a brief visit - Wroclaw, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 27, 2005
We decided at the last minute to head for Prague next, instead of down into Slovakia as originally planned, and Nicola offered us a lift as far as Wroclaw. Wroclaw consists of an enormous, colourful, historical square, (with buildings in the middle, making it more of a ring than a square) and then a modern city built around it. You only have to go about 2 minutes walk from the square to find dull concrete modern buildings. Modern or communist, of course. We only spent a couple of hours here, and then got a lift to one of the highways out of town, having decided to get back to hitching. We stood for hours and hours before finally getting a lift by asking for short distances in a petrol station. A lovely young couple who spoke some english took us right to the Czech border, as they were going to visit relatives nearby (on the Polish side) anyway. We spent most of the last of our zloty on dinner in a road side restaurant, walked through the border, then failed to get a lift, or find anywhere suitable for anyone to stop for us. So we kept walking. It was about a kilometre before there was a good place, and although it was dark by then, we hadn't been there more than a minute when someone stopped for us. A truck driven by a polish man who spoke some german (they all speak some german) took us all the way to Prague. June 2007 EDIT: I have just found this post about the same day that I must have written and lost. So here it is again in different words! Wroclaw As we had suddenly decided to take a flying visit to prague (Kate's long lost bag was supposed to be in the care of a friend there, but we couldn't contact him, but hoped to be able to when we got there), when nicola offered us a lift as far as Wroclaw, we accepted gratefully. It was a pretty town, but funny because you only had to take about 2 steps off the enormous, beautiful, historical main square to find the familiar grey concrete box style of communist architechture. We only stayed a few hours, then nicola drove us to a service station half way out of town, and we spent the next several hours trying to get a lift. Poland is not easy for 2 hitchhikers! We finally begged a ride from a lovely couple who were driving to see one of their parents just near the Czech border, and offered to drive us right to the border point, which was great. There we stopped for a final polish meal before walking through the czech point (sorry, couldn't resist) and discovering there was nothing on the other side. At least, not for a long way. No where even for cars to stop. Or to walk safely. After a kilometre or so (by which time it was completely dark) we found a stopping bay, and were there approximately 30 seconds before a polish truck driver picked us up and drove us right to Prague.