Kraków vital statistics:

• Population (2017): 766,739 (city proper); 1,725,894 (metro)
• Latitude & longitude: 50˚ 4′ N, 19˚ 56′ E
• January average temperature: High 1˚C (33.8˚F), low -4.9˚C (23.2˚F)
• July average temperature: High 24.2˚C (75.6˚F), low 13.7˚C (56.7˚F)
• Time zone: GMT+2 (6 hours ahead of U.S. EDT)
• Language: Polish
• Currency: Polish (New) Złoty
• Exchange rate: US$1=3.7 złoty
• Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center: $553.05

A reliable indicator of how much I like a city is how long it takes me to crank out my first blog post about it. When I’m enjoying exploring a new place, particularly one with great nightlife, blogging about it each night is not high on my list of priorities. I didn’t write my first Ljubljana blog entry until I had been there for five days. Similarly, it took me five days to start blogging about Prague. And here I am in Kraków, Poland on Monday, 16 July 2018, five days after my arrival in town, writing my first blog entry. My love for Kraków is exceeded only by my love for Prague, and only barely.

I journeyed from sleepy Olomouc to Kraków in the middle of a lovely, long stretch of four weeks without getting on an airplane. As such, the journey was without any drama. I took the tram to Olomouc train station, with its cheery socialist realist mural of joyous dancing peasants and workers.

Then, for the first time, I hopped on a privately run European train.

The train took me to the last Czech town on the border with Poland. As I do, I checked my ticket carefully when I was purchasing it and saw that I’d have to transfer to a bus for the remainder of my journey to Kraków. So I was not surprised when I had to disembark from the train and walk two minutes to the bus stop, where a Leo Express bus arrived right on time. Although Czechia and Poland are both parties to the customs-free Schengen Agreement, and I didn’t have to go through immigration or show my passport crossing the border, I suspect the international rail lines still haven’t been matched up so you can ride the train straight across the border.

Anyway, from that nondescript Czech border town whose name escapes me, the bus took me the remaining two and a half hours to Kraków. I looked around for a “Welcome to Poland” road sign, like the ones you see when driving across the U.S. “Welcome to Maine, the Way Life Should Be,” or whatever. And those are just for the meaningless state lines in the U.S.! I expected more from an international border crossing. But if there was a highway sign, I missed it. Flat, rural, boring eastern Czechia flowed imperceptibly into flat, rural, boring southern Poland.

With the aid of Google Maps directions, I walked the half hour or so from Kraków’s main bus station to my hotel in Kraków’s Kazimierz district, and checked into my hotel without any fuss. Incredibly, this is the first hotel I’ve stayed in since Salamanca, Spain, nearly two months ago.

I really think private apartment rentals are the future of travel accomodations. Whether you find them through Airbnb or traditional hotel booking sites like Orbitz, they’re usually larger, have more amenities, and are cheaper than hotels. The only thing I prefer about staying in a hotel is that there’s a reception desk, so you generally don’t have to let anyone know ahead of time just exactly when you’re coming. You can just show up when you show up.

The weather here in Kraków has been predictably unpredictable. It’s rained on and off the entire five days I’ve been here so far, although there’s been a fair amount of sun too, and often the two have occurred at the same time. The great stretch of weather I enjoyed in Prague is done and gone, and I’m dealing with a weather pattern similar to the one I endured in Romania.

But, having purchased a cheap umbrella in Prague, I’m not letting the rain cramp my style anymore. I’ll discuss my explorations of Kraków’s picturesque Old Town, historically Jewish Kazimierz, and Podgórze — site of Kraków’s World War II Jewish ghetto, concentration camp, and Oskar Schindler’s factory — in a future post. For this one, I’ll content myself with describing Wawel Hill.

Wawel Hill (which, unlike Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., is a real and fairly steep hill) was the seat of the Polish kings for 500 years until the capital moved to Warsaw in the late 16th century. So Kraków, not Warsaw, was the capital during Poland’s heyday in the late Middle Ages when it was one of the largest and most powerful states in Europe.

Rick Steves calls Kraków “the new Prague,” and there are a lot of parallels. In both places, you’ve got a picturesque walled castle and cathedral on a hill overlooking a river. And Wawel Hill is swarming with tourists in July. Not quite to the same extent Prague Castle is, but it’s at least in the same ballpark, I think.

The grounds of Wawel Hill are free to enter and are open until dusk. Certain parts of Wawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral require tickets for entry. They allow entry through the early afternoon, but the problem for me, from a sightseeing perspective, is that the tickets for most of the attractions tend to sell out in the morning. For three straight days — Thursday, 12 July through Saturday, 14 July — I really tried to get out of bed before noon, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Getting up in the a.m. is not my idea of a vacation. It reminds me too much of going to work. Yuck!

Admittedly, the one part of the castle I was able to get an afternoon ticket for, the State Rooms, was very impressive and well worth the price of admission. This was where the king would consult with the nobility, meet foreign dignitaries, hold balls, and so forth. It’s filled with gorgeous murals, tapestries, and paintings depicting scenes from the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, and Polish history. But no photography was allowed, so I’ll focus on the free parts of the Wawel Hill complex.