Zamość

After gorging myself on my dinner of meat, potatoes and apple pie with ice cream, I had gone back to my suite (ahhh) and straight to sleep, which meant the following day I was up basically at the crack of dawn. I opened my eyes, stretched, and wandered sleepily to the window, which looked out on the main square. It was deserted. Obviously Zamość was more sleepy even than I.

In any case, I got dressed and got out of the hotel to have a look around. I wandered around the square and did some people-watching, checked out the court building, the old military arsenal (overgrown, locked-up building), the university, the Lublin gate, and all the buildings around the main square, which took about an hour and a half.

 After that, I thought - now what? Zamość might be listed by UNESCO as a Heritage site, and maybe it is the "Padua of the North", but there is only so long you can stare at seven renaissance-style buildings. I decided to go to the tourist office to see what else was available.

In the tourist office, I had some trouble communicating with the non-English speaking girl-at-desk. In Eastern Poland most of the tourist traffic is national; not too many foreigners are visiting Zamość. Thankfully, I came to expect in Poland, a kind, English-speaking stranger appeared out of nowhere and offered to help translate. She spent almost twenty minutes with me sorting out my train timetable, asking about tours, and making general chitchat about Poland. Thanks to her, I found out that there are no scheduled tours of Zamość, you have to hire a tour guide for 100 zloty an hour. Usually they do tours for groups, which is why they are so expensive. My new friend was outraged - with all the unemployment in Eastern Poland, they should all be out showing tourists around for a reasonable price, she fumed. Since I had already seen all the bits of Zamość I could see without a guide (doesn't make much sense just to look at buildings when you have no idea of the history behind them) I decided to head on to Krakow. After much back and forth by my friend and the tourist office lady, I was informed the only trains to Krakow go through Lublin (necessitating backtracking), and that there was only one train a day, at 13:30. Figuring I would go stir crazy if I had to spend another 27 hours in Zamość, I decided to head to Krakow the same day. I bid farewell to my translating friend, who was also doing a train tour of Poland, but instead of visiting the cities, she was visiting the national parks, lakes, and natural beauty. She said she had spent a week in a rural lodge in a national park with the most amazing views, totally relaxing, clean air, healthy walking every day, and much cheaper than staying in a "city" like Zamość (I couldn't help but giggle at that). I had avoided visiting the more rural parts of Poland because they are not in such easy reach from the train stations, but I think next time I visit Poland I will try and spend more time enjoying the country's nature. After she warned me to pack some snacks for the long train ride, I went off to eat some very overpriced crêpes in the square.

I stayed in town until 12:00 to see the cornet player in the clock tower do his thing. I managed to grab the last little bit:

Following that, I strapped my very big pack onto my back and headed off to the train station. When I got there, I almost walked right past it; it looked like an abandoned building. But my Lonely Planet insisted this was the right place, so I went in to investigate. Sure enough, in the "abandoned building" there was a train timetable in Polish, and a window with the requisite grumpy lady behind it. Summoning my courage, I asked in my best Polsklish for the platform for the Lublin train. "Peron 1", she replied. My Polish is really improving, I thought. I smiled to myself as it occurred to me that the window lady even looked a little impressed at the foreigner with the passable Polish. But the self-satisfaction only lasted until I went out onto the platforms and realised Platform 1 was the only platform - so much for looking intelligent. I waited on the solitary platform, with a Polish mother and daughter, and when a train came along at 13:30 I got on and hoped like hell it was going to Lublin.