Europe 2024
This trip had several objectives:
- To travel alone, for the first 2 weeks.
- To see the 1970’s band Focus in concert.
- To get comfortable traveling via mass transit, both inter- and intra-cities.
- To try a Europe SIM chip in my older iPhone 6S Plus.April 11.
Thank God I always wake up usually about 1:30 to 2 AM. I had set my alarm clock for PM, not AM! I still made my LAX 8am departure. The first flight to Washington DC was uneventful. The next flight from Washington DC to Frankfurt was recalled back to the gate twice: once to unload some luggage and another for a maintenance issue for the plane. We ended up taking off about 3+ hours late and many people including myself missed their next connection.
There was considerable confusion for people who missed their Frankfurt connection about how to resolve the issue. I had to go find the Lufthansa service desk and they had pre-booked me for a later flight.
While waiting in Frankfort, I fired up the old iPhone, AKA “Europe Phone”, with the Europe SIM chip. At a minimum, I wanted to use Google Maps and searches. This phone had a new British telephone number. This new number is the downside; anyone contacting me would normally use my US number and their messages/calls would not be rerouted to the Europe phone. I was able to send/receive messages with Bill because he entered the British telephone number in his phone as “Randy Europe”.
The next challenge was to use either iPhone to connect to Uber and get to my Katowice hotel (see Lessons Learned). Uber was inexpensive costing $30 for about 45 minutes of driving. My first Poland impression while Ubering from the airport to Katowice is that the countryside looks like upstate New York, mainly flat with some rolling hills. The road system seemed very clean with very few potholes and every car was a micro car compared to the US cars.
My hotel was the Mercure Katowice Centrum. This hotel is great, its location was at a downtown square and across from a transit station/shopping mall. The concert venue was a 5-minute walk. My room was on the sixth floor overlooking the town square.
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| Hotel room view. |
At varying times I could look at the square and see people walking to/from the transit station, even at 1am.
My happy hour beer topped out at less than $3.50 and was very tasty. I had a slice of pizza before making it back to the hotel. Katowice is a walkable safe town. Far fewer smokers than are in Germany and far fewer dogs than in SoCal. Still amazed that while there is graffiti, I see very little in the downtown area.
I scoped out the concert venue early and saw several people around an open side door. Then I noticed they all had lanyards with a Focus placard - they were the roadies and sound system crew. I spoke with them for a few minutes, telling them I was from the US to see Focus.
I returned to the venue about an hour before the concert and ended up in the third row with a great view. The venue was a movie theater but without fixed seating. The band started right on time at 7 PM. That’s what you do when the band leader is 75 and wants to get to bed soon! They played two sets with extended solos in the second set.
The crowd was enthusiastic. After the concert, I walked around Katowice and ran into Menno (guitarist), and Udo (bassist). We talked a bit and I told them I traveled from California to see the band and expressed how great the concert was. Fan-gush. They said the band would be touring in America at a festival in July.
The next morning after the first Focus concert I was feeling refreshed and fully recovered from the jet lag.
I went to the transit station to see if I could get a rail pass to Rzeszow; I approached the counter person asking ‘English?’ and got a dismissive hand wave and ‘nyet’ - no help. Then I tried to book online and could not get a seat on the train and I did not relish the idea of possibly standing for 2 1/2 hours. So I gave up on the train and then switched over to FlixBus AKA “UrineBus” (AKA name due to my USA experiences). So I booked in on UrineBus from Rzeszow for Saturday, and Rzeszow back to Krakow Sunday. Incredibly cheap. Then I got a notification ‘Do I want to upgrade my seat?’ Hmm, let’s see what this is. I can move to the front row, which has an unobstructed view behind the driver for the princely sum of two euros per leg? Boom done. This could change my perception of UrineBus, I mean Flixbus. The bus stations were clean, centrally located, and had instructions in several languages.
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| Perfect Roads |
The bus ride was clean, safe, and entertaining when you have a front seat view.
I originally booked my Rzeszow hotel based on its proximity to the concert venue and the train tracks. However, UrineBus drop-off was about a 20-minute walk. The hotel was a holdover from the communist era with exposed piping and thin walls (more on this later).
I got to the concert venue in time to get a front-center front-row seat. This was another playhouse with walk-up steps to the stage and fixed seating.
It just amazes me that some people don’t have any concert etiquette. Pre-concert, a person had his wife take a picture of him while he walked up and sat at Thijs van Leer’s Hammond Organ. The road crew chased him off. And mid concert a photographer (I assumed he was a professional hired by the band) walked up on stage; Menno (guitarist) stopped playing and waved at the photographer to get off the stage.
I was smart this time to buy merchandise during the intermission. At the previous night’s concert, I had planned to buy merchandise post-concert and have the band sign it then. That concert’s crowd was much larger and more hostile than I wanted to be a part of so I skipped it then. This evening the crowd was much smaller and actually nice. The stage manager recognized me (we had talked on the sidewalk outside the venue the previous night) and the band members Menno and Udo recognized me, telling Thijs ‘This is the guy that came from California to see us’. I bought a CD DVD pack that contained 4 discs, with each band member’s picture on a disc. Three of the four band members signed their respective discs. I commented that I wished I could have gotten Pierre van der Linden's (drums) signature, and Udo said Pierre just went to break down his set. I said I wouldn’t disturb Pierre while he was working. Then Udo said ‘Lets you and I go get his signature’. So Udo left the merch table and walked me onto the stage and I got Pierre's autograph. More fan-gush.
Walking back to my hotel, I wanted to get either some food or a beer. It was after 10:30 but marketplaces were open with lights on. I grabbed an entrance door and pulled, but it didn’t open. Then I try again at the next marketplace and it doesn’t open either. At the third marketplace, I saw a person paying and then turning towards the door to exit. I stepped back to let the person leave so I could figure out how Polish marketplace doors work. The door opened to the inside! This is so not the US. In US, this would be a code violation (all exiting doors open outwards). This was the same issue we had at the Basel Hotel in Switzerland.
I got to my hotel, cracked open my beer, and called Bill. We were yakking away and then I heard a knock on my door. There was a 10 PM curfew that I was not aware of and due to the communist era's hotel thin walls, someone could hear me talking and complained. So I finished my beer and conversation with Bill. Then I looked out the window to the transit station across the street. There is plenty of foot traffic going in and leaving at all hours of the night.
I opted to have the hotel breakfast due to a time constraint. Breakfast cost 30 Polish zlotys, about $8. What was amusing to me was that the cappuccino machine had to be operated by the bartender only and was not self-service. I don’t know if it was part of the breakfast buffet but a person was having only a beer for breakfast. I looked over later and saw him going through a couple more beers and I was there for a total of 20 minutes. He’s having a liquid breakfast.
It was the beginning of a beautiful day with the temperature reaching 70F. So I enjoyed the 20-minute walk to the Flixbus station. It was smart to upgrade my FlixBus seat to the prime first class front row seating so you get the view for the sum of about two euros. Livin’ Large. I arrived in Krakow to more sunshine so I walked to my rented apartment, Bracka 6. Google Maps said it was a 25-minute walk.
Well, Google Maps didn’t know everything. As I approached Krakow’s Main Square it seemed to have an unusually large crowd and loud amplified spoken polish.
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| Maybe I won't drag luggage through this. |
Then I noticed people with running race wear and clipped-on race numbers. The Main Square was the ending line for a marathon! This wasn’t where you want to be dragging luggage through, and Google Maps had me walking through the finish line. So I opted for a lunch/beer to think about my walking choices. After lunch, I walked one street outside the main square to the roundabout to get to Bracka 6.
Bracka 6 was recommended in Rick Steves' book and it is gorgeous, with a view down a street and half a block to the Main Square.
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| Baracka 6 |
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| And the window view. |
I unpacked, splashed water on my face then began to explore Krakow. That evening I discovered a duo playing at a jazz club in the main square.
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| Duet playing, and the required Sambuca nightcap. |
The guitarist was looping and building songs, and then the singer would join in. Such a good vibe.
I woke up well-rested in Krakow; the well-rested part might be due to three Sambucas while listening to the jazz duo. It was such a beautiful evening last night.
Today’s task was to discover how to use the bus line to get to the airport. It was a simple walk to the Bus line stop to board; however, I discovered the sidewalk was being replaced. Not good if you are pulling wheeled luggage so I also walked the next street over. And lucky me, the bus line ticket machine can toggle to the English language and accept Visa. I am all good to go.
Now back to the delights of Poland. The YouTube Honest Guide to Poland mentioned several things to see, one of which is a cafeteria-style eatery of cheap/filling/maybe nutritious food. They are called Milk Bars. Their recommendation was a half block for me and yes, it is all of the above.
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| Yummy. Look at their salt/pepper "dispensers". |
I made numerous stops to try the Pierogis, then salad, then soups, and breakfasts. I don’t think I ever spent more than seven dollars.
Continuing with exploring Krakow, I went back to my place to brush my teeth and check the weather. Unfortunately, it looks like the next couple of days will be cold and rainy, especially rain later tonight.
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| Outside Bracka 6, towards Main Square. |
So that changed what I planned to do walking about the town again. Well, not that much because I had a raincoat and had booked a symphonic concert at a church.
Went to the concert tonight at the church. Both a heartwarming performance and a facepalm to realize bad cell phone behavior spans many generations. It was a mostly elderly crowd, but the third row had three or four people who constantly held their cell phones up above their heads to record the performance and block everyone’s view behind them. And how about turning down the screen brightness to lessen some of the distractibility???
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| Bad concert behavior. Needed a tennis ball. |
Other people who wanted to record left their seats and went to the side for an unobstructed view and nonobstructed view of others. Memo to self, bring tennis balls and see if you can knock the cell phones out of their hands.
After the concert, I walked to the Square to see if I could find a fat juicy hamburger. Better wisdom prevailed and I got a Caesar salad. The good thing is that all places seem to have lap blankets for everyone. And heaters.
The next morning I planned to get to the Oscar Schindler factory tour at 10 AM. Google Maps said it was a 41-minute walk so my local Milk Bar breakfast (opens at 9 am) would not happen. But there are plenty of pastry and coffee stops. The coffee everywhere was ridiculously great as were the croissants.
The drizzly walk was good and I got to cross the Vistula River via bridge. I entered the museum, and the guy looked at my ticket, punched a hole in it, and grunted as he waved me up the stairs. I went up the stairs and ran into the back of the tour that started 15 minutes ago. Went back downstairs and found many others that are just confused about what to do about the tour. Then a tour woman appeared and said she was pulling it together. The tour looked up my name and said I’m not on her list I’m on another tour at 10 AM. OK. Another tour person showed up says I’m on her tour. Customer service was lacking.
We took off on the tour and I found it a bit disappointing due to the number of people on the tour as well as all the others that are not on tour going through. I defaulted out of the tour as (1) the tour guide was about 5 feet tall, (2) she did not use headsets, and (3) the crowd around her was overwhelming. The museum was set up like an IKEA store, where you snake around on a certain path. That worked for me so I just followed along while staying away from the pockets of crowds. The museum content centered more on holocaust brutality and the invasion timeline. All that I recall from the tour was large stair steps (significant Schindler’s List scenes) and Oscar Schindler’s desk. That night, I reviewed what Rick Steves reported when he took the same tour; it would have been more meaningful to have not signed up for the guided tour and just paid admittance then read Rick Steve's book while IKEAing through the museum.
I left the museum and headed back to town, walking through the Kazimierz (old Jewish) area. I found the Schindler’s List Passage (also in significant Schindler’s List scenes) and rundown hip stores.
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| Schindler's List Passage |
It was interesting that I saw what appeared to be several tours going through town, indicated by a leader holding up a small flag.
Another cute and amusing site in all the Polish cities was school kids, walking to other places (or maybe tours?). The kids were led and followed by Adults-In-Charge, and the kids followed their instructions to hold hands. I referred to these as kid perp walks.
The temperature has dropped considerably. I’m sure it would not even reach 60F today. So I found an outside tented place and ordered some Poliska Ruska dumplings and a beer to recharge. Recharging was successful.
Very cold last night. But can only tell that after opening the window and getting freezing air inside. Today's plan is to book an airport shuttle to the Budapest hotel. And I wanted to check out a different milk bar besides my usual. I discovered one to the north and walked over for breakfast. This milk bar was much smaller for seating and about double the price. I would almost call it just another regular restaurant. I believe the bill came out to roughly over $10 for an omelet and latte. The outrage!
Then back to my place to plan my day. I booked the MiniBud shuttle from/to the Budapest airport. Then I walked to revisit the Kazimierz area and visited the old Remah Cemetery. Quite somber seeing the broken-up headstones used by the Nazis to build roads.
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| Notice the headstone pieces in the wall |
The headstones were reclaimed and put into the surrounding cemetery wall. I stopped in for a beer at HERVE bar, which was recommended by YouTubers Honest Guide to Prague.
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| HERVE Bar |
So worthy of the stop.
More Europe 2024 Poland pics.
