New Year Europe 2020
I want to share with everyone our sudden and wonderful New Year's trip to Wroclaw and Germany. The trip was thought up spontaneously, as extra days of vacation fell out of nowhere. It was necessary to urgently decide something, but a week before departure, all tickets are expensive, and by tradition, we celebrate the New Year in Kyiv. Three evenings of searching for tickets - and we are ready to travel!
The first of January… around five in the morning we went to bed, set 100 alarm clocks, just to be sure. But with such a beloved mother-in-law, a hundred alarm clocks are not needed, since she and Misha decided to call us early in the morning. Yes, I still have a few hours of sleep. 11:00 am, all 100 alarm clocks rang. It's time to start a new decade, quickly gathered in a taxi. Forward, on a journey!
The first pleasant impression of the trip is the reconstruction of Zhuliany airport. Now a restaurant has been opened there similar to the Pot-bellied Hut with the corresponding prices. And now, right in the departure zone, you can arrange a small feast for yourself) And this is very cool. Are airport food and water monopolies starting to crumble? While I, like a child, rejoiced at cheesecakes with latte, a man sat down at a white piano and began to play. Yes, they also installed a piano in Zhuliany. Maybe, of course, the piano was not white, but white somehow sounds more romantic.
So the piano turned out to be white)
On the first of January, there were a fairly large number of people at the airport, but everyone looked, to put it mildly, unemotional. But an employee of one of the stores, apparently, decided to overcome this total lethargy and offered me a drink of whiskey! I explained that on the first of January in the morning, or whatever part of the day it is now, if you drink whiskey, then no one will fly anywhere. To which he received the statement in a voice charged with energy: "Well, that's right, you drink whiskey with us and you don't have to fly at all! " Vivacity and positive girl could only envy. The short flight passed in a half-asleep state with headphones in my ears. We have arrived, Wroclaw meet us!
Wroclaw
On the Polish border, the officer traditionally decided to count the days according to our stamps. To say that the procedure is long is to say nothing. And considering that at customs they often put stamps not next to each other... It seemed that we were considered an eternity. But after the calculations, they don’t ask anything anymore. While the officer was checking passports, I stood with my face buried in a sign saying that meat and a number of other products were not allowed to be transported. It is possible that this plate made our appetite grow, leaving the departure zone we covered ourselves with a small New Year's buffet on the benches, the obligatory dish of which was Olivier (travel is a journey, and New Year's Olivier is obligatory! ) and meat in French. On the one hand, meat cannot be imported into the European Union, but since it is made in French, then consider it simply returned to its homeland. We will live with our good friend Katya. You can get there by transport directly to her house or without a transfer, but walk three kilometers through the center. The choice was obvious and after 40 minutes we were in the very center.
Then we settled in with Katya and went for a walk around the city with her boyfriend. I have already heard good reviews about Wroclaw more than once, and now we fully share them. It's really beautiful here and places to explore are not limited to the Old Town. It was also really fun to hang out with friends. One of the first things I found out from Katya's guy is that he likes more cucumbers or tomatoes. Dasha and I have such a trick, although it is more inherent in me: we conditionally divide the whole world into people who give their preference to cucumbers, and people who are for tomatoes. According to our statistics, people more often find a mate on the opposite side of the "vegetable barricade"))) We have not yet figured out how else to use such statistics. In the case of Katya and Nikita, the statistics were confirmed.
In the meantime, we were taken to various interesting places. At first, we rejoiced at each found dwarf, but there were so many of them that the world's joy was not enough to rejoice personally with each one. The most beautiful night part of Wroclaw is the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist! The beauty!
The most beautiful part of daytime Wroclaw is the university. Although it conditionally belongs to the category of museums, the halls really melted my heart. I really don’t understand how one can concentrate on a lecture in such beauty, I would sit with my mouth open and dream, staring at the painted ceilings.
If we are not talking about museum attractions, then I really liked the bridges, their number and variety. Interestingly, it was in Wroclov that we had the maximum number of acquaintances. At lunchtime, my former employee from my first job also joined us. It is always interesting to hear about how and what changes for people after moving, how exactly they live and how it is worse or better than in our country. But what unites Katya and Andrey is how rarely they get out to neighboring countries. I think that Dasha and I would definitely travel on Flixbus to neighboring countries every weekend.
And I would also get really fat on Polish freezer ice cream. In the afternoon, having studied in detail the entire Old Town, we went by cable car to the Water Museum. The cable car is a bit exaggerated, I would say a track, but a cable car) On the way to the museum, we missed a bit and entered the prison, but fortunately, they let us out, although they looked askance. That's what I liked about Polish prisons, getting there is not a problem at all) Enter freely, but getting out is another matter) I just found out an interesting fact: it turned out to be a water tower, not a prison)
On the way to the museum, we had another important event. On New Year's Eve we opened champagne and I shot the cork out the window. It is not good to litter, therefore, in order to restore the world balance in favor of goodness, we must now collect more garbage and throw it in the trash. In the case of Wroclaw, we found a similar lonesome traffic jam and restored the world balance. When it gets warmer, we will go to the forest for global garbage collection. Now with peace of mind you can go to the museum. Something we go to museums more and more often, apparently, old age)
The museum turned out to be interactive, but rather primitive. There were a couple of worthwhile locations, but it falls short of modern ones, IMHO. But when Dasha and I entered the hall, where it was necessary to swim like a dolphin in a children's game, overcoming obstacles, a fierce struggle began. The leaderboard already had 700 people. The dolphin was not easy. And evil crabs and jellyfish and even anchors on the way. But nevertheless, the third place out of seven hundred remained forever with us) For the very evening we have planned Wroclaw saunas in the water park. We took a ticket for two hours, it was just right. Saunas gave us millions of emotions. In general, I would say: whoever has not been to saunas has not been to Wroclaw.
The most impressive part is the open-air thermal pool. A bright moon hung above us, it was a couple of degrees outside, thick steam rose from the water, but we were warm and cheerful. This is a very unusual feeling, like once in the thermal lake Heviz in Hungary. Mmm… Heviz. Apparently? thermal lakes and pools are one of our passions. Some of the saunas are located on the street behind the pool. And another thrill is to get out of the pool and run to the sauna. It's like getting out of a warm blanket in winter, only not so cruel.
In the saunas themselves, the attendant conducts a show with essential oils. Initially, you stand for 4 minutes before entering the sauna, while the attendant prepares everything. During these 4 minutes in the cold, the whole life flashes before our eyes, we also had one towel for two. This is hardcore. But when you go into the bathhouse and the show starts, it gets warmer and warmer, then it gets hotter. With each wave of the attendant's towel, the temperature gets higher and higher. Past problems with the cold are no longer significant.
One more swing. We begin to cover our faces with our hands as the hot air literally eats into our eyes. Another swing. I try not to move, it seems to me that any movement will deprive me of consciousness. Another swing. Heavy hot air has already filled all parts of the body and lungs. And most importantly, everyone sits so calmly. It's hard to believe that a couple of minutes ago I was dying among the blue glaciers on the street, and now I'm in the very center of a hot desert. And then a miracle happened - the attendant waved again and opened the door to the street. Here is the way out, but will there be enough strength?
We got back to plus two degrees, after the bath it felt like plus twenty-two. We are alive, air, air!! ! It was just wonderful, whoever was not in the saunas of Wroclaw, he was not in Wroclaw! There are, of course, moments that are a little incomprehensible to our mentality - this is the fact that some Europeans prefer to be completely naked in saunas, but most likely they are just silently measuring each other. Otherwise, I can’t explain why some men are so eager to be naked in front of others. Nevertheless, the thermal pool under the bright moon will forever remain in our memory.
Dresden
In the early morning Flixbus we left for Germany. We have 8 hours until the next Flixbus, which should be enough for this German town. By the way, I imagined it much less. We have not been to this side of Germany yet. We liked Dresden itself, but, to be honest, the standard of living here did not please us at all. At the station, you can leave your luggage in the luggage room, which only accepts euro coins. Euro coins can only be exchanged in a broken device, and therefore cannot be exchanged. Employees of local restaurants and shops sit with even more sullen faces than our people on buses at rush hour. In establishments, toilets are paid, in front of the McDonald's toilet there are metal gates with full-length turnstiles, so that suddenly no one passes for free. And the city center itself, it seems that it survived a fire yesterday.
It could be written off that this part borders on Poland, and, accordingly, the standard of living too. But nevertheless, Dresden to Wroclaw in terms of atmosphere and comfort is like the moon. It is clear that my opinion is not based on any detailed analyzes and comparisons, it is just a first impression of the standard of living in the city. But if, for example, take Frankfurt am Main, then I didn’t notice such problems there) And the good thing about Dresden is the pedestrian streets, on both banks there are places to walk, there are places to eat tasty and inexpensive. Lots of theme shops. And as always, joyful is the New Year's fair.
Here she was on a grand scale. All the workers in the stalls were dressed in medieval attire, an orchestra was playing, in the evening a snow blizzard, burning torches and hanging banners were projected onto the walls of the houses.
Right on the street stood a large vat of hot water, in which a group of men chatted merrily about something.
The Germans, of course, know a lot about fairs. On the other side, in the courtyards of houses, we found a whole mini-city "Kunsthofpassage Dresden" with its shops and a map.
Another of our entertainments was eye shopping. These are expensive shops with handmade goods, where we don't buy anything, but it's always a joy to look at knick-knacks. In the very center of Dresden, we visited a rather funny event - a tour of the opera. The tour is conducted in different languages, we just arrived 10 minutes before the start of the Russian-speaking one. It was written on the Internet that this is one of the most beautiful operas in the world. Well, since everything is going so well in time, why not go?
A woman came out to us, speaking Russian well, but she either used some words incorrectly or could not remember. And here's the most interesting thing, she inserted jokes into the story, the essence of which was not clear to anyone present. Apparently, these are translation difficulties, when in German a joke with meaning is obtained from the same words. But what is the essence of these jokes, and remained a mystery to us. But the problem was no longer with jokes, but the fact that the opera inside, in terms of wall and ceiling coloring, is a little inferior to the decor at the school where I studied. The tour is very slow and unhurried. I will not say that we wasted our time, because after the trip there was something to discuss. But such excursions are definitely not for us. Although, perhaps, if a more energetic guide had come across, then the impressions of the opera could have been completely different)
8 hours in Dresden, unfortunately, flew by in an instant. It would seem that they just arrived, just felt the city, but we have to go further. We literally ran to the return bus, almost being late) We had already spent the night in Leipzig.
Leipzig
The weather in Leipzig was completely inhospitable, if in Wroclaw there was a bright sun, in Dresden the sky was overcast and serious rain was already brewing. But this will not stop the brave travelers. So go ahead! In the city center in cloudy weather it was not crowded and absolutely nothing interesting. Nevertheless, we found here literally a piece of Asia for ourselves. This is the Monument to the Battle of Nations. The place is very similar to ancient Thai temples. There was a strong feeling that we had moved deep into Asia for 10 minutes. True, in the off-season, as it was raining. All day long, as a selection, we came across Vietnamese restaurants. Exactly in Asia.
On the way to the monument, we visited another interesting place. There is a building in Leipzig that was previously intended for the storage of gaseous substances. Now in one of them there are exhibitions in the form of a 360-degree picture, and the second without a roof is free to visit. So, this second building looks very unusual when you are inside, and a frame in the form of honeycombs rises above the round walls. Personally, I felt a real aesthetic pleasure. Dasha liked it too.
And the rain kept getting stronger. But we had the best hostel in the world. It is called Five Elements Hostel Leipzig. Despite the fact that we didn’t have a room booked for that night, we were given the keys to the lounge area so that we could rest there when we needed, since our next bus was around two in the morning. The lounge area is a very large and spacious kitchen that occupies most of the floor. With a bunch of soft chairs, from which you can build a couch for yourself) It is illuminated by Edison incandescent lamps that are now fashionable and, most importantly, it is well heated. And on Wednesdays, the hostel holds a free dinner for all guests. In general, we are delighted with the hospitality. This lounge area was our base to dry and warm up.
Our cozy lounge area in the hostel
Sometimes we made trips separately, while Dasha was resting, I was able to break through the wind into one of the parks in Leipzig. When I returned tired and wet, Dasha went to one of the museums. In the last hour of work in museums, the cost is often 50% lower than Dasha took advantage of. Even during one of the breaks at our base, we got to happy hours in the hostel bar, when a large glass of beer in the bar costs about two euros. As a result, Leipzig is now more associated with a cozy hostel. The hostel itself is quite long and confusing, but absolutely everywhere there are arrows for all occasions. You can always understand where you need to turn to achieve your goal.
Toward night the weather improved and it was possible to safely get out to wander. I really liked the paths along the Heine Canal. Walking there is a pleasure and romance. And the full moon in the sky shone like a bright sun, apparently, this secreted the hormone of happiness. Especially after a gloomy and rainy day. While a rainy day isn't much of a problem, it's just Europe, with current airfare and visa-free travel, you can come back and come back if you want. And with the current Flixbus network, you can also travel wherever you want.
I have not been on bus tours in Europe, but it seems to me that now it can be done clearly more comfortably and more conveniently. When you arrive in some country, you walk around the city without haste for as long as you need, and then you move to the next city by bus, especially since Flixbuses go very often. Why depend on the crowd of tourists who travel with you on a bus tour. Now is just the best time to travel.
On the way back to the hotel, we walked through lakes and parks at night, crossed the bridge over the dam, it was very cozy and nice to walk. As a result, we went on a walk so that we had to run in order to be in time before the closing of the markets. There were less than 10 minutes left. We raced as best we could, everything turned out as much as possible in our favor. Here it turned out to cut between the houses, then they ran through an arch that was not on the map, then there was a fence, but with a small gate, just in the direction of the market. Less than five minutes left, here it is, the market. We were lucky! Almost lucky. "Almost" was that there was no gate in the last fence. We saw how people entered and left the market in the last minutes. We were twenty meters away, but we couldn't do anything. . .
But you must admit, before that we had good luck with gates and courtyards. Well, at least look at the work market. Okay, let's go to the station to look for convenience stores. Luckily, there was one. Around two in the morning, we boarded the last bus on our route and drove to the Berlin airport. The bus was chosen specifically for the one that travels as long as possible in order to sleep more. This is how we got a cozy unscheduled trip for the New Year. Wroclaw came to us most of all, Dresden was in second place and Leipzig was in third. Now we will have a rest at home and we can continue our journey through Germany.
Trip Information
Date of travel: 01/01/2020 – 01/05/2020
Duration: 4 full days
Flights: Wizz
Hotel: Booking
Excursions: All by yourself
Trip difficulty: 1/10 (Very easy)
