Day 247: Krakow via a Calvary

Finally time to leave the middle of nowhere and head for civilisation again. Just one more church nearby to check out, which we did, then headed north towards Krakow. We weren't able to check in here until 4pm, so we decided to knock off one of our "Krakow" heritage sites.

This was about 20km west of Krakow, a huge monastery and calvary complex known as Kalwaria Zebryzdowska. A calvary is similar to the sacred mountains we'd seen in Italy, where pilgrims can follow paths up mountains, with multiple shrines spaced along the way to represent various stages of the Passion and so on.

This is one of the largest such sites in the world, and has two separate 8km calvary routes, one for the life of Jesus and another for the life of Mary. And what's interesting as well is that they're laid out exactly in the same proportions as the old city of Jerusalem (or at least as it appears in the New Testament anyway). So the distance and directly from say the Garden of Gethsemane to the crucifixion hill are precise matches.

Fascinating concept! So after a quick McDonalds lunch on the road, we wandered around a little bit looking at the various shrines and doing our filming. It was a bit too cold for a full 8km walk, and Schnitzel wasn't enjoying the muddy ground either, so we cut things a bit short and headed for Krakow.

Pleased to find that our apartment is great - stylish modern furnishings, parking space, convenient location, decent internet connection and a low price. Loads of space two, there's a second bedroom we aren't using, plus a loungeroom, dining room, kitchen and a foyer type area. Nice.

As night fell we headed out in search of dinner. We're staying on the edge of the Jewish Quarter, which was once home to the city's thriving Jewish community (sadly deported to a ghetto outside of town during the German occupation and then later sent to the gas chambers at nearby Auschwitz) but is now home to the city's coolest restaurants and bars. Lots of food truck parks as well, where a few semi-permanent food trucks would set up shop in a vacant lot.

Eventually settled on a Mexican food truck for a tasty burrito, while Shandos had a felafel wrap from a Israeli vegetarian truck. Looking forward to exploring the city tomorrow!Read more