We were up early ready for the trip to the next big city in Poland – Krakow. There was a heavy fog, but it cleared quickly to reveal a beautiful sunny day. A few pictures of the Palace of Culture and Science were appropriate as we packed the car to leave.

Just outside of Warsaw was another building called Wilanow Palace that is highly recommended. We took the trip on the way to Krakow and we were not disappointed. The palace does cost to go in, so we were happy to take photos from the outside and walk the grounds. We even found a little church as we explored.

Trying to enjoy the journey as much as the destination, we stop if we see something cool. Today’s trip had a few stops. The first was at a church in some little town. It was built in 1774 and had been restored quite a bit by the look of it, but on the back of the donations of the poor townsfolk. We managed to get a peek inside since there was a wedding being set up in there.

The next stop was all about a cute church that ended up being about ice cream! There is a local delicacy called “lody” which is vanilla ice cream swirled with strawberry gelato into a cone. Delicious – and just what we needed to break up the trip. As we sat in a local park eating our ice creams, we saw a wedding about to start at the nearby church. The weird thing we noticed was that the bride and the bridal party had to WALK to the church! Strange, but kind of cool, since the locals all came out to cheer them on as they walked past.

We eventually got to Krakow and checked into our hotel. The timing was good because it was getting later into the afternoon and it had cooled down to about 28 degrees. The hotel was only 15 minutes walk from the old town, so we headed off to take a quiet walk around.

We did hit a slight hitch when we got inside the massive old town city gates… the Tour de Pologne was on. It’s a massive bicycle race similar to the Tour de France, but around Poland. The town square had a bike track set up through it and thousands of people had turned up for the race!

 

However, while people were busy watching, we managed to sneak into the nearby sights and have a great look around. The following photos are of the Church of the Virgin Mary and Wawei Royal Castle – and a troupe of traditional dancers!

       

Exhausted at the end of a long day, we sat down and had dinner at one of the many restaurants on the square and watched them pack up the spectacular. Afterwards we headed back to hotel and turned in.