In Krakow we were immediately taken with our biggest city since Moscow. As we left the train station buses and trams whizzed by and advertisements flashed over the heads of the shoppers in the crowd. It was very much like those montages of people from the countryside coming to the big city for the first time ever.
We had rented a room in an apartment, and the landlady came to meet us with her young son. I played peekaboo with him as she filled out our rental forms (by hand in duplicate using the same information I provided on the booking website) and told us not to have too much fun. Then we got the keys and went off into the night.
We had become accustomed to seeing the cities we visited close up shops and restaurants around 8 PM. Thus we practically stopped in our tracks when the quiet and looming apartment buildings gave way suddenly to a wide square that was lit up beautifully and filled with people. In the center was a market hall selling furs and jewels, and surrounding it were fancy restaurants with outdoor seating, flaming heaters fighting the September cold. We walked down one of the side streets and soon saw the old city wall, which unlike Xi'an was closed to tourists at that time.
The next day we planned to see what the city could show us. We went back to the main square a few times as well as toward the outer areas, breaking in Auberon's shoes some more and working our way to the big commercial shopping centers.
I had left my sweater in Augustow and so had to layer three or four shirts to keep out the chilly autumn winds. Auberon, too, lacked a good fall layer. We went through a few stores with typical indecisiveness and stinginess, but eventually picked up a pretty heavy sweater for me and a thinner turtleneck for Auberon, with some made-in-Poland socks thrown in at the end.
Auberon wanted dearly to take the bus to the town of Zakopane, about an hour and a half south toward the Slovak border and famous for its mountain hiking. The next morning I accompanied him (he used the words "grumpy" and "dour" but I simply felt I had seen quite a few rocks and trees already) to a small diner in Zakopane where we waited out the rain and discovered that our hiking map was uselessly out of scale. We picked a mountainous direction and forged ahead, crossing little streams and seeing the town quickly disappear into forest. A gate and entrance fee indicated that we were on the right track. The rain had stopped completely and we surged ahead at the initial climb, finding ourselves in half an hour or so above a very picturesque valley. Here I learned that Auberon likes to see nature at speed, so we continued on for a good deal longer on another trail.
We had the park almost wholly to ourselves, and on the one occasion that some rain appeared we happened to be near a shelter anyway. We filled the time with academic discussions, talking about the machine learning and artificial intelligence work that Auberon is interested in as an engineer. In an hour or so we ended up underneath some impressive switchbacks, and once these were crested we found ourselves at an even better summit than before. On the one side, the red roofs of towns and cities on the plains. On the other, hills becoming craggy rocks stretching into the clouds. As the clouds shifted we saw a glimpse of snow on the highest peak - so far had we come from the hot days in Vietnam.
But a sun low in the sky told us that we'd better turn back, and we began to retrace our steps. The whole way back was almost more beautiful than before, as the golden sunset pierced the clouds and shone through patches of rain. We reached the bottom just as darkness fell, and put off dinner in favor of getting the first bus back to Krakow.
Two full days behind us, we arrived at the station early next morning for our train to Berlin.
Pictured: the Krakow main square and the mountains of Zakopane.
No comments:
Post a Comment