We got some clothes washing done in the free washing machines – a real treat on a campsite. 

After hanging it out we caught the tram to go to Wawel castle – a huge castle and cathedral just south of the old town. It was very busy. Polish monarchs had lived and been crowned here before the capital moved to Warsaw in 1596. Therefore Poles regard it as a spiritual place and like to come here. 

There were many choices of tickets to buy to enter various parts of the castle and cathedral. We wandered around outside as there was plenty to see.

There was a nice garden area.

The latest version of the castle had been built in the 1530s by Italian architects – hence the very italianate courtyard. The painting had been partly restored.

On the way out at the Vasa gate we found the statue of the national hero Kosciusko that Australia’s highest mountain was called after by Polish explorer Strezlecki. 

We decided as we were having a quieter day we would go to a beer garden. We found a nice one nearby and only realised later it was part of the Schindlers List film set courtyard we had been to earlier. There was no food there unfortunately so we found a Polish restaurant across the road. 

Glenn had the Polish soup in bread dish – a huge amount of food. He managed pretty well and even had a soup top up.

He left only the empty crust. 

The boys caught the tram back to the campsite. Lisa and I walked through a park area with a photo exhibition of Roma people who had survived WWII as they are now. Many had harrowing stories of how they survived concentration camps. 

We arrived in the university area and I found 2 eminent polish mathematicians to have a chat with.

Stefan Banach and Otto Nikodym had a famous chat here in 1916 and remained friends after that.

We then found the  Great College,  the oldest building of Jagiellonian University. Nicholas Copernicus the astronomer who found that the earth went round the sun had been here for 4 years. It has a fabulous courtyard.

We went to sneak a look in the museum rooms without a ticket and the security guard waved us on. So we had a great time checking it out. The rooms were very Hogwarts-like.

This is a tool probably used by Copernicus.

There was a globe from the 1500s with America on it – the oldest in the world. 

We liked the 1500s ceramic heaters.

After enjoying that we walked to the tram seeing many more amazing buildings.

We got back to the campsite exhausted after 13,500 steps. 

We had a light dinner before earlier to bed than usual.