Breslau and NewYearsEve in Krakau

While Danny, Ben and Anja started off a day earlier, Franzi and I drove to Breslau on 29.12.2013 and arrived at afternoon after a 4h drive. Ben picked the WenderEDU hotel which we can recommend :) We started walking through Breslau (Wroclaw) at late afternoon. Unfortunately without Anja as she was sick :(.
The old city center and especially the cathedral islands are gorgeous. Climbing the St. Mary Magdalena church offered us a nice sunset view from the "Penance Bridge" where adulterers were tormented in the middle age. We had some good dinner, which was when I enjoyed a delicious knuckle of pork, before we finished our day dancing in the PRL bar, that played all kind of pop and chart music while being decorated with deepest communistic ambient including portraits of Stalin, Lenin and Mao as well as plenty communistic ads... a little ironic :P
The next morning Danny, Ben and Anja headed early towards Krakau (Krakow) to stop at Auschwitz and Birkenau. However, Franzi and I didn't fancy to visit a concentration and death camp between Christmas and new years holidays. Thus, we enjoyed the great weather while visiting Breslau's university quarter and climbed the Cathedral of St John the Baptist to have a great view over the city. Then we drove to Krakau with a short coffee-stop in Gleiwitz (Gliwice) before staying at Tramp Aparthostel. Unfortunately, it was cold and misty in Krakau.
Still, Krakau's old center is even more gorgeous than Breslau's and we were happy to see a Christmas market open^^ The city offers plenty of restaurants, bars and cafés... a great atmosphere! On 31st we visited the Wawel castle and the jewish Kaminiez quarter. The latter offers an even broader range of great restaurants and cafés :) We were unlucky as all tickets were sold out for the Couchsurfing party we wanted to go to. Still, we were lucky to reserve a dinner table at the awesome restaurant Pesto. There we had a delicious dinner before we had a super short countdown at the main market square, started the year off with sparkling wine and fireworks :D Happy new year 2014! Ben and Anja left early as they were still sick, while Danny, Franzi and I went for dancing before we had our first sleep in the new year :)

I, Danny and Ben in front of Breslau's town hall

Franzi in front of the sunset view over Breslau's market square from St Mary Magdalena church

 

 

Breslau's Cathedral of St John the Baptist

Find dwarfs throughout the city - funny gag^^

Cathedral of St John the Baptist

Cathedral Bridge

Franzi inspecting the locks at Cathedral Bridge

pretty^^

Locks at Cathedral Bridge

View from Cathedral of St John the Baptist

View over the cathedral islands from Cathedral of St John the Baptist

Krakau's Christmas market at the market square in front of St Mary Basilica

Sts Peter and Paul Church

Getting ready for the NewYearsEve show^^