Week 16 (Poland): an unexpected gem

The 16th week of our meandering saw us venture into Poland. Leaving Slovakia we felt like proper backpackers; instead of getting the pre-organised Angloville bus/train back to Prague, we departed from our fellow English-speakers and set off walking down the road (called route 66 funnily enough). Okay, so we only had to walk about a kilometre to get to the bus stop, but somehow it felt quite adventurous at the time!

We got a trusty PolskiBus (super cheap and actually quite nice and well-equipped) to Krakow, via the old spa town of Zakopane. At our destination we just about managed to negotiate the tram system, which wasn’t labelled quite as clearly as a British equivalent probably would be, and were at our hostel after a short walk. The Momotown hostel in the Jewish quarter was our home for 3 nights, and was a pretty good choice. The staff were really friendly, the only downsides were that the male bathroom was on a different floor to our room, and some of the shower cubicles were kind of translucent which was slightly odd. That and the snoring Chilean guy we shared our dorm with, but that’s the risk you take with hostels!

Krakow itself is a great city which we highly recommend for a cheap European getaway. The Jewish quarter is well connected transport-wise and really well-kept with nice bars and restaurants everywhere. On the first night we went to an absinthe bar where they do great cocktails in a chilled atmosphere. Penny-pinching though we are, we found Krakow refreshing as the food and drink is so cheap you don’t really need to factor price into your choice of bar/restaurant. A couple of places we’d recommend are the aforementioned Absynt Cafe, and the Ambasada Sledzia (called ‘Herring Embassy’, as it’s opposite the American Embassy). Most people working in the bars/shops speak at least some English, which is helpful when ordering from a menu as Polish pronunciation seems to hold no resemblance to spelling (at least to an English speaker).




Some of the main attractions in and around the city are the central square, the cloth market, Wawel Castle and Dragon, and the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. The city lends itself to walking around and happening upon things, the central square is very grand and can’t be missed, and you can get a great feel for the place through the many free attractions. We couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit Auschwitz during our stay, and opted for one of the organised tours from Krakville tours, which cost PLN198 (~€40, the cheapest tour we found by about €20) between us. You can make your own way there and do an unguided tour, but if you’re booking the day before like we were you risk having to wait hours if you don’t go with a tour company. The day was very informative and immersive, but quite harrowing! We visited both Auschwitz I and II (Birkenau); it was very moving walking through the camps and absorbing the atmosphere of such a significant place.

After 3 days in Krakow we boarded our train to meet our new hosts in the small artists’ town of Kazimierz Dolny. We felt really welcomed by our host family from the start, and have been treated like royalty since (we’re beginning to wonder if there are any bad hosts on Workaway!). Most of the jobs so far have involved helping the two girls, aged 9 and 11, with their English (not difficult following our Italian and Slovakian experiences), and helping about the house and garden. Kinga and Piotr cook lovely food with fresh ingredients bought from the little town’s market, and I don’t think my glass has been empty since arriving!

We talk over dinner about everything from politics to music. Our hosts are very interesting and interested people, they are keen to share their knowledge about Poland’s communist past, and equally keen to learn about our home and culture in the UK. They were particularly enthusiastic about trying a full English breakfast, so one morning we cooked them our best approximation using Polish ingredients- it came out pretty well, if we do say so ourselves! Although the family live in Warsaw for most of the year, Piotr’s hometown is Kazimierz and he seems to be acquainted with every artistic drifter type in the town, which is really cool.

So, our host family are once again great (must be down to our expert Workaway-surfing skills). We’ve enjoyed many an ice cream, day at the beach, bonfire, music, and laughs (our British pronunciation of the Polish city of Wrocław as ‘Row-claw’ rather than the actual pronunciation of ‘Vrot-swav’ was something the family found particularly funny) in just our first week here. We’ve also spent a few evenings with a guitar in a bar in the main square singing Dylan and Hendrix songs until the early hours, which the locals seem to enjoy and has earned us a few free beers! Poland is proving a lot of fun and surpassing our expectations so far!





Things we've discovered:

- Krakow would make a great long weekend away.
- Good, cheap Polish beer- we recommend unpasteurised 14-day Tyskie in Krakow.
- There are beaches in the middle of Poland!
- Kielbasa (Polish smoked sausage) is delicious and can be eaten for any meal! We'll be looking out for this in the Polish section of the supermarket at home.

Total joint spend: €1644

Week 15 (Slovakia): Angloville

We spent this week teaching on an English language immersion course organised by Anglovile in the High Tatras of Slovakia, near the border with Poland. Angloville focusses on improving English through conversation with native speakers (thats us! and about 25 others from England, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) so our job this week was to chat to the 40 Junior participants (aged 10-18). In exchange we got to stay in a 4* hotel, with food and a pool, spa, gym, squash court, bowling alley... and more besides! Sounds horrible right??

After a 7 hour train from Prague to the hotel we were shown up to our room with amazing views out over the High Tatras. This was total luxury!




The days at Angloville were pretty long (9am-10pm), but we had so much fun and it wasn’t at all stressful. We were each assigned mentees at the start of the week, and we met with them every day for 45 minutes to help them prepare a presentation to give in front of everyone at the end of the week. By the end of the course you really get to know them and feel pride in their progress.We also had around 3 other one to one speaking sessions each day where we were provided with conversation topics if we wanted to use them. A couple of the participants were shy/unenthusiastic and brought to mind the phrase ‘blood from a stone’, making the 50 minute sessions feel particularly long. However, we were totally impressed by most of their English, and had conversations covering everything from cats to climate change. We could also make use of the hotel facilities during the speaking sessions; the games room with bowling, air hockey, table football, table tennis, and pool table served as a good ice breaker or reward at the end of a session!



We also had group activities and creative time, where groups of Juniors worked together on various projects, such as creating and describing a new invention or country, or performing a play. The Juniors were surprisingly enthusiastic and these sessions were always a good giggle. Not all of the English tutors were needed for the group activities, so on Tuesday I got to head down to the pool and spa while everyone else was busy deciding which celebrities should survive a sinking ship. The spa had about 8 different types of steam room, a sauna, plunge pool, and jacuzzi. It’s a hard life.

After dinner we kept the Juniors occupied with “social time”. These sessions were up to the tutors and consisted of anything and everything we could come up with: dance lessons, yoga sessions, games, and a scavenger hunt. 10pm was the Juniors bed time, and this was normally when we would head back down to the games room with the other English tutors. The native English speakers were a great group and we all got on really well, hopefully we will see at least one or two of them again!

This week food-wise we discovered the sweet dinner: dumplings stuffed with jam and topped with icing sugar or with crushed poppy seeds. Apparently this is a typical Slovakian dish, and was interesting to try. However, after dumplings 3 times in one week (two sweet, one savoury) we aren’t in a rush for dumplings again soon!

As a travel experience we would say it is worth doing at least one Angloville week, as it’s a chance for interesting conversation with local people you might not otherwise meet, all while staying in luxury accommodation that can be few and far between while travelling! They have courses all over Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Romania etc) and can offer a free TEFL qualification if you do a few. We definitely had a fun week, and my initial concerns that it might be stressful were quickly dispelled. Find out more here: https://angloville.com/home/


Amount spent between two so far: €1456 

Week 14: Florence - Bologna - Venice - Prague - Slovakia

A busy city-hopping week it has been. In a way this was our first taste of what most people probably pictured when we originally handed our notices in and announced we were travelling Europe. We’ve hardly slummed it, but perhaps this week has more closely resembled the traditional gap-year backpacker type of travel, as we’ve carried all our belongings on our backs through 5 destinations in as many days. It has been fun, served as a nice change and also reminded us that our usual means of travel really is the ideal way for us to experience Europe.

Florence is a beautiful city, we could see that even in our short walk from the train station to our hotel. And that’s not a typo - we found for most cities in Italy that a basic hotel room was cheaper than two beds in a hostel, so never assume that hostels are the most economical option! Highlights of the city for us were the artisan sandwich shops on Via dei Cimatori, and of course the Uffizi gallery housing Da Vincis and Carravaggios. We didn’t see Michelangelo’s David (which lives in Galleria dell'Accademia), but did see the replica standing in the main square in the position of the original. La Ménagere was a nice bar recommended by Anna’s hosts in Italy, and the Central Market proved a good, reasonably priced spot for a pasta lunch. This market opens out onto long lines of outdoor stalls, selling (mostly all the same stock of) touristy Italian leather goods. Florence is not the most travel-budget friendly of places, especially considering tap-water in restaurants isn’t a thing (we accidentally ordered a €7 bottle of water once, ouch!), but it is a gorgeous and historic place to be. We found simple pleasure in just sitting on a wall enjoying a supermarket beer and gazing down the river.

Our Italian tour continued with one night in Bologna. We saw the Palace of Archiginnasio, the first unified seat of the University of Bologna, which is the oldest university in the western world. The interior is unbelievably ornate, decorated with thousands of coats of arms of the students and staff of the University, and contains the 17th century Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio. There are some gems of cafes and bars in Bologna’s romantic streets, we enjoyed wandering and stumbling across a place for a piadina or a drink.

A short train-ride and we were in the Floating City. This was an interesting one; Venice’s reputation precedes it so it is difficult not to have preconceptions on visiting. We would recommend staying on the cheaper mainland (Mestre) close to the train station, and taking one of the very regular and quick trains back and forth to the island as needed. We also opted out of getting the 24 hour water taxi pass (saving around €40) and spent our time wandering the narrow streets and walkways of Venice instead. We saw the Rialto Bridge, the main square, and the Bridge of Sighs, however, we didn’t fall for Venice in the same way as other Italian destinations. Perhaps it was always going to be difficult to live up to the hype, but (at the risk of sounding pretentious!) we found it difficult to overlook the touristy atmosphere. Also, there are very few benches/places to sit in Venice so you are more reliant on the pricey cafes to take the weight off your feet after a days exploring, which is less budget friendly. We also slightly resented having to spend €2 to spend a penny!

Next stop was Prague, which for us earned the accolade of most flying visit. This was just a short (<24h) stopover for us because it served as the pickup point for the next leg of our journey, a week-long English language immersion course (Angloville) in Slovakia. A tour of Prague organised by Angloville helped make the most of our short time there. The Jewish history of the city is very interesting, we were told that a theory of why the Jewish monuments of the city weren’t destroyed by the Germans is that the city may have been intended to be preserved by the Nazis as a sort of Jewish museum following victory in the war. We’d have loved to have spent more time in Prague, we were too tired (after a 12 hour night bus to get there) and pressed for time to really make the most of it, so we intend to go back in the future. We certainly didn’t miss out on the great Czech beer though, we sampled a fair few following the city tour and with dinner.

After being cheated out of 60 Koruna change at Prague train station (sadly some people take advantage of tourists in a hurry for the train), we boarded a train bound for Slovakia with about 30 other native English speakers. This week has been a lot of fun, and we’ve got to add a few more names to our tally of visited places, but it has re-affirmed our belief that Workaway is one of the best ways to travel. We haven’t got to know each place and its customs like we have through conversation and days out with hosts, and this week alone has cost way more than the average Workaway week. Out of interest we added this up and our week travelling around Italy and to Prague cost us €1085 between us, and our average spend across the 12 weeks we have been workawaying, including transport, is €60 a week.


We are looking forward to having a full week in one place in Slovakia and not moving around every couple of days!


Things we’ve discovered:

- Good luggage storage is important in hostels/hotels, if like us you like to make the most of that last chance to explore the city between check-out and actually leaving.
- Public toilets are hard to come by in Italy!
- Don’t use the yellow ‘GPS’ stamps for postcards in Italy. Slow. Expensive. Unreliable. My postcards are yet to arrive 3 weeks after posting them.
- We recommend Osteria del Sole- the oldest pub in Bologna. Full of locals and friendly staff, cheap drinks, and you can take your own food in for dinner (we opted for a piadina).
- On the whole, we love Italy!



Total spend so far between two: €1456

Week 13 (Italy): from classroom to coast

Our second week of teaching was similar to the first. Less children attended the second week of camp so we each had slightly less children (I had 11 instead of 18), although Craig still had the biggest class of 15 students. The smaller class sizes made a big difference and my classroom was definitely quieter than the first week (but I’m not sure Craig’s was). However, the Italian helpers weren’t around as much so it was a little harder to get ideas across to the kids. On Wednesday we watched Monsters Inc (in English with Italian subtitles) because it was monsters week and there were exams going on in the school so we needed something to keep the little angels quiet! Towards the end of the quiz I came up with a few simple quiz questions to help with English practise after the film, but without the Italian helpers the class really struggled, even though the questions were based around English that they know, such as colours and numbers. Me and Craig have both found that the Italian helpers repeating what we say in English with an Italian accent seems to be a lot easier for the kids to understand.

A reporter called by the school and took some photos and an article was published in a local newspaper “Gardaweek”. I have no idea what the article says though. 

On Tuesday I went out for pizza with my host family to a place called Revolution in Desanzano del Garda, a beautiful village on Lake Garda. The pizza was amazing! Quite a thick, crispy base, topped with sicilian sausage, mozzarella, tomatoes and pesto! Soooo good. 

It was sad to say goodbye to the other tutors and Antonella on Friday, it has been great working with them for 2 weeks! But Sandhra and Alice are both studying in Edinburgh so we might just see them again in the future! 

I met Craig at Desenzano train station at 10am on Saturday and we hopped on a train to La Spezia- a town near Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 coastal villages in a National Park. They are pedestrianised towns that you get to via train or by hiking between them. We chose to stay in La Spezia as it was cheaper than staying in Cinque Terre itself, and is only a 10 minute train ride from the towns so seemed like the best option. In La Spezia we stayed in an Airbnb apartment, partly as a treat to ourselves after the teaching and partly because it didn’t really cost any more than staying in a hostel. The apartment was great, it was so nice to have our own space again with a kitchen and living room, and it was only a 3 minute walk to La Spezia train station. 

On Saturday afternoon we got the train from La Spezia to Manarola. There were ALOT of tourists around! We walked through the village and along to the marina. There was less to the village than I was expecting- just one short main street with a couple of shops and restaurants. We walked up the hill to the right of the marina to Nessun Dorma, a restaurant I found online before we arrived and had been dreaming of all week at Summer Camp! There was a bit of a queue to get in, but it only took 10 minutes to get to the front. And I am so glad we waited! We got a table with great views, I had a limoncello spritz as a treat (prosecco, limoncello, and mint) and we ordered way too much food. We had the meat and cheese sharing platter, and some bruschetta with pesto, tomatoes, and cheese. The Cinque Terre area is known for its pesto, hence the bruschetta choice. The food was amazing. We ate and ate and ate. We left the restaurant at about 7.45pm and the queue was much longer than it had been at 5.30pm so I was glad we opted for an early dinner. We'd definitely recommend Nessun Dorma for drinks and/or food to anyone heading to Cinque Terre/Manarola. After dinner we grabbed a beer from a little shop and sat out while the sun set so I could take a picture of Manarola after dark.

We started on Sunday by getting the train to Riomaggiore - the most southern town of Cinque Terre - and the plan was to work our way north from here. The queues to buy train tickets were quite long and we only just made our train, even though we allowed 20 minutes. We bought the Cinque Terre card that lets us hop on and off any trains going between the towns. This was €16 and so was just slightly cheaper than buying singles all day (at €4 each). We headed to Riomaggiore first and sat out on the rocks and watched the waves crashing. We headed to Corniglia in time for lunch. After getting off the train at Corniglia you climb ~300 steps up to the village on top of the cliff. Corniglia had loads of narrow little streets with loads of cafe, bars, and shops. We found a nice little square with a few cafes for lunch and chose Caffe Matteo- a slightly more budget option. The waitress at Caffe Matteo was amazing, she really made a good lunch spot great. We ordered our drinks (€6 for 1/2L wine) and they arrived with olives and crisps to snack on. Craig had lasagne for lunch and I went for Focacce with proscuitto, goats cheese, tomatoes and rocket. It was perfect. 

After lunch we headed to Vernazza. We walked down to the Marina and found a little spot for a swim. The weather forecast for the day was thunderstorms but although it was cloudy and humid the rain held off until Vernazza, where we had a couple of showers. The water was the perfect temperature for a swim and it was great to cool off from the very muggy air! 

Last but not least we headed to Montorosso. Monterosso is a lot more beachy than the other towns- we walked along past the beaches and into the village centre. We found a nice wine bar for an evening drink before heading home and cooking tortellini with pesto in our apartment. 

We really enjoyed our trip to Cinque Terre. Our favourite village was definitely Corniglia even though it's less photogenic than Manarola.

We didn't make plans for the rest of the week in Italy. We have accommodation booked in Venice for Thursday night, but we left Monday-Thursday free. On Sunday night we decided that on Monday we would get the train the from La Spezia to Florence. The good thing about Italy is that regional trains are a set price so no need to book in advance. Trains from La Spezia to Florence change at Pisa so we stopped here for a few hours to see the leaning tower (of course) and grab some lunch.

After arriving in Florence we had a nice chilled walk into the centre and down to the river and along Ponte Vecchio, a bridge lined with jewellery shops. Our hotel was in a great location, just a couple of minutes walk from the duomo so we didn't have far to go. It was scorching on Monday and after carrying our bags and walking around Pisa at lunch time it was nice to have a relaxed walk (without heavy bags!) and get a feel for the area with nothing particular in mind. For dinner we found a little sandwich shop (these are really common in Florence) tucked away on Via dei Cimatori (we can't remember the name but it was next to the pizza place). The staff were great and gave us some tasters of the meat before making us up a sandwich each. We sat outside and had a couple of drinks and enjoyed a nice budget, but very yummy dinner! 

We've been loving Workaway but it's also been nice to have a few nights to ourselves.

Amount spent between two: €1025