Wroclaw - Car, Train, Taxi

Several of us had breakfast together before leaving Cieszyn and finally the sun is out and there's blue skies again! Ewa drove me to Katowice and we arrived at the station with 3 minutes till the train departed. It was better to rush and catch this rather than wait 2 hours till the next service.

In the compartment for 8 passengers, a woman in a cheap red tartan jacket, black jeans and very scuffed shoes sat at the window. She was painfully thin and when she stood up to reach for something from the shelf, her legs were virtually parallel lines each just a little wider than French bagette sticks. She looked in her 40s but quite worn out, with bags under her eyes and black dyed hair severely scraped back. A roll of grey toilet paper fell out of her bag onto the seat, and I wondered why this was necessary. An old book sat in front of her on a small shelf. It was brown, cloth bound and when she opened it the pages were very faded at the edges and had probably never been white. It was Lew Tolstoj, although I couldn't make out the title. When she put her glasses on to read she looked less poor and fragile and more old fashioned, stereotype of a librarian.

Two children sat beside me, the younger one, a boy, at the window and a girl. It was difficult to guess the girl's age as her brown and black striped t-shirt and jeans, made her look like a tiny teenager. She may have been about 9 but really petite. They read, drew in exercise books and ate interesting looking bagels or pretzels. One of these seemed huge in the hands of the girl, about 7 inches in diameter but she managed to eat it completely.

It seemed they were travelling to Wroclaw with their grandfather who sat opposite me, doing word puzzles obsessively, turning the pages and filling in one after the other and rarely speaking to the children, just once when the boy wanted to go to the toilet. He was uncannily like Geppetto with his white hair, tanned skin and moustache. Looking again at the children, I realised they both had flat faces with little pointed and the girl's hair was cut like Coraline. I started to wonder if Geppetto had made then from wood and they had come alive.

Wroclaw is on the River Odra (or Oder) with several canals and islands just beside the hotel. There seems to be a maze of bridges to cross via these islands to the other side where the Old Town is. I got a little lost across these bridges, both old and new, ending up near the Cathedral and a botanic garden. I back tracked and tried to follow my map and signs for the Square.Many people were out and about for the evening enjoying the sunshine. I passed tango dancers, jazz musicians, outdoor beer halls till I found the square and had a meal in an outdoor cafe, people watching. A group of fire dancers and jugglers performed in front of the cafe, i had a front row seat and worried about my eyebrows getting singed.

Walk back over the islands which, now its getting dark, are now full of hundreds of young people sitting in groups, drinking and talking. The atmosphere seems quite pleasant though and not at all threatening.

This hotel is luxurious compared to my room in Cieszyn but I'm not that impressed. I think I prefer the cosiness of the Castle Hotel where there was no hotel reception, no TV and grey toilet paper (sometimes!).