Our day starts very slowly. Before, we arranged with our Polish friends that we'll rise at 10, eat breakfast at a cheap and traditional restaurant, and stroll around Krakow before departing.
However Agata and the others are rather evasive today, talking among themselves in the other room and not showing signs of being ready to go out of the house.
We're planning to take a train to Ostrava in the Czech Republic. We're given directions and wave our goodbyes.
After a few minutes' walk we hop onto the tram. Agata told us to disembark at the "...Glowny" stop right by the station, however after several stops we realize that there's no such stop on this route. The next stop is 'Wawel', which is right by the Wawel Castle, so we hop off to take a look at it.
A grandiose view towards the castle opens as we step off the tram. We climb the mountain to see it close-up. The castle is fantastic, entry is free, and despite the large number of tourists everything seems peaceful and relaxed.
Poking about and taking in the wonderful city we have slowly made our way towards the station.
We discover the train to Ostrava departs after more than seven hours. It doesn't suit us. Agata suggested us to drive by her native city, Bielsko-Biała. There's no train going there, so we're looking for the correct bus station. After consulting the map for a long time, we take a tram to the edge of the city, from which we can take a city bus departing Krakow.
The terminus has a small market with clothing, footwear and a variety of sweets.
It turns out we have to wait 36 minutes for the bus, so we add 'Bielsko-Biała' to our hitchhiking sign. Just as the bus should be arriving, a driver offers to take us 20 km ahead to the road which should lead to our destination. The driver is a Franciscan monk planning to go to Latvia in December for an international congregation. We chat for a while until we're at the place where he thinks we could have better luck hitchhiking. We disagree.
It's getting dark but we've only gone some 20 km ahead. After 20 minutes a Toyota stops, with a kind-looking senior gentleman at the wheel. He'll take us a further 40 km ahead.
He isn't talking to us due to the language barrier but he smiles and produces a hand for shaking when we manage to tell him we're from Latvia.
The rest of the drive we're silent, listening to Polish news and falling asleep. After a short while we're 26 km away from Bielsko-Biała, with darkness about to fall over the city. Many cars pass us by when at least a small VW Polo stops. The driver will take us to the Bielsko-Biała station, provided we can divide our own weight and that of the bags evenly on both sides of the car, which is old and the driver's side can't take much weight.
Our driver is from northern Poland, having moved to her wife's to a nearby village this year. As rock music hits are blasting in the car, he's telling us exactly what all of the Poles have told us - he knows English as he has learned it for 12 years at school, however it's difficult to converse as there are no chances to practice it. He tells us he's working with disabled people, entertaining, educating, taking care and spending time with them.
At the station we inquire as to the train departing for Ostrava. Both online sources and the ticket seller tells us that a train will depart towards Ostrava at 10.10 p.m. It means a three-hour wait for us, but we have no other choice.
Now's the moment to go to the platform, but there's no such train. It turns out that the train just doesn't run. You can get to Ostrava only through Katowice, which is towards the north and not where we're supposed to go, but we've missed that train too.
The next train leaves for Katowice only at 3.45 a.m. so we have five hours' worth of free time.
We wait for 12.30 a.m. when the station closes and go to the nearby BP gas station. The smiling clerk allows us to use the table, read the magazines and even refills our water bottle. Almost everywhere we've met kind people that are ready to help.
It's 3.30 a.m. now and we have to go back to the station to try to ride three stops (without a ticket) to the place where we have to change trains. If everything goes as planned, we'll be by the Czech border before 6 a.m. We're very late, as we haven't planned on spending three nights in Poland.
