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The train arrived in Krakow around 730 a.m. where Norin and I spent an hour looking for lockers to place our luggage in as we were only spending the day in Krakow. Eventually we found them after speaking with a couple that was just leaving the city who were really kind and gave us the rundown on the city. The lockers ended up being at the bus station that joined the train station where we had arrived. We went into the city center which is the largest European city center. The sun was out and at this time in the morning there were very few people around, just those few who arrived to meet up with tours. Interestingly, this city survived as it was the summer residence of Hitler and was spared bombing while nearby Warsaw was 80% destroyed by the Germans. Due to the weather and the apparently biker-friendly areas in the city, we ended up renting two bikes to ride around the city, and we spent the next 7 hours riding around the city and rural towns. We followed the river for miles and at one point rode into a non-touristy town and saw how the locals lived; it was truly a great experience.
On the bikes we saw the Krakow castle near the river, rode through the numerous parks, viewed large churches outside the main city, and really saw a part of Krakow and Poland that few tourists see. From the distance I spotted a large grassy hill on top of a large mountain and convinced Norin to ride up that way to see what it was. Norin waited below while I spent 45 minutes riding up a massive mountain on a bike with only 3 speeds to the mountain top that was used as a lookout many years ago. The views from up here were so high, not as picturesque as Prague, but significantly higher up. On the way down I must have hit 20 mph due to the steepness of the hill. Making our way back to the city center around 5:30pm, we handed out bikes back in, not having enough time to see the salt mines or to make a day trip to Auswicz. The local street entertainers were out and about, trying to impress the small crowds that find their way out to the streets. The square at this time now had visitors in the thousands, whereas when we first arrived around 9am there were only a handful of people out. It was back in the square where we saw the hourly trumpet display that is abruptly stopped, because the tower was used to warn locals of invaders, and once a trumpeter was giving the warning and was shot through the neck, so since then it has been a tradition to end the song abruptly in honor.
The weather was so nice during the day that I actually got sunburned from being out the whole day. For lunch we both ate at a local place where I tried the local beer called "tyskis." By the end of the day we had seen all the major sights that one views when visiting and were definitely ready to move on, but had a bit of time to burn, so we sat and people-watched before heading to the post office to mail off our postcards. We made our overnight train to Budapest with plenty of time to spare. This time we weren't going to risk having a little scare like we had back in Prague. On this trip I paid extra for my own sleeping quarter which was very much worth the additional costs.
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