Wrocław

Day 394 (July 25, 2019) – Wrocław, Poland

Our first introduction to Wrocław was in Sighnaghi, Georgia. We were staying at a guesthouse along with a very large and very outgoing Polish family who were on vacation. As we were talking with them over a few glasses of Georgian wine, we mentioned that we were going to be in Poland in a few weeks staying in the city of Wrocław. After a few seconds of visible confusion on their faces, one of them said, “ah, yes (unintelligible)!”

Ah, what was that word they said? we were thinking. Travis tried again and said, “I don’t know, we’re staying in Wrocław, if that’s how it’s pronounced.”

“Yes! (Unintelligible)! We know that city,” one replied.

“How did you pronounce that?” we asked.

“(Un.. in… telligible),” they said only slightly slower and then, “ah, the family is leaving, we will catch up with you later. Have a good afternoon!” And in less than 30 seconds the entire family of ten people disappeared down the stairs leaving us to ourselves and a half dozen empty glasses of wine on the table.

We resorted to looking up the pronunciation on the internet after the family left and we learned that Wrocław is pronounced nothing like it is spelled in English. It is pronounced as “Vrohts-wahf” in Polish. That's what they were trying to tell us. The funny looking “ł” should have been our first clue that we were never going to get it right, which is pronounced like an English “w”. The “c” is pronounced like a “tz” and a “w” is pronounced like a “v” or sometimes similar to an “f”, for which there are two in Wrocław. So that’s how one gets to “Vrohts-wahf”, which we were able to confirm this on the ground in Poland as being correct. The Polish alphabet may use Latin characters like in English, but the pronunciation is completely different. In other words, we were never going to understand a word of Polish. We couldn’t pronounce what we were reading, and we couldn’t translate what we were hearing into words. That’s ok though. It was never going to be as challenging as Chinese.

Our stop in Wrocław was simply opportunistic for us. We were looking for flights into Europe from Georgia. There weren’t that many flights to choose from and even fewer low-cost options. Georgia didn’t seem all too well connected to anywhere other than Russia or Turkey. Fortunately, we were able to find a flight on Wizz Air from Kutaisi to Stockholm, where we were going to visit a friend, but it had a stopover in Wrocław. It turned out that the price of the flight was the same if we booked the two legs separately rather than as a connection, so we decided to stop in Wrocław for a week before continuing onward to Stockholm.

Our first impression of Wrocław was, wow, this place is fancy. I was gawking out the window of the airport bus. Everything looked so new and shiny. The cars on the road looked they just rolled off the lot. Even the streets looked new, as if their road markings had just dried yesterday. There were glass four-story office buildings topped with various company logos. There was a mall with signs for a dozen brands that I immediately recognized. We even passed an Ikea advertisement. There was clearly a lot of affluence, but to be honest, it looked just like many parts of the United States to me. After everywhere we had been the last year, this was the closest and most similar feeling to home that we've experienced in the longest time, even if everyone was speaking Polish.

As familiar as it might have felt, Wrocław was also undeniably European. A network of blue trams crisscrossed the city, there was a huge cobblestone old town center, buildings with extravagant and colorful facades, and dozens of cafes spilling out onto the sidewalks. Restaurants were very international in character. Most seemed to be offering German, Italian, French, Mexican, or whatever else you could imagine, but there were still a few places that specialized in Polish cuisine. We had our fair share of perogies, cabbage, potato pancakes, sausages, and soup.

Perogies for dinner. The normal boiled ones are in the back, but we had to try the giant baked ones in the front too. We concluded that the normal ones were best.

Kielbasa with fried onions, boiled potatoes, and red cabbage. Scoops of mustard and horseradish and a side of pickles for good measure too.

My favorite activity in Wrocław was simply walking around the pedestrian streets looking for little dwarfs. Seriously. All around the city are tiny statues of dwarfs doing all sorts of goofy things. The symbol of a dwarf originated from an anti-communism political movement, but they have been turned into a city-wide art project of sorts and have become the unofficial mascots of Wrocław. They are hiding everywhere. In windows, under signs, outside restaurants, near fountains. It was fun to walk around the city and then suddenly exclaim, there’s another one!

Found a dwarf!

We also caught up on a few necessities. We went clothes shopping for the first time in nearly a year. There was an H&M downtown and we went on a shopping spree. I left with two new t-shirts and a sweater while Travis bought a new pair of shorts. This may not sound like much, but I was replacing half my shirts and Travis was replacing half his shorts. We felt like brand new people, finally getting rid of our old, tattered clothes. And they really were tattered. My shirts and sweater were becoming worn through at the very point where my daypack rubbed against my lower back and Travis’ shorts had multiple holes in them, some of which had been previously repaired but were ripping open again.

There was also, as always, more trip planning that we took care of too. We were making plans for Germany and the Czech Republic. We also made plans to visit Auschwitz. We were originally planning to rent a car from Wrocław to drive there, as it wasn’t that far away from us, but then we learned that you can’t simply show up without tickets. We had no idea they had to be reserved a month or more in advance, which spelled the end of our Auschwitz day-trip plan. But we would be returning to the area while we were in the Czech Republic, so we booked some tickets for then. At the end of our very enjoyable week in Wrocław, we were back at the airport again to complete the second half of our Wizz Air itinerary to Stockholm.