness we were shown as visitors to Poland, a place I would recommend anyone to visit.  It’s truly a special place that captured a piece of my heart.