The cloth market on the Rynek in Krakow

Soon it was time to catch our bus to Warsaw en route to Krakow. The bus was not terribly comfortable, but tolerable, but yet again we were delayed at the border while they took Veronika's passport away for investigation. However, we were eventually let in to Poland, and the rest of the journey to Warsaw was unremarkable. We arrived in Warsaw about 7 in the morning and managed to change some money, although the guy in the kantor rejected my initially proffered $100 note because it was "damaged". We then bought our tickets to Krakow, leaving us with around 4 hours in Warsaw. At the post office I managed to phone Asia in Gliwice to let her know when we were arriving and to make arrangements to meet her at her flat, and then we wandered around the old town of Warsaw. During the second world war, Warsaw was basically flattened and the old town razed to the ground. After the war, the authorities painstakingly reconstructed the old town exactly as it had been before from old photographs, and today it is difficult to tell that it's not quite genuine; indeed Warsaw old town has recently been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco. Unfortunately, I packed my camera away in the locker in the railway station, so I couldn't take any photos. Veronika, however, was not similarly indisposed! Luckily, as it was early on Sunday morning, the street traders and hawkers had yet to set up shop, so we were basically left in peace to enjoy the town.

We caught the train to Krakow, and since Asia was not due back in Krakow until early evening, once again we left our luggage in lockers in the train station and went wandering around the town. First stop was in a beautiful old cafe, where we had barszcz and bigos, two old Polish favourites of mine, basically beetroot soup and sauerkraut stew, before continuing our explorations. We came to the Rynek Glowny, which will be familiar to some readers as the setting for one of the more important scenes in La Double Vie de Veronique, where the French Veronique sees the Polish Weronika from a bus.

The Rynek Glowny (Main Square) is the largest mediaeval town square in Europe, and is dominated by the huge Sukiennice, the old cloth market in the centre. These days, it's given over to dozens of stalls selling a variety of touristy souvenirs, some of it the usual kitsch, while other stuff is actually very nice indeed, particularly the chess sets, which at the time of writing I had so far managed to resist buying, although I suspect there's a fair chance I may succumb over the next couple of days.

From the Rynek, we wandered over to Wawel, the royal castle of Krakow and one of the most important historical sites in all of Poland. The centrepiece is a magnificent cathedral, and the whole complex has been remarkably well preserved, like much of Krakow. Krakow was the only major town in Poland to survive the war more or less unscathed, a fortuitous result of a sudden flanking movement by the Red Army which left the retreating army no time to destroy the city, as they had done so often elsewhere in Poland. As it was already quite late in the afternoon by this stage, and since from one of my previous visits to Krakow I knew that there was a great deal to see in the Wawel complex, we opted to leave an extended visit to Wawel until a later date, when we had more time. We then returned to the main square (via a brief visit to the dragon statue, which actually breathes fire periodically, much to the excitement of the kids who pose for photographs).

From Wawel, we returned to the main square before heading back to Ulica Florianska, one of Krakow's most lively streets, and then to the Florianska gate, the only remaining gate in Krakow's mediaeval town wall (this is becoming a habit!), and now home to a regular art market, where aspiring painters ply their trade and the town wall is lined with hundreds of colourful paintings of varying quality at no-doubt inflated tourist prices.

We then caught a taxi to Asia's flat. We took the opportunity to have a wash while Asia took her dog for a walk. Another old friend from my Gliwice days, Ania, turned up with her fiancé and we spent a pleasant couple of hours chatting and munching cake before going to sleep tired.

On Monday we returned to the Rynek, as it is basically the heart of Krakow, before going exploring once again, following our regular habit in new towns of simply wandering around to see what takes our fancy. In Krakow, most of the museums are closed on Mondays (they stay open on Saturday and Sunday to take advantage of the weekend visitors), so many of our plans went pear-shaped. We dropped in to the Collegium Maius, the oldest surviving part of the Jagiellonian University, the second oldest university in central Europe (after Charles University in Prague). We had hoped to check out the interesting museum, but unfortunately it was closed for no apparent reason, although it was scheduled to be open. We did manage to see the beautiful arcaded courtyard though.

Weird architecture at the castle in Budapest

We ate lunch in one of Krakow's most popular bary mleczny or milk bars, basically cafeteria-style cheap restaurants, and the food (zurek - sausage, potato and sour cream soup; pierogy - Polish cheese ravioli) was excellent and cheap to boot - a definite winner; although the queue was a bit discouraging at first, it moved remarkably quickly and we were served in good time.

Suitably stuffed, we returned yet again to the Rynek and stopped by the St Mary's Church. We didn't plan to do so, but we popped in, and were very glad that we had done so. Up till this point, I had firmly believed that I was more or less churched out after visiting many churches of varying religious persuasions (Orthodox in Russia, Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox in the Baltics) in recent weeks. However, St Mary's Church was simply stunning. Recently renovated (a recurring theme), the frescoes are simply jaw-droppingly beautiful, but the centrepiece is the 1491 altar, the largest and reportedly best Gothic artwork in Poland, produced by the Nuremberg master Veit Stoss. The altar is a huge triptych and is exquisitely detailed; however, to protect the postcard industry (perhaps also out of respect for the myriad faithful continually thronging the church to pray, although, being of a cynical nature, I tend to opt for the former explanation), photography is banned.

We then returned to Asia's flat for the evening.

On our last full day in Poland we caught a bus to the famed Wieliczka salt mines near Krakow. I'd visited the mines once before years ago, and little has changed except the price (up to $6 from maybe 10 cents) and the addition of what the Americans call a diorama of the "earliest" salt miners in the region, a weird, very 70s yet astoundingly brand-new display of hairy people in the sort of tacky display I had thought had gone way out of fashion many years before. Even the tour guide, who truth be told had a highly amusing dry-humour repertoire of jokes and self-effacing comments, was stinging in his criticism of the piece. However, this did not detract from our enjoyment of the mines, which have been exploited for over seven hundred years. For a variety of reasons (piety, boredom, an irresistible desire to express themselves artistically), some of the miners over the years decided to get into salt sculpture big-time. My personal favourite has to be the series of dwarves paying mining homage to the Hungarian princess who supposedly had the first mine dug. Another highlight was the underground church, carved entirely out of salt, and richly decorated with excellent statuary. including a Jesus carved from translucent pure crystal salt. Alas as was all too often the case with my digi-cam, the pictures I took didn't come out.

Charles Bridge at a relatively quiet time

From Krakow we moved on to Prague. Our original plan had been to catch the night train direct from Krakow, but the price ($45!) put us off considerably. Following some advice provided by Asia, we took the bus to Cieszyn, found our way over the border (with some minor but by now inevitable problems caused by Veronika's infamous Slovene passport) and then into Cesky Tesin. The very helpful tourist information office gave us details of the trains to Prague, and we had a couple of hours to hang around. I nipped into a shop and to my delight found some really salty balkanski sir, which combined with some bread kefir and pastries made an excellent breakfast. The journey to Prague was uneventful, and we found a room through an agency at the main train station, and found our way there, navigating the generally excellent Prague public transport system while heavily laden with luggage. We went for a pizza and then went to sleep.

Next morning we started fairly early, heading into town. Our first stop was the famed powder gate (yet another one) on Hybernska, named after the Irish monks who brought Christianity to what later became the Czech lands. From the gate, we followed the growing crowds of tourists (we'd arrived in Prague on the Friday, just in time for the tour group hordes) in the general direction of Old Town Square. I'd been to Prague on several occasions before, so I knew what to expect, but Veronika was awe-struck by the stunning architecture that is everywhere in Prague. Old Town Square was surprisingly quiet, but we soon discovered that this was because we had left our room early and were in town by nine in the morning. Within a few hours, the streets were full of tour groups doing their thing - we even came across a group from Kompas Holidays in Slovenia.

We did all the usual Prague touristy things - visited the Old Town Square, checked out the gothic clock, wandered through the streets just soaking up the atmosphere. The first time I came to Prague ten years ago, the invasion of western tourists had yet to begin, and it was a completely different atmosphere - I basically had Charles Bridge to myself. This time round, the situation was fundamentally different - tourists were everywhere, mainly large groups of Americans and Germans. Still, we weren't going to be put off, and we continued our explorations. From Old Town Square we made our way up to Wenceslas Square, with its art nouveau facades, memorial to Jan Palach and, of course, yet more tourists.

Returning to the Old Town Square, we popped in to the town hall to climb the tower for the classic view of the old town. It was from here that we got our first view of Hradcany, the castle-town on a hill across the river. To get there we had to cross the Charles Bridge, which was made kind of difficult by the extraordinary crowds and the seemingly insupportable number of people selling paintings and trinkets. Veronika ended up buying several attractive paintings of Prague, and in a weird reversal of the normal travel process, we ended up going off in search of some of the spots which formed the vantage point for the pictures.

We continued walking up the hill until we reached the absolutely amazing Prague Castle. On previous occasions when I'd visited Prague, the enormous St Vitus cathedral had been shrouded in scaffolding and tarpaulin and was more or less hidden from view. The restoration work is still in progress, but much more of the cathedral is now open, and it's even possible to go inside.

Prague skyline

Right next to St Vitus Cathedral is one of the most incongruous and ridiculous examples of architectural idiocy I've ever seen - in the heart of a beautiful castle, surrounded by wonderful gothic and neo-classical buildings, stands an utterly pointless monolith, an absurdly phallic symbol, demonstrating clearly that even great architects such as the Slovene Joze Plečnik have their bad days. What on earth he was thinking when he conceived the column is completely beyond me. Sadly this was the only part of Plecnik's work in the castle that was open to view, although allegedly he did a pretty good restoration job on some of the interiors.

However, despite the gothic wonderland of St Vitus Cathedral, the highlight of Prague Castle for me is undoubtedly Zlata Ulicka, the "Golden Lane", a little lane of tiny 16th century tradesmen's houses, all very cute and painted in bright colours. Franz Kafka lived for a while in one of the houses here. Inevitably, most if not all of the houses are now tacky souvenir shops - indeed much of Prague has become one giant souvenir shop, generally selling pretty much the same thing.

Next morning it was time for a quick wander around Jewish Prague. Jewish cultural tourism is evidently going through something of a boom at the moment, and whoever is running the show is obviously making a pile of money. In Prague for instance, a visitor's ticket to the Jewish museum is a ridiculous $15, more even than the Hermitage in St Petersburg, and possibly the most overpriced visitor attraction we'd come across. Needless to say, we didn't check it out. We then wandered back down to the river to come across the world's largest metronome standing bizarrely on a hill overlooking the city. Again, I have to question the sanity of the person who came up with the idea of installing an oversized metronome on a hill.

Next day we headed off on a Soucek hunt. Veronika's great-grandfather had come moved from somewhere near Prague to Lukavac in Bosnia around 100 years ago, and we were keen while in the area to visit her ancestral village. Unfortunately, the document we had was old and difficult to read, and we were mislead into believing that we were looking for a village called Sadska near Podebrady, when in fact we should have gone to Sany, on the other side of Podebrady. However, it was interesting being the only tourists in a little Czech village after the extreme crowding of Prague. We searched through the graveyard looking for Souceks all to no avail.

Returning to Prague, we spent the following day shopping. I bought a beautiful crystal chess set, Veronika bought some more paintings, and we both bought train tickets to Budapest, our final stop on our epic journey.

Amazingly, on the train to Budapest, which had to cross Slovakia, we had problems when the border guard couldn't figure out Veronika's passport; it was only when I overheard her conversation with one of her colleagues as they tried to work out whether this was in fact a fake Slovak passport that I realised what was going on. If even the Slovaks have problems with Slovene passports, I'm amazed that we actually managed to make our way round the world without being arrested or refused entry. Happily though, we didn't have any problems getting into Hungary.

Budapest's wonderful parliament building on the Danube

As our train pulled into Budapest, we were approached by two girls offering to book our accommodation. However, a brief conversation revealed that the cheapest beds they had were $50 a night, way way way beyond our budget. Instead we decided to take our chances on finding somewhere ourselves, and as soon as we got off the train we were approached by a Moroccan guy asking if we were looking for a room. He seemed friendly enough, and the price he was quoting was very reasonable, so we decided to take him up on his offer. Good thing too, as the hostel he took us to was one of the friendliest we came across anywhere, and it was within walking distance of the Danube. Both of us had visited Budapest before (in my case, on a number of occasions), so we didn't feel the need to run around like crazy trying to see everything. Instead we took it easy, soaking up the atmosphere. By this stage we were looking forward to getting home, and our batteries were in need of a good recharge. Other than wandering around and doing some shopping (some books and a whole pile of cheap CDs - after all, our next stop was Tuzla, so we didn't have many more journeys to make), the only really tourist thing we did was to visit the castle hill in Buda. Again, the architectural ensemble in the castle had been tarnished by a stupid piece of architecture, in this case a hideous concrete monstrosity masquerading as a Hilton Hotel. It looked ok inside, but the outside made me wonder just how much was spent on bribes to get the damn thing built, as it is utterly inappropriate for the area.

While we were in Budapest, events in Serbia took an amazing turn, and Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown. It seems that every time we plan to go to Bosnia, some situation arises in the Balkans, and life was determined to prove that this was to be no exception.

Veronika's dad drove from Tuzla to Budapest to meet us and drive us back to Bosnia. This was a very welcome offer, as we by now were both extremely tired and overloaded with the various souvenirs we'd picked up along the way - I had about 15 books in my rucksack by this stage, many of them heavy Lonely Planets, and we also had a number of fragile items, particularly my crystal chess set. The journey to Tuzla was uneventful except for at the border leaving Hungary, where we were inexplicably stopped, hassled and subjected to a limited baggage search no fewer than three times. Eventually we were allowed to leave the country. Crossing into Croatia, the border guard stopped us and asked where we'd been. Veronika's dad started to explain that we'd been travelling around the world on honeymoon and had visited twentysomething countries, to which the border guard replied with a smile "Well if they've made it that far, I'm not going to be the one to cause them trouble" and waved us on. A couple of hours later we were in Tuzla, home at last.

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