It was the 7th of January and our last day in Krakow, we were Warsaw bound later that day. It was a mere zero degrees when we woke up and with no more snow overnight, the snowy roofs and paths were starting to be replaced with some wet roads and paths. We were treated to another beautiful sunrise from our apartment window.

The apartment we were staying in had a lift (super awesome for moving bags around) but even though we were on top floor we often used the stairs as it was faster when we didn’t have bags. We did notice these really cool bird sculptures in the courtyard as we were wandering up and down the stairs. They were rather realistic 🙂

After we finished our packing up and stored our bags in the apartment reception area, we head out for a morning adventure. We’d gotten through most of the sightseeing we’d wanted to cover off in Krakow in our few days here, so the activities for the final day were a source of hot debate.

Astrid was adamant she wanted to go ice skating and there was supposedly a big ice skating rink a 25 minute tram away ….. but the rest of us were tired and not so keen today. The Polish Aviation Museum was also on our list of things we were keen to check out and it happens to be free on a Tuesday (which it was today!). Soren was definitely in the aviation museum camp and the rest of us were also being swayed in that direction. So we voted to go there, rather than ice skating, against the 13 year olds wishes! Astrid let her displeasure be known.

Off on the tram….

We’d mostly walked everywhere in Krakow (with the exception of our excursions to the Salt Mine and Auschwitz) but we actually caught a tram today. We’d seen plenty of the trams zipping around Krakow during our walking adventures. They turned out to be lovely and convenient and the trip out to the museum only took about 15 minutes.

It was only a short walk from the tram stop to the museum, and like the Old Town and Jewish district there was still plenty of snow on the ground. The snow boots were definitely required as there was plenty of snow on paths.

The Polish Aviation Museum

The Polish Aviation museum is at the site of the no-longer functional Kraków-Rakowice-Czyżyny Airport. This airfield, established by Austria-Hungary in 1912, is one of the oldest in the world. The airport isn’t operating any more but we could still see the runways while walking around the outside exhibits.

The museum is rather large, with a main hall as well as several hangars of aircraft and then huge fields of abandoned fighter jets and ‘MIG’ alley with many, many MIGs. Soren, still being plane obsessed was in heaven! There are well over 200 aircraft and many rare aircraft in the collections.

Soren, may have inherited his love of all things aircraft from Anto so they were both on team Aviation museum rather than skating today. Zinnia who is normally a skate fan also had a pretty good time checking out the many planes.

I’m definitely not as keen on aviation museums as the boys, but I’ll admit I was surprised at how good this museum was. It had rated very well, and it was definitely worth visiting even for the non-plane obsessed folk. There were lots of interesting exhibits. I found gliders people set 35 hour flying records in, and many aircraft that had crashed ….. and many I wouldn’t want to be in for any length of time!

We spent a bit of time in the main hall checking out the planes, helicopters and gliders and reading about various aircraft. You could easily spend a long time here but there were multiple hangars of aircraft, plus the hundred odd outside!

After we left the main hall we had to check out some of the outside aircraft. Snow boots were definitely required for this part of the museum!

After a walk outside we found ourself in one of the other hangars, which was also chock full of aircraft and plenty of air simulation games to keep the kids amused.

There were so many planes and helicopters to look at, just in this one hangar (and we didn’t visit every hangar) that you could easily spend hours here. The inside exhibits were heated, which was for the best as it wasn’t a very warm day. The aircraft inside were very well maintained and there was plenty of information about each of them, and the time they were in service and some interesting stories about their life.

Once we’d spent some time checking out the hangar aircraft we were instructed by Soren that it was time to check out the outside ones. There was plenty of trudging through snow required for this, but it added to the atmosphere I guess!

The outside aircraft had somewhat suffered from being in the snow at times but they had so many I don’t think they cared!

Soren found the fighter jets and you couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. The outdoor fields also include ‘MIG alley’ where there were a lot of MIGs! They were often in various states of disrepair but reading the stories about the aircraft was interesting. I was mostly being rabbited onto by Soren and Anto about what each plane was and various features of the aircraft I was supposed to care about.

Soren and Zinnia were having a wonderful time being planes, and I probably learnt more about aircraft used in World War II than I ever needed to know. Interestingly the museum has very few Polish aircraft from this period as most were destroyed during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Walking around these fields of planes, in the snow, you could definitely tell you were in Eastern Europe! The mid-Winter sun barely poking over the horizon, even in the middle of day certainly added to the atmosphere. It had made it to a whole 3 degrees now but certainly was far from warm walking around snow-laden fields.

After over 2 hours we had to drag Soren away. We could have easily spent several more hours to get through all the exhibits. Astrid wants everyone to know she definitely had a bad time, and did not enjoy herself at all….. even though I did see her looking at some of the exhibits. I had previously really enjoyed the Estonian Maritime Museum (Lennusadam) in Tallin, and while this museum was different, we all noted it was also very well done and enjoyable in a simliar way. Definitely worth a visit even if you aren’t a plane obsessed 11 year old boy, or his dad 🙂

Pizza in Poland….

We’d had to forcibly extract Soren from his plane heaven in order to have time for lunch before our train. We caught the tram back to the Old Town and went to grab some warm lunch at a pizza restaurant near our apartment. Freshly cooked wood-fired pizzas hit the spot. Astrid continued on her mission to try every Caesar salad in Europe.

As we were eating lunch it started becoming rather rainy and miserable outside. It was lucky we’d left the Aviation museum when we did.

It was also lucky that it was a short walk to pick up our luggage from the apartment then to the tram and into Central.

The Warsaw train experience….

Polish trains only open for booking a month before the travel date, so we hadn’t booked this train before leaving Australia. Unlike all our other trains for our 7 week trip. A few days earlier we’d decided to book a later in the day train so we could do something in the morning. The travel days get wasted with the early sunset as it’s always dark and cold weather, as by the time you arrive in the new city. After our pretty crowded trains from Innsbruck to Vienna, and Vienna to Budapest we also decided we’d book the slower train in first class rather, than the express in second class that was more expensive.

This turned out to be a good move as the train was pretty much deserted, we had heaps of space, ample luggage storage and heaps of leg room.

Our train left just after 2pm and we had most of the cabin to ourselves for the almost 4 hour journey. We enjoyed some rural snowy Polish scenery but it quickly turned to darkness as the sun set an hour into the trip. We realised that Polish train drivers spend a lot of time learning how to use their horn. There are so many level crossings, many without guards that they are on the horn on average every 2 minutes for the whole trip. It was rather amusing!

Despite our train departing a little late and spending a lot of time beeping through every town and crossingb we made up time and were on time after a couple of hours.

By 4pm it could have been midnight so Astrid and Anto napped, the other 2 had plenty of device time and we all feasted on train station purchased salads and random sandwiches for our train dinner.

Hello Warsaw……

As we pulled into Warsaw just before 6pm it was raining and about 5 degrees. We eventually found the correct (very crowded) bus to get us to the Old Town and had to do a quick bus transfer with all the luggage but it was pretty easy on these buses, which was a blessed relief.

We noticed there are so many Christmas lights still up and it was rather beautiful as we drove through the Old Town area. We were all excited to check them out during our stay.

By the time we got off the bus, it was well and truly raining and close to zero degrees. Luckily it was only a 400m walk with the bags to the apartment (albeit on wet cobble stones). This was immediately made up for by the location. Our apartment in Warsaw was in the Old Town, with a skating rink and mulled wine right outside. You can guess that made our plans for the next couple of nights easy!

As we settled into our apartment we had views back into the city area and over the river. We were definitely looking forward to exploring more of Warsaw in the daylight, the next day!

Up next….

Exploring the Warsaw Old Town, New Town and many beautiful Christmas decorations….. with plenty of food to power us through the cold weather!