City Park plus, Fruit & Vege Market

This morning’s walk was first to check out a fountain on the edge of Old Town. It was called Plac Szczepański, but I’m not 100% sure if that is the name of the square, the street, or the fountain. It sits in a pretty city square surrounded by very nice buildings.

A short hop to the side of the Old Town then took us to a small inner-city park called Wisława Szymborska Park. It was nicely laid out with a mixture of gardens, lawns, and water features. There were lots of seats for people to just enjoy the green space. There was also a large mural dedicated to a Polish poet.

Next on our list was the market square, Stary Kleparz, which is a local farmers’ market. It’s a very busy place in quite a small area, with many people selling their produce. They had some lovely-looking peaches and fresh blueberries. We were planning to go to the Carrefour Hypermarket next, so didn’t buy anything at first, but on our way back we stopped to get both. Two very large white-flesh peaches and a small scoop of blueberries cost 9 Zloty — less than $4.50 NZD! I think we will go back there again.

The supermarket visit was much easier this time since we now knew how to find it. We restocked for the next three nights’ meals, plus a few essentials we were running out of — soap, toothpaste, coffee, etc. We expect groceries here will be cheaper than at our next destination. Prices here aren’t as cheap as in the Czech Republic, but seem slightly lower than in New Zealand.

Loaded up with groceries, it was a hot walk back to the apartment via the aforementioned market. It’s only forecast to reach 28 degrees Celsius today, but it already felt that warm before 12 pm.

A relaxed afternoon at the apartment followed, with not much to report. I did catch the F1 qualifying, which was good. Our internet speed was terrible when we first arrived, so it was hard to watch anything, but it came right yesterday after we messaged the host — it took two days for them to respond, which isn’t great service. Then today we had issues with the air conditioning. It seems they have sensors on the windows and perhaps the door, and if something isn’t closed properly, the AC won’t turn on. After a few messages to the host, we eventually got it sorted. They responded much quicker today, which was good.

Dinner tonight was something slightly different: chicken wraps with lettuce, tomato, capsicum, and a new mayonnaise we purchased today, accompanied by a low-alcohol Radler beer for me and a mango & lime cider for Sarah.

After dinner, we headed up to the castle to see it at night and hopefully catch the dragon breathing fire. Sarah just managed to video it, but it was getting very dark, so the quality wasn’t great. The forecast had predicted rain from 7 pm, which we didn’t believe, but it turned out to be correct — not heavy, but the first time we’ve gotten wet walking since London.