After our 4 nights in Budapest, we had a rather long travel day ahead. We had some very foggy and cold weather during our entire stay in Budapest, ironically as we departed the sun finally came out and the temperature actually rose above zero. Of course when we woke up it was still zero and raining so we weren’t keen on heading out in a hurry.
Max and Di were heading back to Australia (via a night in Paris) and had a slightly earlier flight than us so head off about 9am. We bid farewell to them, with plans to see each other again at home in much warmer temps in a few weeks. We were about to start the next bit of our trip, and off to Poland.
As it was still foggy when we got up we weren’t rushing to do any last minute sightseeing, and by the time it cleared we were ready to head to the airport. As we walked to the bus stop to catch the airport express it was bright sunshine, and the temperature had edged above zero. Finally!
While we’d all enjoyed our time in Budapest we really wished we’d had slightly better weather (at least some sun) to enjoy the beautiful city. We’ll definitely have to come back another time!
Farewell Budapest…
The airport express bus was super-efficient and we were at the airport by 10.30am. We got word that Max and Di’s flight to Paris was delayed but they were tucked up in a lounge where they had to spend many hours waiting.
Meanwhile, once we got through check-in killed time in Budapest airport trying to find reasonable priced food, failing and wishing we’d purchased more of the Portugese salted caramel tarts from the nearby bakery that we’d grabbed more of on the way to the airport bus. We could have eaten about 20 for the price of a sandwich. With the exception of the Christmas markets, the food prices in Budapest had been very reasonable. The airport was exception number 2!
After training all over Europe since we landed in Paris a month earlier on 4 December, these were our first flights. Krakow was our first destination in Poland, and despite Krakow only being a bit under 400km from Budapest, north of Slovakia and the Tatra mountain range, there are no direct flights on any days. We could either night train (which I was not keen on after our last night train experience in Italy) or fly via various European cities, some in the opposite direction. The most time and cost efficient method for us was flying via Warsaw (which we’d be visiting later in the trip).
Hello Poland…..
Our 900km flight to Warsaw took off early, just before 1pm….. and what do you know, after days of not being able to see one side of the Danube from the other, you could clearly see it from 10,000 feet. We were cursing the weather gods!
There is the Danube snaking below us. At least we got a view of it on a clear day, even if it was from the air!
The kids were excited to be off on the next part of our trip. After sharing our trip with 3 different grandparents and partners, and having some wonderful Christmas memories, the next 2 and a bit weeks it was mostly going to be just the 5 of us. They were going to have to con all treats out of Mum and Dad!
As we came into Warsaw it was back to plenty of snow and ice on the ground and sub-zero temperatures.
A quick Warsaw stop-over….
We somehow landed 30 minutes early and our ‘short transfer’ before our next flight turned into a long one with plenty of time to kill. Most of this was spent chasing down Soren’s travel pillow he’d somehow left on the plane, in the continuing game of what has Soren left behind today! We did get it back and added plenty of extra walking through the airport into our day.
The kids killed remaining time playing on the kiddy play planes (well at least the younger 2, the teen was buried in her phone) and watching planes be de-iced.
Off to Krakow….
Our second flight of the day, from Warsaw to Krakow was only scheduled as 30 minutes long. This meant we took off and went pretty much straight back down again. We did get enough time for another round of the standard LOT airline snack of cherry danish. We ended up with enough of these stashed in our bags to fuel us through a long couple of days ahead.
By the time we took off from Warsaw and head back towards Krakow, the sun was setting 10 minutes into the flight. This made for some pretty sunset views as we zipped over Poland.
It is dark by 3.45pm here in early January, so we landed in darkness and proceeded to wait an excruciating 45 minutes for our bags to appear. On trains you have to haul your luggage on and off but at least you don’t have to wait for it!
Finally onto the airport train, we kept warm and ended up chatting to some foreign exchange students who’d tried asking me for directions in their poor Polish. Given my Polish is non-existent I gave them very confused looks but it made for some fun conversations on our 20 minute trip into the Krakow old town. People always find it fun to hear why a group of Aussies are freezing our butts off on a multi-week trip all over Europe with our kids.
We lucked out with transfer times today as the airport train line happened to run to within 120m of our Krakow apartment, so we had a very quick but dark walk to find our new apartment. It’s always a bonus when there isn’t too much hauling of bags.
Snowy dinner in Krakow…..
We were all a bit tired to go hunting too far afield for food, so there were no Polish dinners tonight. We found a very good falafel place a short walk away, and continued our run of excellent falafels on this trip.
These falafels had lots of pomegranate and haloumi. Astrid in a break from her favourite meal of chicken caesar salad opted for a haloumi salad. While we were waiting for our food Anto ran off to a supermarket nearby with Astrid and Zinnia and they all came back coated in snow.
Soren and I had stayed to wait for our dinner and were presented with hot spiced tea to drink by the fire. It was very tasty and better than the takeaway service back at home!
On our walk back to our apartment there was some gentle snow falling. Despite having several weeks of snowy weather now, it was still a novelty.
The dinner turned out to be excellent (and giant)! We generated some left-overs for future days and refueled after a long travel day.
The kids were bundled off to bed in pretty short order as we had to both unpack and also pack up for a long day trip the following day to Zakopane in the Polish Alps, which involved a very early alarm! It had been a long day but we were looking forward to exploring Poland over the next week of our trip.
Up next….
We were off for a day trip to Zakopane to meet up with Alan (Gramps) and Kim for a day of fun in the snow in the Polish Alps.
