This resaurant is probably one of the finest restaurants I've seen. The atmosphere there is like an old and very classic tearoom. Everything is classic and classy. You can have breakfast, lunch, diner but also just a cup of tea. It is opened from 8.00 till 24.00

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27/7 - We got train tickets for the train at 18.05 from the central train station in Warsaw to Kraków Głowny.  We bought weekend train tickets - they're good for travel anywhere in Poland from Friday afternoon through midnight Sunday.  It's important to keep in mind that in addition to the weekend train ticket you also need to buy seat reservations for the specific train that you want to take.  The train was about 45 minutes late in leaving, but we were on our way to Kraków before 7 p.m.  The countryside we could see from the train was pretty, lots of forest, wheat, barley and corn fields and smaller vegetable fields.  I noticed a lot of cabbage!  The landscape is very green and pretty and is generally flat.  The train took us directly to Kraków - no stops at all, and our arrival at the Central train station in Kraków was uneventful.  The train station is really close to the center of Kraków and also to Kazimierz (which was the Jewish Ghetto).  We were staying in Kazimierz and it took us about 20 minutes to walk to our place. 

28/7 - In one day we had plenty of time to explore the old section of Krakow, the Wawel Castle, wander along the river, see the cathedral and explore Kazimierz. I will be heading back to Kraków next weekend and will also go on the Dunajec river rafting trip which isn't to far from there and also will go visit the Wieliczka Salt mines which are also supposed to be very interesting and are just a short trip from Kraków.

I can't recommend restaurants at the moment because we had dinner both evenings at a friend's home but I definitely recommend having something to drink at one of the beer gardens on the main market square while watching the people go by!  You may also want to try Oscypek cheese which is made in the mountains around Zakopane and is for sale all over the city.  It's kind of rubbery, salty and smokey...

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Tonight Shane's bus to Lithuania leaves at about 9 pm.  In the afternoon he and I walked around Rynek & discovered a Slovak festival going on.  We got some Slovak sausages and listened to Druzina, a band from Bratislava.  After this, I had to take a Polish language placement exam - in case I decide to continue my Polish language studies while here.  Upon finishing that, I met with Shane at Bling Bling Hostel for his final hours in Krakow.  With Ola, one of the employees there, we ordered some pizza and killed time with conversation.  Then when Ola's shift ended, we walked Shane to the bus station, where we met with Krystina, another employee from the hostel.  It was sad to see him go, as we had become pretty good friends in the week that we knew each other.  Hopefully his travels will bring him back to Krakow over the next 15 months while I'm here ... or we've also talked of the possibility of meeting up somewhere else in Europe (he's traveling around Europe until "spring-ish" 2008).

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Tuesday & Wednesday were days to get to know our program (Master's in TransAtlantic Studies ... or just TAS) & fellow students.  At the start, there are 14 of us.  Most of the group seemed to get along from the start.  We went for coffee after the first meeting, and later that afternoon met up to see a Polish film "Dług" (the Debt) shown with English subtitles.  Wednesday we went to dinner at a Japanese/Thai restaurant.  Both of these nights we ended up at a bar called Alchemia in Kazimierz - the old Jewish district in Krakow.   It's a bar that has been made to look aged, like you are visiting an old home.  One room is entered by walking through a wardrobe.  It has a lot of charm... and reasonably priced piwo.

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This hotel is located in Kazimierz - the Jewish neighborhood of Kraków. The location is really nice - on Szeroka Street which I'd say is the most picturesque street in Kazimierz with a lot to see and do nearby (although it is about a 20 minute walk from the center of Kraków (main market square). It's also about a 20 minute walk to the main train station. The hotel has 12 rooms - for from one to four persons. We stayed in standard rooms, but they also have "lux" rooms which are surely much nicer. Check in at the hotel was pretty straightforward, the staff speaks English, although they weren't particularly friendly. For some reason they didn't want to charge for the whole stay at once, but preferred to first, reserve the amount for one night on my visa card, then charge my card for a night and then get payment for the second night as we were leaving. Actually it was pretty aggravating - I would have just preferred to pay for everything at once than to have them fiddling around with my credit card every day. The two rooms that I saw are simple and they could improve a little on the cleanliness part - especially in the stairway which needs some cleaning and even smelled pretty bad at times... the beds in the two rooms that we had were small and not too comfortable. Breakfast was included in the price of the room in the small Indian restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. It was ok, nothing memorable. They offer four or five breakfast sets and the food was good, but the service wasn't friendly at all. The coffee was good though, and was nice and hot! We also had dinner at the restaurant which didn't turn out too great because we got there about a half hour before they closed, ordered our meal right away, but weren't informed until about half an hour later that the kitchen was already closed. Definitely not too professional as we were one of only two occupied tables in the place and the waitress should have just told us that no more food could be prepared before seating us. Next time I'm in Krakow, I'll give another hotel a try.

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