Poland | By chance… It was Iceland’s fault!

The most underrated country in Europe.

There’s so many to say. So many to share. And so many to shout about.

My ultimate advice is still, allocate 1 week and visit this country. Krakow and Warsaw; the 2 cities you should (dis)cover. The very least. You will not regret it. Trust me.

Having been traveling since the last 10 years or so, covering many European countries, Poland has always been out of the radar, omitted even at the preliminary stage, losing to neighbouring countries such as Czech Republic, Germany and the Baltic countries. So one might find it strange, if it is always a miss, so the mystery was, how did I end up in Poland and fallen head over hill with her. Well, here my journey… my love story.

How we (Poland and I) met was by chance, thanks to the supposed-to-erupt-Iceland-volcano-but-did-not. The original plan was to spend approximately 10 days in Iceland; doing the Golden Circle route, either self-drive or tour. Just 1 week before our departure, the Met announces that the plate shifted and the Iceland volcanos show sign of activities. Googling this lead to another miserable finding which validates the news… few volcanos around the world has emitted a faint cloud of grey smoke.

An initial indication that…

The dragon mouth (volcano lah tuh) has awaken. Jeng jeng jeng…

Worried that the history might repeat itself; 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull thick ashes covering Europe air travel for a period of 1 week. It was a catastrophic phenomenon as 20 countries closed their airspace to commercial jet traffic which affected about 10 million travellers. Us both don’t want to be in the same boat, knowing very well that the cost of living in Reykjavik gonna damage our bank account for the next few years. Will share more on ‘How to survive in Iceland with a small budget’ in my next entry *wink*.

Just 3 days before departure, we formulate a plan, a MASTER-FOOOLPROOF-PLAN we call it, with no  back-up plan (whatsoever, yeah… #overconfidentmuch). We shall decide upon arriving Europe on our next country of visit and the amount of stay per country (smart sangat kannnn). After monitoring the news, we both decided to cut down our Iceland trip (calling it a recce trip instead) and our action item was…

Anna : We google with flight travels to any Europe country that we both haven’t been to, the cheapest of course.

Lily : Set! (Looking at the map, identifying the possible countries )

And in the tiny Air BNB room we set, amidst Reykjavik cold and chilly weather, we googled and nailed down – Krakow! Quickly we search for a room in Air BNB and bam we found one to our liking, 3 station away from Old Town (anywhere near an Old Town [in any countries that is] is superbly good).

Since we are already geared up to be adventurous and spontaneous, we felt that it is only right that the whole 16 days of our trip (or whatever left of it) are planned in the same manner; deciding the next country best on – (i) cheapest mode of transport, (ii) a country we both have yet to set foot and (iii) the shortest and fastest journey. And we did just that, the whole trip.

But I only felt in love with one country. Poland.

(Lusa sambung)