Chronicles on the road: Katowice
Vanja Nedić — Three months ago a ticket was booked. Three months ago we knew we were meeting on March 6th. On March 2nd we had a Skype call, starting with: ‘Sooo… what are we going to do over the 10 days?’ In less than one hour a decision was reached: ‘We’re renting a car and going on a trip through Poland.’ Then we made the plan, that goes like this: Katowice — Wroclaw — Poznań — Łódź — Toruń — Gdańsk — Warsaw — Rzeszów — Kraków — Zakopane — Katowice.
Actually, it’s more about the idea, than the plan. We haven’t booked anything. Nothing is settled. We’re just going by the feeling. We’re going to google everything on the way. I’m looking up the way and Hosam is searching for places to eat. So it’s just the two of us, a car, a camera, a laptop, and two smartphones. What more is there for a great experience?
Katowice
I visited Katowice once before and it was also during a one-day trip. Basically, that’s all the time you need for a visit. Although Katowice is a major city, it’s mostly industrial and there aren’t so many ‘touristy stuff’ to do there.
We hung out in the city center. And when I say ‘city center’ I mean Galeria Katowicka, bus and train stations, and two pedestrian streets. Everything is connected. Everything is nearby. Our accommodation, bus from the airport and car rental were all in a 200m radius. Actually, there was no car rental office — they sent a driver with our car instead. People usually get a car from the airport, right? Not so many people visit Katowice.
We wanted to see more of the city, but the weather was not our friend — it had been raining the whole day. Not the heavy rain type, but enough to make us unwilling to leave our well-established circle. Even the restaurant Hosam found as the best one in the city was located on the outer side of Galeria Katowicka. To be consistent with the weather, the Silesian museum was closed because it was Monday, so we couldn’t do anything except shopping.
Arriving in the middle of the night, we saw the bus and train stations full with so many people sleeping, eating, chatting. We decided to drink our first morning coffee there. My friend and I, although coming from two different cultures, have at least one thing in common — coffee! We need coffee! This is the place where the city lived, so we went on and lived with it.
I have to say that I liked the architecture in Katowice, although it’s a well-known fact that so much of the historical core of the city center was destroyed in order to make new buildings. Still, there are a lot of old ones too, which are quite lovely.
Finally, we decided to leave Katowice and headed to Wroclaw in the afternoon, and, thanks to highway, we got there in only two hours. Wroclaw feels like a completely different dimension. I have a friend from Turkey, Hakan, who fell in love with Wroclaw on an Erasmus trip and decided to move here. So guess what, he gave us an unofficial, unexpected, fun-fact tour of Wroclaw Old Town.
But more about this city tomorrow, when we hit Old Town properly, with a camera in our hands and a lot of googling.
The Eastern Chronicles Poland road trip takes place between March 7th — 15th, so stay tuned for daily stories!
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