Poland Part 2: Wrocław

August 25-27, 2023

Hi friends and family,

On August 25 I headed to the nearby city of Wrocław (pronounced “vrot-swov”, where the ‘o’s are pronounced like the ‘o’s in “dog”) to sneak in a few days before visiting Vienna. After missing my original train, I got into Wrocław in the afternoon and took public transit to my hostel. I was staying in an interesting “art” hostel where the rooms were supposedly art exhibits. I was staying in a room literally called “Trash Room”, which felt fitting for this hostel I already disliked after struggling to check in at the unattended reception. The room, thankfully, was clean, and the beds had a little more privacy than hostel beds typically do, but the rest of the room was pretty lousy; there were no outlets except one from the ceiling that was used for the lamps, the bathroom was weird, and the room was very dark and difficult to navigate without the lights on.

After dropping my stuff off, I walked to the Old Town part of the city, which was the beautiful, historic part of town with an open square and many colorful buildings lining the square. I was starving so I ate lunch at one of the first places I saw and got some traditional Polish food: sausage, sauerkraut, bread, and beer. I was in a touristy area so it was a little overpriced, but still very cheap by American standards, and I was content eating there since I had a great view of the market square.

After eating, I walked around the city and some parks; Wrocław is well-known for its many small islands in the middle of the river. I relaxed in the most popular one, Słodowa Park, a popular park on the weekends since it’s legal to publicly drink there. After walking around I hung out in the hostel again before going back out at 10 to get a kebab for dinner and see the night life in Old Town and Słodowa. Lots of people were out and about, but they were almost all speaking Polish (or at least not English), and I was tired and didn’t know anyone, so I went back to the hostel to sleep.

The next day I picked up groceries from Zabka, the grocery/mini-mart chain that’s ubiquitous in Poland. After a quick breakfast, I did a walking tour around Old Town from 10-12:30. I was hoping I’d meet some people to befriend on the tour but there weren’t many people my age that spoke English. The guide wasn’t very captivating so I felt like I was dragging my feet through most of it.

I cooked some lunch back at the hostel and then went back out to Old Town to enjoy a coffee and then beer while reading and relaxing. I walked more around the city and hit some of the parts that I thought were interesting on the walking tour. It didn’t seem like there was much to do in the city besides go out to restaurants and bars and party. I went to the Jewish quarter of the city for dinner, where I’d heard there were some good food options, but I didn’t find anything that looked great, so I settled for an insipid panini. I was feeling pretty low energy after being out late in Krakow, and I wasn’t able to meet anyone on the walking tour or in my hostel, so I retired to my hostel bed relatively early.

August 27 was the last day of my quick, two-day stay in Wrocław. I made breakfast at the hostel then went to Old Town to try coffee from a place the walking tour guide had recommended. The coffee was nothing special, but it was nice to have something to drink while walking around the parks. After a quick walk, I went back to the hostel, ate lunch, and went to the bus station. My bus was delayed an hour, but it eventually came. My seat was next to a guy that didn’t respect the boundaries between our seats, and the kid in front of me had his seat reclined all the way into my already limited legroom. Additionally, someone a few seats in front of me was playing music out loud, there wasn’t any WiFi, and I just ran out of data on my Poland eSim, so it made for a long and unpleasant ride to Vienna.

Every once in a while, after the kid was basically reclined all the way into my lap, he would incline back up to a respectable angle but then slowly regress back into a lying down position over the course of the next hour.

Honestly, I didn’t love my time in Wrocław. The city has a very high student population and one of the main draws is the night life, which can certainly be fun, but I wasn’t really feeling it after having done a fair bit of it in Budapest and Krakow. The hostel was weird and felt more isolating, rather than communal like most hostels do. I probably wouldn’t recommend Wrocław to most people. I had a much better time in Krakow and liked what the city had to offer. I’ve also heard good things about the beach town of Gdańsk in the north and Warsaw might be worth a visit, although I’ve heard it has much more of a city feel than the charming “large town” feels of Krakow and Wrocław.

Thanks for reading!