It is already the last week before Christmas; I cannot believe that December has passed us so quickly! At the same time, we have been jamming in as many visitors and activities as possible so maybe that’s not surprising.
The kids are now on winter break and Tuesday, we were leaving on a trip to Poland. So, we spent Monday catching up on school work and packing for the week ahead.
Tuesday, we departed and our first stop was Seiffen. Seiffen is an old mining town in East Germany. When its mine was cleared of ore in the 1600s, the town had to think of another way to sustain itself financially. They turned to wood working and it is where the Christmas pyramids, nutcrackers, and several other Christmas figurines are made. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Seiffen, the town was packed with tour bus loads of people so we weren’t even able to get out of the car. We did see lots of Christmas pyramids and nutcrackers and I was able to take a couple of pictures out of the window before we decided to continue our drive to Dresden.
By late Tuesday afternoon, we arrived in Dresden. We got checked into our hotel and then headed to the city center. We’ve been to Dresden before so our main goal on this visit was to check out the Christmas scene and see the market, which is the oldest in Germany and one of the oldest in the world.
We ran into some of our friends from Stuttgart and spent the evening checking out the different markets with them. They also have an 11th grader and 8th grader so the kids actually enjoyed going to the market with us. They loaded up on so many treats and rode so many rides while the parents were able to collect a few more Christmas mugs, such a fun night!
Wednesday morning, we departed Dresden and made our first stop of the day at the Devil’s Bridge, about an hour and a half outside of Dresden. The bridge dates back to the 1800s and is called the Devil’s Bridge because ‘the delicate arch could surely have only been built by the devil.’ Most notable, when the water is still, the reflection causes the appearance of a perfect circle. We were the only people in the park when we arrived and it was a quick 10 minute walk from the car. It was pretty cool to see, but it did take about an hour to get to from the autobahn and another hour back. Not sure if it is truly worth it for the quick stop unless you’re already going to be in the area, but cool nonetheless.
By lunchtime, we made it to Görlitz, Germany, which directly borders Poland and Görlitz, Poland on the other side of the Lusatian Neisse River. We came here strictly because the kids wanted to eat Nordsee for lunch and this was the closest one. We were surprised to find a beautiful, clean, affluent city, and only surprised because it’s not a well known city. It seems like it would be nice place to stop for a longer amount of time.
After leaving Görlitz, we set the GPS for Wrocław and it said it would be about a two and half hour drive. It ended up being at four hours with traffic, most of it in the city of Wrocław itself. The traffic in Polish cities as it turns out, is just bad. And a lot of it down to the drivers; it’s just like the Wild Wild West. No rules; people passing in every lane, driving straight up to the front of a turn lane and cutting over, and driving right over and through the tram lanes. We did finally make it to our hotel, got checked in and headed out to check out the market.
Our first impression of Wrocław was ‘Wow!’ What a beautiful city! And also so clean and well kept. Just as we were in Görlitz, we were surprised again. Mainly because when people visit Poland, they think of Warsaw and Krakow, but its third largest city, Wrocław definitely deserves more attention.
The Christmas Market in Wrocław takes place on the market square. Wrocław’s market square is unique in that the Town Hall is directly in the center, creating what felt like four smaller squares on each side. Each section had some unique attraction so made it fun to keep walking through. We also obtained one of Wrocław’s awesome Christmas mugs. The glüwein was also the best that we’ve tasted! I can’t describe what made it different but it was so good!
We quickly did a little reading up on Wrocław and found out that this part of Poland was actually part of Germany until World War II, and was called Breslau. However, the state of Silesia, of which it’s the capital, was always culturally and ethnically heavily influenced by the Poles. When boundaries were redrawn after the war, Silesia became part of Poland. So interesting! And, also explains why they have such a German-style Christmas market.
Unfortunately, our late arrival due to traffic the day before meant we didn’t get to experience Wrocław in the daylight. So, we started Thursday with a walk around the Old Town again. I wanted to see it in daylight and the dogs needed to be walked anyways.
Afterwards, we drove to Wrocław’s Cathedral Island and did a short walk around the oldest part of the city before setting out on the next part of our drive to Warsaw. Wrocław was a beautiful city and one I’d love to explore more. We are definitely adding it to our list of place to come back to.
We set off mid morning for Warsaw. The drive one took about three hours, last final almost hour being within Warsaw itself. I was shocked to find such a huge and bustling metropolis. I know it’s a capital city and expected it to be big, but didn’t expect it to feel so much like Manhattan.
Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, a bad storm with freezing rain and hurricane gust winds hit Warsaw. We did make an attempt to go out but after walking the dogs in the wind and being advised to shelter in the hotel during the storm, we changed our minds. Instead we ate dinner in the lounge, played some games, and went to bed early.
Thursday morning, we woke up early and drove down to the old town and did a walk around. We were able to see the Barbican, Market Square, and old Royal Palace. We did also see the Christmas Market, but were too early to see it open. That’s ok though because I don’t think they have their own mug here anyways 😉. Then, we set off on our drive to Krakow.
On the way to Krakow, we started getting hungry. We were so tired of eating McDonald’s, we decided to stop at a KFC. We found one on the GPS along our route and stopped there. Only Ryan and I went in and to our surprise, there were balloons, a cake, and music playing. We were confused but continued to place our order. Then, we noticed people walking around with red coupons. Google translate informed me this was the Grand Opening of this location. The coupon said the first 100 customers would get a bucket of chicken for 1 zloty, or about $.25. Ryan quickly reminded me we were order number 65 so we were entitled to our own bucket of chicken. We ordered, paid our zloty and proudly received our bucket. Matt and Brooklyn could not believe it when we got back to the car with all our chicken!
We arrived in Krakow by late afternoon. We checked into our hotel and then intended to go straight out exploring, but Daisy almost immediately peed on our bed so we had to stop and wash bedding in the bathtub and dry it with the clothes iron and hair dryer 😂. Poor Daisy, poor us. The dogs really have been so good this trip with the checking in and out of hotels and doing long stretches in the car. They must be so confused though at this point.
Once we had our bedding situation sorted, we then headed out towards the old town. Krakow is another city that made us say ‘Wow!’ Its city center is so beautiful and clean. It was also a special treat that it wasn’t raining and the skies were clear.
We walked all around the market square, with the Cloth Hall, in the center. The Cloth Hall was built in the 1400s as a place to buy exotic clothes and silks from the East. Now, it’s a beautiful indoor shopping gallery. I saw a lot more souvenir stalls as opposed to fine silks so while some things have changed, it’s retained some of its original character.
We all found some kind of meat for dinner, shush kabobs, kielbasas, or steak sandwiches. Everything in Poland comes with a dill pickle and since the kids don’t like pickles, I had three every meal.
After breakfast Saturday morning, we took a walk around Wawel Castle. The castle was built in the 1300s as the fortress for King Casimir III. It is a huge complex which includes church, residence, and art museum. We only had time to walk around the grounds but will definitely make more time on a future visit to see it all.
Saturday would be our longest driving day; it should have taken about five hours to get from Krakow to Prague so we got started after our walk around Wawel Castle.
It was smooth sailing for the first two hours. Hardly anyone was traveling west. Meanwhile, we could see that traffic was really congested going in the opposite direction. When we crossed into the Czech Republic, it started snowing, at first without any real accumulation. We stopped for lunch and gas outside of Olomouc, and then got back on the road, and that’s when the blizzard began. For the next two hours, the snow was falling at a rate of almost two inches per hour and extremely windy. We slipped and slid for a lot of it, but Matt is a great driver and we carried on because I wasn’t even sure what else we could do but continue driving slowly until we were out of it. We were lucky that the westbound highway stayed open, we passed so many accidents (nothing very serious). One jackknifed truck on the opposite side of the road closed that side for 30+ miles; I am sure many of those people behind it were forced to sleep in their cars overnight on the road.
Finally, as we reached Prague, after about a seven hour drive, the snow had changed to rain.
We checked into the hotel and then once again headed out to the market. It was raining pretty strong so we did not stay out long. Matt and I each had a gluwein; no mugs, just paper cups in Prague; and walked around the Market Square, and then headed back to the hotel to hang out in the hotel lounge.
Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel before departing. The Prague Marriott has the best hotel breakfast we’ve ever had. It has things like an egg station where they will make everything fresh from scrambled to poached eggs, a smoothie station, and the biggest pastry spread ever. Then, it was finally time to get on the road towards home.
We did make one final stop in Nuremberg to visit their Christmas market. We got a mug almost immediately (€5 Pfand sheesh!) and then looked around for lunch. Matt and the kids went for steak sandwiches. When the customer after them went to order, the man told them, “see you next year!” The market was actually starting to shut down due to it being Christmas Eve. We visited Nuremberg in March of 2022 and I was reminded of how much we liked it. I hope we can come back another visit in the near future. I did not find a stall with food I wanted so I ended up grabbing a burger from Five Guys before we finished our drive home.
We arrived home in time to unpack the car and get ready for Christmas Eve dinner. We were ready for some quiet time at home.
Poland was awesome! This trip only gave us time for a small taste of each place that we stopped, and each was so different. Wroclaw was cute and felt like a university town, like Oxford or Heidelberg. Warsaw was definitely more metropolitan, like New York, and Krakow was obviously the historic heart of the country, like Boston might be for the US. We are already taking about how we can plan a future trip back to Krakow and Wrocław, probably by plane and definitely without dogs 😉!
Gilcrests Abroad 