Wednesday was another day of staying put after two days on the move in a row – Berlin to Poznań on Monday and Poznań to Wrocław on Tuesday. It was also my birthday, which was the main reason for it – I didn’t fancy hauling my luggage around a city, onto a train and then figuring out a new city when I could just have a chill day. And this one was – maybe too much so.
The original plan had been to get up late, or at least later than usual. Later than a day when I need to be out of an apartment or on a train. But it was hot and the only ventilation in this tiny studio apartment was an open window or a fan, so I didn’t sleep much, which is probably why I never really got into a birthday mood. I went downstairs to the Żabka for my fresh bread for breakfast, which I had with pineapple juice, an impulse purchase the evening before. Then I began to dither over what to do. I had half an eye on the Aquapark and then I decided, if it was likely to be hot again, I might as well go to the park and stay cool and then I could go out in Wrocław later on when it cooled down. Good plan. How do I get there?
Well, as usual, I had two or three tram stops I could go to and if I missed one, I could walk to another and get the next, assuming I had the time between missing one and running to the next, since Wrocław won’t make it as simple as running multiple lines through the same stop. Actually, I think it was a bus I ended up on rather than a tram. Its ticket validating machine worked, so I finally had a valid ticket and we crawled around the edge of the Old Town, past the station and down to the nearest stop to the Aquapark. From here, it looked like a bit of trek but it turned out it was round a corner, down a road, under an apartment building and there it was, right on the other side of the road.
I’d prebooked my ticket, a bit nervously, since there seemed to be two completely different day tickets, one five times the price of the other. In the queue, I established that the Aquapark had various different zones, including the leisure zone, the fitness zone and the “saunarium” – was the ticket I’d chosen valid in all of them? I especially wanted a go at the saunarium which featured an assortment of hydro pools, steam baths and saunas. Yes, my ticket was fine. A bit disconcertingly, the changing room was universal – men, women, children, the lot. It was just about late enough in the day that it was difficult to find an empty locker and even harder to find a cabin space to change in. Then, glasses on, I had to find my way through the showers and toilets and out into the pool area. Normally I think I probably wouldn’t wear my glasses in the pool because obviously glasses aren’t pool-wear but in this case, I hadn’t brought my prescription goggles and I’d never navigate bare-eyed.
Honestly, it was far too busy. I quite enjoyed the wave pool. We had one in Bournemouth when I was a kid and I always enjoyed the novelty (and the mat slide!) but this was the first one I’ve encountered since I was about ten, so I did a couple of rounds in the deep end and a few in the shallows, where the water was forceful enough that I needed to hold myself up against them. I had a couple of goes on the lazy river but there were far too many kids being stupid and far too many adults walking. You need to just take your feet off the bottom, your hands off the side and let the water hurl you round it. I spent some time getting my eyes burned out in the adjoining outside recreation pool – you just walk through from the side of the lazy river and there you are outside, along with most of the population of Wrocław. I wish I’d found the brine pool which was right next to it, the big outdoor summer pool or gone into the indoor lane pool for a few lengths, but when I glanced in its direction, it was roped off, even though there were people in there. Training, maybe. Closed to the public?
Inside, there was something called a halodarium and a tepidarium – big not-too-sweltering saunas, really. But this was where I ran into the first of the sauna problems. You’re not allowed to sit on the benches without a towel. Because the doors are tinted, you can’t really see in from the outside, so I sat in one of them when no one was in there and I stood as casually as I could, as I’d observed in a group of men – standing is clearly acceptable. The trouble was, I’d only brought one towel with me and there was no point soaking it by sitting on it when I’d want it to get dry later on.
I went into the saunarium, which is hidden behind a few walls and a turnstile. You have to scan your wristband and it’ll only let you in if you’re over 18, because these saunas are “textile free”. Well, the saunas and steam rooms are. The showers and pools are textile-optional and as far as I could see 99% of people had opted to leave their stuff hanging up elsewhere. 98% of people were also over 70, as far as I could judge. Make of that what you will, and it might be merely that the younger ones were at work on a Wednesday afternoon. I may have been willing to try the textile free thing if I’d had the requisite towel to sit on but I clearly wasn’t going in the saunas without one. I followed the signs to the onsen bath. That sounded nice. It was very nice – an outdoor pool with bubble benches up both sides, populated entirely by naked elderly people. I tolerated it for a while. Be careful where you look, try not to form certain theories about what you wish you weren’t seeing etc. There was another pool opposite which I thought I might try but when I crossed the path, I found it was a cold plunge pool and it was also a textile-free pool. Ok, these saunarium is clearly not for me. It’s a pity, because now I’ve got the map open, I’ve discovered just how extensive it is. There’s an entire village of little cabins containing various saunas, a snow cave and relax rooms. Inside, there are more saunas, steam baths, jaccuzis, a stone bath, “thrill showers” and it all sounds very much like the sort of thing I’d enjoy if I had a spare towel and wasn’t expected to walk around naked. Even in Finland, textiles are non-optional in saunas – or at least, they are in Löyly and in the saunas attached to the changing rooms in Allas Sea Pool.
I wish I’d enjoyed it more but it was just too crowded and the saunarium ended up being a letdown too. I got dressed (left my sunglasses in the changing cabin and only realised as I was queuing to hand my wristband back!), walked down the road to the tram stop and went home. I spent the afternoon being lazy on the bed, reading, writing, scrolling, eating (Haribo do some amazing jelly mangos in Poland, similar to the peaches I know and love but so much tastier!) until evening crawled around and I realised I hadn’t really seen Wrocław yet.
Even at 6pm, it was intolerably hot. I wanted to do a boat tour but there were none sitting waiting for me and I was too hot and indolent to stand in a queue and wait for them. I just wanted to limp limply around. So I limped along the river bank to Wrocław’s Cathedral Island. It’s not an island anymore but there’s a street along its north side that used to be a canal. It’s home to seven Gothic churches, so this is exactly the sort of place I wanted to be.
The first one I encountered, which I think was actually a seminary very clearly had people inside Doing Religious Stuff, so I just peered round the door. The second was the Roman Catholic Church on the Sand next door – another brick Gothic church with brick pillars, white walls and ceilings and spectacular stained glass windows at least at the far end. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come in. Jesus didn’t like my knees. The denim shorts which had been no problem in Poznań Cathedral were immodest here and I had to content myself with standing in the porch and using my zoom lens to look at the windows at the far end, and grumbling about bigoted Jesus who really shouldn’t care if my knees were visible.
Then there was a bridge and you wandered into what looked like the oldest part of the old town – cobbled streets, churches on every corner and apparently actual gas lamp-lighters who come out every evening and light the lamps here by hand. The next church I found was the double church of the Holy Cross and St Bartholomew. This was closed. I think there was a series of concerts in it and so it wasn’t open to the public in between. I could just about see through the gate in the doorway and make absolutely nothing of this presumably-spectacular church. In many ways, this is the most interesting of the churches on this island. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the details of the story and the internet is not being forthcoming. Everything’s making it sound like the two-storey church was a deliberate, if unusual decision. But it went something along the lines of building a church to St Bartholomew and then deciding the Church of the Holy Cross was more important and needed to go on that spot regardless of what was already there. I’m a really bad travel blogger for not being able to explain that in any detail whatsoever!
The biggest and most obvious church is Wrocław’s St John the Baptist Archcathedral, which is mostly Gothic and was largely (70% of it) completely rebuilt after WWII. It started in the 10th century, rebuilt in the 11th in the Romanesque style, rebuilt in Brick Gothic in the 13th century, tinkered with until the 16th, restored after fires in the 18th, tinkered with until the war and then badly bombed out. If you look closely at it, you’ll see that its east and west ends don’t match up – there’s a very obvious joint halfway down the church where it turned out one side is several inches further across than the other. Quite when this happened, I’m not sure, and if you don’t know about it, you’ll probably take it as merely part of the design.
Jesus didn’t mind my knees here but I still couldn’t go in because it was holding a service and you can’t go and wander around while people are singing and praying and passing candles around. So once again the good zoom lens was pressed into service and I got a look at the excellent windows at the far end.
I continued into the park, where I found a tall column with a man on top of it. Closer inspection led to the discovery that the crown on his head was of thorns and that this was Jesus, rather than any king or pope. The nice Gothic building opposite was another seminary building, probably very interesting inside but not open to the public at the best of times, let alone late on a Wednesday evening. I cooled my feet under a water pump, after watching a postman fill his bottle from it so I knew how it worked, and then squelched back to the actual island in the middle of all this, where I took a tram south and somehow, mostly by accident, ended up back in Stary Rynek, the market square.
I was hot and thirsty. I walked the entire square looking for somewhere I could sit with a glass of cold Coke but it’s not really that sort of square. If I wanted to sit with a flight of beers, that was no problem. If I wanted a plate of seafood, that was no problem. Burger and chips, foreooth. But a soft drink didn’t seem to be an option. As I walked, I found myself half-blinded by the low sun directly over the top of the buildings around the presumably-western side of the square which silhouetted everything in front of me – including a water fountain that had clearly had an accident and was spraying out water everywhere. Well, it would be cooling, at least. I walked through the spray. Not too close, I didn’t want to get soaked but it was nice to get a bit wet. Failing to find anywhere to sit and drink but at least a bit more comfortable now, I went in a Żabka and bought a can of something that looked fizzy and contained apples and watermelon. It was surprisingly flavourless. I never seem to learn that fizzy apple drinks aren’t delicious. Looking for somewhere to sit and drink it, I came across another fountain, also exploding water, although less dramatically since it wasn’t silhouetted. Ok, that one wasn’t having an oopsie, this is how Wrocław cools down on summer evenings. Fine.
I found a concrete block, possibly part of an art installation, in one of the streets leading into the square – close enough to see everything, not close enough to be flattened by the rounds of tourists. I must have sat there for an hour, an hour and a half, just sitting on my block, drinking my apple and watermelon, feeling the temperature go from intolerable to merely hot as the sun sank. Then it was time to get up, stretch out my legs, cross to the opposite corner of the square and walk the two blocks home. Maybe pick up some more snacks on the way.
On the way, I encountered a street performer with a crowd around him. A fire performer! He had both a flaming staff and something that looked like a double-length single poi. I vowed to find out what this was and never gave it another thought. I spin poi myself occasionally. I used to have a really good set of silky flags, I have a pair of pink and white long-tailed poi somewhere and if I’m being adventurous, I’ll spin LED poi. I’ve never done fire and probably never will, but nonetheless, this is something I know a little about. This was apparently a meteor or a rope dart. I’d get one myself and give it a try but they’re surprisingly expensive. Better get outside and spinning ordinary poi a bit more often. I stayed put, anyway, mostly out of amazement that he was casually leaving burning fire toys on the ground. I know the ground is cobblestones, keyword stones which don’t burn but surely this is a historic place where you can’t just go leaving scorch marks? And wow, the fuel stinks. I don’t know how you can stand so close to it to actually be able to spin it. I could taste it in the back of my nose and I was far enough away to be safe. I only meant to stay a minute but then I had to watch him spin the staff and then I had to see what the meteor was and what he did with it and then and then…
And then it was home time. I had to do most of my packing because I’d have to be out of the apartment fairly early in the morning. In the morning, I had a few hours to kill, then I’d be off to my next destination. Better get some sleep.