Krakow: Food Tour and Nowa Huta

I wake up early today grab a coffee and head down to Plac Nowy in Kazimierz to start my food tour. There’s a market here today but vendors are just setting up for the day.

Our guide is a polish native, spent some years in Chicago but decided she missed living in Poland. There is only me and another woman on this tour today. My companion is very nice and in town for a couple weeks volunteering her time in Auschwitz.

We start in Plac Nowy in order to try Zapiekanka which I had tried yesterday. Today I try it with different toppings, more vegetables. So far I have not found a bad combination. I’ll have to just keep trying to see if there is one I don’t like 😀.

From here we go to the first stop at pub called Singer. Singer, a lively pub in the evenings, is only closed for about 3 hours in the morning. This historic bar of over 30 years is distinct because it is decorated with the theme of Singer sewing machines. The bar is filled with cute bistro tables with sewing machines on them. It is here that I try two vodkas: honey vodka and wormwood vodka. I admit that wormwood vodka is probably not most people’s favorite since it is kind of medicinal tasting but I quite like it.

The next stop is the “secret” stop of our secret food tour. We try a local take on shaksuka. The flavors of the sauce are perfect. Instead of a full egg it is the yolk only. It is all topped with sour cream (sour cream is what makes it polish). I also try a mulled beer. People know me well know that I never drink beer anymore because it tends to make me feel sick . I take a chance with this mulled beer, so far so good. With ginger and other spices it is very flavorful – something perfect for the cold holidays.

We walk toward old town to digest some food and our guide points out some things along the way.

The next stop is an official milk bar (Bar Mleczny) where I try some official pork pierogis and kompot fruit drink that sounds very easy to make at home.

Next we go to another shop where I get to try again the highland smoky sheep cheese but in the proper form warm grilled served with fruit sauce. It is salty but I enjoy it. I must go back to try some of the other cheeses. Apparently they travel well but I am too early in my travels to carry a bunch of cheese around with me.

Next we stop at another older pub called BaniaLuka, which was also recommended by another tour guide yesterday. Here I get to try bigos which is a sort of cabbage stew with meats like chicken and sausages. It is said to be an excellent hangover cure. Luckily so far I haven’t had enough alcohol to cause a hangover but now I know where to go if I do. I also try drinking a traditional lager to test my luck. I had ginger syrup added to it, apparently a thing people do, and I only drank about half because I didn’t want to press my luck with the beer issue.

Next we stop for a pączki, a polish doughnut. Trying the popular flavor of the yeast doughnuts, filled with wild rose jam topped with candied orange bits, is on my list so I am lucky to try one right out of the oven. The thing is you have to eat these things fresh. I’m notorious for taking a couple bites and squirreling away the rest for later and with pączki it’s just not the same.

Finally we stop at one more bar where I try another drink, this time a shot. The shot is a mix of polish limoncello and ginger syrup with pepper on top. When you drink it quickly it is said to taste like coca-cola and it does.

I say goodbye to tour guide and the other attendee because I am heading across town to check the planned community of Nowa Huta.

Nowa Huta was started in the 1950s when Poland was under the Soviet Union communist rule. It was set up as an ideal town with a steel mill with a neatly formed city to house the workers and families. The architecture is a mix of what you might see in Paris or London but some of it just looks brutalist to me. There is a lack of color and life you might see as you do in other parts of town but apparently these days it is a very popular place to live, especially since communism is long gone in Poland.

I especially enjoyed touring some of the underground in the Nowa Huta museum. Many emergency bunkers were built under the city in case of bombing because you have to remember this was all constructed during the Cold War. The museum also has exhibits on World War II and the Korean War and even the USA’s role in those wars. They definitely had a different propaganda machine going than we did.

The guide from the museum points out other things around town like underground air vents, an interesting church, and different types of architecture.

I visit a second museum that is associated with the Nowa Huta museum but is optional. It is not as extensive but worth a quick visit if time allows. It talks more about bunkers in general and other examples around the world.

Exhausted I catch the bus back to my part of town. Even after all the food I have had today I still feel like I need dinner so I grab something quick and head back to the hotel. I should be out enjoying the evening on a weekend but I am exhausted and I have another tour booked tomorrow.

A Good night.

Berlin beginnings

Scheduling a concert the night before a long travel day isn’t the best planning but at least the concert was very good.

Sleep deprived, I head to the train station in the morning to travel to Berlin – about a 7 hour journey. I am departing from Copenhagen and things are already off to a shaky start because my train is delayed and I have a 30 minute connection in Hamburg. As I wait the train gets delayed even more and then we are made to change tracks. Eventually other guests and I start to notice that the screen above starts crossing off the Hamburg Hbf (Hamburg main station) portion of the itinerary, a place most of us need to go to get our connections. Confusing as it is I start looking into alternative travel plans. I think I can go on to the final station in the itinerary (in Denmark) and try to find other trains to eventually get me to where I need to go. A few minute before the train arrives the itinerary switches back to going to Hamburg Hbf. Us passengers aren’t all convinced this is happening but we remain hopeful. At best most of us are missing our connections though. Some of my train companions have further to go like Switzerland; luckily there are trains available every hour to Berlin. We do make it to Hamburg and I wait until I can take the next available train to Berlin. I have napped a bit so I am not as cranky anymore.

I arrive in Berlin and easily figure out how to take the tram to my hotel. I am staying in a chain. Sometimes it is nice to know what to expect with the chain hotels having mostly consistent service and often breakfast. It costs more money and lacks charm but sometimes it is nice to just have modern comforts like air conditioning again. It’s been a long travel day so I call it an early night.

The next morning I have reservations at the Reichstag dome. The Reichstag is the government building where parliament meets. It has lots of history but for tourists there is the dome at top which was opened in 1999, almost ten years after the reunification of Germany. Reservations for the dome are compulsory and should be done at least a month in advance. Luckily I had the heads up from a friend who tried to visit before me. The audio guide is free and very necessary since it tells you about the skyline of Berlin as you climb the dome. There is a good lesson of history here but it is condensed. Another museum might be better to get a more thorough history of Germany. The appeal here is marveling at the artwork of the dome and appreciating the view of the skyline.

I am really liking the design of the different metro stations especially the one nearby.

I get a good introduction to the city here so I start formulating a plan of things I want to see. My next stop is the Brandenburg Gate, a 18th century gate to the city. You can’t see it here but I see in another museum later that part of the Berlin Wall went right through this area and it looked vastly different for many years.

Next stop is at a Jewish memorial, some unassuming rows of rectangles of various sizes.

I walk over to where I see my first sight of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 to separate the sides of Germany from the conflicting governments at the time: East and West. East Berlin is GDR (German democratic republic) aka Soviet occupied zone and West Berlin is Federal Republic of Germany – the allied occupation side of Germany (USA, UK, and France). All of this is a result of WWII. The time of the wall was a very divided time in history, separating friends and families almost overnight. The wall destruction finally begins in 1989 after calls for reunification are successful. So Berlin as we know it is a fairly young city.

Next to this piece of the wall is a very thorough museum on the history of Germany and its affect on other parts of the world (Topography of Terror). It filled the holes I had on my education and made me worry based what is happening in my own country looking at Germany’s history in the early 20th century. Funny how history still wants to keep repeating itself.

The museum is very emotionally draining but I walk by the famous checkpoint Charlie location afterwards on the way to a scheduled visit to the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral).

At the Berlin Cathedral I make the exhausting climb to the top to get another great view from the dome at top.

I climb back down and I am very exhausted at this point so I sit at a cafe and just stare at the water from the bottom side of the cathedral. I see two people with a fun looking cake and decide I need a piece. I watch boats and eat my cake.

Being tired it is a good time to do a river cruise. I order a beer and listen to the commentary as we float. I am regretting my decision of wearing a dark colored shirt because the sun is baking me at this point. I cheer on all the clouds.

Where my boat exits is the next museum I visit, DDR, a interactive museum about life in East Germany during soviet occupied times. It is educational and kitschy. I have fun here for a little while.

My energy is almost down to zero so I walk back toward my hotel. I stop in a tourist beer garden for dinner. I try to eat healthy by ordering the asparagus special but they are out of it. Being sick of eating salads lately I decide on a very unhealthy chicken schnitzel and lots of wine….I know I *should* be drinking beer in a beer garden but can’t handle multiple beers much anymore.

It’s been a long sightseeing day so now its time for bed.

Part 3 : Heading back to Ljubljana

I wake up way earlier than expected disappointed because I actually want to sleep in this morning. I pack up early for my drive back to Ljubljana. I have my last two climbs up that very long uphill path to get the car out of the tight garage. I am pleased to find no dings on my door. People in Slovenia must just be very considerate and careful. I see that there are parking spaces I can park for 30 minutes closer to apartment (but still a steep walk uphill). I try to parallel park along the stone walls but it is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. I am backing up into a steep and curvy parallel spot. While I try to straighten the car out it seems impossible because of the uneven stone road. I think the car has some automatic no collision feature on because I feel it trying to stop me from doing things. The alarms are also screaming at me if I get too close to a wall. However the screaming is warranted because even though I don’t hit a wall I am seconds from getting one of my back tires caught in this deep moat like thing along the stone wall. Things could have been bad. I will be so glad when I get rid of this car.

I finally get my backpack and return the garage key card and say goodbye to my host. And one more steep walk uphill. You should see my legs. They haven’t looked this good in like ten years. It is amazing what 4 days of intense hills and stairs will get you.

I decide to stop at the Technical Museum of Slovenia (Tehniški muzej Slovenije) on the way back to Ljubljana. The museum is basically building after building of items related to technical advancements.

The collection is large and vast but the museum is very popular for its extensive collection of cars, some that once owned to the beloved leader of Yugoslavia Josep Tito. How many cars does a communist leader need?

There is an old monastery on site and weird rooms of taxidermy animals. They must have put lots of time into this museum in the past; now much of it is outdated.

Finally make it to the car rental place. They dont do an inspection right away but I inspected and I think there is absolutely no damage. I take the bus back to town. Luckily the walk to my hotel is much shorter this time. I am staying in a proper hotel the next two nights. I like that is closer to the bus station since I have a bus scheduled in 2 days.

I still think Ljubljana is charming. I could make time in town to visit a museum or two but I am happy just walking around. I finally eat at a restaurant I had been eyeing last time called Julija. I order the special ravioli they have on the menu and a side of grilled vegetables.

After dinner I walk back towards my hotel contemplating stopping at a cafe when I come across another festival in the area by the church. This time it is a burger and beer festival. I am sad I already ate since the burgers smell good. I stroll along the water and pick up some pistachio ice cream. The pistachio ice cream I get in the Balkans is different. The nuts are put into the ice cream in more of a nut butter format like you would expect in a jar of peanut butter. The pistachio I’ve eaten elsewhere is always an overly processed thing thoroughly blended into the cream.

The next day I only leave the room to eat and run some errands. I need some warm weather shirts because it is starting to get warm everywhere I go and my wardrobe is heavy on the long sleeve shirts.

I finally try Kodila meat market and take a chance by ordering the Bujta repa (fermented turnip stew) and I am rewarded. I normally avoid anything related to sauerkraut but the sour turnip plus pork plus paprika really works for me. The waiter calls it hangover food. I am not hungover but I guess I might be working on one today with my two glasses of wine with lunch. I also try again the Prekmurska gibanica cake. It is like before, it is a semi sweet cake. It’s something in theory I should love because I don’t love sweet things but its not my favorite Slovenian dessert; I very much prefer Bled cake.

For this evening I have a fancy Michelin dinner scheduled. It’s up at Ljubljana castle. I take the funicular up the hill. Even though it is a long wait today for the funicular I am early. I walk along the free parts of the castle while I wait for my reservation. I am eventually seated on the terrace. I am used to dining alone but I always feel awkward when I do the fine dining because normally I read a book while eating to pass the time and it somehow doesn’t feel appropriate at the fancier meals. The food is good but it isn’t the best Michelin food I’ve had. Maybe I’ve had enough of the fancy foam dishes for a while. Give me some local favorite comfort foods instead.

The heavy meal and wine exhausts me for the evening. I head back to the hotel to pack since tomorrow I travel on to the next country, Hungary.

Konjic and Cold War

A couple of days before I was going to start traveling again in April I decided to follow up on some of the plans I had. I had a second stop in BiH (short for Bosnia and Herzegovina) in the town of Konjic. While I fill in the details in the itinerary it seems like it is going to be difficult to do the things I want to do here without a car. Additionally it seems like the town is light on the activities if you don’t count river rafting (and it is a bit off season to do that). I attempt to move the days I had allocated to the two other stops I have in BiH but with it is getting too complicated to change things and I am running out out of time; I decided to keep things as they are for now.

Come to find out my intuition was correct. This town would have been better for me to visit as a day trip instead of an overnight. They don’t really seem to be set up for tourism right now because either it is off season or covid decimated the tourism industry. There is a lack of dining options and entertainment. The one big attraction I do see is almost a mishap: Tito’s Bunker. For Tito’s bunker luckily a local tourism office helps me with a taxi despite neither of us speaking each other’s languages (it is too difficult to walk there – believe me I thought about walking the 6 km). In addition one restaurant I try to dine at makes me feel really stupid for being there. I know I am part of the problem because I come into the country not knowing the language but most waiters are gracious and just hand me a menu and it works well enough. The waiter in this restaurant looks at me like he is not willing to work with me at all, no menu, nothing, so I walk out embarrassed. This situation is not repeated at other restaurants but I guess I need a situation to humble me once in a while. I really would like to learn local languages but the way I travel makes it impossible. I visit way too many countries. Learning a few phrases is all I can handle most of the time.

Despite all that above, it is a lovely town. It is almost like a Swiss town in the middle of the Balkans. There is a beautiful river and beautiful mountains in the distance. My rental is a basement apartment rented by the lovely man and his wife who live above. Today he gave me a homemade baklava made by the wife – Bosnian style with walnuts.

My second day I visit the main attraction Tito’s Bunker, the bunker created during the Cold War by the very popular Yugoslav leader President Josip Broz Tito (died 1980) . Construction started in secret ( even to the local community) in the 1950’s and completed in 1979. It’s construction cost $4.6 billion to construct (more than $20 billion today). It is no wonder why Yugoslavia was under financial collapse. It was kept open until 1992 but never used for its purpose. It was closed during the war in the 1990’s. It was only rediscovered in 2011 and shortly after opened for tours. This place is nice to visit because it is a well preserved relic of the Cold War era due to being forgotten for so long. I really enjoy my visit here. You can only visit by a prearranged tour. Fortunately they have tours In English. Along with the well preserved rooms there are also recent related art installations scattered around. Luckily the travel agency that books this visit also arranges my transportation to and from here because there is no public buses to get here.

I arrive back in town and walk around for the evening. There isn’t much else to do so I suppose it is good I am leaving tomorrow morning by train to Mostar. It’s a pretty town but maybe too sleepy for me.

Fall of Yugoslavia

Today is an other long day. I originally planned to attend a Fall on Yugoslavia tour in the morning and do local sightseeing in the afternoon. An hour before my tour is supposed to start they ask if I’d like to go to the 2:00 PM tour and additionally attend the 10:30 AM free city walking tour. Because I realize it’s off-season and I am flexible I agree. I have extra time so I order burek and Bosnian coffee for breakfast. The burek, or Bosnian pie, has potatoes. The standard serving is large and served with yogurt. I like it but not sure I’d eat it every day. The cafe I stop at has a basketball on its sign. Since I’ve seen basketballs multiple times on signs I take the time to google the significance: during the Yugoslav era the region had many powerful basketball players.

Once I start my walking tour I realize I am very happy I joined the tour. I am learning so much about the city that I would not have otherwise learned. This afternoon is very specific to the Fall of Yugoslavia whereas this tour gives me more of an overview of the history from the ancient times, Ottoman Empire, Austrian-Hungarian times and so on.

We walk around town. In one street alone you can tell the different time periods from the architecture: Ottoman Empire, astro-Hungarian architecture, and then brutalist architecture from the Yugoslavian times (East meets West).

We learn more about what ignited WWI. We learn about how 3 main religions live here in harmony.

We learn how things are slow to progress due to the current political system. Since BiH is represented by 3 primary ethnic groups (Croats, Serbs and ethnic Bosnians) that are unwilling to fully relinquish power the government is run by three presidents or three parties who take turns being in charge. This system leads to chaos and most certainly corruption. It is stunting the progress of a beautiful country. Many have dreams of one day joining the Euro zone like some of its former Yugoslav brothers but at this point it never seems possible.

We visit the famous church in town and learn about the rose of Sarajevo that was caused by shelling during the war of the 1990’s.

We also pick up on places where signs of the war still exist. They don’t leave them unrepaired for remembrance, it is just the government just ccan’t get around to making the repairs….for a war that has been over almost 30 years.

I say goodbye to my fantastic tour guide and after the tour I have a break so I get a snack. I soon meet up for my Fall of Yugoslavia tour. I am pleased to find it is the same tour guide from this morning. We hop in a van and head out to see some sights related to the fall of Yugoslavia and the war of the early 1990’s. I’m not going to give an entire history here because it is long and complicated but within ten years after Josip Tito (former leader of Yugoslavia) died in 1980 some of the countries that formed Yugoslavia decided to declare independence, for various reasons. The initial countries to do so were Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. There was opposition to this by Yugoslav loyalists and as a result the region was full of conflict throughout the early 1990’s. I slightly remember it because I was in school at the time and I do remember the term ethnic cleansing being used frequently. It was a horrible war now that I go back to learn it as an adult.

We start at the yellow fortress where we are given a view of the city.

We visit a hospital destroyed in the war. Our guide tells us how a nearby stadium is used as a mass grave.

We visit the Tunnel of Hope and tunnel museum. This tunnel, the start on private land, allowed soldiers and supplies to travel under the airport and to/from the mountains to be undetected by the Bosnian Serb army. It was a lifeline to the Sarajevo community during the war. We got to sample the tunnel and watched very powerful footage of soldiers using the tunnels to transport supplies to the local people. My guide was a student at the time but her father was a soldier that used the tunnel. We got her unique perspective on the war.

We then visit the abandoned bobsled course from the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, a proud moment for the locals. It was once used in the war of 1990’s and now is a place for street art and tourists to visit.

We finish with a stop at an abandoned building where we have lovely views of the city. Teenage me would have loved exploring this abandoned building in the middle of the night. I suppose this destroyed building has a different meaning to locals.

I am back in town and it is raining. I stop at a wine bar until I decide what I want for dinner. My meals the last couple days have been meat heavy and I am craving vegetables so I find a place that will serve a mixed cheese plate and grilled vegetables. Of course it is way too much food but the stomach wants what the stomach wants. I am not so much a fan of the travnik cheese (feta type) because it is a little salty for my taste but all the other cheeses served, including the blue which I never love, were very good. I eat all my cheese alternating bites with the grilled veggies to make sure I get a little nutrition while I travel.

I still haven’t tried the local brandy so I stop by a local place and try rakija. It’s just me and what I assume is the owner’s family in the bar, or at least they gave the appearance of being family. I sampled my very strong brandy in what felt like someone’s house. One sample is all I have in me so I call it quits for the night afterwards.