This will be probably one of my shorter travel blogs as the main purpose of the visit was to watch Wales play Poland in the UEFA Nations League. The game was sandwiched between the end of the hectic 2021/22 season and just 4 days before Wales’ biggest game of my lifetime, the playoff that could see Wales reach their first World Cup since 1958 (edit: they DID bloody win an’all!!).
Overview
Wroclaw (pronounced Vrotz-wav) is Poland’s fourth largest city and lies towards the east of the country.
For Wales games I tend to let my friend Pete deal with all the booking stuff, obviously delighted when told we would be leaving at midnight to drive to Stansted. Stansted was as busy and miserable as expected. The £5 fast track through security was worth every penny. Although we were done with security at 4am there were already 50+ people in the queue for Wetherspoons. However, Stansted do have a lounge (starting at £26.50 per person) and offered comfort and a brilliant range of breakfast options including a full English, and beer, open from 4am.
The flight to Wroclaw took just under 2 hours and the Ryanair seating was uncomfortable as anyone over 12 stone knows only too well. I’m going to seriously consider not using Ryanair (and therefore possibly not going at all) for any trips over 3 hours going forward.
We stayed in the Campanile hotel that was roughly £20pppn and a 15 minute walk to the Market Square. Can’t complain.
Getting around
Wroclaw airport is 10km from the centre and a taxi cost around £15. We were perhaps overcharged but public transport options seemed confusing as the hotel wasn’t quite central enough to warrant changing buses/trams.
Wroclaw has a public transport network of buses and trams with a 48 hour ticket costing about £4.50. Unsurprisingly, e-scooters have arrived more some fun but I reckon everything to see is within walking distance.
Things to do
In short, head to the Market Square for a pleasant walk around. I’m not quite sure why you would visit Wroclaw for longer than a day but the city was enjoyable to wander around.
There are – of course – an ample amount of churches scattered around if that’s your thing and the river/canals make getting around that bit more picturesque.
What I haven’t included below that may be worthwhile is a boat ride along the river. Wroclaw also has a zoo. In struggling to think of anything after that!
As a side quest, Wroclaw have about 300+ statues of gnomes throughout the city, all rather chirpy and a trip hazard!
Costs
I’ve pretty much covered this section already, what I knew of anyway. In the Market Square food and drink were similar to UK mid-range prices but no doubt you could find places a LOT cheaper off the beaten track and mini-marts were a good source of snacks and soft drinks.
Itinerary – What we did.
Day one.
I’ll keep these short! We arrived at our hotel at 11am and after a quick rest headed to the market square for lunch. There were countless options for food here ranging from traditional Polish food to stalls to the Hard Rock Cafe and Burger King.
The buildings surrounding the square are well worth a mention, with the centrepiece being the gothic style town hall that doubles up as a museum.
We decided on a traditional restaurant for lunch that may have been the most expensive place there at £53. Nevertheless my steak and baked potatoes were enjoyable and a massive portion. Pete had a beer (and huge ice cream) whilst I had diet coke! Oh dear.
Following lunch we walked to a church that had a bridge 40 meters high connecting it’s two towers (going up on Wednesday – I do love a viewpoint) and the hotel where we needed to pick out tickets up after today, also taking the opportunity to buy a new pair of trainers. More about that humongous error in a bit.
Siesta time. Whilst it was my third nap of the day Pete was due a rest especially having to drive to the airport earlier. Slightly more refreshed we headed back out for tea, a very similar routine to earlier, but choosing a steak restaurant for dinner, that whilst looked posh, sorted us with an outstanding burger, chips, salad and a drink for about £11! More like it Christopher.
I need to mention the massive fuck-up with my shoes at this point. During my last two trips my trainers started squeaking with every pace and it was driving me mad! So much so, we popped in to a shopping centre to buy a new cheap-ass pair to get me through the next 2 days. When putting them on I decided to leave my old pair by a bin in case someone in need could use them.
Fast forward wearing and waking said new trainers for half an hour and my toes and heels were rubbing to such extend I walked back to the bin to swap them back over and take a £26 hit!
Unfortunately / fortunately the shoebox was now empty and some guy or girl has a nice comfy pair of used trainers as was my wish, whilst I spent the rest of the day walking like John Wayne.
Zero keen to do any more walking after dinner, I hobbled back to the hotel to layer up on plasters tomorrow before or morning excursion to Ksiaz castle. I’ve still got Tuesday evening and pre-pre-beers Wednesday to see a bit more of Wroclaw istelf.
Day Two
After a good rest overnight we shared breakfast with about 50 odd French children (over excited kids, first thing in the morning, yeah…)
Time to bite the bullet and try on the demon trainers, that initially felt a bit better thanks to no less than six plasters applied with surgical precision around my little toes and heels.
Today we were going on our excursion to Ksiaz Castle, about an hour train ride east of Wroclaw. The bright yellow but still elegant train station is a good walk from the main square so we decided to give the trams a go. All straight forward and our tickets for the train journey with reserved seats in a cabin were under £8 each.
Whilst our destination was the castle, there was no clear way of getting there without some homework. The castle’s website suggested that we get off at Walbrzych (don’t ask me to pronounce it) and get the local bus to the castle. We tried this, caught the wrong bastard bus, had to walk back to the station and decided on a taxi! I’ll keep Peter’s quote “a man who didn’t make a mistake never lived”… Although I really should know the difference between an A and an 8 by now, the reason for our accidental detour.
Our arrival also signalled me giving up on the trainers and reverting back to trusty flipflops, certainly NOT recommended for the uneven paths, caves and countless stairs!
Anyway, the castle. I don’t do history lessons but basically a line of family built the thing and it was passed down over centuries until the one lot spent more than they could afford and went bankrupt, thus (not quite) handing the keys over, leaving the castle to fall in to ruin.
The interesting part comes during World War 2 when the Nazi’s took a liking to it due to the location. During the war they (using prisoners in dire conditions) started building a series of tunnels underneath the castle. To this day historians aren’t sure what the purpose of the tunnels were but the theories range from a laboratory to a train station, to a bunker where the Nazis could hold all their robbed stuff, to a secure bunker for Hitler himself, using Ksiaz castle as a base to direct operations. The latter is backed up by an incomplete shaft that was intended to run from the tunnels to the main house some 50m above.
The tunnels were never finished as the Nazi’s ran off when the Red Wall arrived and only about 50 years ago did renovation work start to give us the attraction it is today.
Like I said, I ain’t no historian. I’ll try and add a link later on.
The caves/tunnels were a good tour minus the 200 odd steps down and up. Whilst the tunnels were monotonous, the audio guide and videos were interesting.
The tour of the house itself was lengthy and unfortunately a lot of the exhibits “this is what it would have looked like” but fascinating nevertheless. Especially with the gardens we were forced to walk around after leaving the gaff.
We well deserved our Aperol Spritz afterwards before hurriedly getting the train back to Wroclaw.
After a brief rest we returned to the market square for tea. As much as I tried to talk myself in to making a long drunken night of it, after three drinks I gave up and had an early night, match day tomorrow!
Day Three
Nailed being an adult last night! Another early one meant breakfast and out the hotel by 8:30. I had some time on my own this morning so decided to tick a few sights off.
First was Wroclaw St John the Baptist cathedral, somewhat tucked away amongst the narrow streets of the old town. A decent building but I didn’t go inside due to my shorts/flipflops combo. The last thing I’d want is God having a go at me, not on a match day. Without getting lost on the tram system my next stop was Centennial Hall.
Whilst the building didn’t interest me much, around the back was a “multimedia fountain”. To you and me that’s 300 fountains that on the hour perform to a classical number. I was here at 9:10 but decided to wait, sat on the grass, enjoying the sunshine and writing the day 2 section of this.
10am came and I was treated to Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries. The show was ok for 5 minutes. I think the performance adds lights in to the mix at night time that probably makes a big difference. I had a pleasant stroll and tram back central to pick the tickets up. It was very close to beer time! Beforehand I still had one thing to do, which was to climb up 45m to the Penitent bridge joining the two towers of Mary Magdalene Church. The walk was helped by making a fool of myself doing a few Instagram videos and the views from the top were worth the 247 steps.
That first step back down was the start of “on the way to the pub” and shortly after had a lager in front of my watching the world go by, followed by lots more lager and pleasant brief chats with other fans, something I do enjoy.
Peter met up with me a few hours later and after one final stein we made our way to the tram that would transport us to the ground. Absolutely packed as expected but a pleasant mix of home and away fans, arriving early enough not to be in a rush, and get two points to enjoy whilst watching the game!
We had great seats for the game, something I’m not used to. We got chatting about the starting line up and made a throwaway comment about Jonny Williams ‘only playing because he has a good song’ to no response. You could just tell the person I was speaking to was his father! But we did have a good chat during the game and at the airport on the way home.
Oh, guess who scored our goal? Yep, Jonny bloody Williams. I was very pleased for Mr Williams Snr, and had to apologise not because of my comments, but as I missed the goal to pop for a ciggy!! All that way, all that money, to miss the goal! Thanks.
The game was a very promising performance from Wales’ second string / youngsters and although we ultimately lost 2-1, we did take the lead and deserved a draw. It was an enjoyable occasion and many Poles commented good game etc etc on our trip back.
This is kinda where it ends. Being super sensible we chose to watch the Scotland v Ukraine game in the hotel with a McDonald’s. We were back out the hotel at 4am to travel 2 hours to Stansted then FIVE hours drive home! But still in time for our World Cup playoff with Ukraine in three days. Thanks for reading.
Update: I did get home. I was in time for Wales v Ukraine, Wales won, Wales are going to the World Cup! Yma o hyd.
How Not 2 Life 